Chapter XXX · (continued 2)

¹ Extracts from the Presbytery Book of Strathbogie, pages 34, 37‒38, 46, 93.

These are only a few instances out of many of a similar character, which tend to show that the clergy had not always submissive people to deal with; indeed, they often encountered extreme opposition in their efforts to reform the people to regular habits of life. Even during the heat of the Covenanting period, when the Presbyterians attained their greatest height of power, there was no lack of opposition to many of their proceedings.

In the last volume it was stated that the reformed clergy and the authorities continuously exerted themselves to secure the observance of Sunday, but rooted customs and habits are persistent, and it requires a long time to change or to direct them into other channels. It will be remembered that, prior to the Reformation, it was the universal custom to hold markets on Sunday, military musters of the people, and to engage in many other affairs not at all connected with religion. Accordingly, in spite of all the laws enacted after the Reformation, all the efforts of the local magistrates, and all the discipline of the Church, the complete observance of Sunday was not attained till well through the seventeenth century. In the Acts of Parliament, the proceedings of the Privy Council, the records of the burghs, and in the records of all the Church courts, from the sessions to the General Assemblies, there is a great mass of evidence of the vehemence of the struggle for the observance of Sunday; and without entering into long details, I will give illustrative and expository instances to complete this part of social history.

The magistrates of Aberdeen, in 1608, asserted that one of the manifold sins of the city was the breaking of Sunday by openly fishing salmon, though this had been already four times condemned, “the possessors of the waters preferring, as it appears, their own greed and avarice to the glory and the worship of God, the manifest contempt of His law, and the slander of the gospel.” Some promised to desist from this practice of fishing on Sunday if their neighbours would do so, but others refused to abandon it. The following year the session ordered visitors to be appointed at the four chief outlets of the city, to watch those who went out of the town on Sunday. The town’s piper was forbidden to play his pipes on Sunday, under the penalty of losing his office, and banishment from the city; while William Stewart, a fiddler, was admonished not to play on Sunday. The tailors, the shoemakers, and the bakers, were still in the habit of working in their booths every Sunday morning for three or four hours, “to the dishonour of God and the slander of the gospel,” and these parties were henceforth prohibited from working at their trade on Sunday, under the penalty of ten shillings. In 1647 the Town Council passed an act for enforcing a more strict observance of Sunday. Many of the citizens were in the habit of going to the Old Town and to other places, before and in the time of preaching, quite regardless of the laudable acts of the kirk-session which forbade such wandering upon Sunday; therefore, the council not only ratified these acts in all points, but also anew ordained that all should attend the parish church on Sunday in the forenoon and in the afternoon, and hear the Word of God. All who disobeyed the act were to be fined forty shillings, one-half of which was to be applied to maintain the fabric of the church, and the other half to be given to the poor. The council recommended the kirk-session to appoint captains for taking the names of all who were found going to the Old Town fields or walking about; and this was ordered to be intimated to the people from the pulpit.¹

¹ Selections from the Kirk-Session of Aberdeen, pages 64‒68; Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume IV., page 76.

During the Covenanting period, Parliament passed several acts for securing a more complete observance of Sunday. After the custom of holding markets on Sunday was abolished, it was found when they were held on Mondays and Saturdays that they encroached upon the observance of the Sabbath. A series of acts was therefore passed prohibiting markets on Saturdays and Mondays, and everything was done to obtain an entire cessation of all work and business on Sunday. But from the frequent re-enactment of the acts prohibiting work on Sunday, it may be inferred that they were often disregarded. According to the acts of Parliament, the labour most persistently engaged in on Sunday was the working of mills, salt-works, and salmon fishing, which were emphatically specified in all the acts prohibiting labour on Sunday.¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume V., pages 300, 301, 302, 473; Volume VI., pages 127, 128, 215, 370.

It was announced from the pulpits of Aberdeen in 1651, that no inhabitant of the town should walk about the fields or go in companies to the Castle Hill on Sunday. The same year, Jane Barclay was sharply rebuked and admonished for going to the Old Town between the sermons, and several other persons were called before the session for travelling on Sunday.¹

¹ Selections from the Records of the Kirk-Session of Aberdeen, pages 115, 136, 137.

The subject of Sunday-breaking by salmon fishing in the Dee and the Don came before the synod of Aberdeen in 1657, and the discipline of the Church was ordered to be enforced against all who engaged in such profanation, and the assistance of the magistrates was asked to curb the offenders. In 1663, the synod ordered that the Lord’s Day should be strictly kept, and notice taken of those who travelled on Sunday, who were to be censured according to the degree of their offence. As late as 1680, it was stated that the Lord’s Day was everywhere profaned by drinking, travelling to markets, engaging of servants, and making bargains and contracts.¹

¹ Selections from the Register of the Synod of Aberdeen, pages 234, 271, 272, 285, 332. There is some curious information on the attempts to secure the observance of Sunday in Dr. Davidson’s History of Inverurie and the Earldom of the Garioch. This work contains much valuable matter of a varied character, and to those with a taste for local lore it is exceedingly interesting.

But, by the combined application of the means above indicated, and chiefly by the constant exertion of the Church, ultimately an observance of the Sabbath was attained in Scotland, unmatched in any other nation.

Besides the devotion of Sunday to religious exercises, there were daily morning and evening prayers in the churches of the burghs, and preaching on two or three days of the week, and this was continued until near the end of the seventeenth century. In the records of the burghs, and of the Church courts, there are many acts, rules, and notices touching the week-day meeting and preaching. In Edinburgh, in 1650, there was a lecture every afternoon, and the ministers of the city performing the duty by turns. The town council of Aberdeen, in 1694, appointed the week-day sermons to be held in the new church; but the next year, the council found that the morning and evening prayers were not frequented as in former times, and therefore they were to be discontinued.¹ As the energy of the people became more directed to trade and industry, the preaching and the religious exercises in the churches on week-days gradually fell into disuse, though in some towns the practice has lingered on to the present time.

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume IV., pages 315, 317.

But the religious feeling of the age had yet another channel in which it occasionally sought emphatic expression, under the form of the national fast or humiliation. The General Assembly appointed the national fasts, and gave the reasons why they should be held. One was appointed in 1615, to begin on the last Sunday of March, and to be continued to the first Sunday of April; and to enhance the solemnity of the fast, it was enjoined that there should be public preaching in all the burghs of the kingdom every day in the week, preceding the two Sundays. “For many weighty causes moving the Church thereto, and among the rest, by reason of the great number of Jesuits and seminary priests come into this Island, and spread through all the corners thereof, pressing by all possible means to subvert the true religion established in this Isle.” In 1644, a fast was proclaimed throughout the kingdom, chiefly on account of backsliding from the Covenant, the prevalence of vice, and to entreat the favour of God for the parliamentary armies; and also to pray that the King’s heart might be filled with the spirit of reformation. A public fast was appointed to be held on the last Sunday of August, 1649, for the following reasons:​—“The sins of the land, especially the sin of witchcraft; and the interruption of the Lord’s work in England and in Ireland; to entreat the Lord to deliver our King from the hands of malignants, and incline his heart to give satisfaction in those things that concern religion; to pray for steadfastness to this land, and especially to those in charge of public affairs; to entreat the Lord to carry on his work in England and in Ireland against all opposers of the same; and lastly, for a blessing upon the harvest.”¹ In 1696, the Assembly appointed a national fast to be observed on the 21st of January, to deprecate the wrath of God, “which is very visible against the land, in the judgments of great sickness and mortality in most parts of the kingdom, as also of growing dearth and famine threatened, with the imminent hazard of an invasion from cruel enemies abroad​—all the just deservings and effects of our continuing and abounding sins, and of our great security and impenitence under them.”²

¹ Acts of the General Assembly; Selections from the Records of the Kirk-Session of Aberdeen, page 82.

² Acts of the General Assembly.

Besides the national fasts appointed by the Assembly, the local authorities occasionally ordered fasts to be observed within the limits of their jurisdiction. Thus the magistrates of Aberdeen commanded fasts to be observed in the city in January, 1658, and in 1669; and on the latter occasion the council, “considering the prevalence of all sorts of sins within this burgh, such as drunkenness, uncleanness, cursing, and the like, to the effect that the just judgments of God may be averted, finds it expedient to indict a fast, to be kept by the inhabitants of this burgh, and recommends to the magistrates to intimate this to the ministers.” The Synod of Aberdeen ordered a fast to be observed on the 28th of November, 1651, for the sins of the land.¹

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume IV., pages 170, 177, 253.

Drunkenness seems to have been rather prevalent. The light wines of France were the common drink among the gentry, and ale among the people, but stronger spirits were often used. The kirk-sessions frequently took cognisance of cases of drunkenness. In the beginning of the year 1604, the Kirk-Session of Aberdeen had before them Robert Cuthberd, a shoemaker, and Thomas Hay, a tinkler, and they were seriously admonished to abstain from their excessive drinking and night-walking; and that they should never entice Alexander Smith, shoemaker, to drink, or draw him out for that purpose in the night, under the penalty of being punished as night-walkers and drunkards. The Session in 1606 cited Alexander Mortimer and John Leslie for having abused themselves by inordinate drinking of aquavitæ (whisky), and bringing slander on this congregation by their drunkenness. In 1611, the Privy Council renewed the former acts against night-walkers in Edinburgh, and idle and debauched persons who went about the streets at night, indulging their evil passions and frequently committing serious crimes. Direct reference was made to several persons of this character, some of them strangers, who wallowed in all kinds of excesses, riot and drunkenness, committing enormities upon peaceable citizens, and cruelly attacking the officers appointed to watch the city, and unmercifully slaying them. The Council ordered that in future no one should remain on the streets after ten at night. In 1619, Robert Hunter and James Hay were admonished by the Kirk-Session of Aberdeen, to behave themselves better, and to desist from their drinking. The town council of Aberdeen, in 1625, passed an act, “that no person should at any public or private meeting presume to compel his neighbour to drink more wine or beer than what he pleased, under the penalty of forty pounds.”¹

¹ Selections from the Records of the Kirk-Session of Aberdeen, pages 29, 50, 78; Register of the Privy Council; Burgh Records of Aberdeen.

It appears from the financial accounts of the burghs that drink was pretty freely used on all public occasions; and in the accounts for work done to the corporations, the sums given as drink-money are frequently stated. For half-a-day’s work at the bridge of Tweed, a workman was paid six shillings and sixpence Scots, and one shilling and eightpence for drink. In the burgh of Peebles, Stephen Grieve and his son were employed a day and a half erecting the gallows on which the witches were to be hung, and they received forty shillings, and eightpence for drink.¹

¹ Burgh Records of Peebles, pages 50, 423, 224.

After the Restoration, among a portion of the upper classes, drunkenness greatly increased. Excessive drinking was indulged in without shame, and some men even gloried in it. Sometimes a company of these gentlemen fell a carousing, and encouraged each other by giving healths, and when they had exhausted their resources in drinking healths, “not knowing whose to give next, one of them gives the devil’s health, and the rest pledges him.”¹

¹ Robert Law’s Memorials, page 43.

Then, as now, habits of drinking and swearing were often associated, and in many of the Acts of Parliament both offences were classed together, and received the same kind of punishment. Besides the Acts of Council, Parliament passed a series of acts from 1617 to 1696, for the punishment of ♦drunkards; and in 1644, an act was passed which imposed penalties upon the keepers of inns and ale-houses, if they sold drink after ten at night or on Sunday. The act of 1617 asserted that the detestable vice of drunkenness was daily increasing. It enacted that public-houses should be closed at ten at night, and proposed a scale of punishments for drunkards, consisting of fines, the stocks, and imprisonment. For the execution of the act, special power was given to the sheriffs, stewards, magistrates of burghs, and to the kirk-session of every parish; and they were directed to meet and try drunkards, and do everything requisite for the execution of the law. Innkeepers who induced parties to become drunk were to be punished. The part of the act of 1617 touching the punishment of offenders is to this effect:​—“All persons lawfully convicted of drunkenness, or of haunting taverns or ale-houses after ten at night, or at any time of the day, except when travelling or for ordinary refreshments, shall for the first fault pay three pounds, and in case of inability to pay, to be put in the stocks or into the jail for six hours; for the second offence to pay five pounds, or be kept in the stocks or the jail for twelve hours; for the third fault ten pounds, or twenty-four hours in the stocks or the jail; and afterwards if they transgress, to be imprisoned till they find caution for their good behaviour in time coming.” In an act passed in 1645, “against swearing, drinking, and mocking of piety,” the scale of punishments was stated thus: “Whosoever shall swear or blaspheme, and whosoever shall drink excessively, especially under the name of healths ... who shall be found guilty of all or any one or other of the foresaid vices, by any kirk judicatories to which they are subject, having been once already censured by these courts for the same vice, shall after the second conviction be censurable in the following manner: Each nobleman shall pay twenty pounds for the second conviction, and for each one thereafter; each baron twenty merks; each gentleman, proprietor, and burgess, ten merks; each yeoman forty shillings, each servant twenty shillings, and each minister the fifth part of his year’s stipend. And that wives who offend against this act shall be punished according to the rank of their husbands, and the husbands shall be liable for the payment of their wives’ fines.” The money raised by these fines was to be applied to pious uses in the parishes where the offenders resided. The act against swearing and excessive drinking of 1661 repeats the scale of fines of the act of 1645, with this addition, “and if any of the parties offending be unable to pay the foresaid penalties, then to be exemplarily punished in their bodies according to the degree of their faults.”¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume IV.; Volume VI., page 128; Volume VII., pages 195, 262.

There was a constant struggle against immorality and drunkenness; and in 1696, parliament passed an act ratifying and renewing “all former laws and acts of parliament made against drunkenness, Sabbath-breaking, swearing, fornication, uncleanness, mocking and reproaching religion and the exercise thereof, and generally all laws made against profaneness, and ordained the same to be put in full and vigorous execution. And further, considering how much profanity and immorality do abound over all the nation, to the dishonour of God, the reproach of religion, and the discredit and weakening of the Government, notwithstanding the many good laws that have been made against profaneness,” therefore it was anew enacted that all those in authority in every parish in the ♦kingdom should be obliged and required to put these acts against profanity and immorality into full and due execution. This act declared “that no pretence of different persuasion in matters of religion shall exempt the offender from being censured and punished for such immoralities as by the laws of this kingdom are declared to be punishable by fining.” The Estates also recommended to the Lords of the Privy Council to take such further steps as seemed requisite “for restraining and punishing of all sorts of profanity and wickedness.”¹

¹ Ibid., Volume X. pages 65‒66.

Those at the head of the Government may not always have shown a good example, but the magistrates of the burghs and the kirk-sessions struggled manfully against drunkenness and immorality. In December, 1648, the town council of Aberdeen had before them a request from the ministers, “desiring them to take notice of all the country people found in the town, either drunk, swearing, or otherwise debauching themselves, and notify their names to the ministers, who were then to send such names to their own ministers, so that these offenders may be punished as their own session thinks fit.” The council enacted “that all persons, of whatever rank, found drunk, swearing, or debauching themselves, should be ♦apprehended, imprisoned, and punished, at the discretion of the magistrates.” In 1655, the council enacted that no mariners, masons, stablers, slaters, millers, or any unfree person, should presume to brew, vent, or sell ale, strong waters, or aquavitæ, without a special licence from the council. The synod of Aberdeen, in 1667, commanded all the ministers in the diocese to be careful to execute the censures of the Church on drunkards, swearers, and Sabbath-breakers. But in 1680, the synod had to announce that, notwithstanding the glorious gospel vouchsafed to the people, with plenty of temporal benefits, “iniquity does exceedingly abound in this diocese, and part of the Church and kingdom, and especially the sins of drunkenness, whoredom, and horrid cursing and swearing.”¹ The habit of swearing and using imprecations had descended from pre-Reformation times, and was extremely difficult to eradicate.

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume IV., pages 93, 156; Selections from the Register of the Synod of Aberdeen, pages 284, 332.

Under the authority of the acts of parliament, the town councils throughout the kingdom framed rules from time to time for restraining this heinous offence. In 1642, the town council of Aberdeen stated that the sin of swearing was increasing; and for curbing and punishing all offenders of this character, they resolved “to ratify and approve of all the acts passed by their predecessors in bygone times, and particularly an act of the 7th of December, 1605, and anew ordained that every master and mistress of a family in the burgh, as often as any of them happens to be found banning and swearing any sort of oath, shall pay eighteenpence to the poor, and each servant fourpence, which shall be presently exacted of them by the master of the family, and a box to be kept in every family for this purpose. For restraining of children from swearing, there should be palmers in every family wherewith to punish the children on their hands as often as they were found swearing; and those of the poorer classes thus offending, as beggars, scolds, and vagabonds, having no means to pay the penalties, to be put in the stocks, and to stand there for three hours or longer, according to the degree of their fault.” As swearing was most common on the streets, at the burn-head, the flesh, the fish, the malt, and the meal markets, and at the cross, where coals, fruit, and such things were sold, the magistrates appointed captors and searchers to note all persons found swearing at any of the above places. The names of the captors and their several districts were minutely stated, and they were empowered “to execute the penalties above specified; and if anyone resisted and refused to give obedience, then the captors were to note down their names and hand them to the magistrates, that they may take steps for punishing and censuring the offenders according to the tenor of this act.” These captors were also to visit families once a month, to see if the act was obeyed and if any reformation was effected, and to report those who had failed to obey to the kirk-session, to be treated as they should think fit. Moreover, the captors had to report if parents were careful in training their children, or if they neglected them; and if there were idle and wicked rogues living without all order and persisting in their evil ways, these were to be brought to the correction-house, and there under the eyes of the captors themselves, properly punished.¹ In 1678, the council commanded that all persons found swearing on the streets, or in any other public place, should be sharply punished.

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume III., pages 279‒281.

The relation of the different sexes was still somewhat lax; and complaints were occasionally made of men and women living together as married persons, though not lawfully married. Sometimes parties who could not obtain marriage by the law and constitution of Scotland, went to neighbouring countries and got themselves married; but in 1641, Parliament prohibited this under severe penalties. An act was passed in 1661 against clandestine and unlawful marriages, which also imposed severe fines and penalties on the parties who entered into such unions, and enacted “that the celebrators of such marriages shall be banished from the kingdom, never to return thereto, under the pain of death.” In 1695, an act was passed against clandestine and irregular marriages, and another in 1698. The latter act enjoined for the better suppression of these marriages, “that over and above the penalties contained in the acts of 1661 and 1695 against clandestine and irregular marriages, the celebrator of them shall be liable to be summarily seized and imprisoned by any ordinary magistrate or justice of the peace, and further punished by the Lords of his Majesty’s Privy Council, not only by perpetual banishment, but also by such pecuniary or corporal pains as the council shall think fit to inflict.”¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume V., page 388; Volume VII., page 231; Volume X., page 149.

The church courts had frequently to deal with irregular and scandalous marriages. All incestuous connections were severely treated both by the civil law and by the Church. In 1668, the synod of Aberdeen passed an act for restraining scandals at marriages. “It being represented to the bishop and the synod that there had been frequently disorderly marriages contrary to the authorised custom of the Church, to the great offence of God and scandal of Christian people; therefore, for curbing and restraining these enormities, the bishop and synod have ordained, that ministers take diligent notice in their respective parishes of such scandalous persons, and that whoever shall be convicted of having violently carried away unmarried women, shall be censured to remove the scandal in the same manner as it is enjoined for adulterers, even should he afterwards extort the woman’s consent to marry him; and if it be found that the woman carried away has been privy to the same, and in collusion with the man, without the knowledge of her parents, then the woman also should be censured. And further, it is enacted that all those found guilty of accession to such scandalous violence in covering and assisting any man in carrying away a woman, shall also be enjoined to remove the scandal of his conduct in sackcloth, ... and the persons so censured, in case of disobedience, to be excommunicated.” It was also ordered that persons cohabiting together and pretending that they were married by popish priests, should be proceeded against until they made public acknowledgement of their sin of disorderly marriage, in the face of the congregation. “Also, all persons cohabiting together as married, who allege that they have privately plighted their faith to one another; but if it be found that there was no intimation of their purpose to the congregation, nor the marriage solemnised nor blessed by any minister, then all that have so cohabited shall be censured as fornicators, yea, and until they separate from each other, and having removed the scandal, be lawfully married according to the order of the Church. In like manner, when two persons come before a minister in private or in public, declaring that they take each other as husband and wife, and do forthwith cohabit together, and will not wait the public intimation of their purpose to the congregation, or its solemnisation by the minister, according to the order of the Church, it is ordained that those guilty of this, for the time that is bygone, shall make their public appearance in their own parish church, and there, in the presence of the minister and of the congregation, confess and crave God’s forgiveness of their sin, and thereupon receive the orderly blessing to their marriage from the minister.”¹

¹ Selections from the Register of the ♦Synod of Aberdeen, pages 290‒292. Some of the particulars of irregular marriage indicated in the above quotation are exactly similar to those which the reformed clergy had to deal with after the Reformation in the sixteenth century, which I noticed in the second volume, pages 261‒264.

Some of the old customs associated with marriages and burials still survived. The custom of casting knots at marriages was occasionally practised, but then punishable as a form of enchantment. In 1666, James Smith was cited by the minister of Cluny, before the Synod of Aberdeen, “for using enchantment by casting of the knots at marriages, for unlawful ends, and the Synod ordained that he should give evidence of his repentance in sackcloth.”¹ It had been long customary among the people when a young couple were married, to receive a mixed company and hold a sort of ball, while each person contributed something towards the expense, a part of which was usually left over for the benefit of the newly-wedded pair. This custom soon drew the attention of the reformed clergy, and the kirk-sessions endeavoured to suppress these promiscuous merry-makings, called “penny bridals;” and in 1581, Parliament passed an act limiting the expense of marriages and banquets, and similar acts were passed in 1621 and 1681. The General Assembly passed an act against penny bridals, which enjoined the presbyteries to use severe means to restrict them. In the Burgh Records of Aberdeen, references to the act on superfluous banqueting at baptisms and other meetings frequently occur, and in 1633, the Town Council made the following additions to this act: “That none be found dancing through the town at marriage feasts; nor any person invited to night-wakes hereafter, but a few of the nearest neighbours of the deceased, ... and ordains this to be proclaimed from the pulpits of both the churches of the burgh.” They repeated this act, “in all points,” in 1636, again in 1661, and once more in 1671, with this addition, “that no inhabitant of the burgh, of whatever rank, shall invite more persons to the baptism of their children than four men and four women,” under the penalty of a fine for each person above that number. The Act of Parliament of 1681, for restraining the expense of marriages, baptisms, and burials, enacted, “that at marriages, besides the married persons, their parents, children, brothers, and sisters, and the family wherein they live, there shall not be present at any marriage above four friends on either side, with their ordinary domestic servants. And that neither bridegroom nor bride, nor their parents or relations, shall make above two changes of raiment at that time or upon that occasion,” under the penalty of forfeiting the fourth part of their annual income or a fourth part of their goods. The number of the company at baptisms was limited the same as at marriages. The number of persons permitted to attend the funerals of the different ranks are also stated in the act.¹

¹ Selections from the Register of the Synod of Aberdeen, page 280.

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume III., pages 54, 105; Volume IV., pages 213, 274; also, Burgh Records of Glasgow; and Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume VIII., page 350.

It seems that at penny marriages fights and other excesses sometimes occurred, and that intoxicating spirits were freely indulged in. In some parts of the country the lairds bound their tenants to hold all their marriages at an alehouse.¹

¹ Dr. Davidson says, “Alehouses were largely established by the lairds in order to the sell and consumption of the bear crops in malt, and their tenants were required to make all their weddings penny bridals, and held at an alehouse; where the innkeeper supplied the eatables on the occasion gratis, finding his profit in the ale consumed during the festivities, which were prolonged for days.”​—Inverurie, and the Earldom of the Garioch, pages 319, 340.

In 1643 the Town Council of Aberdeen resolved to correct the disorders connected with the dead, as ringing of bells and other superstitious rites at funerals. They henceforth “discharged the tolling of bells at funerals, and laying of the bier and mortcloth on the graves of deceased persons; and prohibited all the inhabitants from inviting the master doctor of the grammar school to sing or read at likewakes, under a penalty of forty pounds.”¹

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume IV., page 6.

The Government deemed it a duty to regulate the dress of the people, and to prescribe the exact habit which each rank should wear. In 1621 Parliament enacted that no one should wear gold or silver lacing on their clothes, nor any velvet, satin, or silks, save the nobles. The King’s councillors, lords of Parliament, lords of session, and barons with a yearly rent of six thousand merks of silver, were allowed to appear in silk and satin apparel; while the provosts and magistrates of the principal burghs, and the rectors of the universities, were to be permitted to wear fine dresses under the condition “that they should have no embroidering or lace or passements upon them, save only a plain welting lace of silk upon the seams and borders of their garments, with belts and hatbands embroidered with silk; and that their wives, their eldest sons, their unmarried daughters, and the children of all noblemen, should wear their dress in the aforesaid manner only, under a penalty of a thousand pounds.” All other persons were prohibited from having pearling or ribboning upon their ruffles, shirts, napkins, and socks; if the people still resolved to have pearling upon their clothes, it should be produced in Scotland. “Further, that no one should wear upon their heads buskings or feathers; that no other persons except those privileged should wear any pearls or precious stones, under the penalty of a thousand merks. It was also stated that no persons should wear upon their bodies tiffanies, under the penalty of a hundred pounds; that no servants should wear any clothing save that made of cloth, fustians, canvas, or stuffs produced in the kingdom; they should have no silk upon their clothes except the buttons and button-holes, and silk garters without pearling or roses, under the penalty of a hundred merks. But it was declared to be lawful for them to wear their masters’ old clothes. It was also declared that heralds, trumpeters, and minstrels, were exempted from the act. It was further enacted that no one save the privileged classes should wear damask napery brought from abroad, under a penalty of a hundred pounds. It was likewise statuted that no more mourning weeds should be made at the death of an Earl or a Countess than twenty-four at the utmost, and for a lord of Parliament or his wife not more than sixteen, and for all other privileged persons, twelve; and that none but these should have any honours carried, and that no mourning weeds should be given to the heralds, trumpeters, or sachs, except by the Earls, the lords of parliament and their wives, and that the number of sachs should be exactly according to the mourning weeds, under the penalty of a thousand pounds. It was enacted that the fashion of clothes then in use should not be changed by man nor woman, under the penalty of forfeiting the clothes and a hundred pounds to be paid by the wearers thereof, and as much by the makers of the clothes. And also that no castor hats should be used or worn but by the privileged classes, under the penalty of a hundred pounds. That the husbandmen and the labourers of the land should wear no clothing but grey, white, blue, and serge black cloth, made in Scotland, and that their wives and their children should wear the same, under the penalty of forty pounds. Finally, it was enjoined that after the publication of this act, no clothes should be made but according to the manner and the style before expressed, and that none of the former discharged clothing be worn by anyone after Martinmas, 1623, under the respective penalties above stated.”¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume IV.

This act, with some alterations, was re-enacted in 1672, and again in the following year, with the removal of some of the former restrictions touching the wearing of white lace or pearling made of thread, and some other explanations. But as late as 1696, a proposal was mooted in Parliament for a constant fashion of clothes for men, and another for women. Two years after, Parliament had under consideration an act for restraining the expense of apparel; and a debate ensued on the point whether the prohibition of gold and silver on clothes should be extended to house furniture, and it was carried that it should. It was then put to a division, whether gold and silver lace manufactured in Scotland should be allowed on clothes, and the majority voted against it; and thereupon, an act was passed prohibiting the wearing of gold and silver lace, and also the importation of the same, under the penalties of burning of the articles on which it was found, and five hundred merks of a fine imposed upon the person wearing it.¹

¹ Ibid., Volume VIII., pages 71‒72, 212; Volume X., Appendix, page 6, pages 142, 144, 150.

The dress of the common people was made of a plain cloth, called hodden gray, spun at home and manufactured from the undyed wool. In summer the women usually went barefooted, and the children generally ran about without shoes or stockings in summer.

In the preceding periods, the defective sanitary condition of the towns was noticed, and with it the consequent and frequent recurrence of pestilence. One of the first requisites of a town where a large population is located within a limited space, is a constant and sufficient supply of clean water; but in the seventeenth century, even the capital of Scotland had not a constant supply of pure water. It is recorded in 1654, that owing to the drought of the summer the wells ran dry, and the inhabitants of Edinburgh could not get enough of water for cooking their food, and some of them had to go a mile and more before they could obtain clean water. In Glasgow, notices of the public wells occur in the records of the city from the latter half of the sixteenth century onward to the present time. The magistrates, in 1610, authorised a well to be built upon the side of the Highgate, “so that it be built five quarter height above the ground, with asler work for the safety of the bairns and other persons ... and the well to be common to all men of this town.” In 1630, they ordered that the new well in the Trongate should be slated in the best form, and two pumps attached to it, and that it should be cleaned as soon as possible; and in 1638, some improvements were made on the common wells.¹

¹ Chambers’ Domestic Annals of Scotland, Volume II., page 226; Burgh Records of Glasgow, pages 312, 390. In 1575, the provost and council of Glasgow ordered that “the new common wells in the Gallowgate shall be opened daily in the morning and locked at even, and appointed a man to attend thereto, and to keep the well and the key thereof, and to get forty shillings of fee for his trouble during the year.”​—Burgh Records of Glasgow, page 39.

In 1632, the town council of Aberdeen had under their consideration the inconvenience which the people suffered for want of clean and pure water. As the most of the water which they were then using, “coming only from the loch, is filthy, defiled, and corrupted, not only by the gutters daily running in the burn, but also by listers, and the washing of clothes, and pollution of the water in several parts, with other sorts of uncleanness,” they therefore resolved that fountains should be erected as soon as possible to supply the town with pure water. Some of the crafts objected to the payment of their share of the requisite tax; but upon the petition of the magistrates, the Privy Council empowered the town council to impose a tax to defray the expense of the new fountains, and to enforce its payment. Yet these efforts to supply the citizens with pure water were only partly successful. In 1683, the deficiency of clean water was again before the magistrates, and it was stated that the bringing in of water and of erecting fountains had often been attempted, but had not as yet been effectively accomplished. The dean of guild was requested to inquire among the inhabitants what they would be willing to contribute to forward this work, and to report; but more than twenty years elapsed ere the city was supplied with pure water. The council granted authority to purchase lead for the pipes and the cisterns required for bringing in the water from Carden well; and James Mackie and John Burnet were engaged to build the first fount at the spring of Carden’s well, for the sum of ten pounds sterling. The treasurer was allowed to borrow money for bringing in this water; and it seems that the work was completed in 1708, as the council then resolved, on account of the many obstacles which Joseph Foster, plumber, had encountered in bringing in the water, to give him a gratuity of two hundred pounds Scots, with thirty-six shillings of drink money to his servants.¹

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume III., pages 50, 51, 55, 58, 303, 333‒334; Volume IV.

As regards cleanness, the state of the towns was most wretched. In March, 1619, the Privy Council communicated with the magistrates of Edinburgh touching the cleaning of the streets in the following terms:​—“The city is now become so filthy and unclean, the streets, the vennels, the wynds, and the closes thereof, so overlaid and covered with middings, and with the filth of man and of beast, as that the noble councillors, servants, and others of His Majesty’s subjects, who are lodged in the burgh, cannot have clean or clear passage and entry to their lodgings; and because of this, their lodgings have become so loathsome to them, as they are resolved rather to make choice of lodgings in the Canongate and in Leith, or some other parts about the town, than to abide the sight of this shameful uncleanness, which is so universal and in such abundance throughout all parts of this burgh, as in the heat of summer it corrupts the air and gives great occasion to sickness. And further, this shameful and beastly filthiness is most detestable and odious in the sight of strangers, who, beholding the same, are constrained, with reason, to give out many disgraceful speeches against this burgh, calling it a puddle of filth and uncleanness, the like of which is not to be seen in any part of the world.” The plan proposed by the council was, that each householder should keep the street clean opposite his own door, as was done in other well-governed cities.¹ There was no idea of a cleaning department of police, but there was a sort of arrangement adopted for cleaning the streets of Edinburgh at stated times, though it long remained in a very defective condition. During the reign of Cromwell, more effective measures were taken for cleaning the streets, and for preventing foul water from being thrown out at the windows.

¹ Register of the Privy Council.

In 1686, Parliament passed an act for cleaning the streets of Edinburgh, in which it was stated that there had been many complaints of the nastiness of the streets, wynds, closes, and other places of the city. And the magistrates were commanded to adopt effectual means for freeing the capital of such nastiness; and at the same time to purge it of “those numerous beggars who resort in and about the burgh, and that under the penalty of a thousand pounds Scots yearly, to be paid by the magistrates to the Lords of Session, to be applied by them for the end and use aforesaid.” The magistrates were to be authorised to impose a tax for cleaning the streets of the city.¹

¹ Chambers’ Domestic Annals of Scotland, Volume II., page 212; Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume VIII., page 595.

The arrangements for cleaning the other burghs of the kingdom were equally defective. In 1674, the town council of Aberdeen stated, that in spite of the many acts of their predecessors emitted for cleaning the streets of the burgh, and removing the middings and filth, yet there had been little observance of them. Therefore, they resolved that a fit person should be employed, and one or two horses and carts furnished to him at the town’s charge, “for keeping the streets and the common passages of the burgh clean, and for taking away the middings and dubs off the streets.” This person was empowered to go through all the streets and lanes of the town every morning, and at all other times which he thought fit, to remove all the middings and dubs which he found upon them. In this act there are some curious and amusing statements. “The man appointed to clean the streets was to apply the dung for the use of the burgh and the freedom lands of the same, and no otherwise, at such price as shall be appointed by the council; and for any red, middings, or filth, that shall be taken out of the closes and laid down upon the front streets, if the owners do not within twenty-four hours after the same is laid down, take away or remove it to a convenient place of the street, that then the aforesaid person is hereby empowered to remove it for his own use; and that if the person appointed for this purpose, coming to any midding to take it away, and the owner at the same time coming and instantly taking it to a convenient place of the street, he shall be permitted to do so. Also, it is and shall be lawful for any labourers or others to take and remove any middings and filth which they shall first attack and apprehend, and apply the same to their own use only, and no otherwise, if the owner thereof shall not instantly remove the same as aforesaid.” In 1679, the town council ordered that no one should throw out at their windows filth upon the streets, or permit it to lie before their doors on the streets, under a penalty of forty shillings.¹

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume IV., pages 291, 299.

It was already mentioned that, in the sixteenth century, swine were allowed to run about the streets of the burghs, and the magistrates of Aberdeen passed many acts for expelling them from the streets of the city. But in spite of this, swine were still kept within the town in greater numbers than formerly; and in 1696, they had become a great nuisance and an unseemly sight in the burgh. Therefore, the council enacted that parties who had swine in the town should remove them all out of the burgh, and a quarter of a mile beyond it, before two o’clock the next day; and that in future all the swine found on the streets or within doors should be confiscated, and one half of the proceeds to be given to the poor, and the other half to those who seized the swine; and anyone who seized swine in the city was to be freed from all trouble. The act was ordered to be proclaimed at the cross and through all the streets of the town, that none might pretend ignorance. It was stated in the council “that there was a great number of swine, which formerly were not permitted to stay within this burgh, and seeing by experience they are found very prejudicial to the yards in and about the town, in digging up the same, as also by their digging in the middings and in all sorts of filth, does rise an intolerable smell, besides the danger to children by them, and the unseemliness of having such creatures within the walls of a city.”¹

¹ Ibid., Volume IV., page 319.

The local trade in the various burghs of the kingdom was still hampered by monopoly. It was as yet common to fix the price of articles of daily use, such as bread, ale, shoes, and tallow. In 1640, the Committee of Estates passed an act fixing the price of shoes, boots, hides, and the tanning of leather, which was approved by Parliament, and proclaimed at the cross of Edinburgh. This act commanded the shoemakers to sell their boots and shoes at the following prices:​—Three-soled shoes of the best leather were to be sold at two shillings and twopence per inch, and the third quality of three-soled shoes at twentypence the inch; the best single-soled shoes at sixteenpence the inch, and the second sort at fourteenpence the inch. Children’s double-soled shoes of the best quality, sixteenpence the inch; and the second sort of lighter leather at fourteenpence the inch, and for single-soled shoes, of eight inches and under, twelvepence the inch. Women’s shoes of the best quality, timber-heeled, to be sold at two shillings and twopence per inch; the second sort, with timber heels, at one shilling and eightpence. Touching the price of boots it was enacted, “that there be allowed of the best leather for each inch of the length of the boots eight shillings and eightpence per inch, the tops being long and of the best quality.” For various reasons the Committee of Estates thought fit to fix the price of boots and shoes in Edinburgh at fourpence per inch higher than the above on the best kind of shoes, and so on in proportion for the cheaper classes of the same articles.

The penalties to be imposed on all who refused to sell at the stated prices, and the fines for using insufficient materials, were to be divided, one half to the informer, and the other half to the judge, for the public use. If any of the shoemakers refused to work and left off, they were to be fined forty pounds, besides other punishment which might be inflicted upon their persons.

The Town Council of Aberdeen, in 1656, fixed the price of shoes at the following rates:​—Double soled shoes made of foreign leather, three shillings per inch; double-soled shoes made of Scotch leather, two shillings and sixpence the inch; single soled shoes without walts, sixteenpence the inch; and children’s shoes, double-soled, eightpence the inch. Those who broke the above prices rendered themselves liable to a penalty of five pounds.¹

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume IV., page 163.

In the year 1659, the tailors of Inverness petitioned the magistrates, that they were much injured in their trade by its being encroached upon and taken away by outlandish men, dwelling around the burgh, and evading the taxes, and yet they came and stole away the trade of the place, “to our great and apparent ruin.” The authorities listened to their complaint, and empowered them to restrain all outlandish tailors, and to seize their work, and then bring the whole affair before the magistrates. But two years later they were again petitioning the magistrates and complaining of the outlandish hands, and they argued that all unfreemen should be prevented from usurping the rights of freemen, and from keeping apprentices or employing servants.

Troubles of a bitter character sometimes arose from corporation privileges. All attempts of unfreemen to work within the royal burghs were met with measures of obstruction and punishment. In October, 1692, William Somerville, a wright, and a burgess of Edinburgh, was engaged in repairing the Earl of Roxburgh’s house in the Canongate, but Thomas Kinloch, the deacon of the wrights of the latter burgh, assisted by a party of his associates, took away all the workmen’s tools. This was done to prevent the Edinburgh wrights from working in a district where they were not free. Somerville shortly after demanded the restoration of his workmen’s tools, but they were distinctly refused. The Earl of Roxburgh was a minor, but his curators were irritated at the proceedings, and concurred with Somerville in summoning the deacon of the Canongate wrights before the Privy Council, for riot and oppression in the Earl’s house. It seems, if the Earl’s house had been subject to the jurisdiction of the Canongate, the Privy Council would have been precluded from giving any redress, but when the Earl’s ancestor relinquished the superiority of the Canongate, he still continued to hold his mansion of the Crown, so it was argued that the Canongate corporation had no jurisdiction in this case, and consequently no right to interfere with the action of his Lordship in the choice of craftsmen to perform work in his own house. The Council remitted this point to the Court of Session, which at once ordered the restoration of the workmen’s tools.¹

¹ Register of the Privy Council. Chambers, in his Domestic Annals, gives an instance of oppression by the Merchant Company of Edinburgh, who had the sole right of dealing in cloth of all kinds within the city. Volume III., page 70.

The wage of skilled workmen in Scotland was comparatively low, but then food was usually cheap, and it is the relation which wages bears to the price of the necessaries of life​—the purchasing power of the sum at the time​—that is the really important point. About the middle of the seventeenth century, from fourpence to sixpence a day, or about three shillings sterling a week, would represent the wages of a tradesman; but direct information on the subject is so scanty that a precise statement of their wages cannot be made. In 1655, two men were employed for twenty-four days slating and pointing a house; they got their food during that time, and twenty-four shillings, or twopence in sterling money per day.

The wages of servants generally, and in particular of domestic servants and agricultural labourers, were very low. As a class these were then, and for long after, in a very humble position, as compared with that which they now hold. The yearly wages of farm servants in the seventeenth century, and till the rise of modern agriculture, were only from twenty-five to thirty-five shillings sterling; women’s wages were about a third less than the men’s.

Any law that existed on the relation between master and servant was mostly on the side of the former, but there was little distinct law on the subject. In 1610, Glasgow was much annoyed with servants “who fee themselves with two masters,” and the Town Council therefore commanded, “that all such servants as hereafter fee themselves to two masters, must pay to the one into whose service they fail to enter, both the fee and the bounty which was promised to them, and also to be imprisoned for twenty days upon bread and water.” In 1610, the magistrates of Peebles had many complaints lodged about the misdeeds of servants​—“for drinking on the night, running about, and refusing to do any kind of work.” They therefore enacted that no servant should drink after eight at night, under the penalty of thirteen shillings for each fault, and that no one should sell them drink on Sunday; that servants should not refuse to do any kind of work, either in or out of the house, under the penalty of six shillings and eightpence for each fault, which sum the master may deduct from their wages; that no one should engage another man’s servant, except the servant prove by two witnesses that he warned his master forty days before the term, under the penalty of five pounds, one half for the use of the poor, and the other to the master.¹ By a clause of an Act of Parliament passed in 1617, concerning the establishment of justices of peace, the justices of peace were empowered to fix the rate of wages. At their quarter sessions in August and in February, they were enjoined to fix the wages of labourers, workmen, and servants; and those who refused to work or serve for the wages thus settled, were to be imprisoned, and further punished at the discretion of the justices. To induce the servants to obey their decrees more readily, they were empowered to compel the masters to pay the servants the stated amount of wages when duly earned. This Act was repeated in 1661.² The circumstance affording a measure of justification for it was the comparatively large proportion of the population of the kingdom always living by begging and vagabondism; this class presented a real difficulty, and the Government grasped at any expedient which seemed to encourage the hope of reducing the numbers of the idle and vagrant multitude.

¹ Burgh Records of Glasgow; Burgh Records of Edinburgh; Burgh Records of Aberdeen. Chambers’ Domestic Annals of Scotland, Volume II., page 235. Burgh Records of Peebles, pages 358‒360.

² Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume IV.; Volume VII., page 308.

Partly owing to these circumstances, and partly owing to other motives, the workmen in coal-mines and at salt-works in Scotland were kept in a state of semi-slavery for more than a century and a half. In 1606, Parliament passed an Act binding this class of workmen to perpetual service at the works in which they were engaged. This Act enjoined that no one should hire salters, colliers, or coal-bearers, without their masters’ consent, or at least an attestation of a reasonable cause for their removing, made in the presence of a magistrate of the district whence they removed. Therefore, if anyone engaged persons of this description, without conforming with the law, their former master could reclaim them, and enforce their re-delivery, under a penalty of one hundred pounds. Further, if the colliers, coal-bearers, and salters, should accept forehand wages, they were to be held and reputed as thieves, and punished in their persons. This law was re-enacted in 1661, with an addition, including the watermen engaged in drawing off the water from the coal pits,​—“as they are as necessary to the owners and masters of the pits as the colliers and the bearers.” And because it was found by experience that giving high wages to colliers had been used to seduce them from their masters, therefore, it was enacted that no coalmaster in the kingdom should give a higher wage than twenty merks yearly to each man, that is, one pound two shillings and sixpence sterling. It was also found that colliers and salters, and other workers about the pits, were accustomed to stay from their work on certain holidays, accordingly it was enacted that henceforth they should work all the six days of the week, except Christmas, under the penalty of twenty shillings Scots, to be paid to their masters for each day that they failed to work, and any other corporal punishment which their masters thought fit to inflict upon them.¹

¹ Ibid., Volume VII., page 304.

Thus it was that from the early part of the seventeenth century till near the end of the eighteenth, the colliers and the coal-bearers, and those employed at saltworks in Scotland, remained in a state of semi-slavery. When collieries and saltworks were sold, the right of the service of the workers was transferred to the new proprietor as a portion of fixed stock. By an act of the British Parliament, in 1775, they were emancipated, but a considerable time elapsed ere they were able to take much advantage of their freedom. This act was clogged with special conditions, which many of the colliers failed to comply with, and they continued in bondage, till the act of 1799 was passed, when they became really free.

Though the mining operations of Scotland were not as yet on a great scale, they added to the slowly advancing progress of the nation. In the first part of the century the coal works of Culross were worked some distance under the sea. But it appears from a petition to the Privy Council in 1621, that the proprietors of collieries were not making fortunes, as it was then stated that some of the owners of coal-haughs were ten thousand pounds, and even twenty thousand, out of pocket. The Master of Elphinstone’s coal mine of Little Fawside had been on fire for several years, and another mine of his had entailed an outlay of eight thousand pounds. The pits of Sir James Richardson of Smeaton for some years had been so unproductive as scarcely to supply his own house; the coal of Mickle Fawside had undone the late laird’s estate, and caused him to sell a part of his old heritage. The coal of Pencaitland was wasted and decayed, and past hope of recovery, except at a cost far greater than it was worth. The Council appointed a commission to make inquiry, and to report what prices should be fixed for coal. Upon this report it was ordered that the price of coal “at the hill” should be seven shillings and eightpence per load​—that is, ♦about sevenpence three-farthings sterling. It should, however, be mentioned that in these days a load meant a horse’s burden.¹

¹ Register of the Privy Council.

The Privy Council passed an act in 1621, in favour of Mr. Johnston, the laird of Elphinstone, because he had expended twenty thousand merks on his coal works, “to his great hurt and apparent ruin.” It was stated that he sustained forty families at the work, that their weekly wages exceeded two hundred merks; and that his coal would be lost, and all his workers thrown out of employment, if something was not done to assist him, as he was unable any longer to struggle with the adverse circumstances in which he found himself. According to his statement, the average weekly wages of a collier’s family reached about five shillings and sixpence sterling.¹

¹ Chambers’ Domestic Annals of Scotland, Volume I., page 516.

As noticed in the preceding volume, the Privy Council from time to time had made regulations for fixing the price of coal, and prohibiting the export of it until all the people of the kingdom were supplied. A duty of six shillings was imposed in 1644 on coal exported in Scotch or English vessels of the value of twelve pounds, but if it was exported in foreign ships the duty was twelve shillings. In 1655 and 1656 the custom on Scotch coal was fixed at four shillings per ton in British ships, but eight shillings if exported in foreign vessels. Small coal was only charged at half the above rates. According to a Parliamentary return of Richard, the Lord Protector, in April, 1659, the annual value of the custom on the export of Scotch coal amounted to £2216 sterling. The Ayr coal fields began to assume importance in the latter part of the century.

Prior to the eighteenth century the quantity of iron produced in Scotland was comparatively small; but there were several lead mines worked. In 1641, Sir James Hope of Hopetoun obtained a grant of the lead mines in Waterhead and Glengonar; and in 1649 an Act of Parliament was passed, which enacted that any one fraudulently intromitting with his lead ore should be punished as resetters of stolen goods. The same year Parliament exempted Sir James Hope’s mines from the valuation of the sheriffdom, because they were the only ones of that kind in the kingdom, and ought to be specially favoured. In 1661 Parliament ratified the former Acts in favour of Sir James Hope; at that time the family possessed the lead mines in Crawford Moor, and also the copper mines in Airthrey, and the Binnie silver mines.

In 1698, Hope of Hopetoun had a party of men constantly employed at his lead mines far up one of the vales of Lanarkshire. As it was extremely inconvenient for every man to go several miles for his food, and the proprietor was anxious to make an arrangement that one should go and purchase necessaries for himself and the rest; but under a recent Act against forestalling, no one could venture to sell to any single person so much victual as the miners needed. Hope, therefore, applied to the Privy Council for permission to his baillie to purchase the quantities of victual required, with the assurance that none of it would be stored or sold out to any other person except his own workmen, and that it should be sold to them at the price which it was bought for in the market. On these grounds the Council granted Hope a license to supply food to his workmen. At the same time licenses were granted to the chamberlain of the Earl of Mar, for the benefit of the workmen engaged in his Lordship’s coal mines; to the Duke of Queensberry, for the workmen at his lead mines; to the Earl of Annandale, for his servants and workmen; and to Alexander Inglis, factor for the collieries on the estate of Clackmannan.¹

¹ Register of the Privy Council; Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volumes V., VI., and VII. All these noblemen were members of the Privy Council.

Means of intercourse, as roads, bridges, communication by sea, and postal arrangements, are closely connected with trade and national progress. Roads in the order of development naturally precede other modes of transit, and are followed by ferry-boats, canals, improved harbours, and a regular postal system. As civilisation advances, these are rapidly improved, and by and by partly superseded by better expedients and arrangements, as steamships, railways, telegraphic and telephonic communication, all which evince the resources of the human mind. But merely to state results leaves the steps of progress unexplained, and gives no conception of the many difficulties and obstacles which had to be encountered and overcome ere the desired aim was reached; accordingly it is necessary to enter into details in order to render the development of social organisation intelligible, as well as to indicate the obstacles which impede the progress of civilisation.

By an Act of Parliament passed in 1617, Justices of Peace were empowered to give orders for repairing the roads and passages to market towns and seaports, when they deemed it necessary. Those who refused to assist at this work might be punished at the discretion of the Justices; but the arrangement had not proved effective. In 1669, another Act was passed authorising the Sheriff of the county and the Justices of Peace to meet at the head burgh of the shire on the first Tuesday of May every year, and frame measures for repairing the roads, bridges, and ferries within their bounds. They were enjoined to appoint some of their number as overseers of such parts of the roads as were nearest to their residence; and also to appoint some of themselves to survey the roads, the bridges, and the ferries, and then report to the rest, and continue to meet from time to time till the survey was completed. They were authorised to convene all the tenants, their servants, and the cottars within their district, by intimation at the parish churches on Sunday, warning them to have in readiness their horses and carts, sledges, spades, shovels, picks, mallets, and all implements required for repairing the highways. Some of the more expert men should be appointed to direct the rest, at a fixed rate of wages. According to the Act, these parties had to work on the roads, “man and horse,” six days every year for the first three years, and afterwards four days. The Justices of Peace and the overseers were empowered to fine those who absented themselves, twenty shillings for each day a man was absent, and thirty shillings if a man and horse were absent, which money was applied to hire others in their place. It was well understood that this arrangement would not be sufficient for keeping the roads in repair, accordingly all proprietors of each county were authorised to meet once a year, and consider what was necessary for repairing the highways, and for making and repairing bridges and ferries. For this purpose they were empowered to impose a tax not exceeding ten shillings on every hundred pounds of valued rental; and they were authorised to levy moderate custom or toll at bridges and ferries. The Justices were empowered to punish all who injured the roads, by ploughing up, laying stones, rubbish or dung upon them; and where cultivated land lay alongside of the roads it should be fenced with dykes, ditches, or hedging. Where it was necessary to change the line of the road, they were to appoint three of their number to mark the direction of the new road, and upon oath to estimate the damage to the parties whose properties were encroached upon. By this Act the time appointed for repairing the roads was between seed-time and harvest; but on the ground that other seasons of the year were more convenient for working at the roads, Parliament passed another Act in 1670, authorising the Sheriffs and Justices of Peace to convene those liable for this work at any time of the year which they thought fit, excepting always seed-time and harvest.¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume IV.; Volume VII., pages 574‒576; Volume VIII., page 18.

With the aim of making these Acts still more effective, Parliament in 1686 passed an additional Act touching the highways and bridges. It enjoined the Commissioners of Supply to meet with the Justices of Peace, and to act together in their several counties according to the tenor of the preceding Acts. They were directed to meet every year in the month of June, five to form a quorum, and if a quorum should not assemble, then the Sheriff was empowered to fine each of those who were absent twenty merks, which sum was to be applied for repairing of the roads and bridges.¹

¹ Ibid., Volume VIII., page 590.

According to a series of Acts reaching back to the twelfth century, all the common highways between market towns had to be twenty feet broad at the least, and where they happened to be broader, they were to remain so. Those who put any obstruction upon the highways could be put under caution by the Court of Session not to commit the like again, under a severe ♦penalty.¹ Notwithstanding all this minute legislation, the roads in Scotland, even at the end of the seventeenth century, were in a wretched condition, and it was not till the latter half of the eighteenth century that the roads throughout the country were put in a proper state for traffic.

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume I.; Volume II.

A single illustration of the actual condition of the roads near the capital of the kingdom in 1680 may suffice on this point. The first four miles of the road from Edinburgh to London, the part from the Clockmill Bridge to Magdalen Bridge, was in such a ruinous state that passengers were in danger of their lives, “either by their coaches overturning, their horses falling, or their carts breaking, their loads casting, and horses stumbling; and the poor people with their burdens upon their backs sorely grieved and discouraged. Also, strangers do often exclaim thereat.” The Council authorised a toll of a half-penny for a loaded cart, and a sixth of a penny for a loaded horse, for the purpose of keeping this portion of the road in repair.¹

¹ Register of the Privy Council.

Turning to the means of communication by post, it appears that the arrangements were of the most primitive description. In the sixteenth century there was no regular system for the transmission of letters in Scotland. When anything was unusually pressing and important, a special messenger was dispatched. About the end of the century, Aberdeen had an officer called the common post, and in 1595, the magistrates ordered that he should have a distinctive livery of blue, with the town’s arms on it. In the early part of the seventeenth century there were a kind of posts at certain intervals or places, where horses could be had for travelling, and these were occasionally used for conveying public letters; but such arrangements were limited and very imperfect. Till 1635 there had been no constant intercourse between England and Scotland; but then the King’s postmaster of England, for foreign parts, commanded that there should be “one running post or two, to run day and night between Edinburgh and London, to go thither and come back again in six days, and to take with them all such letters as should be directed to any post town on the said road, and the posts to be placed in several places out of the road, to run, and bring, and carry out of the said road the letters, as there shall ♦be occasion, and to pay twopence for every single letter under eighty miles, and if one hundred and forty miles, fourpence, and if above, then sixpence. The like rule the King is pleased to order to be observed to West Chester, Holyhead, and thence to Ireland, and also to observe the same rule from London to Plymouth, Exeter, and other places on that road; the same for Oxford, Bristol, Colchester, Norwich, and other places. The King commands that no other messenger or foot-posts shall take up, carry, receive, or deliver any letters whatsoever, other than the messengers appointed by Thomas Witherings, Esquire, except common carriers, or a particular messenger purposely sent with a letter to a friend.” The post between London and Edinburgh was conducted on horseback; it commonly went twice a week, but sometimes only once. During the Covenanting struggle, communication became irregular.¹

¹ Register of the Privy Council; Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume II.; Burgh Records of Glasgow, pages 327‒347; Rushworth’s Collections.

In 1649, John Mean, the postmaster of Edinburgh, stated that “the benefit arising from letters sent from the capital to London, and coming thence hither by the ordinary post, amounted to four hundred pounds sterling yearly or thereby, all charges being deducted for payment of the postmaster from Newcastle to Edinburgh inclusive, and no proportion thereof laid upon the Berwick packet.” In recompense for his expenses, he was allowed to retain the eighth penny upon all the letters sent from Edinburgh to London, and the fourth upon all those coming from London to Edinburgh.¹

¹ Chambers’ Domestic Annals of Scotland, Volume II., page 187.

During the rule of Cromwell, intercourse between Scotland and London was largely increased; in 1658, a fortnightly stage-coach was running between the two capitals.

After the Restoration, some improvement of the postal system was effected. In 1662, it was ordered that posts should be established between Edinburgh and Portpatrick, the intermediate stations to be Linlithgow, Kilsyth, Glasgow, Kilmarnock, Ayr, and Ballantrae. The charge for each letter from Edinburgh to Glasgow was twopence sterling, thence to any part of the kingdom threepence, and all letters to Ireland sixpence. All other posts, either foot or horse, were prohibited. But this mode of horse-post had not been long in operation, when several persons were found carrying letters along the same line on foot, to the injury of the postmaster, and at his request a warrant was granted against all such persons. Till 1669, there was no regular postal communication between Aberdeen and Edinburgh; and in the former city this had long been felt as a serious want, “not only to the city, but also to the nobility, the gentry, and others in the northern parts of the kingdom.” There had been miscarriage of missives, as well as untimeous delivery and receiving of the same. It was therefore arranged, with the consent of the King’s postmaster-general, that Lieutenant John Wales should establish a regular foot-post carrying letters from Aberdeen to Edinburgh twice a week, and returning every Tuesday and Thursday in the afternoon. Each single letter was to be charged twopence, each double one fourpence, and every packet fivepence per ounce sterling. All other common foot-posts were prohibited from carrying any letters to or from Edinburgh, save those employed by Lieutenant Wales, the postmaster of the city. In 1669, a foot-post was established between Edinburgh and Inverness to go and return twice a week to Aberdeen, and once to Inverness, “if wind and weather served.”¹

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume IV., pages 134‒138.

But at the date of the Revolution, the postal system of Scotland was still extremely imperfect. The postmastership was sold by auction to John Blair in 1689, who undertook to carry on the whole business at various rates for letters, and to pay the government an annual sum of five hundred and fifty pounds for seven years. The charges for single letters were:​—to Dumfries, Ayr, Kelso, Jedburgh, Dundee, and Perth, twopence; to Carlisle, Portpatrick, Dunkeld, and Aberdeen, threepence; and to Inverness fourpence.¹ In 1695, Parliament passed an Act for establishing a general post-office in Edinburgh, under a postmaster-general. He was invested with the exclusive privilege of receiving and of dispatching letters; but on roads where there were no regular posts, the common carriers were permitted to convey letters until posts should be established. This system had only one centre, the capital, and letters coming from London to Glasgow arrived first in Edinburgh, and thence sent westward at the earliest opportunity. The Privy Council were enjoined to see that branches were established in the most convenient places all over the kingdom, and the hours of dispatching the posts settled and published. According to this Act, the charges for letters were these:​—All single letters to Berwick or to any part of the kingdom within fifty miles of Edinburgh, twopence​—double letters, fourpence, and so on proportionally; (declaring, nevertheless, that all single letters with bills of lading or exchange, invoices, or other merchants’ accounts, may be enclosed and sent to any part of the kingdom as single letters).²

¹ Register of the Privy Council; Chambers’ Domestic Annals of Scotland, Volume III., page 21.

² Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume IX., pages 517‒419.

It appears that the posts were sometimes attacked and the letters and packets seized. In 1690, Parliament enacted that the robbing or seizing of the mails should be punished with death and the confiscation of goods; and by the Act of 1695, any person that molested or impeded the posts in the execution of their duty by night or by day, were liable to a penalty of one thousand pounds Scots, besides reparation and damages.¹

¹ Ibid., Volume IX., pages 241, 418.

We have seen that the roads were not in a fitting condition for wheeled vehicles, indeed carriages or coaches were not used in England or in Scotland till the latter part of the sixteenth century. It was said that coaches were first used in England during the reign of Elizabeth. In 1610, the King granted a licence to Henry Anderson to bring a number of coaches and waggons into Scotland for the purpose of driving his Majesty’s subjects between Edinburgh and Leith. He also obtained for himself and his heirs an exclusive right of this business for fifteen years, on the condition that he should be always ready to serve the people, and charge only the sum of twopence for conveying each passenger between Edinburgh and Leith.¹ As already mentioned, stage-coaches ran from Edinburgh to London during the Commonwealth, and the fare was four pounds ten shillings, “in all cases with good coaches and fresh horses on the roads.” Street carriages did not come into use in Scotland till the latter part of the seventeenth century, and even then they were little used. In Edinburgh sedan-chairs were employed instead of wheeled vehicles down to near the end of the eighteenth century. In 1678, the Privy Council granted an exclusive privilege to three men in Haddington to run a stage-coach between that place and Edinburgh for five years. The same year, William Hume, a merchant in Edinburgh, established a stage-coach between the capital and Glasgow. He proposed that his coach should only carry six passengers, at a fare of six shillings each in summer and nine in winter. The Privy Council granted him an exclusive privilege for seven years, and also assured him that his coach horses would not be pressed for any kind of public service.²

¹ Royal Letters; Chambers’ Domestic Annals of Scotland, Volume I., page 427.

² Register of the Privy Council.

But it seems doubtful if any of these schemes of stage-coaching were really successful. A writer who travelled through Scotland in 1688 has stated: “Stage-coaches they have none.... The truth is, the roads will hardly allow them these conveniences, which is the reason that their gentry, men and women, choose rather to ride on their horses. However, their great gentlemen travel with a coach and six, but with so much caution, that besides their other attendants, they have a lusty running footman on each side of the coach, to manage and keep it up in rough places.” The traveller further remarks: “This carriage of persons from place to place might be better spared were there opportunities and means for the speedier conveyance of business by letters. They have no horse-posts besides those which ply between Berwick and Edinburgh, and from thence to Portpatrick, for the sake of the Irish packet.... From Edinburgh to Perth, and so to other places, they use foot-posts and carriers, which, though a slow way of communicating our concerns to one another, yet it is such as they acquiesce in till they have a better.” But in 1697 the stage-coach from York to London required a week to accomplish its journey. This fact was noted in the Diary of George Home; the truth is, travelling was very slow everywhere throughout Britain at that period, and for long after.¹

¹ A Short Account of Scotland, 1702.

Turning to the shipping of the kingdom, some information may be drawn from the report of Thomas Tucker​—one of Cromwell’s officials, upon the settlement of the revenues of excise and customs in Scotland in 1656; and from a Register containing notices of the state of every burgh in the kingdom in the year 1692.¹ For fiscal purposes the Government of the Commonwealth arranged the ports of Scotland into eight groups, and at the head port of each group a custom office was established. Leith, the chief port of Scotland, and the ports attached to its district (of which the most important were Dunbar, Eyemouth, and Musselburgh) had fourteen vessels, of which a few of the largest were of three and two hundred tons burden. Speaking of Leith, Tucker said:​—“Leith itself is a pretty small town, having a convenient dry harbour, into which the Firth ebbs and flows every tide; and a convenient quay on the one side thereof, of good length, for the landing of goods. Leith was, and is, indeed, a storehouse, not only for her own traders, but also for the merchants of the city of Edinburgh, and did not that city, jealous of her own safety, obstruct and impede the growing of this place, it would from her slave, in a few years become her rival.”

¹ Both of these Reports were printed for the Scottish Burgh Record Society in 1881.

The next head port was Borrowstounness, to which was attached a number of small ports, but the number of their vessels was not stated; their trade, however, was chiefly in coal and salt. The third head port was Bruntisland, on the north side of the Firth opposite to Leith, and its district extended from Inverkeithing along the shore of Fife to the banks of the Tay. The trade of this district inwards was with Norway, the East, and France, and the outward trade was mostly in coal and salt. This group of ports had fifty vessels, but the greater part of them were small, only three reached up to one hundred tons burden, two of which belonged to Kirkcaldy.

The fourth head port was Dundee, to which was attached Perth, Arbroath, and Montrose. The trade of Dundee inwards, as generally all over Scotland, was with Norway, the East, Holland, and France; and the outward trade consisted mainly of plaiding and salmon. Dundee had ten ships, two of one hundred and twenty tons each, one of ninety tons, one of sixty, and the rest smaller. Tucker said that Perth​—“is a handsome walled town, where there is an officer always attending, not so much because of any great treading there, as to prevent the carrying out of wool, skins, and hides, of which commodities great quantities are brought thither out of the Highlands, and there bought up and engrossed by the Londonmen.”

Aberdeen was the fifth head port, and those connected with it were Stonehaven, Peterhead, Fraserburgh, Banff, and a few other small ports. Tucker described the harbour of Aberdeen minutely, and said​—“But the wideness of the place, from the inlet of the sea coming in with a narrow winding gut, and beating in store of sand with its waves, has rendered it somewhat shallow in the greater part of it, and so less useful than formerly. But the inhabitants are remedying this by lengthening their quay, and bringing it up close to a neck of land, which jutting out eastwards towards a headland before it, makes the coming in so straight.” He stated that the trade outwards was “with salmon and plaiding, commodities which are caught, and made here in greater quantities than any other place of the nation whatsoever.” Aberdeen had nine ships belonging to her port, one of eighty tons, one of seventy, another of sixty, and the rest smaller; while Peterhead had one small vessel, and Fraserburgh four.

The sixth head port was Inverness, which included in its district the ports of the counties of Moray, Ross, Sutherland, Caithness, and the Orkney Islands; but in these regions there were few ships. Inverness had only one, Garmouth one, Cromarty one, and Thurso two, while the Orkney Islands had three; but it was stated that “lately there were other nine barks belonging to the Islands which had been taken or lost by storm, this and the last year.”

Glasgow was the seventh head port, which appeared according to Tucker’s view, to have been even then taking the lead in trade amongst the Scotch ports. “This town, seated in a pleasant and fruitful soil, consists of four streets, handsomely built in the form of a cross, is one of the most considerable burghs of Scotland, as well for its structure as for its trade. Its inhabitants, all save the students of the College, are traders and dealers: Some go to Ireland with small smiddy coals, in open boats of from four to ten tons burden, whence they bring home hoops, barrel staves, meal, corn, and butter; some to France with plaiding, coals, and herrings, of which there is a great fishing yearly in the western sea; some to Norway for wood; and everyone with their neighbours, the Highlanders, who come hither from the Isles and the Western parts, in summer by the Mull of Cantyre, and in winter by Torban, to the head of Loch Fyne, usually drawing their boats over the small neck of sandy land and into the Firth of Dumbarton, and so pass up the Clyde with plaiding, dry hides, goat, kid, and deer skins, which they sell, and purchase with their price such commodities and provisions as they need from time to time.” Tucker thought that Glasgow was likely to become a great commercial city, owing to the energy of her citizens; but the chief obstacle to her rapid growth appeared to be the shallowness of the Clyde, on which only very small barks could pass up to the town. Glasgow had twelve ships, three of one hundred and fifty tons burden each, one of a hundred and forty tons, two of one hundred tons, and the rest smaller. The other ports associated with Glasgow were noticed in the report thus:​—“Dumbarton, a small and very poor burgh, which sometimes gives shelter to a vessel of sixteen tons. Greenock, a small place, the inhabitants being all seamen or fisherman, trading to Ireland or to the Isles in open boats. Saltcoats has only a few houses inhabited by fishermen.”

Ayr was the eighth and last head port, and its district embraced “all the shore which bounds Kyle, Carrick, and Galloway, places fuller of moors and mosses than good towns and people, or trading.” Yet Ayr had three ships and a few small barks. But Tucker stated that this district of ports would scarcely yield any more revenue than would pay the necessary outlay of the Government.

The materials and figures for comparing the shipping at the dates of 1656 and 1692 are very incomplete, as the information of a definite character for the later is imperfect, and only admit of a comparison of the shipping of a few of the chief ports. But the figures in the following table may be taken as approximately correct:—

1656. 1692.

Vessels. Tonnage. Vessels. Tonnage.

Leith 12 1000 29 1700

Dundee 10 498 21 1191

Glasgow 12 830 15 1172

Kirkcaldy 12 592 14 1213

Montrose 12 220 18 629

58 3140 97 5905

It appears from the above figures that the shipping of these five ports had increased considerably between the two dates. It may also be stated that at the later period, various parties in Glasgow were part-owners of several other ships besides these in the table; while only about one half of the Kirkcaldy vessels belonged to parties in that town: and the vessels belonging to Montrose were all small barks.

The mode of agriculture practised in Scotland was extremely rude; and in no field of industry is there a more striking contrast than between the husbandry of the seventeenth century and that of the ♦nineteenth. In the seventeenth century only a small portion of the land was under tillage, there was no regular rotation of crops, and no improved grasses, such as clover and ryegrass; and though the chief wealth of the farmers consisted of cattle, no efforts were made to improve the breeds, which were all of a small class, and as yet there was no stall-feeding.

The general system of farming was this. The land which was manured extended to only about a fourth of the farm, or sometimes a fifth or sixth of it. The remaining portion, called the outfields, was never manured, but a certain part of it, after having been pastured on for seven or eight years, was then ploughed up, and after yielding a poor crop or two of oats, by which it was exhausted, it was again rested and pastured on as before, and another portion ploughed, cropped, exhausted, and rested in its turn. Under this system, which kept only the part of the land nearest to the farmyard in a state fit for tillage, the whole arable land of the country could have yielded but little, compared with what it was capable of producing. Several parts of the south, now celebrated as grain-producing districts, were at the end of the seventeenth century merely stony moors and bogs. Although parliament had passed acts touching fences, hedges, and ditches, there were few enclosed fields anywhere in Scotland, and the practice of improving the soil by a regular system of drainage was quite unknown. In 1686 it was enacted that all proprietors, life-renters, tenants, and cottars should cause their cattle, horses, sheep, goats, and swine to be herded the whole year; and during the night to keep them in houses or folds, that they might not eat and destroy other people’s crops, grass, woods, planting, and hedges. Those found contravening the act were to be liable to a penalty of half a merk for each of the animals found upon their neighbours’ grounds, “over and above the damage done to the grass or the planting.”¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume VII., page 595.

Agricultural implements were rough and clumsy. The plough was made of timber, save the clathing, the coulter, and sock; while the ploughing itself was of the most wretched description. The entire economy of the farm was in a backward state: the manure was carried to the fields on horseback and by manual labour, while the grain was conveyed to the mills and to the markets on horseback, carts being as yet very little used. Three or four returns was considered to be a good crop, and the difficulty of finding food for cattle throughout winter was often extreme. Animals intended for human food were slaughtered before Martinmas, and salted, to supply the family with meat during the winter. The trade in beef was then on a limited scale in Scotland; probably there is more beef sold in one week at the present time than was sold in a year at the end of the seventeenth century.

The state of the tenants and labourers of the land was not a comfortable and happy one. Farmers themselves were poor, and part of their rents was still paid in produce and in services to landlords. Farm-steadings were merely clusters of hovels, without proper accommodation even for cattle, far less for human beings.

A strong desire for exclusive privileges in trade and industry still prevailed. Early in the seventeenth century, attempts were made to introduce into Scotland an improved mode of tanning leather. Twelve tanners from England, under royal patronage, came to instruct the barkers and tanners of Scotland in the perfect mode of making leather. They were invested with special privileges, and were located in several parts of ♦the country, the object being to retain at home the money which had been usually spent on foreign leather. But a tax was put on the improved leather, at the rate of four shillings Scots per hide, for the first twenty-one years. This caused discontent among the shoemakers who everywhere exerted themselves to thwart the King’s purpose. They raised the prices of their boots and shoes, twenty shillings on the pair of boots, and six shillings on the shoes, which stirred up the people against the tax, and a clamour arose that the nation was oppressed, the poorer classes especially. In 1622, a complaint was lodged with the Privy Council, that many of the tanners throughout the kingdom still continued the old mode of letting their leather remain only a short time in the pits, and then brought it to market in a raw state, quite regardless of the obvious advantages of the new way of tanning. The Council therefore ordered that a number of the old tanners should be proclaimed rebels. The grievances of the leather-workers came before the Estates in 1625, and again in 1633, when the tanners and barkers of the kingdom petitioned Parliament, “to be freed and relieved of the burden and imposition imposed upon them for tanning and barking of hides; and that this impost should be discharged, because it does great damage to the whole country.” Subsequently the matter was often before the Estates;¹ but down to the present time, the tanners of Scotland have not succeeded in producing leather of equal quality to the best English and French. The Scotch croops, or sole leather, is much inferior to the English, and the Scotch calf and upper leather is also inferior both to French and English.

¹ Register of the Privy Council; Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume V., pages 48, 185, 264. About this time gilded and ornamented leather was fashionable for covering the walls of rooms in the better class of houses though, of course, it was imported. But in 1681, Alexander Brand, a merchant in Edinburgh, stated that he had brought workmen and materials into Scotland, and proposed to erect a work to produce this kind of leather as cheap as it could be imported. The Privy Council granted him an exclusive right of manufacturing it for nineteen years.

In the preceding volumes I referred to the making of cloth, which branch of industry was still in a comparatively rude stage, and various attempts were begun in the seventeenth century to introduce improvements. In 1601, Commissioners, deputed by the burghs, engaged seven Flemishmen to settle in Scotland and assist in setting the work in operation; six of them being intended for making serge stuff, and one for broadcloth. On arriving in Edinburgh, they had expected to be immediately employed; but a debate arose as to whether they should be dispersed among the chief towns, and thus diffuse their instructions more widely among the Scots. While this was pending, the foreigners complained to the Privy Council that they were neither entertained nor sent to work, and that it was proposed to separate them, which would greatly retard the perfecting of the work. The Council ordered that they should all be allowed to remain in Edinburgh, and work according to the conditions on which they had agreed with the commissioners; and that till they began their work, they should be properly supplied with food and drink. But six weeks later, the burghs had done nothing; and the Council then informed them that, unless they made a beginning by the month of November, the royal privilege would be withdrawn. Eight years later a company of these foreigners, under the special protection of the King, was established in the Canongate, Edinburgh, and made cloth of various kinds. The business was managed by John Sutherland and Joan Van Headen, and it was stated that they were diffusing much light and knowledge of their calling amongst the Scots. In spite, however, of the King’s letters, which invested these industrious men with special privileges, and exemptions from local burdens, the magistrates of the Canongate began to molest them, with the object of forcing them to become burgesses and freemen in the regular form; on their appeal to the Privy Council, their exemption was affirmed.¹