Chapter XIX · (continued 2)

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 252‒253.

² Book of the Universal Kirk, page 390.

The cry of the Church was that corruption pervaded all classes of the nation, that it was therefore necessary to have recourse to fasting, and to call upon God to avert His righteous judgment impended over the people. Another specimen of the language commonly used to express their ideas and sentiments as to the grounds of fasting, may suffice to illustrate this phase of the reformed religion, as it was then understood and practised. The General Assembly in 1581, “ordained a general fast to be observed universally in all the kirks of the realm, with doctrine and instruction of the people, to begin the first Sunday of July and to be continued to the next Sunday thereafter inclusive, using in the meantime, exercise of doctrine according to the accustomed order; and the commissioners were instructed to call on the King and to request him to assist therein by sending out proclamations to that effect.” The causes of this fast are stated in the following order. “1. Universal conspiracies of the papists and the enemies of God in all countries against Christians, for execution of the bloodthirsty Council of Trent. 2. The oppression and thraldom of the Kirk of God. 3. Wasting the rents thereof without remedy. 4. Falling from the former zeal. 5. Flocking home of Jesuits and Papists. 6. Manifest bloodshed, incest, adultery, and such horrible crimes defiling the land unpunished. 7. The danger wherein the King’s majesty stands through evil company resorting about him, by whom it is feared that he may be corrupted in manners and in religion. 8. Universal oppression and contempt of the poor.”¹ About this time, the Church of Scotland stood almost alone in her bold and unflinching opposition to the pretensions of the Church of Rome. Through all the vehement and rude language of the Protestant clergy, they never forgot to plead for the oppressed and the struggling poor.

¹ Ibid., pages 407, 409‒410, 569‒570, 730, 747. In 1596 the General Assembly drew up a list of what was called “The common corruptions of all the Estates within the realm.” This report gave a fearful description of the state of society. But there is always hope of amendment and reform for a nation that has the heart and the honesty to acknowledge its errors and misdeeds. The clergy were not afraid to admit and proclaim their own shortcomings, and it is only foolish mockery to cry peace, peace, when crime, and injustice, and oppression, and vice, and suffering, abound on every side. Those who wish to see this representation of the state of society in Scotland at that period, should consult the original document in the records of the Church, and in other national and local documents.​—Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 864‒867, 872‒875.

When a national fast was proclaimed by the Church its observance was strictly enforced. In the General Assembly of 1580, Mr. Thomas Buchanan, the minister of Ceres, was questioned for not causing the fast to be observed within his bounds; “so that when the rest of the country was humbled in fasting, there was no fasting in Fife.” His answer was that he had done all that he could to cause the fast to be observed, but there were instances which no one could remedy, and these he had particularised in his report to the Assembly.¹ As we have seen, the saints’ days, festivals, and holydays, were all discarded at the Reformation; and although sometimes here and there the people showed a tendency to revert to observances of them,² the sermons on two days of the week, the occasional fast days, and the entire devotion of Sunday to religious exercises, were amply sufficient to satisfy the spiritual needs of the people.

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, page 451.

² Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume II., pages 25, 39, 66; Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 332, 334, 389; Register of the Privy Council, Volume II., page 390.

But some of the old traditions and customs associated with the saints still exhibited signs of life amid the changed forms of worship and belief. This was strikingly manifested in connection with the venerated wells of the early saints. The General Assembly, in 1573, determined that the discipline of the Church should be used against all who went on pilgrimage to wells; and it was deemed an offence that the magistrates ought to punish. In 1580, the Church requested the government to make a special punishment for all those who went on pilgrimages to wells and churches, as a number of persons had lately passed on pilgrimages to the Holy Rood of Peebles, and to other places. The following year, the General Assembly craved that an act of parliament should be passed against persons who go on pilgrimages, and perform superstitious practices at wells, crosses, images, and altars, or observe feasts on days dedicated to saints. Accordingly parliament passed an act in 1581 forbidding pilgrimages to wells, chapels, and crosses, the observance of any festival days, “and such other monuments of idolatry​—as making bonfires, singing of carols in and about the churches at certain seasons of the year, and the observance of other superstitious rites to the dishonour of God and the contempt of true religion.” A severe fine was to be imposed upon all who broke the law for the first time, and for the second offence the penalty of death was to be inflicted.¹ But only two years later, a question came before the Assembly as to how the ministers who permitted people to repair on pilgrimages to wells close beside their own manses, without reproving, but rather encouraging them by entertaining them with meat and drink, should be punished? The Assembly concluded that a minister guilty of such neglect of his obvious duty, deserved to be deprived of his office.² In spite, however, of the acts of parliament and the discipline of the Church, numbers of the people still continued to visit the wells, to go on pilgrimages to certain churches, to make bonfires, and to keep holydays.³ In fact, many of the wells were resorted to down to the present century, and within my own recollection there were wells supposed to possess special virtues, which were frequently resorted to by the people.

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 280, 462, 535‒536; Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume III., page 212.

² Book of the Universal Kirk, page 638.

³ Ibid., pages 720‒721, 874, 1055, 1120.

The relation of the sexes at the time of the Reformation was in an extremely unsatisfactory state. In the preceding volume of this work, it was shown that the institution of marriage had passed through various modifications, and that though the Roman Catholic Church had often attempted to make it a public and solemn act, she had only partly succeeded in overcoming the loose habits of the people.¹ In this volume it has already been indicated that the principle of celibacy imposed upon the Roman priesthood and the religious orders had the effect of lowering, instead of elevating, the feelings and sentiments naturally associated with the institution of marriage. The obvious fact could hardly fail to strike the mind that, if marriage is a good and lawful connection instituted for the continuance and comfort of the race, the consequent inconsistency of prohibiting any class or profession from entering into it becomes palpable; for what is absolutely necessary to the continuance of the race, and calculated to increase the sum of human happiness, cannot be denied to any class of men without introducing a most invidious, immoral, and warping distinction. The principle of moral consistency is utterly shocked by the rules of a celibate priesthood, as if this pretension of unhuman purity exalted them above their fellow-men, and prepared and enabled them to become qualified instructors of mankind; as if the natural sentiments which cluster round the domestic hearth must be eradicated from their breasts; and that when thus shorn and dwarfed, they are better able to feel and understand what is needful for the well-being of humanity. First extinguish the strongest and most essential sentiments of the human heart, and then you have a priesthood admirably fitted to maintain their position as the enemies of all progress, of all liberty, of all freedom of thought; a priesthood that for ever struggles to uphold a belief in traditions and legends, in signs and wonders, and enfolds their adherents in a mesh of puerilities and absurdities well suited to the spirit of the Dark Ages.

¹ Mackintosh’s History of Civilisation in Scotland, Volume I., pages 153‒156, 244, 428.

The first General Assembly of the Reformed Church agreed to adopt the law of Moses, touching the degrees of blood relations in marriage. By it first cousins were allowed to marry with each other, and all remoter degrees, but in the direct line of descent marriage is forbidden throughout; this became law by act of parliament in 1567. It was found, however, to be difficult to bring the people under restraint in the relation of the different sexes; as men and women had a custom of cohabiting after promising to marry, without publicly solemnising their marriage. The Church was forced to take severe measures against defaulters of this character, and the reformed discipline was sternly applied. It was enacted by the General Assembly that those who wished to be married must give in banns to their parish minister and be proclaimed on three successive Sundays. In 1579 it was stated in the General Assembly that some of the ministers would solemnise marriage only on Sunday, while others married people upon week-days, which had raised much slander; and the Assembly was called upon to give a decisive answer on the point. The answer of the Assembly was, that when parties had been thrice proclaimed they might be married on any day of the week if a sufficient number of witnesses were present.¹ But some persons were still married without proclamation of banns, and the General Assembly of 1597 resolved that none should be joined together in marriage, unless thrice proclaimed in their own parish church, according to the custom observed in Scotland; and that any minister who contravened this rule should be deprived of his office, and the other parties ordained to satisfy the Church by public repentance.²

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume III., page 26; Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 5, 30, 32, 66, 72, 73, 114, 440‒441.

² Book of the Universal Kirk, page 939.

It was not necessary that marriage should be celebrated by a clergyman, and though it was the law of the Church that banns should be proclaimed, the consent of the parties might be declared simply before witnesses. Even when no formal consent appeared, marriage was presumed from cohabitation, if the parties were reputed to be husband and wife. Before the civil courts of Scotland evidence of this description was often held to prove marriage.¹ When marriage was solemnised according to the order of the Church, it was called regular, when otherwise, clandestine, which, however, was held to be valid, though penalties were sometimes annexed to it.

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume II.; Erskine’s Principles of the Law of Scotland, page 66; 1802. The complete system of registration, established about forty years ago, will ultimately supersede the necessity of having recourse to such evidence touching marriages.

In connection with marriage some curious points were occasionally brought before the General Assembly. In 1575 this question was asked: “Whether the contract of marriage which used to be made before the proclamation of banns between the man and the woman should be made by words of the present time. The man saying to the woman, I take thee to be my wife, and the woman saying to the man, I take thee to be my husband; or should there be no promise made till the very time of the solemnisation of the marriage. Answer​—Parties to be married should come before the session and give in their names, that their banns may be proclaimed, and no further ceremony used.” Again, it was asked what should be done in the following case: “A man and a woman in the presence of some of the parishioners were married in the parish church, or hand-fast by the reader, and thereafter mutually cohabited together at bed and board as married people, and were so reputed and holden. The minister of the same church, at the woman’s desire, a good space after, leads a form of divorce between them in this manner: he calls the woman before him, and caused her to swear that her husband never had any sexual intercourse with her, and thereupon, without further questions at the man, decerns them separated and divorced from each other, the man always dissenting and still claiming her as his wife. Whether is this form of divorce allowable in a Reformed Church that has received the Gospel, and if it be not, what correction does the minister deserve who usurped and used this manner of process and judgment?” The Assembly answered: “That this divorce was not lawful, and that the minister should be suspended and make public repentance.” Once more: “A certain man with his accomplices ravished and took away a woman, and thereafter married her without proclamation of banns, but did not solemnise the marriage in the face of the Church, but in a private house. Whether is this marriage lawful, or are children begotten therein legitimate or not? and what punishment should the minister receive who so abused marriage?” The Assembly answered that the minister should be deposed.¹ In 1579 it was asked in the General Assembly: “What order should be taken with the persons who went to a popish priest to be married, and their banns not being proclaimed, should they be esteemed as married persons, and if not, what discipline should be used against them?” It was answered: “This connection is no marriage, and therefore ordains the persons to be called before the particular assemblies, and to make satisfaction as fornicators; and upon a new proclamation to be married according to the order of the Reformed Church, and the papist priest to be punished.”²

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 143, 144, 345.

² Ibid., page 441. In the Register of the Kirk Session of St. Andrews, which covers the period from 1559 to 1600, there is great collection of interesting information on the social state of the people; the Register was issued by the Scottish History Society in 1889‒90.

The question, at what age the young should be allowed to marry, came before the General Assembly in 1600. It was then stated that great inconveniences had arisen from the untimeous marriages of young persons before they were of age meet for entering into this union. As yet there was no statute of the Church defining the age at which persons might marry; but it was then enacted that henceforth no minister should join in matrimony any persons, except the male be fourteen years of age, and the female at the least twelve years: the Assembly directed their commissioners to request parliament to ratify this act.¹ When the Church was making an act on this important social point, she might have shown a little more wisdom, and not given her sanction to the marriage of persons at this early age. In justice to the Church, however, it must be mentioned that there was still an heirship of feudalism involved in the marriage of a certain class of individuals. This was a pecuniary casualty due to the superior from the heir of his former vassal, after the age of fourteen if a male, and if a female twelve; and thus there was an engrossing interest attached to the marriage of a portion of the landed class while they were minors, and under the control of their superiors. This marriage casualty arose from the right which the superior had over the person, as well as over the estates of the minor heir; and it was chiefly restricted to ward holdings, except where a special clause in the charter imported it. It was the privilege of the superior to dispose of the heir in marriage, and to take the marriage portion to himself; but if the minor heir refused the offered match, and named another, then he was not entitled to the possession of his lands after the ward terminated, till the superior was refunded the double of the value of the portion which would have accrued to him from the offered marriage. Seeing, however, that no man nor woman could be forced to marry, it was the interest of the superior to have the power of arranging this important affair, while the heir or heiress was very young; and so an extremely complicated mode of attaining this end was gradually introduced into the law of the kingdom.² Cases arising out of these peculiar rights of the superior, in connection with the marriage of his vassals, frequently came before the courts;³ and under various modifications these invidious privileges continued till 1748, when they were finally abolished.

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, page 953. Erskine says, “But by our law, children may enter into marriage without the knowledge, and even against the remonstrances, of a father.”​—Principles of the Law of Scotland, page 66.

² Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume II.; Volume III.

³ Register of the Privy Council, Volume I., pages 311, 324, 326; Volume II., pages 470‒472, 447, 693; Volume III., pages 250, 312, 318, 547, 667, 687; Volume IV., pages 222, 418, 422, 712; also Volumes V. and VI.

Regarding divorce, the doctrine of the Reformed Church was clear and emphatic. She insisted that marriage could only be dissolved either on the ground of adultery, or wilful desertion; and for obvious reasons she endeavoured to make divorce difficult. The Church firmly maintained that divorced persons should not be permitted to marry their paramours; and at her request, Parliament passed an Act in 1600 prohibiting such unions.¹ There are two sides to this social question, and at that time there was ample justification for the Act.

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 19, 31, 146, 148, 197, 262, 269, 306, 333, 377, 524, 539, 953; Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volumes III., IV.; Register of the Privy Council, Volume II., page 7.

Some account has already been given of the measures taken for the relief of the poor in the period preceding the Reformation. From the first, the Reformed Church endeavoured to make provision for the really indigent poor, and also to relieve the labourers of the ground and the oppressed tenants, from some of their burdens. The first General Assembly resolved to petition the government to make better laws for the protection of pupils and orphans. In 1565, the Assembly took into consideration what should be done to those who oppressed children, and it was resolved in 1568, that oppressors of children, should be admonished by the Church to make public repentance in sackcloth, bareheaded and barefooted, as often as the particular congregation shall appoint.¹ The following year, the General Assembly petitioned the government to make provision for the poor, suggesting that a portion of the tithes should be applied to that purpose, and requesting that the poor labourers of the ground should have intromission to take their own tithes upon a reasonable composition. It is quite evident that after the nobles obtained possession of the Church lands, they then oppressed the tenants by exacting tithes, rents, and other dues, so that for a considerable time the occupiers of these lands were much harder pressed than before the Reformation. The reformed clergy in many ways exerted themselves to improve the material well-being of the people, as well as their moral and social state: and there is ample evidence of this throughout the records of the period.²

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 6, 75, 125.

² Ibid., pages 146, 306, 353, 339, 417, 425, 603. In 1587, the General Assembly petitioned the King: “That order should be taken with the poor, who in such multitudes wandered up and down the country without law or religion.” Ibid., page 715. The next year, the Assembly made a proposal that every minister should endeavour to deal with this moving mass of poor within his own parish. Ibid., page 731. Concerning the tenants and labourers of the ground, the Assemblies made repeated appeals to the Government to take measures to relieve them, pages 22, 40, 49, 60, 108, 507, 511.

Collections were made in the churches every Sunday for the poor; other sources of revenue that should have fallen to them, had been diverted by the Revolution into other channels. The government in 1574 ordered the provost and magistrates of Aberdeen to remove the organs out of their churches, and dispose of them, and to give the proceeds to the poor. They were ordered to sell the Gray Friars’ church and grounds to the highest bidder, except what was required for lodging the poor, and all the proceeds of the sale to be applied to sustain the poor. At the same time the Town Council of Aberdeen came under an obligation to build an hospital for the poor and impotent, and to put the croft and the mire and the house belonging to the leper folk, which lies between Old and New Aberdeen, into proper repair, for the support of the leper men and women, as was originally intended. The community of the city the same year resolved that alms should be collected weekly by one of the elders of the Church, and delivered to the keeping of the minister, to be distributed among the poor every month, according to the discretion of the session. Beggars not born in the town were ordered to be removed, and the poor citizens were directed to wear the town’s token on their outer garments that they might be known.¹ The Lords of Council passed an act in 1575 for the punishment of sturdy and idle beggars, and for providing support for the poor and helpless. In 1578 there was a great dearth in Scotland, and the Lords of Council discharged the customs on victuals imported, in order to mitigate the suffering of the poor.²

¹ Register of the Privy Council, Volume II., pages 391‒393, 402; Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume II., pages 20, 21.

² Register of the Privy Council, Volume II., pages 435, 680.

One difficulty of dealing with the poor arose from the defective police organisation. There was no adequate means for handling the multitude of strong beggars, “such as make themselves fools and bards,” gipsies, and a host of other vagabonds, who moved about and continually multiplied. It was difficult to separate these from the really deserving poor, and this long hampered the laws relating to the latter class. The city of Aberdeen had an official whose duty it was to keep the town free from extraneous beggars “not born and bred within the burgh.” In 1577 the council agreed to give him forty shillings to buy a garment to himself, on which the town’s arms was to be put, and then remitted “him to the session, to be helped and aided by them also, as his office concerns for the most part the ecclesiastical jurisdiction.”¹ When mixed notions of this kind prevailed regarding the jurisdiction of the civil and ecclesiastical spheres of action, we can easily see how the beggars would succeed. In 1574 Parliament passed an Act re-enacting the former Acts against beggars and all idle persons between the age of fourteen and seventy, and proposed to inflict severe penalties upon them. This Act also provided for the support of the poor, the aged, and the helpless, and it may be considered the first Poor-law Act of Scotland. It was repeated in 1579, and again, with some additions, in 1592, and once more in 1597. But the beggars and vagabonds still increased.² The centuries of feudal anarchy had entailed a legacy of vagrancy which the Government and the Church endeavoured to suppress. Years and generations passed, yet all the influences of religion and the restraints of the law appeared equally powerless to remove the idle and the ruffian population who preyed upon the industrious inhabitants of the kingdom. A long train of circumstances had concurred to feed the natural inclination to idleness and wandering among the people. A large portion of mankind have always manifested a similar tendency. But notwithstanding all the anarchy and the wretchedness of the nation, there was a core of vigour and health; and the moral discipline which the Church was so earnestly inculcating soon began to take root in the heart of the people.

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume II., page 29.

² Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume III., pages 86‒89, 139, 579; Volume IV.

The subject now to be noticed is one of melancholy interest, for the sad aberration of the faculties of the human mind which it manifested. A belief in magic, sorcery, witchcraft, and necromancy is a phenomenon which has afflicted mankind from the earliest ages onward to the present day. The forms they assumed are innumerable and endless; but whether it originated from ignorance, and has been sustained and continued by this; or whether something akin to it must naturally arise from the constitution of man, and the circumstances in which he was placed in the universe, as some eminent philosophers seem to hold; or whether it springs up gradually from a confused consciousness, at first tinged with an inclination, and afterwards with a deliberate intention to impose upon and deceive the people for interested ends, is a problem that cannot be decidedly answered.¹ The manifestation of the mind and feeling of the human race has been so diversified and unequally developed, that what is superstition and necromancy to one nation, may appear to another to be the only true form of religion; while that which another community believes and professes to be true and holy, a different people may believe to be the very work of the enemy himself. The beliefs of mankind, so far as they are known, have always contained opposing and directly exclusive elements of this character, which is mainly a result of the varied degrees of civilisation that have prevailed throughout the world. Even the same nation, at different periods of her life and development, may entertain the most opposite beliefs, as we find in the history of our own country. The difference between a believer in witchcraft and a believer in modern spiritualism is only one of degree and development; and if witchcraft and spiritualism are both founded upon the same class of notions, it is the higher development of morality and intelligence which renders the latter more harmless in the nineteenth century than the former was in the sixteenth. Among all the forms of belief in evil spirits, that which assumes the reality of a union between the evil spirit and a human being for the purpose of doing injury to other people is the most mischievous in its action on society. When men believed that the devil was an enormously powerful being, and that he could give an almost unlimited portion of this power to his confederates​—the witches, for working all manner of evil​—we need not be surprised that the King and the clergy were very anxious to purge the land of witches.

¹ On the rise and development of the notions of ghosts, spirits, demons, divination, exorcism, and sorcery, there is much valuable information in Tylor’s Primitive Culture, and in the First Volume of Herbert Spencer’s Principles of Sociology.

It seems to be pretty well ascertained that the belief in ghosts, spirits, and demons, has descended from the early cult of the prehistoric ages. One cause of the continuance of the belief in such imaginary beings into comparatively advanced stages of civilisation, appears to be the extreme credulity of uncultured and uncritical man, and another is the craving for the marvellous​—a notable trait even in recent times. In the early stages of culture there seems to have been scarcely any distinction between the facts of inspiration and the facts of divination. The diviner employed his power for practical ends. The medicine-man of the savage stage operated in a somewhat similar way as an exorcist does; he invoked the aid of supernatural agents, and then endeavoured to make the body of the patient so disagreeable that the demon became glad to depart. In the more developed forms of exorcism, one demon was employed to expel another, or the officiating priest might summon a friendly spirit to his assistance. This power of the exorcist over evil spirits, when further developed, was used for many other purposes, and assumed the forms of sorcery and magic. The belief in the agency of evil spirits which the human race has manifested is a perplexing problem in the history of religion. In the earlier forms of religion the evil spirit or god was most feared, and hence a kind of devil worship seems to have prevailed. In the neo-platonic philosophy​—that curious mixture of subjective thought, ecstasy, and theosophy, which flourished from the beginning of the third century to the sixth​—there was a large element of theurgy and magic, and some of the most eminent of these philosophers were addicted to sorcery, and professed to have received divine communications to foresee ♦the future, and to perform miracles. The trials and executions for witchcraft in the sixteenth century present painful evidence of the continuance of the belief of demoniac agency. The belief in the power of the devil as something which manifested itself in the life of men and women was universal; the Reformation failed to shake it. The seventy-third canon of the Church of England, enacted in 1603, prohibited the clergy from casting out devils; in the present century the belief in demoniac possession of the body, which continued among the lower classes of the people in Germany in spite of the progress of civilisation, was revived among educated Protestants; and even yet it is not quite extinct in any nation in Europe.

In 1563, witchcraft was declared by Act of Parliament to be punishable by death. Probably the sudden shaking and the suppression of the traditions and notions of the people at the Reformation, had tended to arouse and revive other ideas of the demoniac order. However, witches soon became numerous after the revolution. The clergy and the kirk-sessions were very active in searching for witches. When these poor creatures were apprehended, they were placed in solitary confinement, and often fearfully tortured, to extort a confession of their guilt. They were systematically deprived of their natural rest; they had to endure cold, hunger, and thirst; and then the branks were applied to the unhappy victims, who were soon reduced to a fit state for confessing what was required. Their trial followed on the emission of one or more of the confessions thus obtained, which usually formed the groundwork of the public accusation and prosecution for this imaginary crime.¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume II.; Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials, Volume I., pages 38, 49‒58.

It was stated in the General Assembly of 1563, that four witches had been delated for witchcraft by the superintendent of Fife and Galloway. The Assembly requested the Lords of Council to take order with them, and the complainers were commanded to give in their information. The General Assembly, in 1573, passed an act touching those who consult with witches, and ordered that persons suspected of conferring with them should be called before the superintendents; and, if they were found to have consulted witches, then they had to undergo public repentance in sackcloth, on Sunday in the church, under the penalty of excommunication. “If they be disobedient, to proceed after due admonition, and excommunicate them.” The popular party in the Church accused Bishop Adamson of consulting witches. Under the year 1583, James Melville records that Adamson was lying sick in his castle, “and oftentimes under the care of a woman suspected of witchcraft.... This woman being examined by the presbytery, and found to be a witch, in their judgment, was given to the bishop to be kept in his castle for execution, but he suffered her to slip away; but within three or four years thereafter, she was taken, and executed in Edinburgh for a witch.”¹

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 44, 283; Melville’s Diary, page 137.

It is well known that James VI. was a firm believer in witchcraft, and he greatly encouraged the prosecution of the wretched creatures accused of this crime. During the last twenty years of the sixteenth century, a considerable number of witches were tried and executed in every quarter of the kingdom. They were accused, tried, burnt, and drowned, for doing and attempting to do, many curious and wonderful things; but most of the points in the accusations appear to us very ridiculous and absurd. Making a clay picture of the individual whom the witch intended to injure or to kill, was a very common point of the indictment. One count of the indictment against Bessy Rory, who was tried in 1590 for witchcraft, but acquitted, was this: “Thou art indicted for a common awaytaker of women’s milk in the whole country, and detaining the same at thy pleasure, as the whole country will testify.” Much of the records of the trials for witchcraft are quite unfit for publication. One of the most extraordinary stories in these indictments is the account of the meeting of the witches with the devil in the church of Berwick. The company who met his satanic majesty on this occasion consisted of a hundred persons, of whom six were men, and the rest women. The old enemy boldly ascended the pulpit, and delivered an address to his servants. He inquired what they had done since their last meeting; then, after giving them some more instructions, he concluded by commanding them to do all the evil that they could. Before the company separated, the witches showed their respect for their master in an unmistakable and exceedingly becoming fashion. On this night, the devil was respectably dressed​—he wore a fine black gown and a hat.¹

¹ Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials, Volume I., pages 76, 101, 161‒165, 186, 201‒204, 207‒213, 230‒241.

Many of the witches were accused of conspiring and attempting by their devilry to destroy the King; and this aroused the weak-minded monarch to greater efforts against them.

Francis Stewart, Earl Bothwell and High Admiral of Scotland, was a son of John Stewart, prior of Coldingham, a natural son of James V.; thus the Earl was a nephew of Queen Mary and the Regent Moray, and a cousin of James VI. He became a powerful personage, and by his daring exploits often threw the King into a state of extreme alarm and terror. Politically he was wayward and reckless, and acquired a reputation for dissipation. For a considerable time many of his offences were condoned; but at last he was accused of trafficking with witches in a treasonable manner, and for treasonable purposes, and on these charges he was brought before the King and Council on the 15th of April, 1591, and committed to prison in Edinburgh Castle to await his trial; while two of his servants were summoned on similar charges to appear before the King and Council on the 6th of May. Bothwell escaped from the Castle of Edinburgh on the morning of the 21st of June; and on the 25th a royal proclamation was issued denouncing him as a wicked traitor who had entered into a conspiracy “against his Majesty’s own person, consulted with necromancers and witches, both in and without this country, for the purpose of taking his Highness’s life, which was confessed by some of the same class already executed, and by some others yet alive, ready to be executed for the same crime.... For which cause, and the former treasonable offence whereof he was convicted, his Majesty now at last has caused the doom of forfeiture to be pronounced against him, so that he is now a declared rebel, a traitor, an enemy to God, his Majesty, and this his native country.” Yet Bothwell was not extinguished, for, on the night of the 27th of December, he suddenly entered Holyrood Palace and battered at the doors of the King’s chamber, the Queen’s chamber, and the apartments of Maitland, the Chancellor. It seems that he intended to seize the King, to murder the Chancellor if necessary, and thus effect such a revolution in the Government as he desired in his own interest; but his attempt failed, though it appeared that he was abetted by several persons in the King’s court. The hue and cry against the bold rebel and consulter of witches was redoubled, and proclamations against his accomplices were issued, still the daring Bothwell, with his witchery, almost drove the King, the Chancellor, and the Council, into utter distraction. Meantime the prosecution and execution of the witches and the sorcerers had been proceeding. Euphame MacCalyean, the wife of a notable Edinburgh advocate, was accused on various charges of witchcraft. Her trial lasted from the 9th to the 13th of June, and one of the chief counts in her indictment was that she had kept intercourse with the witches who had formed a conspiracy for the destruction of the King. She was convicted and sentenced to death, and the poor woman, “on her conscience, protested that she was innocent of the crimes laid to her charge.” On the 25th of June, 1591, the very day on which Bothwell was proclaimed a rebel, Euphame was executed on the castle hill of Edinburgh. Barbara Napier of Edinburgh was another reputed witch, and was also accused of treasonable witchcraft against the King’s own person. On the 11th of May, 1591, she was convicted, and sentenced to be strangled and burned; but, after the stake was set in the Castlehill, and everything prepared for her execution, some of her friends alleged that she was pregnant, whereupon the execution was delayed. As it was considered hard to execute her after this, her life was spared, whereat the King was much displeased. James was enraged at the jury for acquitting her of the charge of treasonable witchcraft against his own person, and he purposely went to the Tolbooth of Edinburgh and delivered an oration on the subject to enlighten the minds of jurymen and the people touching “The use of witchcraft, and the enormity of the crime; its punishment according to Scripture, the ignorance of thinking such matters were fantasies, the cause of his own interference, the ignorance of the jury in the late trial, the cause of their finding, and his own opinion of what witches really are.” His Majesty explicated the above points at great length; and it appears that his oratory had been effective, for on the 26th of October the Privy Council appointed a Special Commission, consisting of six members, viz., Cockburne, the Justice-Clerk; MacGill, the King’s advocate; two burgesses of Edinburgh, and two Presbyterian ministers. This Commission was empowered to deal with all persons suspected, delated, or accused of witchcraft, sorcery, and all such devilish devices, and to examine, imprison, and torture them, and then report in writing the depositions to the King and his Council in order that the witches and sorcerers might be tried by a jury and justice executed upon them. Moreover, the King granted, and also sold, many commissions to earls, barons, sheriffs, stewards, and to the local authorities of burghs and towns, which empowered them to search for all persons suspected of witchcraft within the districts included in the commissions, to examine and torture them, put them to trial and execute them. For many years this cruel mania against witches raged throughout the kingdom, and was mainly instigated by the conceit and timidity of the King.

Richard Graham, the great sorcerer of the time, who had been connected with the alleged evil practices of Euphame MacCalyean, Barbara Napier, Earl Bothwell, and others, was himself at last brought to trial and condemned. He appears to have been a thorough rascal; but he adhered to the declarations which he had emitted, that Bothwell had held magical consultations touching the King’s death, and he also asserted that Ex-Chancellor Arran had dealt in witchcraft. He confessed to several raisings of the devil, especially once in the house of John Boswell of Auchinleck, “and once in the yard of the house in the Canongate belonging to Sir Lewis Ballenden, the late Justice-Clerk.” On the 29th of February, 1592, Graham was strangled and burned at the Cross of Edinburgh.

Bothwell still continued his exploits. On the night of the 28th of June, 1592, he re-appeared with an armed company of his followers and besieged the King and Queen in Falkland Castle, intending to carry them off, and putting them in terror of their lives; but the people of Fifeshire mustered and went to the rescue of the King, and on their approach Bothwell retired, having been frustrated in his main object. Great efforts were made to drive him out of the kingdom, yet, though repeatedly chased, condemned and forfeited, and proclaimed a traitor and an outlaw, under every possible form, still he was at liberty, and supported by an unknown number of followers; and thus he was a cause of constant anxiety to the Government and of terror to the King. Early on the morning of the 24th of July, 1593, Bothwell was again in the Palace of Holyrood by the connivance of the Duke of Lennox, Lord Ochiltree, and other courtiers. The King was then forced to capitulate to his detested archenemy; in fact, Bothwell for five or six weeks was master of the political situation; so on the 26th of July the King granted an act of remission and condonation of all the crimes of Bothwell and his accomplices. This was obtained, however, under menacing circumstances, when Bothwell and a band of his armed followers stood around the King, who was in terror of his life. Bothwell then had such a number of associates in Edinburgh that he offered to stand his trial to clear himself of the charges of witchcraft against the King’s life, which had been the chief cause of all the trouble with him. Accordingly a jury was summoned, and on the 10th of August he was tried before it, and unanimously acquitted of all the charges of witchcraft against the King’s person. For a time Bothwell and his party had the King in their hands, and his Majesty was sorely vexed at the restraint of his liberty, and extremely perplexed as to how he could extricate himself from his embarrassed position. On the 7th of September, a Convention of Estates was assembled at Stirling, in which Bothwell’s party seems to have sunk into a feeble minority. On the initiative of the King, the Convention intimated to him that he was not in any way bound by the conditions extorted from him at Holyrood Palace, and an Act was immediately passed declaring “that his Majesty, with the advice of the Estates, had recalled the grant made to Bothwell in August last.” This was intimated to Bothwell, and shortly after he assumed a threatening attitude. On the 11th of October he was summoned, along with two of his adherents, to appear before the King and the Council on the 25th, under the penalty of rebellion, and having failed to appear he was denounced; still, he was not extinguished. On the 3rd of April, 1594, he appeared at Leith with a body of armed followers, attacked the royal army under the King’s own command, and forced them to retire, and nearly obtained possession of the capital. The following year, early in April, however, he was obliged to leave Scotland. It was reported that he had gone to France, thence into Spain, and finally to Naples, where he died in poor circumstances, about the year 1606.

It appears that no other man of public mark had been so much connected with the alleged practices of witchcraft as Bothwell, or so incessant in consultations with the noted witches and warlocks of the period, and especially with the arch warlock Richard Graham. In the charge of high treason on which he was arrested and imprisoned in April 1591, which had driven him into his subsequent career of rebellion, the main count had been that he conspired with such infernal agencies for the death of the King, and thus to attain his own ambitious aims in the State. This was the view that the King entertained of Bothwell’s proceedings and exploits.

It is quite evident that the belief in witchcraft was entertained by all classes, the parliament, the Lords of Council, and the Judges of the Court of Session; none of them indicated any doubt of the reality of infernal agency, nor any inkling of the absurdity of the devil appearing in a human form, and assisting persons to accomplish all manner of mischief.¹

¹ Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials, Volume I., pages 242‒257, Volume II., pages 361, 397‒400. Witchcraft was a crime for which no remission or respite was given. Register of the Privy Council, Volume II., pages 198, 318; Volume IV., pages 392, 609, 624, 643, 666, 680, 705; et seq., Volume V., pages 4‒5, 14, 72, 91‒98, 100, 137‒139, et seq.

The Church also continued to search and hunt for witches. The General Assembly, in 1587, had before them the case of a witch who was lying in prison at St. Andrews; but it seems the evidence in her case was insufficient, and James-Melville was ordered by the Assembly to travel on the coast side and collect matter for an indictment against her. In 1597, it was reported to the Assembly that several persons had been convicted of witchcraft, yet the magistrates not only refused to punish them according to the law of the country, but in contempt set them at liberty. The Assembly then ordered that the presbyteries should proceed in all severity with the censures of the Church against such magistrates as liberated convicted witches. About the end of the century a great number of witches were burnt in Aberdeen; yet it seems the city was not free of them, as in the beginning of the year 1600 the council resolved​—“That the commission purchased to the provost of the burgh and the sheriff of the county, for holding of justice courts on witches and sorcerers, should be prosecuted upon all persons in this burgh and the freedom thereof, who were delated for this crime, so that the city should be purged of such contagious enemies of the commonweal.”¹ Indeed the local authorities and the clergy were intently bent on reforming the nation, and with the Catholics, the Jesuits, the troops of beggars, the poor, and the mass of crime and vice, it must be admitted that their hands were full enough. They never wavered, however, but steadfastly fought against everything which they deemed an evil; and, although we must candidly confess that their ideas of what constituted an evil or a crime were often confused and mistaken, and that their judgments were frequently wanting in discrimination, nevertheless, the evidence proves that they struggled manfully to improve the social state of the people.

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 725, 938‒939; Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume II., pages 144, 155‒6, 204‒5. There are many books on witchcraft; but those who wish to make a study of Scottish witchcraft will find a mass of original information on the subject in Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials, 3 volumes, in the Old Spalding Club Miscellany, and in the Records of the Proceedings of the Church Courts; and also in the volumes of the Register of the Privy Council.

The number of trials and executions for witchcraft in Scotland was not comparatively greater than in other European countries. Barrington estimated that in England, during a period of two centuries, 30,000 witches were executed. Matthew Hopkins, the witch finder, by his allegations caused the execution of one hundred persons in 1645‒47, in the counties of Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk. In 1515, five hundred witches were burned at Geneva in the space of three months. In 1520, a great number were burned in France, and one sorcerer confessed to having twelve associates; while in Lorraine, between the years 1580 and 1595, nine hundred witches and warlocks were burned; and in Bretagne twenty poor women were executed as witches in 1654. In Germany upwards of 100,000 were executed for witchcraft; while in Wurtemburg alone, between the years 1627 and 1629, one hundred and fifty-seven persons were burned.

The discipline of the Reformed Church not only aimed at the suppression of crime and vice, but also, according to its light, endeavoured to strike at the roots of evil. The General Assembly in 1563 passed an act prohibiting the publication of any book either printed or written, if it touched upon religion, till it was presented to the superintendent of the district and approved by him and the most learned of his brethren within his bounds; but if they could not agree on the points raised in the book, then it should be placed before the General Assembly for a final decision on its merits and orthodoxy. In 1568 the Assembly found that Thomas Bassandyne had printed a book in Edinburgh, entitled The Fall of the Roman Church, “naming our King supreme head of the primitive Church,” and that he had printed a psalm book at the end of which was a profane song called “Welcome Fortune”; and that these books had been issued without the license of the magistrates or the Church. The Assembly unanimously agreed to order the printer to call in all the copies of the book which had been sold, to alter the title and expunge the profane song, and in the future to refrain from printing anything without the license of the supreme magistrate, and the revision of such matters as related to religion by the committee appointed for that purpose.¹ Though the Church was thus careful in guarding against the spread of immoral writings, and what she held to be erroneous doctrine, she was not an enemy to the press. Robert Lekpreuik, the Edinburgh printer, had fallen into straitened circumstances; and in 1569 the General Assembly, after considering his position, and the money which he had expended on his establishment, resolved to give him fifty pounds yearly out of the funds of the Church. The Assembly in several other instances encouraged printers, and petitioned the government to treat them liberally.²

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 35, 125‒126.

² Ibid., pages 164, 306, 462.

The Privy Council in 1574 passed an act prohibiting the printing of any book without a license from the government. The act directed that the authorities throughout the kingdom should proclaim to the people, that none of them may presume to print or sell any books, ballads, rhymes or tragedies, either in Latin or English until they were seen and examined, and allowed by the Chancellor and other persons appointed by the King, and at the least three of these must concur before the King’s license could be granted for the publication. The penalty attached to the contravention of this act was death and confiscation of goods.¹

¹ Register of the Privy Council, Volume II., page 387; Volume III., pages 587, 549, 583; Volume IV., page 459; Volume V., page 313; Volume VI., pages 18, 185; Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume IV., page 187.

In the secular affairs of life, the citizens still exhibited the same restriction and monopoly, which was described in the tenth chapter of the first volume. This greatly hampered the internal industry and the trade of the country. While the wars with England and the disturbed state of the nation before the Reformation, and the troubles which ensued after it, were all inimical to trade and commerce. Owing to these circumstances, industry and trade made comparatively little progress in the sixteenth century; this period was more remarkable for moral and religious change and transformation than for material prosperity.

During the reigns of James V. and Queen Mary, many acts of parliament were passed relating to the coinage of the kingdom. A great variety of gold, silver, and copper coins were struck. In 1525 it was ordered that a gold coin should be struck, called a crown, of the fineness of twenty-one carats and a-half and two grains; nine of these were to be coined out of the ounce of gold, and each to pass current for twenty shillings. For every ounce of gold brought to the mint, the seller was to get seven pounds, and out of every ounce of coined gold the King was to get twenty-five shillings. In 1527 the Crown entered into a contract with two men for coining of silver money. According to this agreement, one hundred and seventy-six coins were to be made out of the pound of silver, and each was to be of the value of eighteen pence Scots. The coins of Queen Mary are numerous and present a variety of types. In 1547 the Regent and Lords of Council passed an act stating that the pennies and half-pennies were mostly all gone out of the country; and thus the people, but especially the poor, suffered for want of them. The Council ordered twelve stones of silver to be coined into pennies and half-pennies, of the fineness and weight of the old pennies; and commanded that they should have currency throughout the kingdom. In 1554 the Bishop of Ross was going to France in the character of ambassador, and the Regent and Council ordered James Atcheson, the master coiner, to receive a silver vessel and coin it into babies to defray the ambassador’s expenses. In the end of the year 1565 directions were issued for coining the silver piece called the Mary Rall; it was to pass for thirty shillings, and the two-thirds and the one-third of the same to pass for twenty, and ten shillings respectively. During the reign of Queen Mary, the intrinsic value of the currency underwent several remarkable changes. As in 1544 the value of a pound of silver was £9 10 shillings, in 1556, £13, and in 1565 it was raised to £18. At this time, in England the pound of silver was worth from £2 8 shillings to £3, which pretty plainly shows that money was scarce in Scotland.¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume II.; Register of the Privy Council, Volume I., pages 71, 151‒152, 154, 413; Lindsay’s View of the Coinage of Scotland, pages 39‒52, 141‒145; 1865.

In 1565, the Lords of Council ordered the false coins called hardheads, brought from Flanders, to be melted, and to have no currency in the kingdom. The same year an act was passed against the importation of false coin; and in 1566, several persons were convicted in Aberdeen for this offence. The following year, in May, a proclamation was issued against importing false coins​—hardheads, placks, babies, or any other light money; and in 1568, Forbes of Monymusk and Forbes of Pitsligo, two brothers, were cited for coining false babies.¹

¹ Register of the Privy Council, Volume I., pages 325, 335, 468, 510, 642‒643. “Owing to the constant exporting of good coin and the importing of bad, the circulating medium of the country was in a wretched state. There seems to have been a regular system of coining base placks and lions (otherwise called hardheads) in the Low Countries, to be introduced by merchants into Scotland.”​—Chambers’s Domestic Annals, Volume I., page 102.

Many acts touching the coinage were passed in the reign of James VI. In 1567, the regent and council passed an act ordering the coinage of a silver piece, to be called the James Rall, of the weight of an ounce troy, and to pass for thirty shillings in Scotland, two-parts of the same for twenty shillings, and the third-part for ten shillings. This year, in December, the parliament passed an act dealing with the coinage, and with false and clipped coins. It was stated that the King with the consent of the Regent, may coin gold and silver pieces of the same fineness as that of other countries, and that no gold or silver coin should be melted. The Lords of Council, in 1572, stated that parliament had authorised a new silver coin to be sent out, “for payment and support of the charges of this present civil and intestine war, raised against his highness’ authority by certain declared traitors, rebels, and conspirators, who, after the murder of the King’s dearest father, and of his uncle the Regent of this realm, have never ceased to resist his highness’ authority and to seek his own life, and, as far as in them lies, to pull his royal crown off his head.” This money was coined in whole and in half-pieces​—the first to be called the half mark, and to pass for six shillings and eightpence; the second to be called the forty-penny piece, and to pass for three shillings and fourpence. The council ordered that the new coinage should be made known to the people by proclamation: “And to command and charge them to receive the said money in thankful and ready payment, and no one may presume to refuse the same upon any pretence whatever, under the penalty of treason; certifying to those that fail, that they shall be condemned to death with all rigour as an example to others.”¹ This act gives some indication of the difficulties connected with the currency, which mainly arose from the scarcity of specie, and the confused ideas of what constituted wealth; as yet there was no paper currency to make up the deficiency. Only three months after the issue of these two pieces of money, the Council had to proclaim that it was counterfeited by some persons to the great injury of the people.² It may be inferred that the motive for counterfeiting these coins so quickly arose from their being further debased than the money before in circulation. In the copper coinage, as well as in the gold and silver, there seems to have been much counterfeiting practised.³ During the later half of the century numerous acts were passed prohibiting the exportation of gold and silver; and injunctions were issued for bringing all the gold and silver to the master coiner, who was to pay the ordinary price for it.⁴

¹ Register of the Privy Council, Volume I., page 556; Volume II., pages 135‒136.

² Ibid., Volume II., page 160.

³ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume III.

⁴ Register of the Privy Council, Volume I., pages 212‒213, 330; Volume II., pages 410, 554, 615‒616; Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume III., page 216.

In 1579 parliament enacted that there should be a piece of gold coined of twenty-one carats, containing ten in the ounce, to be called the Scottish crown, and to pass for forty shillings. At the same time it was proclaimed that the ounce of the finest gold was to be bought for twenty-one pounds of the money of the realm, and the price of all other gold to be according to its fineness. A silver piece was to be coined of the fineness of eleven deniers, in whole and in half pieces​—the first to pass for twenty-six shillings and eightpence, and to be called the two-mark coin; and the half piece to pass for thirteen shillings and fourpence, and to be called the half-mark. The price to be given for the finest silver was thirty-six shillings the ounce, and for other silver in proportion to its quality. But in 1580, parliament ordered that all the money in the kingdom, except the stamped placks and pennies, should be reformed and reduced to the fineness of eleven deniers, and a new gold coin was also ordered to be struck. The next year, the King and parliament thought that the last silver coinage had been fixed at too high a value, and this had caused great injury to the people, and had also been the occasion of a dearth and many other inconveniences. The new act, therefore, directed that the last coinage, which extended to two hundred and eleven stones and ten pounds of silver, should be brought in again to be recoined into ten shilling pieces, containing four in the ounce. In 1584, parliament passed another act, reciting that the gold of the kingdom had been continually exported, and that of other countries introduced to the loss and injury of the people; and it was then ordered that two pieces of gold, of the fineness of twenty-one carats and a-half, should be coined​—the one of six coins to the ounce, each to pass for three pounds fifteen shillings; and the other nine to the ounce, and to pass for fifty shillings. In 1597, it was stated in an act of parliament that the current money of the kingdom was scarce, and that gold and silver had risen to exorbitant prices owing to the liberty which all persons took of raising the price of money at their pleasure, far above the value prescribed by the laws and acts of parliament. Through this, and constant exporting of the money, great confusion had been caused; and it was then enacted that parties transgressing the laws would be severely punished. The scarcity of money is very apparent from the high value which the laws set upon it. The ounce of foreign gold of twenty-two carats was twenty-eight pounds sixteen shillings, Scots money, in 1598; and in 1601, the price given at the mint for gold was thirty-three pounds the ounce; at the same time the ounce of silver was about forty-eight shillings, Scotch money.¹ In 1587, parliament passed an act limiting the rate of interest on money and on grain to ten per cent.

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume III., pages 150, 191, 310, 311; Volume IV., 134‒135. Lindsay’s View of the Coinage of Scotland, pages 53‒59, 145‒151.

At the time of the union of the crowns the relative value of English and Scotch money was as twelve to one; the gold pieces which passed in England for twenty-one shillings each, in Scotland passed for twelve pounds.

Some early attempts at mining were noticed in the preceding volume. In the reign of James IV., the gold mines of Crawfurd Moor were discovered; and in the years 1511, 1512, and 1513, many payments were made by the crown to Sir James Pettigrew for working these gold mines. Payments were also made to Sebald Northberge, the master finer, Andrew Ireland, finer, and Gerard Essemer, the melter; and in 1513 the Abbot of Tungland received payment from the King to visit the mines of Crawfurd Moor. These mines engaged the attention of the government in 1515. In 1524 a court was ordered to be held at Edinburgh to deal with those who had broken the order of the mine, and conveyed gold out of the kingdom; and the gold of the mine was then ordered to be coined in the coining house. The Albany medal of 1524 was made from gold found in Crawfurd Moor; and it seems that some of the gold coinage of James V. was minted of native metal. In 1526 a lease was granted to a party of Germans and Dutchmen of all the mines of gold, silver, and other metals for a term of forty-three years; and in the following year a contract was made with them to coin certain gold and silver money for ten years, but it appears that the enterprise was not successful as the foreigners departed homeward in 1531. In 1535 a Commission was appointed to inquire into the working of the mines, and in 1539 miners from Lorraine were brought to Scotland to work the mines. They were placed under the management of John Mossman, a goldsmith, and a considerable quantity of gold seems to have been found by them; and shortly after forty-one ounces of native gold were used in making a crown for James V., and thirty-five ounces for a crown to his Queen, while seventeen ounces were added to the King’s great chain, and nineteen and a half ounces for making a belt to the Queen; a quantity was also used for the coinage of gold bonnet pieces and other purposes. During the minority of Queen Mary little was done in gold mining. In 1565 the Privy Council granted a licence to John Stewart of Tarlair, and his son William, to search for all kinds of minerals, and to work the mines of gold and silver and other metal between the Tay and Orkney, on the condition that they should pay to the government one stone of metal out of every ten which they found. They were also authorised to work all the gold and silver mines throughout the country, on the condition that they brought all the gold and silver to the coining-house; for every ounce of gold they were to receive ten pounds, and for each ounce of silver twenty-four shillings. If in the course of their explorations they discovered coal haughs, not within ten miles of any royal residence, then they should be free to work them, and only pay the tenth penny of the proceeds to the Crown. Their licence was to endure for nine years. In March, 1568, the Regent Moray granted a licence to Cornelius Vois, a Dutchman, to work the gold and silver mines for nineteen years in every quarter of the kingdom, and he undertook to pay to the Crown for every hundred ounces of gold and silver which was found, purified by washing, eight ounces, and if purified by fire, four ounces; while there were other alternative arrangements. Cornelius was allowed to employ as many of the Scots as he pleased, but not more than twenty foreigners. He had, as one of his partners, Nicolas Hilliard, the noted medallist, and also the Earl of Morton, who had ten shares, and some of the Scottish merchants.

In 1576 Abraham Paterson and his partners obtained a licence to work all the gold, silver, lead, and copper mines in Scotland, excepting the lead mines of Glengonar and Orkney, which were then worked by George Douglas of Parkhead, and Adam Fullerton, a burgess of Edinburgh. Lengthy and very minute stipulations occur in this licence; he was to pay six ounces out of every hundred of gold or silver to the Crown, and the licence was to continue for twelve years. In 1583 a general grant of all the mines and minerals in the country for twenty-one years was given to Eustachius Roche, mediciner. He was authorised to search anywhere for minerals, and to use timber, coals, and peats from the royal territories on the condition of paying seven ounces out of every hundred of gold found, and of all the other metals ten ounces out of every hundred, and all the rest of the gold and silver was to be brought to the coining-house at the price of twenty-two pounds Scots per ounce of fine gold, and forty shillings per ounce for fine silver. All other persons were prohibited from working minerals unless authorised by Roche. Further privileges were granted to him by contract, which was ratified by Parliament in August, 1584; but certain mines which belonged to the Earl of Arran were exempted from the scope of Roche’s lease; afterwards Roche obtained a separate lease of Arran’s mines, but when Roche attempted to transport the lead, in 1585, which had been got in the mines of Glengonar and Wanlock (on Arran’s territory) it was arrested in Leith by the Treasurer, although, on appeal to the Privy Council, the claim was abandoned and the lead permitted to be transported on payment of the royal duty according to the contract.

George Douglas of Parkhead, mentioned above, had obtained a grant of the mines in the Leadhills district in 1576, but he was forfeited in 1581, and fled to England. On the turn of the political wheel, however, he was restored in 1585, and in 1592 he was permitted to work the mines of Waterhead, “otherwise called Over-Glengonar,” on the condition of paying fifty ounces of fine silver out of every thousand stone of lead ore. He was allowed to sell one thousand stone weight of the ore for the advancement of the work. The following year the master of the metals complained to the Privy Council that Douglas had worked much more ore than his licence permitted, and so he was summoned to pay the whole duty due from the commencement of his lease. This resulted in an agreement between Douglas and Thomas Foullis, a goldsmith and burgess of Edinburgh, by which all the rights of Douglas in connection with the mines were transferred to Foullis for an annual rent of five hundred merks. Foullis then obtained an Act of the Privy Council, confirmed by Parliament, granting to him all the minerals and metals in the lands of the Friar’s Moor, in the sheriffdom of Lanark, for twenty-one years, at a yearly rent of one thousand merks; but he ceased to search for the precious metals on any extensive scale, and directed his attention to develop the lead mines.¹

¹ Register of the Privy Council, Volume I., pages 232, 330, 612‒614; Volume II., pages 506‒514; also Volumes III. and IV.; Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume II.; Early Records Relating to Mining in Scotland, by R. W. Cochran-Patrick, 1878.

A long Act of Parliament touching the mines was passed in 1592. This Act explicitly stated that all mines belonged to the Crown, and that in the past these mines had not been made so profitable as they might have been, owing mainly to there not having been a specially qualified man appointed to look after the whole work connected with them. Therefore, it was enacted that henceforth there should be an officer appointed by the Government to oversee the whole matter of the metals and minerals, who should be called the Master of the Metals, with full powers touching the management and working of the mines. The Act appointed Mr. John Lindsay, a brother of Sir David Lindsay of Edzell, Master of the Metals for life. One clause of the Act stated that the King, if he thought fit, with the advice of the Treasurer and the Master of the Metals, for a reasonable composition, might let in feu to every earl, baron, or other freeholder in the kingdom, all mines of gold, silver, copper, lead, or other metals and minerals “which is or may be found in their own lands, giving to them power to seek and to work such mines on the condition of paying the Crown one-tenth part of the whole metals found.” It appears that Roche had not been very successful in his mining operations, and it was resolved to reduce his contract. Accordingly he was charged with having neither worked the mines in operation before the date of his contract, nor those which he had discovered himself, that he had also neglected to pay the duty owing to the Crown, and he was ordered to appear before the Privy Council to answer these charges, and at the same time to produce all his papers and titles. Roche appeared and answered the charges against him, but the contract with him was reduced, and his connection with the mines then ceased.¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume III., page 556; Balcarres’ Papers; Lives of the Lindsays, Volume II.

There is little mention of iron mining till a comparatively late period, but coal was a common article of commerce in ♦1425. In 1542 the annual value of the coal haughs of Wallyfurd and Preston, which belonged to the Crown, was 1100 merks. Coal was worked at Culross in 1572, and in 1584, Lord Sinclair had a coal pit at Dysart. In 1592 Parliament passed an Act relating to the working of coal, which enacted that any person who wilfully set fire to coal haughs, from motives of revenge and spite, should incur the penalty of treason, if found guilty of this crime. In 1600 it was enacted, that as the King’s coal haughs could not be worked within the bounds of his annexed territories unless at great expense; in consequence of this his Majesty neither received coal for the royalty, nor any profit, it was therefore resolved to separate them from the Crown lands and let them in feu.¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume II., pages 10, 424; Volume IV., page 229.

In the sixteenth century there was not much commerce between England and Scotland. The Low Countries, France, and the Baltic kingdoms, were the places where the Scots mostly traded. During the war between the two countries in the reign of Henry VIII., within a very short time, the English took twenty-eight trading ships from the Scots. In 1545 the treaty between the Emperor and Scotland touching the commerce of the Scots with Flanders was renewed; thus the Flemings were exempted from attacks of the Scottish ships commissioned for warfare. But difficulties arose between this country and Flanders, and several Scottish ships were detained there. It was stated in 1550 that “when our ships came to Flanders as to our friends for traffic of merchandise, after they had been well received, and were ready to depart, the whole fleet of fourteen ships, richly laden with Flemish wares, were taken, held, and disposed of, and the merchants imprisoned by the Emperor’s subjects.” The same year the Lords of Council had to interfere to protect the Scots from the ships of Holland and the Lowlands of Flanders, the subjects of the Emperor; they were daily committing enormities upon the Scots within the Firths and other places. As many of the Scottish war ships as could be put into a seaworthy state, were commissioned and instructed to proceed against them; they were commanded to take, and chase these pirates off the coasts and out of the waters of Scotland. But they were specially restricted from interfering with the ships of England, France, Denmark, Sweden, and Hamburg. It seems however that trade was not long interrupted between Scotland and Flanders. In 1552 the Lords of Council passed an act complaining that the flesh of the country was barrelled, packed, sold, and sent out of the kingdom to other countries, and especially to Flanders, which had caused a great dearth of meat at home whereby the people had been much hurt; and its exportation was therefore prohibited under the penalty of confiscation and death.¹ New regulations were passed by the Council in 1565 for the guidance of the Scotch Conservator in Flanders; these were very minute and bear upon the merchants as well as the Conservator, touching the hours of business and such matters as the following: “That no merchant when he has bought his goods should bring them home himself, but should employ others to carry his gear to his lodgings or his cellar like a merchant, under a fine of five shillings. That no merchant who buys his meat in the market should truss it home upon his sleeve or on the point of his knife, under the same fine. That no one should deal in merchandise unless he be honestly able like a merchant; and if he be not well dressed the Conservator should warn him to clothe himself better, and if he fail to do that, then the Conservator should take as much of his goods as will clothe him properly withal.”²

¹ Register of the Privy Council, Volume I., pages 18, 40, 41, 92, 104, 127; Macpherson’s Annals of Commerce, Volume II., page 93.

² Register of the Privy Council, Volume I., pages 332‒334.

Even in the latter part of the sixteenth century the foreign trade of Scotland was comparatively small. The exports were comprised within very narrow limits, but the imports were more varied. There were some very curious regulations imposed in connection with the exports, which strikingly brings before us the state of society and the character of the times. It was noticed that there were acts prohibiting the exportation of gold and silver; and there were other things which were allowed to be exported under limitations one year, while the next they were absolutely prohibited. A considerable quantity of salt was produced at the various salt works throughout the country, but the export of salt was only permitted under certain contingencies. The Council in 1573 passed an act stating that it was unlawful to export any salt until the whole people and the carriers to all the markets in the kingdom were supplied with a sufficient quantity of it, which had to be sold at the salt-pans for eight shillings the boll. Then whatever quantity of it remained after satisfying the people, was allowed to be exported to other countries. But the owners and carriers of it were obliged to buy six ounces of silver for every chalder of salt exported, and this silver had to be delivered to the master coiner within eight days after their return to Scotland, and for every ounce of which the owner of the salt was to receive from the master coiner thirty shillings. It was further provided, that in the event of the exporters of salt buying up the stipulated proportion of silver, and not buying it from abroad, the silver so bought should be forfeited to the crown, and the exporters of the salt condemned to pay a sum equivalent to the silver they should have brought from foreign parts. To ensure the fulfilment of this condition the custom officers were ordered not to give the exporters of salt a cocket, till they came to the coining-house and gave security to bring home the required quantity of silver.¹

¹ Register of the Privy Council, Volume II., pages 264‒265, 290, 293; Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volumes II., III.

This rather peculiar arrangement, which was contrary to acts of parliament, did not prove to be satisfactory. In 1574, the Lords of Council discharged the granting of licenses to export salt, on account of the exorbitant dearth of small salt at home. “As experience now teaches,” they said, “the granting of such licenses has been very prejudicial to the commonweal of the nation, as the conditions for furnishing and serving the people at the prices mentioned in the Acts of Parliament has in nowise been observed; but our sovereign lord’s subjects have been constrained to buy salt at exorbitant and unreasonable prices, and likely from day to day to rise to greater extortion, if timely remedy be not provided. Therefore all the licenses for exporting salt out of the kingdom were henceforward discharged.”¹ Three weeks after their lordships had passed this act, however, they granted a license to Robert Paterson, the master of the ship called “The Grace of God,” to export to Norway six chalders of salt for curing fish; and another to William Ker, the master of the “Swallow,” to export four chalders; and two burgesses of Edinburgh became sureties that the salt should not be converted to any other use. At this time the authorised price of salt was eight shillings per boll, but there were many complaints of parties selling it at a higher rate.² Only white salt was allowed to be exported in 1584; and the export of salt was prohibited in 1587; there was a duty on salt exported.

¹ Ibid., Volume II., pages 406‒407.

² Register of the Privy Council, Volume II., page 285; Volumes III., IV. On the 30th of August, 1573, the owners of thirty-eight salt-pans, of Preston and Musselburgh, gave security to supply Scotsmen with salt at eight shillings the boll.​—Ibid., page 296.

Several other articles were dealt with in the same way. Licenses were now and again granted by the Lords of Council for exporting things which were prohibited by parliament. The exportation of coal was prohibited by Act of Parliament; but the Council, in 1573, resolved to grant licenses for exporting smithy-coal. In the same year, on the other hand, Walter Scott, in Dysart, became bound that the coals loaded in a ship of that port should not be exported;¹ the export of coal was forbidden in 1586, and in 1597. The trade of the country was carried on under the same changing and disturbing influences as its politics; and, so few of the resources of the country were as yet developed, and such restrictive and conflicting agencies were in operation that the merchants were greatly hampered. The regulations touching the export of lead were of the same varying character. Lead might be exported, but there was a royalty placed upon it; the exporter had to pay fifteen ounces of silver for every thousand stones of lead shipped.²

¹ Ibid., Volume I., page 340; Volume II., page 290, Volumes IV. V.; Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume II., page 543.

² Register of the Privy Council, Volume II., pages 102, 507, 626.

Licenses were sometimes granted for exporting grain, but owing to bad harvests, and the frequent neglect of agriculture from war, it was often deemed necessary to prohibit the export of corn and wheat. There were frequently seasons of dearth, and many attempts to fix the price of grain were made. In September, 1567, the Regent and Council stated that the merchants and others had exported great quantities of grain, under the pretence of licenses granted “by the Queen’s grace, our Sovereign Lord’s dearest mother, to the great increase and dearth of the same; the corn of this year’s crop being at God’s pleasure plagued and spoiled with rain, and so in all appearance scarce enough to sustain the inhabitants of this country.” Therefore the Council resolved to revoke all such licenses, and ordered that no grain should be exported hereafter, under the penalty of the confiscation of the ship and her cargo. In 1574, the Regent and Council ordered the comptroller to ascertain the quantity of grain exported that year, by whom, and at what ports, and other points concerning it. The Council, in the winter of 1577, agreed to allow the free export of grain for the following reason: “In times of dearth this country has received large help and support of victuals out of France, Flanders, and England, whereby the people have been greatly relieved; and the like favour and good neighbourhood, charity, and amity ought to be extended towards the people of these countries in this present year, when it has pleased God to visit them with the like dearth and scarcity, and this realm with such increase and plenty of grain, as some part thereof may, without prejudice of the State, be spared to the relief of our neighbours’ necessities.”¹

¹ Register of the Privy Council, Volume I., pages 402, 571, 572; Volume II., pages 252, 589.

Horses and cattle were occasionally exported, but Acts of Parliament and Council frequently prohibited this; and on the whole the regular export trade of Scotland was as yet very small. It consisted mostly of raw materials, such as hides, wool, and the like; but the imports were more varied, and comprised a variety of articles, and especially large quantities of wines. There were Acts of Parliament and Council which prohibited the importers of wines from selling any to the people till the king, bishops, earls, lords, and barons, were first well stocked.¹

¹ Ibid., Volume I., pages 282, 298, 191, 285, 402, 571‒572; Volume II., pages 128‒129, 505, 515, 662, 675, 693; Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume III.

The trade between the Highlands and Lowlands chiefly consisted of cattle and wood. The Highlanders had long been accustomed to bring their cattle to the Lowland markets; but sometimes parties in the Lowlands seized their flocks under the pretence that they were authorised by the Government, which was not the case. They brought the timber down the rivers in floats to the towns and sold it to the citizens.¹

¹ Register of the Privy Council, Volume I., pages 401, 470‒471; Volume II., pages 500‒501; Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume II., page 33.

The internal trade of the country was still carried on, under the strict principle of monopoly. The price of manufactured articles and goods, as well as of food and provisions, was fixed by law and regulated by the local authorities. The guild or merchants openly insisted on their exclusive right of commerce, not only in foreign trade, but also within the burgh, and often over the county in which it was situated.¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volumes II., III., IV.; Burgh Records of Edinburgh, Volumes I., II., III.

Among the many regulations fixing the supply and the price of provisions, perhaps those relating to the sale of ale and spirits are the most instructive. Ale had long been a beverage in common and daily use, and large quantities of it were consumed by all classes of the people. The Acts of Parliament and Council fixing the price of malt and ale were numerous; and the statutes and regulations of the burghs touching the supply and the price of these two necessaries were endless. In 1535 Parliament passed an Act stating that the inhabitants of Edinburgh and the people who frequented it were greatly oppressed by the maltmakers of Leith, and others in that neighbourhood, exacting four, five, and even six shillings more for the malt than they paid for the barley. It was therefore enacted that maltmakers should produce and sell their malt at a competent profit, and charge only two shillings more for the boll of malt than the current price of the boll of barley. “Those who disobey these acts, it was ordained, shall be called and punished as oppressors of the King’s subjects, and particular courts shall be set for them, and the King shall give commission to such as he pleases to call the offending maltmakers before them in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, to execute justice upon them as they may think fit, and to cause this statute to be observed in all points.”¹ In 1551 the Regent and the Lords of Council, taking into consideration the high prices of all kinds of victuals “whereby the poor were at the point of perishing,” issued a commission under the great seal to the provost of Edinburgh, authorising him to deal with all the maltmakers, maltsellers, bakers, and regraters, within a circle of four miles of Edinburgh; and to bring them to punishment according to the Acts of Parliament and the laws of the kingdom. When Queen Mary visited Jedburgh in October, 1566, it seems that the good citizens of that town raised the price of provisions. Whereupon her majesty called together her council and the authorities of the burgh, who passed an act fixing the price of everything during the stay of the court in that quarter. The pint of good ale was to be fourpence, and sixteen ounces of fine bread fourpence. The price of a man’s dinner, “being served with beef, mutton, and roast at the least, was sixteenpence. For the use of a furnished bed the charge was to be twelvepence each night; and for stabling to a horse for the space of twenty-four hours, twopence.”² In 1573 the price of ale was four shillings the gallon; in 1589 the pint of ale was eightpence; and from this time to the end of the century it ran from one shilling to one and fourpence the pint.³ In 1571 the magistrates of Edinburgh enacted that Dutch drinking beer should not be sold higher than sixpence the pint.

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume II., page 351; Burgh Records of Edinburgh, Volume II., pages 265‒266.

² Register of the Privy Council, Volume I., pages 115, 488‒489.

³ Ibid., Volume II., page 269; Burgh Records of Glasgow, pages 25, 137, 162, 172, 198, 214; Burgh Records of Edinburgh, Volume III., page 284.

The price of wine varied during the first half of the sixteenth century, from sixpence the pint to one shilling and fourpence; but towards the end of the century, the price of it had nearly tripled. There is much evidence that large quantities of wine were consumed in Scotland. The members of the guild claimed the exclusive right to sell wine in all the burghs of the kingdom.¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volumes II., pages 373, 376, 483; Volumes III., IV.; Register of the Privy Council, Volume I., pages 128‒129, 212‒213, 425‒428, 451; Volume II., pages 505, 662, 693; Volumes III., IV., V., VI.; Burgh Records of Edinburgh, Volume II., pages 114, 115, 120, 123, 125, 127, 132, 134, 144, et seq.; Volume III., pages 29, 84, 132, 156, 191, 198, 224; Burgh Records of Glasgow, pages 66, 82, 107, 184, 201; Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume II., page 149.

Whisky was known, but as yet it was not much used among the people. In 1557, as noticed in a preceding page, Bessy Campbell was brought before the magistrates of Edinburgh, and ordered to cease from making whisky in the burgh, and from selling it, except on the market-day, according to the privilege granted to the barbers, under their seal of cause, unless she was permitted by them. The use of whisky, however, was gradually becoming more common. In 1579, Parliament passed an act restricting the making and selling of it. This Act opened with a statement that grain would be scarce that year, and yet great quantities of malt was consumed in the making of aquavitæ, which was the cause of the dearth of the malt. It was enacted therefore that no person, either in town or country, should brew or sell any whisky, from the 1st of December, 1579, to the 1st of October, 1580, under the penalty of the breaking of their brewing utensils, and the confiscation of their stock of spirits. But the nobles and men of rank were permitted to brew and distil whisky from their own malt, on their own premises, for the use of their own house, families, and friends.¹ This act is very characteristic of much of the subsequent legislation relating to the sale of whisky and spirits; but it is clear that whisky had not then the hold on the people which it afterwards obtained.

¹ Burgh Records of Edinburgh, Volume II., page 262; Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume III., page 174; Register of the Privy Council, Volume II., page 269.

There were many complaints that leather and shoes were so dear that the people were unable to buy them. In 1541, a number of the shoemakers of Aberdeen were convicted by a jury for making insufficient shoes, and for selling them above the legal price. The magistrates of Edinburgh, in 1563, fixed the price of boots and shoes as follows: “The pair of double-soled shoes of the largest size, well made and of good material, three shillings and eightpence; a pair of single-soled shoes of similar size, two shillings and eightpence; a pair of the finest double-soled boots, twenty-four shillings; a pair of single-soled boots, twenty shillings;” and so on in proportion for smaller sizes. The authorities of Aberdeen, in 1580, ordained that the price for shoeing the largest horses should be six shillings and eightpence, and the charge for the smaller horses and nags, four shillings.¹

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume I., pages 453‒454; Volume II., pages 38‒39; Burgh Records of Edinburgh, Volume III., page 155; Register of the Privy Council, Volume I.

Complaints were often made against the craftsmen that their workmanship was insufficient, and their charges too high. Complaints of this description frequently came before Parliament and the Privy Council, and acts were from time to time passed fixing the price of manufactured goods and articles. But the craftsmen struggled hard, and by their organisations they became a considerable power in the burghs. Sometimes they were rather troublesome to the guilds. Amongst the craftsmen the spirit of monopoly was excessive. The trade disputes between Edinburgh and Leith, and between the Canongate and Edinburgh, were numerous and bitter. The different bodies of craftsmen sometimes manifested an extreme jealousy of each other, and of their exclusive privileges, which was unfavourable to the development of trade and to the acquisition of skill.¹

¹ Register of the Privy Council, Volume I., page 142; Volume, II., pages 33‒34, 220‒221, 260, 577‒579; Burgh Records of Edinburgh; Burgh Records of Glasgow, pages 165‒166.

In 1562, the bonnetmakers of Edinburgh complained that various craftsmen, fleshers, wrights, shoemakers, and others, in the burgh, had enticed away their apprentices and servants, who were unfree persons, and had caused them to labour at kinds of work which belonged to their craft. The provost and council agreed that the bonnetmakers should be protected in their privileges and liberties; but they added, “That in case it pleased the goodness of God to give the gift to strangers and others resorting to this town to labour, and invent upon points a more perfect and finer fashion of hose, sleeves, gloves, and such like, than they themselves, their servants, or apprentices, could do, or has done, at any time before this, and that in such cases the said persons should not be stopped, nor the gifts of God smothered, provided always that nowhere they nor any others should be served by servants and apprentices who have had their beginning under the deacon and masters.”¹ This opinion of the Town Council was on the line which leads to improvement. In 1587, Parliament passed an act in favour of Flemish craftsmen​—makers of serges, bedcovers, and other woollen fabrics belonging to their craft. They were to teach the Scots to make this class of goods, and the conditions of the bargain extended to twelve heads.²

¹ Burgh Records of Edinburgh, Volume III., page 148.

² Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume III., pages 607‒609.

It was already observed that the reformed clergy had exerted themselves to extinguish some of the amusements of the people; and Parliament followed in the same track, and passed sumptuary enactments. In 1567, the Estates of the realm enacted that no women should adorn themselves with dress above what was appropriate to their rank, unless they were prostitutes. And Parliament, in 1581, passed an act touching dress, and another against superfluous banqueting, and the inordinate use of confectionery and drugs. The act on dress opened with a statement that there was great abuse among the common people, even of the meanest rank, inasmuch as they presumed to counterfeit the king and his nobility by their habit of wearing costly clothing of silk, and of all varieties: “Laine, cameraige, fringes, pasments of gold, of silver, of silk, and woollen cloth, brought from other countries; thus the price of these goods had been raised to such a dearth that this state of matters cannot be longer endured without great scath to the nation. Though God has granted to the kingdom sufficient commodities for clothing the people thereof within itself, if they were properly employed manufacturing them at home; and whereby great numbers of the people now wandering in beggary might be relieved, and the honesty and the wealth of the country greatly increased.” The Act prohibited all persons below the ranks of duke, earl, lord of parliament, knight, and landed gentlemen, and their wives and families, from wearing costly dresses. Minute provisions were made for carrying out the Act, and penalties were to be inflicted for its infringement. This Act also contained a clause prohibiting the exportation of wool, under the penalty of confiscation, the object of which was to give more employment to the people at home, and to confer a benefit on the nation. The act against the wearing of costly clothing was ratified in 1584, and ordered to be carried out with all rigour.¹