Chapter XXX

SOCIAL STATE OF THE PEOPLE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

AFTER the accession of the King of Scotland to the throne of England, it might have been reasonably thought that the administration of justice would have been improved; but such anticipations were not realised, except on the Borders, where in a short time there was a marked improvement. The King unfortunately employed his increased power to enforce unpopular ceremonies and forms of polity upon the people, and thus retarded their social progress. Moreover, in the reign of Charles I., civil war arose with its inseparable confusion; and from the Restoration to the Revolution, the corruption of the Government was notorious. Some improvement was effected before the Union, but ample room for administrative reform still remained.

From the outbreak of the Civil War the administration of justice was mainly in the hands of the Covenanting party, till the kingdom was subjected by Cromwell. The Protector’s mode of ruling Scotland, and his efforts to administer justice, have already been described.¹ For nearly two years after the death of Cromwell, the higher courts of justice in Scotland were in a state of confusion and abeyance.

¹ See under, page 112, et seq.

After the Restoration the old forms were revived; the Court of Session was restored, and Lord Stair appointed one of the judges and vice-president of the Session. In 1671 he was installed president of the Court of Session. Stair was a man of great abilities; but he yielded in some degree to the influences of the times, and for ten years gave a general support to the government of Charles II. It was reported that in his judicial career he perverted justice; but there is no reliable evidence of this, and it has never been shown that he was guilty of malversation. According to the anomalous rules prevailing in Scotland, a judge of the Supreme Court was permitted to act as a member of parliament, and in the session of 1681 Stair sat as the representative of Wigton; while he was on the Committee of Articles, and also a member of the Privy Council. He came into collision with the Duke of York and his supporters in the debates on the terms of the oath, which was proposed to be imposed upon all persons in office. Stair declined to sign the oath, and shortly after he was divested of his functions. Then the Government commenced an inquisitorial investigation with the aim of punishing the ex-president of the Session. In his own words, “I was cited before the criminal judges, before the Council, and before the Parliament; and hundreds of examinations and re-examinations were taken against me, even of my most intimate servants, and my sister-in-law, not in the regular way of probation, but by way of inquisition, to found a process upon any special matter, which was never done, because nothing was found against me.” He retired to Holland in October, 1682, and did not return to Scotland till the Revolution.¹

¹ Sir George Mackenzie’s Memoirs; Graham’s Annals of the Viscount, and First and Second Earls of Stair, Volume I., pages 17, 50; see also Sheriff Mackay’s Memoir of Lord Stair, pages 133‒138, 141‒150, 178‒186; 1873. During the ten years following his appointment to the presidentship, he composed the first draft of the Institutions of the Law of Scotland. This great work, upon which Stair’s fame as a lawyer mainly rests, was originally intended for his own particular use​—“that he might be the more clear and determined in his judgments in the matter of justice.” In the dedication of the first edition of 1681 to the King, he says that “his modesty did not permit him to publish it previously, lest it should be judicially cited where he sat.”

Burnet says: “Dalrymple was president of the Session, a man of great temper, and of very mild deportment, but a false and cunning man, and a great perverter of justice: in which he had a particular dexterity of giving some plausible colours to the greatest injustice.”​—History of His Own Time, Volume II., page 45.

In 1674, the question whether there should be appeals to parliament from the decisions of the Court of Session, or not, was disputed. The Government insisted that no appeals to parliament should be allowed; the Scotch bar was divided in opinion on the point, but Lockhart and Cunningham, and about fifty members of the faculty, maintained that there was a right of appeal to parliament. As the Government held a different view, they were suspended from the exercise of their profession, and banished from Edinburgh. The dispute was prolonged for two years, and ended in a kind of compromise.

Lord Stair’s son, Sir John Dalrymple, afterwards first Earl of Stair, was a man of great talents, but impulsive and unscrupulous. About the end of the reign of Charles II., he fell into disfavour with the Government, and was for a time imprisoned. But after the accession of the Duke of York, Dalrymple left Edinburgh for London in December, 1686; and in February, 1687, he returned Lord Advocate.¹ He succeeded Sir George Mackenzie in this office, who it seems had been shocked at the King’s dispensing prerogative, but Dalrymple was not hampered by scruples of conscience, and at once complied with the King’s projects.

¹ “February 14th, 1687. Sir John Dalrymple, now King’s advocate, arrives; lately twice in prison as a malefactor, and in very bad circumstances with the Government, he comes down from London to Edinburgh. His coach broke with him at Tranent. He has got a precept from the King for £1200 sterling, whereof £500 was his fine which Queensberry and Claverhouse exacted from him three years ago; the other £700 for his charges in this last journey to and from London, and for loss of his employment during that time. He has brought with him an ample and comprehensive remission of all crimes to his father, Lord Stair, particularly for their reset and converse with traitors, and to his little son, who accidentally shot his brother.”​—Fountainhall’s Historical Notices.

It has been freely admitted that the fountain of justice was utterly polluted during the reigns of Charles II. and James VII. “The Scottish bench had been profligate and subservient to the utmost conceivable extent of profligacy and subservency.” Besides the oppression of the people, which the courts too often sanctioned, even men in high political posts employed their functions to plunder their political opponents, with as little scruple as the victors on a battle-field. A statesman, who had a personal case before the court, sometimes took his seat on the bench, where he had an ex officio right to be, and looking with a significant glance, defied the lawyers, on their peril, to give a decision adverse to him. Some of the remedies attempted by Parliament reveal the abuses which prevailed. These were framed to prevent judges from going out of their course to benefit themselves or their friends: one rule, for example, enjoined that when the court came to a judgment, it should be written out in their presence, and immediately signed, because it seems no officer of the law, however high, could be entrusted to state the decision honestly. In 1693, it was enacted that criminal trials should be held with open doors in presence of the panel or accused, the jury, and all others. The Revolution Parliament claimed the right of choosing the new bench of judges, and passed an act on the point, but it did not receive the royal assent. Parliament then “shut the Signet,” until steps were taken for filling up the bench.¹

¹ Dr. Burton’s History of Scotland, Volume I., pages 72‒74, 1853; Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume IX., pages 104, 282‒283, 305; Appendix, pages 135‒136.

But King William re-opened the Signet and appointed a new bench of judges in November, 1689, on the strength of his royal prerogative. The commission named the fifteen lords of Session, and the list commenced with Lord Stair, who was re-appointed president of the Court. Three of the new judges had been on the bench before, and the Court immediately met and went through the legal forms of admitting the new judges. The president told them, “that, although he was restored by way of justice according to the King’s declaration, yet he was willing to submit himself to the lords, and if they were not satisfied that he should resume that heavy charge, he would not in so disquiet a time, and in such a charge, subject himself to so much trouble and toil;” and he then retired to another room. Whereupon their Lordships unanimously concurred in the King’s nomination of Sir James Dalrymple of Stair to be president, as a man most worthy to discharge that trust.¹ The fifteen judges being duly installed, justice was restored to its customary channel; and this constitution of the supreme court continued with little variation, till the beginning of the present century.

¹ “This rule of submitting the election of the president to the other judges, the real appointment being with the Crown, could not well have had any other result in the present instance, considering that the whole bench of judges was assorted and the nominations advised by Stair himself. As to this, Forbes of Culloden, father of the president Duncan Forbes, remarks: But one thing at that time became apparent, that however my Lord Stair might profess, he desired petty men to sit with him upon the bench; he shunned any who he thought would debate with him, and took in, so far as he could, none but such as he knew would comply with him.” Culloden Papers, page 326; Graham’s Annals of Viscount Stair, and the First and Second Earls of Stair, Volume I., page 89.

There was still much crime in the nation; murder and manslaughter were common, and, as already stated, feuds among the nobles and the Highland chiefs were endless. Captain James Stewart, a member of the Ochiltree family, was slain by Sir James Douglas of Parkhead in 1595. At that period a noble was not usually punished as a malefactor; his crime was either expiated by a fine or by the interposition of the King reconciling the friends of the injured party to the offender and his friends. Thus the feud between the Ochiltree Stewarts and Sir James Douglas and his friends was continued. From time to time they had come under heavy securities to keep the peace towards each other; and so Lord Ochiltree and Sir James Douglas, now Lord Torthorwald, became bound for a sum of £5,000 each to keep the peace, and brothers and nephews of Stewart for smaller sums​—an arrangement that was renewed on the 30th of May, 1608, to endure for a year. All seemed quiet in Edinburgh, but on the morning of 14th July, Lord Torthorwald was walking unattended in the High Street, when William Stewart, the nephew of the man who was slain twelve years before, approached and instantly stabbed him in the back, and he immediately expired. The murderer escaped, and no more was heard of him. The same day, the Privy Council held two meetings to consider what should be done. They ordered that the Earl of Morton, James, Commendator of Melrose, Sir George and Sir James Douglas, uncles of Lord Torthorwald, William Douglas, Archibald Douglas, and Sir James Douglas of Muirston, all friends of the murdered man, should be confined to their lodgings; and Lord Ochiltree, whom the Douglases might be eager to attack, was also commanded to remain within doors. This deed recalls a series of murders, which stretched back to the slaughter of Stewart in 1595, and to Stewart’s persecution of the Earl of Morton to the scaffold in 1581; also, this William Stewart was the son of the Sir William Stewart who was slain by the Earl of Bothwell in 1588.¹

¹ Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials, Volume III.; Register of the Privy Council, Volume VIII., pages 101, 144, 158, 185, 215, 239, 246, 251, 344, 348, 646, 667, et seq.; Volume IX., pages 5, 10, et seq.; Volume X., pages 1, 45.

In the early part of the seventeenth century, the records of the Privy Council are full of cases of assaults, committed by men of rank and by others, upon persons whom they hated. It would be tedious to enumerate even those which occurred in a single year. There were Acts of Parliament forbidding men to carry arms, but in almost every case we find the parties implicated in these acts of violence, described as wearing steel bonnets, gauntlets, plate sleeves, and with swords and pistols.

Gavin Thomson, a burgess of Peebles, was greatly hated by Charles Pringle, another burgess. One day in September, 1608, as Gavin was walking in the High Street, Pringle, with nine others, all armed, attacked and wounded him on the left hand, then thrust him into a house and locked him up, intending to have him slain there; but the minister of the burgh, assisted by other peaceable persons, came and rescued him. For months after this Pringle and his associates lay in wait several times to kill him, and prevented him from going to church or market, or attending to his farm. On the 2nd of December, while he was walking in the street, they again attacked him with weapons, wounded, and threatened to slay him outright, had not timeous relief been at hand. The assailants had wounded several persons of rank in the scuffle, and the Privy Council denounced them as rebels.¹

¹ Burgh Records of Peebles; Register of the Privy Council, Volume VIII., pages 208, 682.

A strife broke out between the Earl of Caithness on the one side, and Sir Robert Gordon of Kinmoninie and Donald Mackay, on the other. This affair is highly illustrative of a condition of society which was gradually changing and improving. In 1599, Arthur Smith, a native of Banff, had got into trouble for coining, but he contrived to escape the punishment of the law by making a lock of a peculiar device, which gained him the favour of the King. Afterwards, having entered the service of the Earl of Caithness, he commenced and continued coining for seven years in a recess under the Earl’s castle. Naturally the counties of Caithness, Sutherland, and Orkney, were soon found to be flooded with counterfeit coins, both of silver and gold. Sir Robert Gordon reported the case, and the Privy Council commissioned him to apprehend Smith and bring him to Edinburgh. While this case was pending, William M‘Angus, a noted freebooter, was captured and imprisoned in the Earl’s castle, but he escaped and fled into Strathnaver. There the Sinclairs made an attempt to seize him, but he eluded them; they, however, took a man, Angus Herriach, who they thought had assisted M‘Angus to escape. This man was also lodged in the Earl’s castle without a warrant; and Mackay then appeared and claimed Angus as his man, and Caithness had to give him up.

Smith, the coiner, was living in Thurso under the protection of the Earl of Caithness, when a party of the Gordons and Mackays arrived to execute the warrant for apprehending him. They had already seized him and a quantity of his counterfeit coins, and were making off, when a party of the Sinclairs came to the rescue, and a fierce conflict ensued on the streets. John Sinclair, the Earl’s nephew, was slain, his brother wounded, and the Earl’s retainers were driven back. During the fight Smith was coolly put to death, lest he should escape, and the invading party then retired. The Earl of Caithness was greatly enraged, and considered the affair a disgraceful encroachment upon him in the heart of his own county. The strife was next transferred to Edinburgh, where the parties raised counter-actions against each other before the Council. Both parties appeared in the capital on the appointed day, accompanied by their friends. With the Earl of Caithness there was his son, Lord Gray, the Lairds of Roslin and Cowdenknowes, the Earl’s two brothers​—Lairds of Murkle and Glenland; these were the chief men on Caithness’ side. With Sir Robert Gordon and Donald Mackay there were the Earls of Winton, Eglinton, and their followers, the Earl of Linlithgow with the Livingstons, Lord Elphinstone with his friends, Lord Forbes with his friends, Lord Balfour, Mackay the Laird of Larg, in Galloway, the Laird of Foulis, the Laird of Duffus, and their followers, and others of the name of Gordon. The Earl of Caithness was much grieved, when he saw that his opponents so far outnumbered him. All these parties had come to Edinburgh to see that justice should be done, and to outbrave each other in forcing the Court to give a favourable decision on their own side. While the Privy Council was trying to exact security from the opposing parties for their peaceable behaviour, both parties despatched private messengers to the King to give him a favourable impression of their cases. The King repeatedly sent instructions to proceed against them with all the rigour of law and justice, but this was a difficult matter. While the affair was pending, the Marquis of Huntly’s son, Lord Gordon, arrived at Edinburgh from court, and the Earl of Caithness imagined that he had an unfavourable view of his case, “So, late in the evening, the Lord Gordon, coming from his own lodgings accompanied with Sir Alexander Gordon and others of the Sutherland men, met the Earl of Caithness and his company on the High Street; and, at the first sight, they fell to jostling and to talking, then to drawing of swords, and friends speedily assembled on both sides. Sir Robert and Mackay, with the best of the company, came presently to them; but the Earl of Caithness, after some blows given and received, perceiving that he could not make good his part, left the street and retired to his lodging; and if the darkness of the night had not favoured him, he had not escaped so. The Lord Gordon taking this broil very highly, was not satisfied that the Earl of Caithness had given place, and departed, but moreover, he with all his company crossed thrice to the Earl of Caithness’ lodgings, thereby to provoke him to come forth; but perceiving no appearance thereof, he retired himself to his own lodging. The next day the Earl of Caithness and Lord Gordon were reconciled by the Privy Council.” But several years passed ere these troubles were terminated.¹

¹ Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials, Volume III., pages 32, 231‒232; Register of the Privy Council, Volume IX., pages 352, 413, 731; Chambers’ Domestic Annals of Scotland, Volume I., pages 436, 439.

The Earl of Caithness was one of the most unruly men of his time, and in his own district wielded an almost despotic sway. He is represented as a base and selfish man, about half of his life being passed in outlawry. Sometimes he was at war with the Sutherland family, sometimes with the Mackays of Strathnaver; one year he was proclaimed a rebel, at another time he was honoured with a royal commission against some other rebels. He was deeply in debt, but this did not disturb him much; and his son, having become responsible for him, was imprisoned in Edinburgh for five years by his father’s creditors, while Caithness himself enjoyed a life of freedom in the far north. He was denounced a rebel in 1621; and Lord Berridale, his son, asked and obtained a commission to pursue his father, and was released from prison for the purpose of assisting in bringing him within the grasp of the law. In September, 1623, Berridale and Sir Robert Gordon entered Caithness at the head of a strong force, but they had not advanced far when the Earl, perceiving that he was unable to face them, fled, and sought refuge in Orkney, thence intending to go to Norway. Many of the inhabitants received Gordon with civility; and the Commissioners having taken possession of the castles in the Earl’s territory, and made arrangements for the peaceable government of the county, Sir Robert Gordon returned in triumph to Dunrobin Castle, and disbanded his men. This Earl of Caithness died in his own county in comparative obscurity in 1643, at the advanced age of seventy-eight.¹

¹ Register of the Privy Council; Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials, Volume III., page 310; Gordon’s History of the Earldom of Sutherland.

In 1614, he was entrusted with a royal commission to reduce the Earl of Orkney; and a brief notice of this Earl’s career may serve to illustrate the state of society in that remote part of the kingdom. Patrick Stewart, Earl of Orkney, was related to the royal family, as his father was a natural son of James V.; and it seems that he attempted to make himself king over the Orkney Islands. It is stated in contemporary records that he collected a large yearly revenue, and that he rigorously exacted very high rents and dues from his vassals and tenants; further, that “his pomp was so great in Kirkwall, as he never went from his castle to the church, nor abroad otherwise, without a company of fifty musketeers and other gentlemen of guard; and such like, before dinner and supper, there were trumpeters that sounded till the meat of the first service was set at table, and also at the second service, and consequently after the grace. He also had his ships sent to the sea to intercept pirates, and to collect tribute of foreign fishers, that came yearly to these seas. Whereby he made such a collection of great guns and other weapons of war as no house, palace, or castle in all Scotland was furnished with the like.”

On 27th December, 1608, the Earl of Orkney was summoned to answer for acts of usurpation of the royal authority during the preceding twenty years. His indictment contained a long list of charges, but he denied that these were crimes, and maintained that he had sufficient authority to do all that he had done, which he could show at the proper time and place. He was present at a meeting of the Privy Council on the 27th of June, 1609, and on the 4th of July he was imprisoned in the Castle of Edinburgh. The people of Orkney and Shetland were still oppressed by the Earl’s brother, James Stewart, and other deputies and agents whom the Earl had appointed to rule during his absence. Referring to this, the record stated that the King had expected that the proceedings against the Earl would have procured some peace to the “poor distressed people there,” and would have restrained the insolence of his deputies and servants. Yet it appeared that the Earl’s agents and friends, assisted by the captain of the Castle of Kirkwall and the soldiers under him, still “continue all forms of oppression, not only against those who presented their complaints against the Earl, but also against all others of whom they hope to extort any profit; so that the King’s poor subjects within these bounds are in as bad a state and condition now under the tyranny of the persons above mentioned as they were before in the time of the Earl’s own rule.” Stewart, the Earl’s brother, and others were denounced as rebels for non-appearance in court. The Earl’s case was hung up, and he was detained a prisoner in Edinburgh Castle; and it seems that the King was inclined to come to a compromise with him, but he was not disposed to temporise, and still entertained the hope of regaining his island kingdom. He attempted to escape from Edinburgh Castle, and was then removed to Dumbarton Castle, where it was thought he would be more secure. But in spite of this, he found means of instructing his natural son Robert, who proceeded to Orkney in 1614, mustered a company, seized the castle of Kirkwall, and fortified the church. A great number of the inhabitants joined him, and it soon became known that Orkney had rebelled against the Crown. The Earl of Caithness was then in Edinburgh endeavouring to obtain a settlement for crimes and offences of his own, and it occurred to him that it might be easier to make a compromise with the Government by offering his assistance to punish others. His service was accepted, and he immediately sailed for Kirkwall with a strong force to reduce the Lord of Orkney. He found that the castle was strong, and many of the inhabitants in favour of the rebels, while he had great difficulty in finding provision for his men. He besieged the castle for the space of a month; it surrendered in September, 1614, and Lord Robert Stewart was carried to Edinburgh a prisoner.

This youth of twenty-two years was then tried for high treason, condemned to death, and executed on the 6th of January, 1615, with five of his companions. His father, the Earl, the real moving spirit of the rising, was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death, and beheaded at the Cross of Edinburgh on the 6th of February, 1615.¹

¹ Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials, Volume III., pages 81‒87, 272‒307, 308, 327; Register of the Privy Council, Volume VIII., pages 214, 306, 312, 433, 611, 619, 845, also Volumes IX. and X.

The Government had several modes of dealing with the feuds and unruly habits of the Highlanders, some of which have already been indicated in the preceding volumes. Sometimes, as in the Lowlands, authority was given by the Government to one party to make private war on another, as in the cases noticed above; in other instances, the Crown entered into an arrangement with Argyle in the south-west, and with Huntly in the north, to restrain and punish, and even “to extirpate the barbarous people.” Lastly, there was the extreme expedient of granting “letters of fire and sword.” These were licences from the Government for the most severe and cruel kind of civil war, with the aid and encouragement of the executive to one side in the strife. These letters authorised the favoured individual or clan to burn, to waste, and to slay, all within the territory of their enemies, or the district specified in the licence; and the licenced parties were freed from any legal annoyance as the result of the conflict. Such letters or commissions usually read thus:​—“Whatever slaughter, mutilation, bloodshed, fire-raising or violence, may be committed, shall be regarded as laudable, good, and warrantable service to his Majesty and to his Government.”¹ The frequent granting of letters of fire and sword is a lamentable proof of the weakness of the government, of the law, and of the lack of police organisation.

¹ Register of the Privy Council.

After the accession of the King to the throne of England, various attempts were made to reduce the people of the Highlands and the Western Isles to the authority of the Crown. The efforts of the Government for a time promised considerable success; a number of Highland and Island chiefs were captured and imprisoned, and others placed under caution for their good behaviour. The King commissioned Bishop Knox with power to make arrangements for promoting the peace and obedience of the Isles; and, at his instance, nine chiefs agreed to a bond of obedience to the authority of the King at Icolmkill on the 24th of August 1609. The names of these chiefs were​—Angus Macdonald of Dunivaig in Islay; Hector Maclean of Duart in Mull; Donald Gorm Macdonald of Sleat in Skye; Rory Macleod of Harris; Rory Mackinnon of Strathordaill in Skye; Lauchlan Maclean of Coll; Donald Macdonald of Ylanterim in Moydart, Captain of Clanranald; Lauchlan Maclean of Lochbuy in Mull; and Gellespie Macquharrie of Ulva: these bound themselves by solemn oaths to future obedience to the King and the laws of Scotland. This bond is known under the title of “the Statutes of Icolmkill.” The statutes were nine in number and dealt with the following subjects:​—1. The ruinous churches to be repaired, and a regular parochial ministry to be established and maintained, with the same discipline as in other parts of the kingdom, the same observance of Sunday and other moral rules, and the suppression of irregular marriages. 2. Inns to be erected in convenient places in all the Islands for the accommodation of travellers, so as to extinguish mere idle wandering, and the burden on the resources of poor tenants and crofters by the habit of indiscriminate quartering. 3. That all idle vagabonds without visible and honest means of living should be cleared out of the Isles; and that the chiefs should cease from capricious exactions upon their clans, and be content with a household retinue of as many gentlemen and servants as his means will support,​—that is, Maclean of Duart with eight gentleman, Angus Macdonald, Donald Macdonald, Rory Macleod, and the Captain of Clanranald, with six gentlemen each, and so on with the rest. 4. All sorning and begging, and the custom of conjie to be put down. 5. A main cause of the poverty and disorder of the Islanders being their excessive drinking of strong wines and aqua vitæ, brought in amongst them partly by merchants of the mainland and partly by some traffickers dwelling amongst themselves, all general importation or sale of wine or aqua vitæ to be stopped under penalties, reserving liberty, however, to all persons in the Islands to brew aqua vitæ and other drink to serve their own houses, and to the chiefs and other gentlemen to send to the Lowlands for the purchase of as much wine and whisky as they may require for their households. 6. Every man in the Islands possessing sixty cows, and having children, should send at least his eldest son, or failing sons, his eldest daughter, to some school in the Lowlands, and there to be taught until they be able to speak, read, and write English. 7. An Act of Parliament prohibiting all persons from carrying firearms out of their own houses, or shooting with such at deer, hares, or fowls, to be strictly enforced within the Islands. 8. The chiefs should not entertain wandering bards or other vagabonds of that sort; and all such persons should be apprehended, put in the stocks, and expelled from the Islands. 9. For the better keeping of these statutes, and in accordance with the rule that the principal man of every clan is answerable for all his kinsmen and dependents, this present agreement to be a sufficient warrant to all chiefs and sub-chiefs to apprehend and try malefactors within their bounds, seize their goods for the King’s use, and deliver over their persons to the competent judge to be further dealt with; the chiefs become bound not to reset or maintain within their bounds any malefactor that may be fugitive from the bounds of his own natural superior.¹ The Government of the time seem to have thought the above regulations a great achievement; yet it does not appear that they became operative. The Government continued to pursue the clan Gregor with the utmost extremity of fire and sword.

¹ Register of the Privy Council, Volume IX. pages 24‒30.

The social state of the Highlands, however, was not much improved in the seventeenth century. Old feuds and grudges among neighbouring clans often led to a kind of invasion of the territories of each other, ending in extensive depredations, and frequently in loss of life. About the year 1666, the Government appointed some of the chief men in the disturbed districts to raise a force among their dependents, to put the law into execution against the offenders. The region of Strathspey, and the mountainous tract thence extending towards Perthshire and Aberdeenshire, had often been in a disturbed state during the century; and at this time the Council granted a commission of “fire and sword” to John Lyon of Muiresk, and Alexander, his son, against a large number of outlawed persons, enumerated by name. But before he was prepared to carry his commission into effect, the outlaws attacked his house, set it on fire, and slew him and his son. The lawless party then proceeded to the small town of Keith, attacked and plundered it, and decamped. A commission of fire and sword was given to the Earl of Moray, which had the effect of bringing Patrick Roy Macgregor, who seems to have been the ringleader of the gang, and some others of his confederates to justice. In March, 1667, they were tried at Edinburgh for sorning, fire-raising, theft, and murder, and condemned and executed; and in May, 1668, other two men of this gang were tried and executed.

In 1670, the Privy Council issued an order, stating that many persons in the Highlands were in the habit of travelling through the country attended by idle bands, which occasioned stealing and sorning; all persons were therefore forbidden to travel or congregate in this fashion.

The messenger-at-arms and officers of the law often encountered violent resistance in the Highlands when delivering their summonses, and attempting to apprehend debtors and offenders. In the winter of 1671, John Campbell, with two witnesses, proceeded to Caithness, to execute letters of caption and inhibition against some gentlemen in that region, but they were seized by Captain Sinclair and shipped for France. By the action of winds and waves, however, the ship, after being some time at sea, came back to Thurso, and the three officers of the law were again seized and imprisoned, and guarded as if they had been criminals. The Privy Council ordered that they should be released, on the singular ground that they had given security to answer any charge which Captain Sinclair might bring against them.

Rudeness and contempt of the law were often manifested, and outrages frequently occurred on Sunday, even during public worship. An Act of Parliament had been passed in 1592 against outrages in churches, but it had little effect. In 1608, a complaint was lodged against Alexander Mortimer for assaulting the minister, by taking off his hat and striking him in the face with it. A complaint came before the Synod of Aberdeen, in 1664, against William Creichton and his wife, stating that they had, in the parish church of Auchterless, on a Sunday, blasphemed, cursed and swore, and reproached and threatened the minister in the pulpit. While at the same date, Forbes of Newe, and Forbes of Edinglassie, with their friends, fought and wounded each other on Sunday.

Society in the chief burghs was more peaceful and life more secure than in the Highlands and in some parts of the Lowlands; yet even in them crimes of violence were constantly occurring. In 1608, one of the bailies of Glasgow, James Inglis, in company with James Young, in the exercise of his functions charged Thomas Paterson to go with him to the jail, which he had before broken out of, and while in the act of taking him back, he was interfered with by Robert Macgill, who declared that he would not allow Paterson to go, and immediately threatened the bailie with a dagger, at the same time using abusive language to him. Macgill was convicted for this offence, and sentenced by the council to pay a sum of a hundred pounds to the city treasurer, to be banished from the town for seven years, “and to be put in irons and to remain in them during Bailie Inglis’ pleasure, and lastly, to walk from the place where he assaulted the bailie to the Cross, bareheaded and barefooted, and there upon his knees, to deliver the dagger by the point to the bailie, and ask God’s mercy and the bailie’s forgiveness for his great offence.” In the end of September the following year, Andrew Craig was accused of abusing Matthew Trumble, one of the bailies, in presence of the people. The bailie had ordered him to be imprisoned upon just grounds, but he retorted that the bailie had no power to charge him to be imprisoned, and when the officers had got him up the Tolbooth stair, he said to the bailie​—“An thou were out of thy office, I shall be up sides with thee,” to the contempt of the King’s authority as represented in the bailie’s person; and when he was in prison he said that he would set it on fire. When his trial came on he pleaded guilty and threw himself on the mercy of the council, and they ordered him to be detained in prison till they resolved what further punishment was necessary. Other persons were tried and punished for contempt of the dean of guild, and of the town clerk, but in 1612 another bailie was threatened by one of the citizens. In 1610, the town council of Glasgow had under consideration the manifold assaults and wrongs which were committed by notorious tusslers, fighters, and night-walkers, who had nothing to pay their fines or to satisfy the parties whom they injured, and who daily committed breaches of the peace and disturbances, because there was no other severe punishment inflicted upon them. Therefore the council enacted that all persons convicted of assaults and disturbances, who had nothing to pay their fine or to satisfy the injured party, should be punished thus:​—If a man, he should be imprisoned for eight days, and if a woman, she should be put in the branks upon a Monday and a Friday, for two hours on each occasion, and thereafter such persons should ask God’s mercy and the forgiveness of the parties injured by them.¹

¹ Records of the Kirk-Session and Presbytery of Aberdeen, pages 61, 277, 278, 1846. Burgh Records of Glasgow, pages 290, 293, 303, 317, 326, 316.

The number of convictions before the bailies of Aberdeen, for the year 1641, seems to indicate that there was much crime in the city. In March, three of the pickmen at the town’s mills were convicted and fined for exacting a handful out of every sackful of malt ground at the mills more than the lawful mulcture and dues allowed to the lessee and his servants for their work. The council enacted that all workmen convicted of this offence should be treated as receivers of stolen malt, and be scourged and banished or otherwise punished at the discretion of the magistrates. On the 19th of March, Helen Vulgine and Margaret Bellie were convicted and fined for “stricking, scratching, and riving of each other’s faces.” On the 4th of May, Helen Sherar was convicted for “throwing a cup and a wooden stoup at Margaret Burnet, and hitting her to the effusion of blood,” and Margaret also was convicted for striking Helen, and for insisting on taking her child from her. Both were sentenced to be put in the stocks if they failed to pay the fines imposed. On the 15th of June, Marjorie Jack was convicted and fined for assaulting another woman. On July 6th, Elspet Fraser was convicted for assaulting Bessie Forbes on the street, both being married women; and Elspet was fined four merks, and also ordered to offer amends to the injured person in the presence of the magistrates. The same day, Christian Watson, wife of John Tough, was convicted “for assaulting a woman and knocking her down on the street and breaking her leg;” at the same time, Robert Massie was convicted “for assaulting William Gordon, a tailor, on Sunday night, by taking off his bonnet and striking him in the face, and chancelling him to combat, which he refused.” Gordon was sentenced to pay four merks to the dean of guild, and other four to the injured person, and to beg his pardon in the presence of the magistrates. On August 3rd, William Walker, a fisher, was convicted “for injuring James Anderson, his master, by provocking him and calling him a thief’s son, pushing him into the water and hitting him with a stone on the breast.” The same day, James Alexander was accused by Alexander Davie, a lister, for assaulting him in a house in the Gallowgate; he was convicted and fined four merks, and ordered to ask the offended party’s pardon. On the 6th of September, Elspet Smith, a servant of a maltman, was convicted “for assaulting Elspet Craig, a tailor’s wife, by tearing down her hair about her eyes, bruising her face, and then dragging her to a sellar ‘and almost wirred her;’” therefore Smith was sentenced to pay a fine of four merks to the dean of guild, and also to crave pardon from God and the offended party, and further, she was bound not to trouble Craig again, under the penalty of banishment. On the 17th of the same month, Peter Crombie, merchant, was accused of going to John Scot’s house and assaulting his wife, by striking her on the breast and throwing her down; he was fined eight merks. On the 20th of November, James Smith, a weaver, and Alexander Kemp, a wright, were both convicted, for going to the house of Alexander Sangster, a weaver, in the silence of night, and breaking up the door with a forehammer, and then entering the house with drawn swords in their hands; for this they were sentenced to be imprisoned for eight days, and thereafter banished from the city. The same day William Duncan, a servant of Thomas Walker, shoemaker, was convicted for going to the house of James Hall, shoemaker, at night, and drawing a sword and threatening to attack him, and also uttering most abusive expressions towards him, because he would not allow his servant to go out of the shop with him to eat a lamb’s leg as he desired. Duncan was sentenced to imprisonment for eight days, and to find caution for his good behaviour in future. The same day Robert Gordon, a tailor, was convicted for drawing a sword to William Walker, and threatening to strike him, both of them being drunk; Gordon was sentenced to imprisonment till he relieved himself by the payment of his fine. The 11th of December, Sara Fowler was convicted for scolding and defaming Andrew Birnie, merchant, by “calling him a cankered carle, exclaiming on the streets and saying to his wife that she was as gentle a woman as herself.” Sara was sentenced to be imprisoned for eight days, with an intimation that if ever she should be again convicted, she would be put in the stocks.¹ Of course this enumeration is not complete, as it does not include the higher class of crimes which were tried before the sheriff and the circuit court.

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume III., pages 255, 256, 259, 261, 264, 265, 267, 269, 271, 272‒274. In 1662, the town council of Aberdeen agreed to give the town’s scourger thirteen shillings and fourpence of weekly wages; and also gave him the two little houses under the Gallowgate Port to dwell in, while he continued scourger.​—Burgh Records, Volume IV., page 203.

Theft was not so prevalent in the burghs as it had been at an earlier period. In Glasgow, on the 23rd of November, 1611, two men were banished for theft. The magistrates, in August, 1613, passed an act for preserving the growing crops from thieves; and it was proclaimed by sound of drum, “that no person be found bringing to this burgh any kind of stuff, as peas, beans, corn, barley, wheat, or rye, upon horseback in burdens, after the hour of four in the afternoon during the harvest; and any one found contravening this, shall be held as a thief and an oppressor of his neighbour, and shall pay a fine of five pounds and be placed in the stocks.” It was stated in 1642 that the city was abused by thieves, who escaped punishment.¹

¹ Burgh Records of Glasgow, pages 325, 338, 437.

In preceding chapters the attempts of the Government to provide for the poor and helpless were noticed,¹ and Parliament continued to pass Acts touching the poor, and the repression of beggars and idle vagabonds. These classes were numerous in Scotland, and great difficulty was experienced in dealing with them. By a short Act passed in 1597, the administration of the poor-law was entrusted to the kirk-sessions; and, by an Act of 1600, the sessions were to be assisted by one or two of the presbytery. The common aim of all the early Acts relating to the poor was to prevent begging, as much as to make provision for the aged, the helpless, and the infirm. It was therefore provided that strong beggars and their children​—terms which were meant to include all the able-bodied poor​—should be employed at common labour. But it seemed this arrangement was not effective, as vagrancy still prevailed. An elaborate act was passed in 1617, entitled “An Act anent the Justices, for keeping of the King’s peace, and their Constables.” The object of this statute appears to have been to establish a more complete local system of police organisation. The various duties of the Justices of the Peace are minutely described. They were directed to hold a session quarterly, and to put the law into full execution against all wilful beggars and vagabonds, against idle men and women, without any trade or certain occupation, lurking in ale-houses, and reputed as vagabonds, and against all those persons commonly called Egyptians. They were also enjoined to punish and to fine those who received or let houses to such persons, and not to permit innkeepers to receive masterless men, rebels, or persons guilty of known crimes. They were empowered to impose a rate on every parish for a weekly portion not exceeding the sum of five shillings Scots, for the support of poor parishioners, who might otherwise starve before the trial came on. They were ordered at their quarter sessions to appoint constables to every parish, two or more according to its extent; but in the royal burghs the constables were to be appointed by the magistrates. Anyone named as a constable, who refused to accept the charge, was to be imprisoned and fined at the discretion of the justices. The duties of the constables were to arrest all vagabonds, sturdy beggars, and Egyptians, and to bring them before the nearest justice of peace. They were further directed to apprehend all idle persons, whom they knew to have no means of livelihood, or who would not betake themselves to any honest labour; and they might also arrest any suspected person, “who sleeps all day and walks all night,” and convey him to the nearest justice of the peace.²

¹ Mackintosh’s History of Civilisation in Scotland, Volume II., pages 238‒39, 266‒68.

² Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume IV.

At the same date, an act directly touching the poor was passed, differing from previous ones, inasmuch as it proposed to educate poor children and train them to labour. It recommended that the children and orphans of poor and indigent parents might be taken into families and brought up and educated, and put to learn honest callings. The children to be thus treated were to be certified by a magistrate or the kirk-session in burghs, and by the kirk-session in county parishes, to be poor and without any means of living. When under the age of fourteen, they were, with the consent of their parents, if they had any, and if above that age, with their own consent, to be delivered to their masters with a testimonial, which was to be a warrant for receiving them, and for their masters partaking of the benefit of the act. To encourage people to receive such poor children, it was enacted, “that they should be bound and restricted to their masters, their heirs, and assignees, in all kinds of service which should be enjoined until they be past the age of thirty, and that they should be subject to their master’s discipline in all sorts of punishments, except torture and death.”¹ As this act was permissive it had little effect; but it was objectionable in principle, as it sanctioned a kind of modified slavery. Still, begging and vagrancy were great social evils in Scotland, and any means which promised to check them would appear to have been justifiable to the legislators of those times.

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume IV.

In 1649, Parliament took into consideration the great number of poor and distressed persons throughout the kingdom, exposed to misery, because there was no general and regular mode of granting them relief, which was a reproach to their Christian profession. Therefore, it was enacted that each parish and presbytery should be bound to support their own native poor. It was enacted that a list of the poor in every parish should be made up twice a year, on the 1st of December and the 1st of June, at which times parties were requested to intimate to the parish what sum of money or quantity of victuals they were willing to give per month, as a charitable contribution for the support of the poor in every parish. But if the common good and this yearly contribution proved insufficient to support the poor, then the Act authorised a rate to be imposed, to make up the requisite amount. Touching the levying of the rate for the poor, the following occurs in the Act:​—“The same shall be imposed on the heritors and others by the elders and deacons of every parish respectively, with as much equality as is possible; wherein they are to have special regard to lay the greater proportion on those masters that deal rigorously with their tenants, and thereby impoverish and put them to beggary, and to deal the more favourably with those masters who endeavour to maintain their tenants, and deal charitably with them: and in distributing of the alms, special regard is to be had to the pious, and a distinction to be made between such and the profane debauchee or drunken sort.” A section of the Act was directed against beggars and other vagabonds and idlers, and power was given to any one “to take and apprehend such idle and sturdy beggars and to employ them, or dispose of them to others to be employed, in working for their meat and clothes only.”¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume VI., pages 389‒391.

In 1661, another Act was passed authorising the establishment of manufacturing companies; and with the view of reaching the children of the idle and vagabond class, it was directed that in each parish one or more persons should be appointed at the expense of the heritors for instructing poor children, vagabonds, and other idlers, in mixing wool, spinning worsted, and knitting stockings. The carrying out of this Act was entrusted to the heritors of each parish, but it does not appear to have been put into operation. The same year an Act was passed containing instructions to Justices of Peace, which was mainly a repetition and extension of the Act of 1617, touching the local organisation of police and the administration of the law in petty offences and crimes. The clause concerning the poor enacted that the Justices should, twice in the year, on the 1st of December and the 1st of June, make up a roll of the poor in every parish, to include only those who were unable to work or incapable of gaining their own living. They were then to appoint two or more overseers in every parish, who should inquire and ascertain the state and the number of the poor, the sick, the lame, and the impotent inhabitants, of poor orphans, and destitute children; to provide dwellings for them, and after ascertaining what the necessary expense would amount to weekly, to call for the collections of the parish, or other sums appointed for the support of the poor, which the overseers were directed to distribute among the poor people according to their needs.¹ The powers conferred by this Act on Justices of Peace seems never to have been exercised by them; but the Act clearly indicated what classes of persons were deemed entitled to parochial relief, as it excluded all who were in any way able to gain their own living. Thus the casual or able-bodied poor were not recognised as legally entitled to any relief, the law treating them as bound to earn their own living.

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume VII., pages 255‒256, 306‒314; Dunlop’s Law of Scotland Relating to the Poor, page 16.

An Act touching beggars and vagabonds was passed in 1663, which, after referring to the failure of the many former acts on this matter, proceeds to declare it lawful “for all persons or companies, who have or may erect manufactories, to seize any vagabonds who shall be found begging, or masterless and out of service, and have nothing to maintain themselves; and then to employ them in their works as they shall think fit; this being done with the advice of the magistrates of the place where these persons are seized; and commands that the parishes where such vagabonds and idle persons were born, or in case the place of their nativity be unknown, then the parishes where they have any residence, haunt, or frequent resort, for the three years preceding their apprehension, which, being thus relieved of the burden of them, to make payment to the persons or companies who may happen to employ them​—the sum of twopence per day for the first year, and one penny for the next three years; the one-half of this to be paid by the proprietors of the several parishes, and the other half by the possessors and the inhabitants dwelling upon the land of each heritor.” The Act also directed, that public intimation of a meeting should be made at the parish church, to frame a rate-roll for the support of the poor in their parish, who should be employed as above stated. “The poor thus employed shall continue in the service of their employers, under their direction and correction, not only during the time which the parishes pay for them, but also for seven years thereafter, receiving only their meat and clothing.”¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume VII., pages 485‒486.

At the first glance, this Act appears to offer great facilities to commercial companies and corporations, as they were empowered to seize, and compel to work for their benefit, all beggars, vagabonds, and persons out of employment; and instead of paying for their labour, being themselves paid for employing such persons. This was carrying the encouragement of manufactures far enough; and as such companies were also exempted from all import and export duties, and protected from home competitors by a previous Act, and to have labour for nothing, what more could they desire? But work performed under these conditions could hardly have been successful, and it does not appear that any attempt was ever made to put the Act into operation.

In September, 1672, it was stated in Parliament that in bypast times many good laws had been passed for the suppression of beggars, vagabonds, and other idle persons, but still a numerous brood of such persons remained, and were daily increasing, living without law or rule, civil or sacred, and a great burden and a reproach to the kingdom. Therefore it was enacted that the magistrates of all the burghs in the kingdom should provide correction-houses for beggars, vagabonds, and other idle persons, before the month of June, 1673, under the penalty of five hundred merks quarterly until such houses were provided: and the sums raised from these penalties were to be applied for building or purchasing correction-houses. They were directed to be built with an open close, that the health of the poor people might not be hurt by keeping them always within doors. At the same time, it was again declared to be lawful for coal-masters, salt-masters, and manufacturers, “to seize upon any vagabonds and beggars, wherever they can find them, and put them to work in their coal-haughs and manufactories.” The execution of the Act was committed to the Privy Council, with full powers to enforce it. But in spite of all this, no correction-houses were erected in conformity with the provisions of the Act, which remained inoperative.¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume VIII., pages 89‒91. “There does not exist in Scotland a single correction-house applied to the purposes set forth in the act.”​—Dunlop on the Poor-Law of Scotland, page 20.

In the three years from the beginning of 1692 to 1694, the Privy Council emitted several proclamations concerning the poor; and Parliament, in 1695, revived and ratified all the former acts for maintaining paupers, and for the repression and punishment of beggars, and ordered them to be put into vigorous execution. Owing to a succession of bad harvests during the later years of the century, the distress among the lower classes in Scotland was very great, the sufferings of the poor, and mendicancy were increased, and the Government had to endeavour to meet and to mitigate both. In 1698, Parliament passed another Act touching the poor, ratifying former Acts for repressing beggars and for maintaining paupers; reciting portions of the Act of 1617 referring to the employment and upbringing of poor children; quoting the Act of 1663 which empowered the masters of manufactories to seize idle vagabonds and set them to work; and also referring to the Act of 1672, and to the proclamations of the Council, ordering the erection of correction-houses​—all of which were commanded to be put into vigorous execution in every point. The Privy Council was empowered to appoint supervisors and inspectors of the poor, to see that the laws were put into effect: and moreover, it was authorised to frame and issue regulations (as far as consistent with the standing laws) to ensure employment and maintenance of the poor, and freeing the kingdom of vagabonds and idle beggars.¹ For a long time the various burghs had their own regulations for the relief of the poor. In the beginning of the year 1639 the magistrates of Glasgow adopted a rule to the effect “that the sum of six hundred pounds be advanced, and for the better collection of it, they have ordered, that there should be a fifth part added to the rate of each parish, and the bailies to collect it with the stint-money.” About the end of April the same year, the magistrates “concluded that the poor be kept in their houses for a quarter to come, and ordered a contribution to be gathered to that effect, and intimation made through the town by sound of drum, to come on Wednesday next at the ringing of the bell, with certification to be poinded for the double of the sum if they failed.”²

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume IX., page 463; Volume X., pages 177‒178.

² Burgh Records of Glasgow, page 400.

The preceding is but a brief account of what was attempted to be done to provide for the poor, and to relieve the nation of the mass of vagabondism and vagrancy. Throughout the history of the nation the difficulty of treating the matter effectively resulted from the fact that the country was oppressed with a great number of able-bodied idlers and wandering characters, well able, but determined not to work; being from circumstances and by evil habits engendered through centuries of idleness, socially and morally insensible of the duty of supporting themselves by honest energy and industry. Accordingly the attempt to introduce the labour test was distinctly and repeatedly made, and it has continued as a special feature of the Scotch Poor-Law system down to the present century.

The idle and vagrant population in the later years of the seventeenth century was enormous. Besides the general causes of the prevalence of vagrancy in Scotland, which had engaged the attention of Government from an early period, there were, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, particular causes which tended greatly to increase the number of such persons. For a time, at least, the religious revolution of the sixteenth century augmented the pauper classes; and in Scotland this was followed by the Civil War in the first half of the seventeenth century, which again was succeeded by twenty-seven years of misgovernment and persecution. This latter period especially was attended with so much confiscation of property, so many ruinous fines, so many apprehensions, imprisonments, and banishments, so much interruption of regular industry by military occupation and execution, and so much waste of the means and goods of the most industrious classes of the people​—all which could not fail to increase their poverty. Thus it was that, toward the close of the seventeenth century, in spite of all the legislative enactments, in spite of the influences of religion, in spite of all the restraints and the inducements to honest exertion, arising from a slowly advancing civilisation, Scotland still presented the gloomy spectacle of an enormous mass of vagrancy.

Fletcher estimated the idle and vagabond population of Scotland at 200,000, living without religious, moral, or domestic restraint, revelling in iniquity, and committing crime with impunity.¹ Though his statement is probably exaggerated, we know from other sources that the amount of vagrancy and wretchedness was very great in proportion to the population, and that several generations later, there was still a large body of poor in Scotland.

¹ Fletcher’s Second Discourse on Public Affairs, published in 1698.

The police arrangements of the kingdom were extremely imperfect; while in many places the local hereditary powers continued intact with all their capriciousness and irregularity. Even in the chief towns there was no regularly organised police force, their place being supplied by the town-sergeants, and in times of special danger or the alarm of impending war, a night-watch was appointed.

From the earliest times the Scots had a vivid and deep sense of the supernatural, and the ideas and dogmas associated with the Reformation had taken a firm hold on their minds. Their leading ideas of religion, indeed, had been modified, and a new external form of polity adopted by the people; yet many of the older notions and customs, interwoven with their former beliefs and habits, still survived here and there in more or less vigour. Their ideas of supernatural powers, of evil spirits, and of witchcraft, were little abated: while they were animated with an earnestness of conviction and a fervency of feeling, which stir the deepest cores of the human heart. In an age when beliefs are firmly held, and ideas and doctrines vividly realised in the mind, when belief in a definite creed is deemed essential to secure salvation and everlasting happiness, when people are fully satisfied and quite certain that they are right, there is an inevitable tendency to intolerance. This was the condition of the nation in the seventeenth century; to expect tolerant views of religion was vain.¹

¹ A good example of the religious ideas and feelings of the time may be seen in the Diary of Alexander Brodie, printed for the Spalding Club, 1863; it embraces the period from 1652 to 1685. Brodie was a Lord of Session, and had held a seat in parliament.

From the Reformation onwards, the laws against Roman Catholics were severe, while they were more or less persecuted throughout the seventeenth century, save during the short reign of James VII. About the middle of the century, the Quakers, against whom the Scots manifested much aversion, began to attract attention. During the government of Cromwell these dissenters began to multiply; they having been allowed at that time more freedom than was usual in Scotland. In 1656, they became bold, and held meetings on the Castle-hill of Edinburgh, which were well attended; about the same time their doctrines began to spread among the people. On the 30th of April, 1657, the presbytery of Lanark excommunicated eight persons for their adherence to Quakerism.

In 1665, three Quakers were imprisoned in Edinburgh. In the end of the year 1663, the town council of Aberdeen ordered that George Keith, William Neper, and William Stuart, three trafficking Quakers, should be conveyed out of the town by the officers, and warned that, if they returned, they would be given in charge to the hangman, and punished as the magistrates thought fit. The inhabitants of the town were forbidden to receive such persons into their houses or families, under the following penalties for each offence: If a burgess of guild, sixty pounds; if a tradesman, thirty pounds; and if one of the lower classes, ten pounds; and for the offence of attending any of their meetings, a penalty of five hundred merks was to be exacted.¹

¹ Register of the Privy Council; Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume IV., page 207.

The magistrates of Aberdeen, in 1670, stated, that in spite of the Acts of Parliament, of the Privy Council, and the former acts of the town council, it was found that the Roman Catholics and the Quakers often held meetings in the city. They had expected that at least some respect would have been shown to the laws by the citizens; and to manifest their own earnestness in attempting to reclaim the obstinate and disobedient, they ratified the former acts against such persons, and ordered them to be proclaimed. But only a month after, the authorities again met to consider the fact that, notwithstanding all the acts emitted against the Quakers’ meetings, they still continued to be held. It was then resolved that all persons found at the next Quakers’ meeting should be apprehended and imprisoned, and detained till they became bound to desist from meeting; and lest the female Quakers might also meet, it was commanded that the doors of the houses where they usually met should be closed and the keys taken from them, that the city might be entirely free from their meetings. The hopes of the council were not realised. In November, 1671, they were informed that Thomas Milne, a shoemaker, and a professed Quaker, had buried his child on a Sunday afternoon, in a kail yard, on the east side of the Gallowgate, which was never before used as a burial-place. This was an intolerable encroachment upon the privileges of the burgh and the rights of the citizens, and after deliberation, the magistrates ordered that the body of the child should be disinterred, and carried to Footdee Chapel burial-ground, and there re-interred. At the same time, they resolved to deprive Milne of the rights of a citizen, and ordered his shop to be shut up, and himself to be removed from the burgh within one month. This, however, was not carried out, for the following year his case was again before the council, and he was accused of burying his child in a kail-yard on the east side of the Gallowgate. He was now fined twenty pounds for contempt, and sentenced to be imprisoned till he paid it. The Quakers had enclosed the piece of ground in question with the intention of using it as a burial-place for themselves, but the council ordered the walls to be destroyed, and the place to be used as it was before.¹ The council were, however, unsuccessful, many Quakers afterwards being interred in the same ground.

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume IV., pages 261, 265, 277, 280, 283, 289.

In November, 1674, the town council of Aberdeen received an order from the Government to liberate two Quakers, Thomas Dockey and William Gelley, who had petitioned for liberation. They had been long in prison, and were set free on condition that if they were again found attending meetings, they would be punished according to the laws. At a meeting in 1675, the council had under consideration the increase of Popery and Quakerism in the city, and since the town council was prohibited by Acts of Parliament and Council from letting houses to such persons under penalties, it was resolved that no Catholic or Quaker should hereafter be admitted a burgess or freeman of the city, and that they “are and shall be altogether debarred therefrom, excepting always the sons of burgesses of guild succeeding to their fathers in lands or in waters held by the town, who are and may be allowed the foresaid liberty in virtue of their fathers’ right.” In March, 1676, one of the bailies informed the council that he had discovered that John Forbes was printing a book for the Quakers, and that he had seized a part of it from the printer. The council approved of his action, and resolved to consult the bishop on the matter. The Synod of Aberdeen, in 1668, adopted a special form of excommunication against the Quakers: “Forasmuch as A. B. has fallen from the truth of God and the unity of the Church into pernicious errors and unchristian practices of that lately risen sect, commonly called Quakers, particularly in slighting and reviling the public ordinances of God, and being convicted thereof ... I do, in the name of the Great God, and by the authority of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Head of this Church, excommunicate the said A. B. from the communion of the Church, and reject him from the privileges and fellowship of the faithful, leaving him bound to the judgment of the Lord, until he gives sufficient evidence of his repentance; requiring you, and all Christian people, according to the commandment of Christ, to avoid the said person, and to have no company with him, that he may be ashamed, until he be reconciled to the Church, as you would not incur the displeasure of God and the servants of the Church, which upon such as transgress therein will be inflicted.” The Synod, in 1671, also commanded the ministers of the presbytery of Garioch to use their utmost endeavours to restrain Quakerism.¹

¹ Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Volume IV., pages 289, 292, 294; Selections from the Register of the Synod of Aberdeen, pages 288‒289, 295.

About the year 1671, Robert Barclay of Urie, the author of the well-known work, An Apology for the Quakers, joined this sect. In the dedication of his work to the King, he stated that the Quakers did not intermeddle with politics; and even when they were subjected to the most violent persecution, they boldly stood to their testimony for God, without creeping into holes or corners, or hiding themselves, as other dissenters had done. But the authorities continued to treat the Quakers with great severity. In the beginning of 1672, fifteen of them were imprisoned at once for holding a meeting at Montrose; and in March, 1673, eleven persons were imprisoned at Kelso for holding a meeting. Yea, in 1683, the Bishop of Aberdeen reported to the Privy Council that in this district the Quakers were so bold as to build meeting-houses for their worship, and schools for their children, instructing them “in their godless and heretical opinions;” and also providing funds for supporting these establishments, and in some places adding burial-grounds for their own special use. The council issued orders for an inquiry among the leading Quakers concerning the owners of the ground on which these unnecessary houses and schools had been built. The result of such an inquiry is obvious. Even after the Revolution, the Quakers in Edinburgh, in Glasgow, and in other towns, were very severely treated.¹

¹ Register of the Privy Council.

Trials and executions of witches frequently occurred in this century, but it would be tedious to enter into particulars of the trials. Indeed, many of these are quite unfit for publication, such as the descriptions of the dealings of some of the witches with the devil, and the horrible stories which were adduced as evidence.

In 1622, Margaret Wallace, the wife of John Dinning, clothier in Glasgow, was tried before the Justiciary Court at Edinburgh, for various acts of witchcraft, and as a common practiser of witchery. It was stated, as an element against her, that she had been a confederate of Christian Graham, a notable witch, executed in the preceding year. It was affirmed that she had been a witch for eight years, and a common consulter with witches. It was alleged that she had conceived a deadly hatred of Cuthbert Greig, a cooper and a burgess of Glasgow, because he had spoken against Christian Graham. “She avowed that she should make him, within a few days thereafter, unable to work or to win a cake of bread for himself.” Accordingly he was soon after attacked and troubled with a strange, unnatural, and unknown disease, by which he was most cruelly tormented with continual sweating for two weeks, when he was reduced to extreme weakness. The man’s friends endeavoured to induce her to interpose for his recovery, but she for a long time refused. At last she came to his house, and “to manifest her skill for his help, took him by the wrist with the one hand, and laid the other hand upon his breast, and, without speaking a word, save only moving her lips, left him immediately. She returned next morning, took him by the hand and bade him arise, who at that time, and for fifteen days before, was unable to move his limbs without help; having urged him to rise, she took him by the hand, brought him out of his bed, and through the house into the outer room, where, by her sorcery and charming, he walked up and down the floor without any support.” After this, it was stated, that he soon recovered from his illness. She was also associated with Graham in curing children of sickness by unlawful means, “by devilry, sorcery, and witchcraft.” The onlaying and offtaking of sickness among children form a considerable part of the indictment against her, and it was alleged that in one instance, when she had inflicted sickness on a child, she allowed it to die. At her trial she was ably defended; but she was convicted and sentenced to be hanged and burned, and she was accordingly executed on the Castle-hill of Edinburgh.¹

¹ Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials, Volume III., pages 508‒536. Margaret Wallace’s trial was a very long one; her counsel contested every point of the indictment, which consisted of ten charges. The jury was unanimous in finding her guilty of the general charge​—“as a common consulter with witches these eight or nine years ... and as practising devilry, incantation, and witchcraft, especially forbidden by the laws of Almighty God, and the municipal laws of the realm.”

In 1623, Thomas Grieve was tried in Edinburgh for practising a sort of medical witchcraft. He was accused of having cured a number of persons of sickness and grievous diseases, by sorcery and witchcraft, by making signs and crosses, and the uttering of certain unknown words. “He took sickness off a woman in Fife, and put it upon a cow, which thereafter ran mad and died.” He also cured a woman “of a great and painful sickness, by drawing her nine times backwards and forwards by the leg.” He cured a child of a disease which was rapidly consuming it, “by straiking back the hair of his head, and wrapping him in an anointed cloth, and by that means putting him asleep, and thus through his devilry and witchcraft cured the child.” Another point of his indictment was, “for curing of William Cousine’s wife by sorcery and witchcraft, by causing her husband to heat the coulter of his plough, and to cool the same in water brought from the Holy Well of Hillside, and thereafter making certain conjurations, crosses, and signs upon the water, causing her to drink thereof for her health, and thus, by sorcery, cured her of her sickness.” One point of the indictment described a different mode of curing sickness. “For curing of James Mudie, with his wife and children, of the fever, and namely, in curing of his wife, he caused a great fire to be put on, and a hole to be made in the north wall of the house, and a live fowl to be put forth thereat, at three several times, and taken in at the house-door backwards) or contrary to the course of the sun), and thereafter taking the fowl and putting it under the sick woman’s arm-pit, and then carrying it to the fire, where it was held down and burnt alive; and in that devilish manner, practiced by him, cured her of her sickness.” For this he received twenty pounds from her husband. When curing diseased cattle, he put them thrice through a hesp of yarn, and sprinkled the fire with enchanted water. The hesp of yarn was supposed to possess peculiar healing virtues. Thomas Grieve put several of his patients three times through a hesp of yarn, and then threw it into the fire, where it burned blue, so that his patients were cured. The jury found him guilty of sorcery and witchcraft, and he was sentenced to be executed on the Castle-hill of Edinburgh.¹

¹ Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials, Volume III., pages 555‒558. In the appendix to the third volume of Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials, the confessions of three women accused of witchcraft, in the years 1649 and 1662, are given at length; and they contain a great mass of the most repulsive details of this degrading superstition. Of all the records of witchcraft which I have examined, these are the most vulgar and absurd.

During the reign of Charles I. many witches were tried and executed in Scotland. When such crude notions prevailed, it was not surprising that pretence and imposture should come to the surface. So in 1633, John Balfour in Corshouse had assumed the profession of a discoverer of witches, “by observing the devil’s mark upon some part of their person, and thrusting of pins in the same.” The Privy Council record mentions that, “upon presumption of this knowledge, he goes through the country, abusing simple and ignorant people, for his own private gains.” It was therefore resolved to inquire into his pretensions to such knowledge, and by what means he acquired it.

In the records of the Church courts many notices of witchcraft, and of persons using charms for curing disease, occur throughout the century. The kirk-session of Aberdeen, in 1630, summoned James Hall to appear in the church before God and the congregation, to confess his fault, and to crave forgiveness for seeking relief of his fever by means of charming. In 1637, Isabel Malcolm appeared before the presbytery of Strathbogie, and when accused of charming, she confessed that she had practised charming for twenty years.¹ The case “was continued in the hope that she should be found yet more guilty.” These cases of witchcraft and charming referred to in the ecclesiastical records were often connected with attempts to cure some severe disease. Associated with this form of the superstition there was a kindred one called “neid-fire,” that is, fire produced by the friction of two pieces of wood; and this was resorted to for curing diseased cattle, and seems to have descended from prehistoric times.

¹ Selections from the Records of the Kirk-Session of Aberdeen, page 111; Extracts from the Presbytery Book of Strathbogie, page 15. Other notices of charming and sorcery occur in the records of this presbytery.

The General Assembly of 1649 had under consideration the sin of charming and witchcraft, and appointed a commission to deal with the matter. At this time there was a general attack made upon the witches and charmers throughout the kingdom; and in the summer many of these poor creatures were tried, condemned, and executed; while the Committee of Estates issued various commissions for the trial and execution of the witches. It also passed an Act “against consulters with devils and familiar spirits, and against witches and consulters with them,” and ratified all former acts on the subject. These trials were infectious, as when one witch was brought up, she often accused others, and under the influence of this mania strange declarations were uttered. In the month of March, 1650, Janet Couts, a confessed witch then imprisoned in Peebles, accused eleven women in Lanark of witchcraft. They were accordingly apprehended, and Cathie, the pricker, before witnesses, “did prick pins in every one of them, and in several of them without pain when the pin was put in, as the witnesses can testify;” the women were therefore detained in prison. Efforts were made to induce them to confess their guilt, and every exertion was made to collect evidence against them, but hardly anything could be found, though at length charges were framed against three of the women. One of them, however, was liberated upon the statement of Janet Couts herself. The other two were tried by a Commission, and witnesses on oath minutely examined, but nothing could be proved against them; and they were dismissed on giving caution to appear again if required. About this time a man of the name of John Kincaid acted as a pricker of the witches. A quotation from his evidence in a trial for witchcraft will give an idea of this feature of the proceedings. The parties accused, Patrick Watson and Manie Haliburton, were tried in 1649, and the pricker’s testimony was to this effect:​—“I, John Kincaid, was desired to use my trial of them, as I have done to others; which, when I had done, I found the devil’s mark upon the back of the said Patrick Watson, a little under the point of his left shoulder; and upon the left side of the said Manie Haliburton’s neck, a little above the left shoulder; whereof they were not sensible, neither came forth thereof any blood, after I had tried the same as exactly as ever I did any others. This I testify to be of verity upon my credit and conscience.” At the same period, there was a pricker in the north of Scotland, called John Dick. And he, without any authority, pricked an old man, John Hay, a messenger in Tain, and then caused him to be sent to Edinburgh and imprisoned. But on a petition from Hay, accompanied with certificates of character, the Lords of Council ordered him to be liberated. In this way suspected women were sometimes subjected to great torture.¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume VI., pages 447, 464‒465, 492, 359; Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials, Volume III., page 599.

Thus it was, that under the influence of a malignant and debasing belief, many innocent persons were insulted, annoyed, injured, and imprisoned, dragged to trial, and sometimes sentenced to death itself.

During Cromwell’s sway in Scotland, the prosecutions for witchcraft were much restrained; but after the Restoration, for two or three years, many were executed. The first session of the Restoration Parliament of 1661 granted many commissions for trying persons accused of witchcraft, to make up for the lenity of the past period. In illustration of the notions adduced as facts at these trials, the case of Margaret Bryson may be taken: she came to words with her husband about selling her cow, “went in a passion to the door of the house in the night-time, and there did imprecate that God or the devil might take her from her husband; and the devil immediately appeared to her, and threatened to take her body and soul, if she did not enter into his service.” Another woman covenanted with the devil, and received a sixpence from him; he said that God bade him give her that, and asked how the minister was, and other questions. A domestic servant named Scott had much intercourse with the devil, and by his aid she raised gales of wind for the destruction of shipping. She often met the devil at night.¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume VII., pages 123, 196, 233, 235, 247, 248, 268, 283, 336; Register of the Privy Council. In the records of the Council there are instances of witches being acquitted, but detained in prison at the request of magistrates and clergymen, in the hope that more conclusive evidence would yet be obtained against them.

During the period of the persecution, the zeal against witches flagged, and the executions for witchcraft decreased. After the Revolution there was a short outburst against them; but from this time onward, the belief began to languish, until it has gradually, and with difficulty in some parts of the country, died out. The last execution for witchcraft in Scotland occurred in 1722. The crude and most pernicious notions associated with witchcraft faded with the advance of education, the diffusion of definite intelligence, and more exacting modes of testing evidence; and lingered longest in the remote corners of the country, least affected by the stirring influences of modern civilisation.

The social morality of the nation in the seventeenth century cannot be characterised as elevated, though in some directions there was evidence of improvement. An account of the means adopted for the amelioration of the morals of the people after the Reformation was given in the second volume of this work, and an indication of its operation on the national character throughout the century under review is all that seems requisite. The discipline exercised by the Presbyterian Church was rather severe and rigid, though from this standpoint it has frequently been greatly exaggerated. It should be distinctly remembered that the presbyterian form of worship and polity was the choice of the people themselves, that they were fully represented in all the Church courts, in the sessions, the presbyteries, the synods, and the General Assemblies; they had a voice in the election of their ministers, and members of every congregation had votes in the election of the elders and deacons, who constituted the session. In fact, in the history of presbyterianism, we meet with evidence at every turn, that the clergy themselves were much under the influence of the people, who in various ways wielded a practical and effective control over their ministers. The Scots submitted to some severe rules and curious forms of punishment for social and moral offences, which emanated from the Church courts; but even in these matters resistance was frequent, and the tyranny of the presbyterians over one another was never of long duration.

All licentious conduct in the relations of the different sexes was severely handled. In the beginning of the century the kirk session of Aberdeen was exercising a strict surveillance over the citizens. John Mitchel was ordered to be imprisoned in the vault of the church, until he found caution that he would adhere to his wife, and maintain her. At the same time, John Davidson, a wright, who had been twice warned to appear and answer to the complaint of his wife, but had failed to appear, was for his contumacy ordered by the session to be apprehended, and put into the steeple until he obeyed their ordinance touching his adhering to his wife and his future behaviour to her. Christian Burnet was ordained to stand a certain time in the session-house, “and then to be led through the town in a cart, with a crown of paper on her head, and to be publicly banished at the market-cross, because she had seduced her sister to harlotry with James Sinclair, which was committed in Christian’s own house; and the reason why she was so punished to be openly proclaimed by the hangman.” It was quite common for the Session to interfere on the side of a wife against her husband, or on the side of a husband against his wife, when either of them had failed in performing their mutual duties.¹

¹ Selections from the Records of the Kirk-Session of Aberdeen, pages 23, 40‒1.

The kirk session of Aberdeen adopted the following heads of reformation in 1604, applicable to every family in the city. The whole family should keep the Sabbath, abstaining from all manual labour, attending all the sermons in the parish church, and all those who could read should learn to sing publicly. The heads of families should attend all the sermons on the week days, and should meet to the catechising as often as they were called by the church-officer. All families should humble themselves, privately or openly, twice every day, using divine worship and frequent prayers. There should be no swearing, no profane language, no unseemly behaviour in any family; and if a member of the family transgressed, he was “to be sharply punished with a palmer on the hand, or a penalty in money, and in case of persistence, it should be reported to the visitors. The masters of families should diligently report all persons guilty or suspected of charming, popery, harlotry, drinking, night-walking, or any other inordinate livers. No house proprietor in the town should let houses to, or lodge, persons known or suspected to be excommunicated, or any obstinate Catholic, Jesuit, priest, or other stranger, till they have first informed the magistrates and the minister, and received their permission.” Certain rules were also approved for the guidance of the visitors of the burgh. The ministers resolved that every Thursday afternoon they should wait on their people for examining and catechising them, and to continue this instead of the morning sermons until the people be better acquainted with the knowledge and the grounds of their salvation. The visitors were instructed to assemble the families under them for examination, and to inform the examiners of such faults in the families as required rebuke and admonition, before making any public complaint against them.¹

¹ Selections from the Records of the Kirk-Session of Aberdeen, pages 32‒34.

At stated times each presbytery visited the churches within its bounds, when a strict and searching examination was instituted into the life and the work of the pastors, as well as their flocks. An example or two will give an idea of these proceedings, and of the ecclesiastical economy of the time. In September, 1609, the presbytery of Aberdeen visited the church of Durris, and after prayer by the bishop, they proceeded with the matters of the visitation. The elders of the congregation were present, and Alexander Youngson, the minister, was removed, and then the elders gave their opinion of his ministry. The record says that he was well commended both by the eldership and the parishioners, “praising God for him.” The minister and the elders were commanded to put their acts into execution against all who contravened them, and amongst the rest against sleepers in the church during divine service.¹

¹ Ibid., pages 201‒202.

The presbytery of Strathbogie visited the church of Gartly on the 16th of July, 1651, and directly proceeded to business. John Chalmer, the minister of the parish, was called, and gave in a list of the elders and deacons of the parish, containing eighteen names, and they were all sworn “to declare boldly what they knew in their minister, his doctrine, his life, his conversation, and the exercise of his calling among them, as in the sight of God, before whom they were shortly to answer. The minister and the other elders being removed, John Innes of Codrain, one of the elders, was asked whether the minister behaved himself like a man of his calling in his private conversation: answered, he did lead an innocent, blameless life, and exemplary in these points, and that he did not frequent ale-houses or such places, but was diligent in the restraint of such unlawful exercise when occasion offered. Being asked whether he had the worship of God set up in his own family, and reading of the Bible morning and evening: answered, that he had indeed, and that he was not forgetful of such holy exercise to have his children also instructed in this. Being asked concerning his doctrine, how he taught, how often, and if on the week-days: answered, that he did teach them soundly and convincingly out of the Scriptures, and seasonably, bringing forth ordinarily abundance of food, conveniently, sensibly, and articulately delivering the same in such a manner as all might be able to understand it; and that sometimes, as his text led him, as he saw the necessity, he did express himself against the errors of the times, to wit, malignancy and sectarianism; in his sermons he constantly showed himself against both, and argued for obedience to the public resolutions of the times. He preached twice on Sunday, and lectured before sermon in summer, baptised after it, before the blessing, with such reverence and due respect as stirs up all to be attentive and to countenance the ordinance. Sometimes he lectured on the week-days, and sometimes catechised; always had the psalms sung in the time of divine service; and before the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, was more punctual and frequent in examining his people than ordinarily. Moreover, he declared that the minister was exact in discipline, and used no partiality in punishing delinquents, and was careful both in admonishing and in censuring when he saw it expedient; and he visited the sick of his parish, and urged family worship. In a word, he remembered nothing at present to have the minister admonished for.” Gordon of Colithy, the next elder called, concurred in everything that the last one had said, and added: “that their minister had a good popular gift of preaching, and was every day improving, for he applied himself to his work more than before, and engaged less in worldly business.” All the rest of the elders intimated their concurrence, and also said that he was active in the distribution of the poor’s money at set times of the year, according to their necessities, and was not behind anyone in giving them of his own when he saw it needful.

The minister was then recalled, “and gravely encouraged to the work, with serious entreaty to consider the weight of his calling, and to be earnest with God for assistance and direction in it.” The elders were then removed, and the minister reported favourably of their fidelity to the discipline of the Church. When recalled, they were encouraged to further diligence, and exhorted to hold family worship in their own homes.¹

¹ Extracts from the Presbytery Book of Strathbogie, pages 200‒202.

In August, 1651, at a similar visitation by the Presbytery of the Church of Rhynie, Mr. William Watson, the schoolmaster, being removed, “was called a tippler and idle speaker sometimes; but he was careful enough of the children, and had taken much pains in educating them. He was admonished for the time, and exhorted to amend; or otherwise to be removed.” In 1652, James Reid, having been nominated and elected by the session of Grange to be schoolmaster there, appeared before the Presbytery: “and having produced famous testimony of his literature and Christian conversation under the hands of presbytery of Old Aberdeen, his election was approved; and for his trial, prescribed to him the 3rd Ode, book 4, of Horace, to expound and explain, grammatically, logically, and rhetorically.”¹

¹ Extracts from the Presbytery Book of Strathbogie, pages 202, 209, 226.

Under the presbyterian polity, the members of the congregation were generally allowed to choose their own minister, and throughout the local records of the sessions, the presbyteries, and the synods, there is much interesting information on this matter. The people were not the mere slaves of the clergy; they had a pretty strong hold over the ministers. In 1642, James Horne, in the parish of Kinnor, was summoned before the presbytery, and accused of being drunk in the time of divine service. When called before the session for this, he had publicly railed against the minister and the elders. He told them, “all that he had said he would say it again, and worse also; and took up a straw and held it out before the session, and said that he would not give that straw for all they could say or do to him, and that there were none there that would cause him to make his repentance for anything that he had said.” The presbytery ordered him to be summoned again, and if he failed to appear, then to censure him without any more citation. In July, 1643, the case of George Mitchell was reported to a meeting of the presbytery at Gartly; his offence was, that he prevented his wife from satisfying the discipline of the session, for her visiting of wells and chapels, and for assaulting the minister and the elders​—especially for upbraiding George Gordon of Colithie: “saying that he would not be corrected by him, and told him to go home and correct his cottars; and that he had as much money as himself; and that he should meet him whenever he pleased, with other abusive speeches, and went out of the session with threatening and menacing words.” The presbytery commanded him to pay a fine of twenty pounds, and to make his public repentance in the church next Sunday. But the same day, Mitchell gave in a complaint against George Gordon of Colithie for slandering him; he was told, however, that he must lodge a pledge to prove it, according to the order. He then answered, “that he saw no law for him here, and would crave no law; ye may direct what ye please, but he would not obey, and he should get a better advocate against the next day.” In 1644, James Middleton of Tullobeg was brought before the presbytery for speeches which he had uttered in the church, and for quarrelling with the minister. The witnesses against him deponed that, “when the minister chided him for his ignorance, he said that he cared not for him nor any minister in Scotland, and bade the minister come out to the churchyard and try himself if he pleased. Also, when the minister said that he should cause him to be put in the stocks, he replied, that neither he nor the best minister within seven miles durst do so much.” The presbytery ordered that he should make satisfaction in sackcloth, and pay ten pounds; but when this was intimated to him, he answered in the hearing of the minister, “that he should as soon go and hang himself as obey anything of the kind.” Thomas Dey in the parish of Glass, was summoned by the presbytery, in October, 1648, because he had failed to give satisfaction for his absence from church. Instead of giving satisfaction on the appointed day when he was called by the minister, he sat in his own seat opposite the pulpit and railed against the minister, “and with execrable oaths said that he would not acknowledge them nor their sentence.” The presbytery ordered him to be again summoned.¹