Note 1021 — PREFATIO. (continued 3)
Reading edition
John Cockburn of Ormistoun has already been noticed, in the notes to pages 142, 215, 237, &c. In October 1559, he received at Berwick, from Sir Ralph Sadler and Sir James Crofts, £1000 sterling, in French crowns, for the present relief of the Lords of the Congregation; and also 200 crowns (or £63, 6s. 8d.) which was given to him for his own use. But the Earl of Bothwell, and some of the French troops, being informed of this booty, waylaid him near Dunpendar-law, in East Lothian, on the last of October, and robbed him of this treasure, wounding him severely.—(Wodrow Miscellany, vol. i. p. 70.) On the 5th November, Sadler and Crofts wrote to Secretary Cecil, with the information of the "mishap" which "hath chaunced to the saide Ormestoun, to our no little grief and displeasure."—(State Papers, vol. i. pp. 528, 538, 542, 600.) Cockburn is introduced among the "Scotish Worthies," in a work written in verse, by Alexander Garden of Aberdeen, before the year 1620, but which seems never to have been printed, and the MS. unfortunately cannot now be traced. Garden calls him "ane honourable and religious gentleman, very dilligent and zealous in the work of Reformation:"
"For perrels, promises, expense nor pains, From thy firm faith no not a grain weight gains."
And, in reference to Bothwell's attack, he says,—
"Thy blood-shed sooth'd and taught this time, I know, When curtfoot Bothwell like a limmer lay, (A traytor try'd, yea, and a tirrant too,) And unawarrs did wound thee on the way."
(MS. Hist. of the Family of Cockburn of Ormistoun, circa 1722.)