Chapter III: Part 3

John Knox largely impressed the Reformed Church with his own individuality. No doubt he was rigid, and, to our modern ideas, narrow- minded and intolerant. He would not have accomplished the work he did if he had not himself thoroughly believed in it, as the greatest work which then needed to be done. He has been blamed for speaking harsh words to Queen Mary; but he had to speak what he felt to be stern truths, for which honied words could hardly fit themselves. Mary, accustomed to fascinate the eyes and sway the wills of all who approached her, demanded of Knox:—“Who are you who dare dictate to the sovereign and nobles of this realm?” “I am, Madam,” answered Knox, “a subject of this realm.” A subject, and therefore a co-partner in the realm; to the fullest extent of his knowledge and his capabilities responsible for its right government; just as the Hebrew prophets claimed a right to stand before their kings, and, not always in smooth words, to denounce sin and hypocrisy, oppression, and backslidings from the law of God.

JOHN KNOX’S PULPIT, ST. GILES’S.
(_From the Scottish Antiquarian Museum._)
]

For supporting the introduction of bishops into the Presbyterian Church, as impairing the republican equality of its ministers, Knox had bitterly rebuked the Regent Morton. But when, in November, 1572, the Regent stood by the grave of the Reformer, it was in a choking voice that he pronounced the grand eulogium:—“There lies he, who never feared the face of man.”

At the era of the Reformation no translation of the Scriptures had yet been printed in Scotland; what copies in the vernacular had been brought from England, were in the hands of the wealthy; indeed few of the common people could then have read them. The parish school as yet was not. The old church had not encouraged inquiry into the rationale of its dogmas, and although theological discussion was in the air, it had not penetrated into the lower strata of Scottish society. And thus the popular outburst against the old church was hardly founded on conscience and conviction; in its beginnings at least, it was more a revolution against priestly domination.

But the cry of _idolatry_ was raised. In the destruction of images in the churches, the leading reformers found the populace only too willing agents. Even architectural ornamentation—without religious significance— was removed or destroyed, the capitals of pillars were covered with plaster, the very tombs were rifled and defaced. The parish church had been the nucleus around which, for centuries, the veneration and the spiritual thought of past times had revolved, and now the idea of its “consecration” was to be banished from the popular mind. The reformers encouraged male worshippers to enter churches with their hats on— uncovering during prayer, psalm-singing, and scripture reading, and resuming their hats when the minister gave out the text for his sermon. When the discourse touched a popular chord, there was applause by clapping of hands and stamping of feet. Rome had demanded unquestioning submission to its authority,—an unreserved veneration for its ritual; and in breaking away from this bondage, the spirit of reverence was largely impaired.

Thus to other religionists, the form of worship in a Scottish church appeared bald and careless, hardly decorous. There was no private prayer on sitting down; in the public prayers, the stubborn presbyterian knee did not bend,—all stood upright, and the eyes would roam all over the church. In singing the psalms, there was no assistance from the swelling tones of an organ; gloves were put on during the benediction, and all were prepared for a hurried exit at its _Amen_. Funeral sermons, and even tomb-stones, were proscribed by the early reformers. One in King James’s English retinue, accompanying him in a visit to Scotland, remarked,—“The Scots christen without the sign of the cross; they marry without the ring; and bury without any funeral service.”

Although the old psalmist said,—“O sing unto the Lord a new song,”—the Presbyterians did not seem to think that anything had occurred in the following two thousand years, to incite to new songs of praise and thanksgiving: so they continued to sing only the Hebrew psalms. It was not until 1745 that the General Assembly authorized the use of Paraphrases,—that is, metrical versions of other portions of Scripture, but many congregations refused them. Now, there are authorized hymnals— the organ is again finding its place in the churches—and other changes have come about, bringing the form of service in nearer consonance with that of other churches, and with the more ornate tendency of the present times.

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The Rival Queens—Mary and Elizabeth.

Mary’s evil fortunes began with her birth. Her dying father, heart- broken over a disastrous battle, lived only a week after his “poor lass,” as he called her, was born. Then Henry VIII. of England saw in this infant niece of his a means of uniting the two crowns, much in the way by which a wolf unites itself with the lamb it devours, by having a marriage contracted between her and his only son, Prince Edward. He sent negotiators to enforce, under threats, his project. There was much opposition amongst the Scottish nobility. It looked like surrendering their country to England. They said to Henry’s negotiators, “If your lad were a lass, and our lass were a lad, would you then be so earnest in this matter; and could you be content that our lad should, by marrying your lass, become King of England? No! your nation would never agree to have a Scot for King; and we will not have an Englishman as our King. And tho’ the whole nobility of the realm should consent thereto, yet the common people would rebel against it; the very boys would hurl stones, and the wives handle their distaffs against it.”

Henry was wroth exceedingly, threatened war, and demanded the custody of the child-Queen. To have him for an ally against the Queen-Regent and her minister, the persecutor Beaton, the Reformers temporized, and the Scottish Parliament consented to the match; Mary to be sent to Henry when she was ten years old.

In the meantime Henry got embroiled with France; and Scotland, under the influence of the Queen-Regent, allied itself with that country. Henry sent an army into Scotland. There were some Scottish successes; but at Pinkie, in 1547, the English general Somerset gained a complete victory. Before this event Henry had died; but his long cherished object, the possession of the child of Scotland, was still pressed, and now seemed on the point of attainment. But the Scottish people were irritated and alarmed to such a degree that they resolved to make the projected marriage impossible, by marrying their young mistress to the Dauphin of France, and sending her to be brought up at the French court. To this resolve Parliament gave a hasty assent; and in July 1548, the poor child, now in her sixth year, accompanied by her four Maries—girls her own age, of noble birth, her present play-fellows and future companions— was shipped off to France.

Prince Edward, who succeeded Henry as Edward VI., was twelve years of age when his father died, and he reigned only four years. Then there was the painful incident of Lady Jane Grey being pushed forward by her ambitious kindred as a claimant to the throne; the venture being death to her and to them. And then Henry’s daughter by his first wife became Queen. A rigid Catholic, she at once took steps, intolerant, relentless, and cruel, to re-establish the old faith. The savage persecutions of her reign have rendered it for ever infamous. She goes down through all time as the _Bloody_ Mary. Smithfield blazed with the fires of martyrdom; five Protestant bishops were amongst the sufferers. Happily her reign was a brief one, lasting only five years; and they were for her years of domestic misery, her marriage with the Spanish King, Philip II., being an unhappy and unfruitful one.

Her half-sister Elizabeth, the issue of Henry’s marriage with Anne Boleyn, succeeded to the throne in 1558. Elizabeth had been brought up as a Protestant, had been kept a close prisoner during Mary’s reign,— narrowly escaping being herself a martyr. And now to maintain her claims to the throne, she had to depend upon her Protestant subjects; for the Catholics denied the validity of her father and mother’s marriage, and consequently denied her legitimacy and right to reign. They asserted that Mary Stuart of Scotland was the rightful heir, and as such entitled to their allegiance.

A brief explanation will show on what foundation the Stuart claim— afterwards allowed at the death of Elizabeth in favour of Mary’s son James—was based. At Bosworth Field, Richard III., of the house of York, was defeated and slain. The victor was Richmond of Lancaster, who thus became King Henry VII.; his son was Henry VIII., and his daughter Margaret married James IV., King of Scotland. The neighbouring Kings, James and Henry VIII., were thus brothers-in-law; none the less did they quarrel and go to war with each other, their hostilities ending, so far as James was concerned, with the battle of Flodden. Henry was then engaged in a war with France, and James was killed in the battle which his vanity had provoked, and which he generalled so badly. His son, James V., was Henry’s nephew, and full cousin to Henry’s children, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth. Thus, failing direct legitimate heirs to the English throne, James’s daughter Mary was, in virtue of her descent as the grand-daughter of Henry VII., the nearest heir.

At Elizabeth’s accession, in 1558, Mary was sixteen years of age. As the wife of the Dauphin of France, the French monarchy put forward her claims as the rightful sovereign of England, and even had a coinage struck with her effigy thus designated. So Elizabeth feared and hated Mary as her rival; hated her yet more, with a woman’s spite, for her beauty and accomplishments. Soon Mary, by his early death, lost her husband, then King of France, and at nineteen years of age, in the splendour of her queenly beauty, she—regretfully for the land of her youth—returned to her native Scotland.

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTLAND.
(_From a painting by Zucchero._)
]

By her sweet presence, her courtesy, and winning manners, Mary largely gained the hearts of her people; but murmurings soon arose about her foreign ways, her foreign favouritisms, and her fidelity to her Catholic faith. And a cloud gathered over her domestic life. She had married a young nobleman, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. He was next to Mary in the hereditary line of succession to the English throne—as Mary was a grand- daughter of Margaret Tudor he was a grandson—by Margaret’s second marriage with the Earl of Angus. He was also a Catholic. Darnley seems to have been little other than a handsome, but petulant, ill-behaved, and ill-mannered boy, fitted, neither by intellect nor disposition, to be the husband and life-companion of such a proud, clever, and accomplished woman as Mary. Mary refused him the crown-matrimonial, and they very soon fell apart. Mary was not forbidden to have her private chapel; an Italian singer in this chapel, David Rizzio, became a favourite, he acted as her secretary, and was admitted into the inner circle of Holyrood. One evening the supper-party was broken in upon by Darnley and a number of his associates, and Rizzio was dragged out to the landing, and by several weapons barbarously stabbed to death. Mary’s fair countenance and gentle voice were mated with an iron will, persistent in carrying out her hatreds to the death. Darnley was murdered by a rude villain, Earl Bothwell, and Mary has never been satisfactorily cleared of complicity in the murder. Shortly afterwards she married this Bothwell—by force, her apologists say.

We shall not even briefly go over the oft-told tale of Mary’s after- life. As the incidents loom out of the tangled web, we feel, even through the centuries, as if we would fain arrest them by a warning voice, fain save that fascinating woman from her doom. We feel a yearning pity, almost akin to love, although stern justice gives her blame as a woman, a wife, and a Queen. That pitiful winter’s morning in Fotheringay Castle, in 1587, brought to Mary, by the headsman’s axe, a cruel death, but also a kind release from captivity and unrest.

And what of her rival queen and kinswoman, “that bright Occidental star,” Elizabeth? A woman with a strong masculine intellect, of dauntless courage, one fitted to rule and govern, and advance a nation. But unmistakably her father’s daughter, cruel, heartless, unforgiving, and thoroughly false: with a woman’s caprice exalting to supreme favouritism to-day, and striking down into the dust to-morrow. She signed Mary’s death-warrant, and, by grimaces and plainest hints, she made her people slay her own cousin. And when the deed was irretrievably done she went into a hypocritical paroxysm of well-acted anger and regret, and dealt round punishment for the act which she herself had compassed. These two women cited to the bar of judgment, Mary might well hide her face for many sins and frailties; but the better actor would try to stand up, boldly and unabashed. Our own hearts must answer which of the two we justify, rather than the other.

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Old Edinburgh.

“Edina! Scotia’s darling seat!
All hail thy palaces and tow’rs,
Where once beneath a monarch’s feet
Sat legislation’s sov’reign powers!

There, watching high for war’s alarms,
Thy rough, rude fortress gleams afar;
Like some bold vet’ran grey in arms,
And marked with many a seamy scar.”

So sang Burns, when “from marking wildflowers on the banks of Ayr,” he “sheltered,” and was feted and petted in the “honoured shade” of the capital of Scotland. And Sir Walter Scott, in describing Marmion’s approach to the city on a summer’s morning, cannot, from a full proud heart, refrain from introducing his own personality:—

“Such dusky grandeur clothed the height
Where the huge castle holds its state,
And all the steep slope down,
Whose ridgy back heaves to the sky,
Pil’d deep and massy, close and high—
Mine own romantic town!”

Doubtless, as a picturesque town, Edinburgh stands in the foremost rank. The natural configuration of the ground in ridges and hollows, and the commanding prospects from its heights of undulating landscape, of broad Frith, of distant hills, and of the adjacent Arthur’s Seat, like a couchant lion guarding the town, are striking, and stir up any poetic feeling that may be lurking in the heart. In the architecture there is a strange and incongruous mingling of the modern and the antique, of the genuine and the meretricious. There are many interesting historical memorials, and very many reminders of the everyday present. Buildings and monuments bring cherished and illustrious names to our mind; other names are obtruded which we would gladly forget. But no one can, from the Castle bastions, see the panorama of the city and its surroundings, without intense interest, and an admiration which will abide in the memory.

In 647, Edwin, the son of Ella, Saxon King of Northumbria, extended his conquests beyond the Forth. He re-fortified the rock-castle, called Puellerum, and to the little town which rose up around it, was given the name of Edwinsburgh. In 1128, Edinburgh was made a Royal burgh by David I. In 1215, a Parliament of Alexander II. met here for the first time. In 1296, the title of the chief magistrate was changed from Alderman to Provost.

In 1424, James I. was, at £40,000, ransomed from his long and unjust imprisonment in England: the towns of Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Perth, and Dundee, guaranteeing the ransom. James had, on his parole, been free to move about England; and he soon saw how far behind her his own land was in agriculture and commerce. To amend this he made laws, which to us seem meddlesome and going into petty details, but doubtless were then useful and progressive. For the prevention of fires in buildings it was advisable to enact that “hempe, lint and straw be not put in houses aboone or near fires,” and that “nae licht be fetched from ane house to ane uther but within covered weshel or lanterne.” The lofty piles of buildings for which the older town of Edinburgh is now remarkable, were in the fifteenth century represented by wooden houses not exceeding two stories in height; for we find that in providing against fires, Parliament ordained that “at the common cost aucht twenty-fute ladders be made, and kept in a ready place in the town, for that use and none other.” From the murder of James I. in Perth, in 1456, Edinburgh dates as the capital, and where Parliaments were exclusively held.

In 1496, in order to qualify the eldest sons of barons and freeholders for exercising the functions of sheriffs (holding judicial powers in a Scottish county) and ordinary justices, it was enacted that such be sent to grammar schools, and there remain, “quhill they be competentlie founded and have perfite Latin; and thereafter to remain three zeirs at the schules of art and jure; so that they may have knowledge and onderstanding of the laws.” The population of Edinburgh was then about 8,000.

When, in 1503, Margaret, daughter of Henry VII., came to Scotland as the bride of James IV., the King met her at Dalkeith, and the royal lovers made their entry into Edinburgh, “the Kyng riding on a pallafroy, with the princesse behind him, and so through the toun.” Ten years later came, on the 10th September, the sad news of Flodden, fought on the previous day; when the brave but fool-hardy King, and the flower of Scottish manhood “were a’ wede away.” At first it was consternation and the confusion of despair; but soon order and new energy prevailed. Under pains of forfeiture of life and goods, all citizens capable of bearing arms were convoked to form, with the stragglers from Flodden, a fresh army: the older citizens were to defend the city. The women were, under a threat of banishment, forbidden to cry and clamour in the streets; the better sort were to go to church and pray for their country; and thereafter to mind their business at home, and not encumber the streets.

In 1543, under the regency of the Earl of Arran, an Act was passed permitting the scriptures to be read in the vulgar tongue, and the Reformation ideas began to be bruited about. Twelve years later, statues in St. Giles’ Church, of the Virgin and certain saints were destroyed; but the then Regent, Mary of Guise, by threatenings, given strength to by her French troops, contrived to keep down open revolt against the old faith. But in 1558, on the festival day of St. Giles, the patron saint of Edinburgh, and for which festival the priests and monks had made great preparation, it was discovered that the image of the saint had been taken from the church during the previous night, and thrown into the North Loch. The priests got a smaller statue from the Greyfriars, this the people called in derision “the bairn-saint.” The Queen-Regent was in the procession. She must have been a woman of strong character; in her presence all went smoothly, but having left, the populace tore the little St. Giles to pieces, hustling and dispersing the priests.

From the death of the Queen-Regent, and the withdrawal of the French troops in 1560, the Protestant cause was in the ascendancy. An Act was passed denouncing Popery, and sanctioning the hastily compiled Confession of Faith. Penalties on Catholic worship, very similar to those under which Protestants had groaned, and which they had bitterly denounced, were imposed. Any one celebrating mass or being present at its celebration, was to be punished by forfeiture of goods for the first offence, by banishment for the second, and by death for the third. Queen Mary, then in France, and her husband Francis, who held from Mary the crown-matrimonial of Scotland, refused to ratify the Acts, and insulted the messenger of the Parliament.

Next year, 1561, Mary, now a widow, and as such having lost her high position at the French court, returned to Scotland. She waited upon the deck of the vessel which was taking her from the land of her youth, until its shores faded from her tear-dimmed eyes. “Farewell, beloved France,” she sobbed, “I shall never behold thee again.” When, on the first day of September, she made her public entry into Edinburgh, never had the city shown such an exuberance of warm enthusiasm. The procession included all the foremost citizens, Protestant and Catholic, clad in velvet and satin; twelve citizens supporting the canopy over the triumphal car, where, like an Helen in her matchless loveliness, sat the young Queen. When on the following Sunday she attended mass at Holyrood, her Catholic servants were insulted, and the crowd could hardly be restrained from interrupting the service. And so began the hurley- burley, through six years little other than a civil war; a time of confusion, of plotting and counter-plotting, of intolerance, of malice and revenge; that fair figure with the dove’s eyes, but also with a determined will and an unswerving purpose, ever emerging into the foreground, now an object of admiration, and then for denunciation, but always for the highest interest and the profoundest pity.

After Marys enforced abdication in Lochleven Castle, on 29th July, 1567, her year-old son James was proclaimed King. The Earl of Morton, head of the powerful Douglas family, taking, in the child’s name, the usual coronation oaths. Mary’s half-brother, the Earl of Murray, became Regent. Three years later Murray, whilst riding in State through Linlithgow, was shot dead in revenge for a private injury. Then followed two years of discord and confusion from rival factions; and then, 1572, Morton became Regent, and was the master-power in the kingdom. For eight years he was the controlling influence. He was haughty and revengeful, and at the same time avaricious and corrupt; so he made many enemies, and these plotted his destruction. One day when the King, now fourteen years of age, was sitting in Council, one of James’s favourites entered the chamber abruptly, fell on his knees before the King, and accused Morton of having been concerned in the murder of the King’s father, Lord Darnley. Morton replied that instead of having been in the plot, he had himself been most active in dragging to light and punishing the conspirators. He now demanded a fair trial; but fair trials were not then general. Morton’s servants were put to the torture to extort damnatory evidence, and several known enemies were on the jury; so he was found guilty of having been “art and part” in Darnley’s murder. To the last he denied having advised or aided in the foul deed; but it is probable that he knew that it was in purpose. He suffered death by decapitation at Edinburgh, in June, 1581, the instrument of death being a rough form of guillotine, called the _Maiden_, which, it is said, he introduced into Scotland from Yorkshire. The gruesome machine is now in the Edinburgh Antiquarian Museum.

In 1596, James, now thirty years of age, quarrelled with his capital. There was in all the Stuart kings a strong strain of the old faith in what hearts they had; or, there was at least a very strong dislike of the independent, self-assertive idea which was the basis of the Presbyterian Church. James granted certain favours, which we should now think simply common rights, to his Catholic nobles, and this roused the ire of the Kirk, then ever ready to testify against popery, to assert for itself the right of free judgment in religious matters, but practically to deny this right to others. A standing _Council of the Church_ was formed out of Edinburgh and provincial Presbyteries; inflammatory sermons were preached, and the King, refusing to receive a petition demanding that the laws against papacy be stringently enforced, was mobbed, and seditious cries were raised.

James hastily removed the Court to Linlithgow, ordering the courts of law to follow him there; and he ordered the magistrates to seize and imprison the Council of Ministers as promoters of sedition. The magistrates, anxious to regain the King’s favour, were preparing to obey him when the ministers fled to Newcastle. The King’s unwonted promptitude and decision, seem to have borne down all opposition. On the 1st of January, 1596-7, he re-entered Edinburgh between a double file of guards, chiefly from the wild Highland and border clans, which lined the streets. The magistrates on their knees submitted to him in most abject terms, and many of the nobles pleaded for pardon. James was not a large- minded man,—the more humble they, the more inexorable he. He gave three of his lords charge of the city, declaring that it had forfeited all its corporate privileges, was liable to all the penalties of treason, and deserved to be razed to the ground. We learn that Elizabeth interceded for the penitent city, which, deprived of its magistrates, deserted by its ministers, and proscribed by the King, was in the lowest depth of despondency. James relented so far as to absolve the city on the payment of a fine of 20,000 marks, and the forfeiture to the crown of the houses of the recreant ministers.

Elizabeth died in March 1603, and James was at once proclaimed King of England, and warmly invited to take up his residence in London. On the Sunday previous to his departure he was present at the service in St. Giles’ Church. At the close of the service he rose and addressed the congregation in a speech full of kindly expressions, declaring his abiding affection and regard for his native land; and the sighs and tears of the people shewed how their hearts were moved by his words.

Fifteen years later, James was again in Edinburgh. His progress from Berwick was one continued ovation. In every town which he passed through, flattering panegyrics, in Latin or Greek, were addressed to him. As he entered Edinburgh by the West Port, he was met by the magistrates in their robes, and the town-clerk read a long address replete with compliments, so inflated and exaggerative, that the dedication to “the most high and mighty Prince James,” of the authorised translation of the Bible, reads comparatively flat and commonplace. Afterwards, the king was sumptuously entertained, and presented with 10,000 marks in a silver basin.

Just at this time, the invention of logarithms, by a Scotch laird, John Napier of Merchiston, near Edinburgh, was becoming known in the then comparatively restricted scientific world. Logarithms are prepared tables of numbers, by which complex problems in trigonometry, and the tedious extraction of roots, can be performed by the simpler rules of arithmetic. To the well-educated, they save much time and labour; in the art of navigation, they enable the mariner who may be unskilled in mathematics, to work out the most intricate calculations. In all vessels on the open seas, when observations can be taken, in all mathematical schools and astronomical observatories, logarithms are in daily use. As with other things, familiarity discounts our wonder at their aptitude and value; but the estimate by scientists of Napier’s invention is, that it ranks amongst British contributions to science, second only to Newton’s _Principia_. Kepler regarded Napier as one of the greatest men of his age; and in the roll of those who were foremost in establishing real science in Europe, his is the only name which can be placed alongside the names of Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo.

The long sloping street called the Canongate, which reaches down from the centre of the Old Town to Holyrood, was, with its tributary lanes and closes, created a Burgh of Regality by King David the First. It was outside the walls of Edinburgh, and had its own Council of Bailies, Deacons of Trades, and Burgesses. The Canongate is full of old memories. There is the house of John Knox, the sturdy Reformer and typical presbyterian. There is the Tolbooth—the Heart of Midlothian. From the balcony of that old mansion, called Moray House, a gay party were, in 1650, with malicious and triumphant eyes, looking down upon a crowd through which was slowly wending a low cart, in which was ignominiously bound down that spent thunderbolt of war, Montrose—he is on his way to execution. Aye, but in after years two in that jubilant party—Argyles, father and son—will both also pass up that street amidst jeering crowds, and to similar fates.

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Edinburgh Castle is the central feature of the city. Its site is on the summit of a huge isolated rock of eruptive basalt,—rising on the north side,—out of the valley, now a garden, which divides the new from the old town, to about 175 feet of perpendicular height. The castle, with the slopes, occupies fully six acres of ground, and includes barrack accommodation for 2,000 men; the armoury is calculated to contain 30,000 stands of arms. On the Argyle bastion there is a huge piece of old artillery called Mons Meg; it is constructed of wrought iron, and had burst at the muzzle at its last discharge. Its liner is formed of longitudinal bars,—these are strongly hooped; it is thus allied in construction to that of present ordnance, and, rude as the work is, it shows the comparative high state of iron manufacture amongst the Dutch several centuries ago.

The castle was used by Malcolm Canmore and his saintly queen, Margaret, as a royal residence. The oldest building on the plateau which crowns the rock, is St. Margaret’s Chapel, said to have been used by the queen. On two sides of the quadrangle called Palace Yard are an ancient hall which has just been restored, and a suite of residential apartments. In a small turret-chamber, Mary’s son, James, was born. In a well-protected room adjoining, the regalia of Scotland—crown, sceptre, sword of state, and other insignia—are shewn.

The ancient regalia were “_conveyed_, the wise it call,” out of Scotland by Edward I. Robert Bruce was _crowned_ at Scone with only a makeshift crown; but it also fell into the hands of the English. The present crown is, from the style of its workmanship, supposed to have been made in the later years of Bruce’s reign. It was first used in the coronation of David II., in 1329. Later sovereigns added to the ornamentation. The sword of state was presented to James V. by Pope Julius II. There are also certain jewels which were restored to Scotland at the death of Cardinal York, the last of the Stuarts.

When Cromwell invaded Scotland, the regalia were, for security, taken by the Earl Marischal to his own strong castle of Dunottar, in Kincardineshire. When this castle was besieged by General Monk, the regalia—known to be there by the English—were, by a feminine stratagem, carried out by Mrs. Grainger, the wife of the minister of the neighbouring church of Kinneff. The minister buried them in the church, and there they remained until the Restoration.

At the Union, in 1707, the Scottish Estates passed a resolution that the regalia were never to be removed from Scotland. A hundred years after the whereabouts was unknown,—their very existence a matter of doubt. The following extract is from the article “Edinburgh,” in the “Edinburgh Encyclopedia,” edited by Sir David Brewster, published about 1815:—

“At the time of the Union, the Scottish regalia were, with much
solemnity, deposited in a strong iron-barred room, entered from a
narrow staircase; but most probably prudential reasons have long ago
led to their destruction or removal. They were too dangerous
insignias of royalty to lie within the reach of the disaffected
during the rebellions of the last century. Towards its close,
however, some doubts were raised, and a warrant to search was issued
to certain official persons. Nothing was found but an old locked
chest covered with dust, and the deputation _did not think that they
were authorized to break this open_. So the search was abandoned,
and an opportunity, _not likely to recur_, of ascertaining whether
the regalia were really in existence, was lost.”

The _italics_ are ours. In 1818, the regalia were found in a search ordered by George IV.—then Prince Regent—in that same old chest, which is still in evidence at the back of the jewel room.

Holyrood Palace, founded by David I., in 1158, was originally an abbey of St. Augustine canons. The ruins of the church evidence the grandeur of the ancient structure. Of a later date is the north-west wing of the palace,—a portion of which was a royal residence of successive sovereigns. One of the complaints against James III. was that he here preferred the society of poets and musicians, to that of the ruder nobility. James IV. was also partial to artists and literary men. In his _Marmion_, Sir Walter Scott has the quatrain:—

“Still is thy name in high account
And still thy verse has charms,—
Sir David Lindsay of the Mount,
Lord Lion King-at-arms!”

Sir David was in the first half of the sixteenth century the leading poet in Scotland. When a boy he was page of honour to the infant king, James V.,—carrying him on his back,—his playmate, and, in a sense, his tutor. Sir David addresses the king, giving some early reminiscences:—

“And the first words that thou gan’st mute
Were, ’pay Da Lin;” upon the lute
Then played I twenty springs and three,—
With whilk richt pleasurt thou would be.”

The suite of apartments occupied by Queen Mary are still left, with a portion of the old furniture and hangings. As we wander through the rooms, we can, in fancy, see Mary in the audience chamber, in one of her distressing interviews with the leaders of the Reformation,—when most unjustifiable demands were made on her that, against conscience and conviction, she should renounce the faith in which she had been nurtured,—should change her religion to accommodate the popular change. Or, in the private supper-room, see her and her ladies at their needlework; or hear one of these ladies sing an old Scots ballad of loves gone astray, and with a sad ending. Then Rizzio’s rich baritone rises in an Italian strain; and then there is on these stairs the trampling of armed men, and foul murder is done before the eyes of a queen and an expectant mother; and her life is never the same again.

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HOLYROOD PALACE, THE REGENT MORAY’S HOUSE ADJOINING THE PALACE, ON THE
NORTH, THE ROYAL GARDENS AND ANCIENT HOROLOGE.
(_From a drawing by Blore, published in 1826._)
]

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Little more than this wing of the palace was left by a fire, in 1650, when Cromwell’s soldiers were quartered in the building. All the newer portion was built in the reign of Charles II. The picture gallery is 150 feet long, and contains portraits (?) of 106 ancient Scottish kings. Here, in the autumn of 1745, Prince Charles Edward held his mimic court. At every general parliamentary election the sixteen representative Scottish peers are chosen in this hall.

James VI. repaired and embellished the church, providing it with an organ, a throne, and twelve stalls for the Knights of the Thistle. The roof fell in in 1768, and the fine eastern window yielded to a violent tempest in 1795. Since then the church—the sepulchre of Scottish kings and queens—has been allowed to become a ruin.

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Offences and their Punishment in the Sixteenth Century.

The century which included the Reformation, and the long minorities of three sovereigns,—James V., his daughter Mary, and her son, James VI.,— all periods of strife and unsettledness, was for Scotland, governmentally and politically, a turbulent one. The state was often in confusion; but the burghs were little states, acting by their own laws, under properly constituted magistrates.

The oldest records of the Burgh Court of Dundee which have been preserved commence in 1550, and extend to 1568. These, with other old records, have recently been carefully examined, and many portions transcribed, by Mr. Alexander Maxwell, F.S.A. Scot., and they form the ground-work for his two interesting volumes on Old Dundee. With the author’s kind permission, we make several extracts, illustrative of the social history of the period, so far as this is brought into view by the matters which came before the Burgh Court. These records may be fairly taken as a sample of the then condition, as respects crime, of the whole of Scotland.

And three things will be in evidence from these records:—

1. That this was really a Court of Justice; patient consideration given, as a rule, to the cases which came before it; and although some of the punishments may seem severe, and others rather ridiculous, yet on the whole the spirit was paternal, corrective, and peace-making. The penalties inflicted were all on the supposition that the offenders had still a sense of shame left, and that to have the good opinion of their fellows was an incentive to well doing.

2. That considering the unsettled condition of the country, there was not an abnormal amount of disorder and crime. Whisky, that curse of Scotland in later years, had not come into use, and there was no excessive ale and wine drinking. Theft was not common.

3. That a main point with the burgh authorities was to get locally rid of their incorrigibles; leaving neighbouring towns and the country districts to take care of themselves.

That ever unruly member, the tongue, gave a good deal of trouble:—

Reche Crag, baker, being warned that his bread was under weight, charged the officer with using false weights to weigh his bread with, for which insult “he is ordainit to come to the church on Sunday next in the time of high mass to there offer a candle of a pound of wax, to ask the officer’s forgiveness, and say, That the word was false he said.” James Denman, having “blasphemed” a notary, has to ask his forgiveness, and to pay to the master of the Hospital twenty shillings to be given to the poor,—“and gif he be again apprehendit with the like, to be banishit the burgh a year and a day.”

John Robertson and his wife had slandered Katrine Butcher. John sung very small in Court,—“revokit his allegance as nocht of veritie, and he knows nocht of Katrine but honour.” John’s wife appears to have first uttered the slander in “flyting,” and she and he were “adjudgit to come instantly to the Mercat Cross, and there ask Katrine’s forgiveness upon their knees: and gif the wife be funden by day or nicht blasphemin any man or woman, she will be banishit the burgh.”

For “wrangeous mispersoning of Will Gibson’s wife, Jonet Crag is ordainit to pass to the Mercat Cross, and on her knees, with the beads about her neck to say ‘My tongue leeit,’ and pass with the beads about the town.” The tolbooth “beads” were derisively hung on the neck of a termagant, whilst she made a promenade through the burgh. Poor husbands had to bear the brunt of their wives’ characters. William Rannald, being about to leave the burgh, “the Council decernit that nae testimonial be given to him; but if he labours for ane, that it be made conform to his wife’s demerits, and specify wherefore she was banishit this burgh for ever.”

Besse Spens is admonished “that gif she be found flyting with ony neighbour, man or wife, and specially agains Jonet Arthe, she shall be put on the cuck-stule, and sit there twenty-four hours.” This cuck-stule had just been put up in an open position beside the Market Cross. To be set up to public derision in this chair was the height of ignominy.

Whilst in these comparatively rude times women’s tongues often wagged fiercely against each other, men’s wranglings would end in blows. Charly Baxter “sall give to Robert Nicholson, for the hurting of him, forty shillings, but as Robert was also to blame, he sall pay the leech [surgeon] himself. And gif ony of them maks ony stroublance till other in time to come, to pay a stane of wax to Our Lady.” So long as the old Church held sway, fines were generally in candles for lighting St. Mary’s altar.

The stocks now and again come into the record. For “stroublance of Patte Baxter, Jok Galloway is ordainit to come on Sunday next with a candle of a pund of wax, efter to be given to Our Lady licht, and ask the Bailies and Patte’s forgiveness. And gif he will nocht do this, to lie the nicht in the stocks, and ask Patte’s forgiveness the morn at the Mercat Cross.” Nichol Anderson “is decernit to lie twenty-four hours in the stocks, for stroubling of this gude town and wounding of ane stranger, because he has nocht to pay the leech.”

When Rob Dawson “stroublit” Wille Pangell, “he is ordainit to pay the leech for his craft of healing Wille’s head breaking, and give Wille twelve pence ilk day that the leech may depone that he may nocht gudely lawbour through the hurt.” “Henry Justice is ordained to cause cure Margret Leischman’s head, broken by him within silence of the nicht.” It was an aggravation of an offence that it was committed at night. Allan Sowtar being charged by Besse Spens for the “stroublance of her and her house, under silence of the nicht, he is amerciate [punished by fine] for the trouble done to this gude town, an if he be founden committing sic fault again, nicht-walking and making trouble, that he be banishit.”

THE STOCKS, FROM THE CANONGATE TOLBOOTH.
(_Now in the Scottish Antiquarian Museum._)
]

The sentences on a brawl in the churchyard, in September, 1554, are notable as being the last in the record where the fines were in the shape of offerings on the high altar of St. Mary’s Church. Fines where they were not given as a _solatium_ to the injured persons, were generally applied to aid “puir folks.” And punishments were as a rule inflicted summarily; lengthy imprisonments, taking the persons away from their ordinary occupations and maintaining them by the labours of others, are quite a modern invention.

The vehemence of an outrageous fisherman is quenched in his own element. “George Blak, boatman, is discernit to be doukit owr the head in the sea, and also to pay forty shillings to the common gude for that he keist Fothringham, ane workman, our the shore [pier], and also struck Andro Cowtie, ane other of them, upon the face.” A worthless fellow is awarded the punishment of a woman: “Sande Hay, for troublance made upon Andro Watson, is discernit for his demerits to be put in the cuck-stule, there to remain until four hours efter noon.”

This is how an objectionable couple is got rid of: “Alexr Clerke and Elesabeth Stevenson,[1] being banishit this burgh for their demerits, pykerie, and reset, and grite sumptuous spending by nicht, has contemptuously come to the town, contrair to the statutes; whairfore they are adjudgit—Sande to be nailit to the tron by the ear, and Elesabeth brunt upon the check, and they be again banishit for all the days of their life. And gif ever they be fund within this burgh, or ony of them, to be put to deith.”

Footnote 1:

As a rule—and indeed the custom has not yet entirely ceased in the
country districts of Scotland—wives retained their full maiden names
after marriage, and in both sexes the christian or given name was held
to be—as doubtless it virtually is—the proper designation of a
person,—the surname indicating the family or clan to which he or she
belonged. On Scottish tombstones to this day, the inscription for the
loss of a child by a married couple will read as “Son of John Smith
and Barbara Allen.”

Nice distinctions were made in the comparative guilt of accomplices: Watte Firsell and Duncan Robertson are found guilty of “common pickery of ane puir woman within silence of the nicht,” and the sentence is,— “That Duncan sall scurge Watte round about within the bounds of this burgh, as use is; and gif he fails in the extreme punishment of Watte, then Climas sall scurge them baith, in his maist extreme manner. And thereafter Watte to be had to the Cross, and, by open proclamation, banishit this burgh for seven years.” Climas was probably the burgh hangman, for the Court assumed powers of life and death. John Wilson has, for diverse reasons, been “warded” within the burgh: “Gif he beis funden passing out of this town, without licence of the Provost or Bailies, to be put to deith without forder proof.” In another case the manner of threatened death is specified: “The assize hes convict Agnes Robertson for theftuously committing of pykrie—whilk she could nocht deny, being apprehendit with her—and siclyke, hes convict Jonett Moreis for reset thereof. And thairfore the Bailies ordain Agnes to be banishit this burgh for all the days of her life, and never to be apprehendit within the same, under the pain of drowning. And siclyke Jonett to be banishit for year and day, and gif she be apprehendit within the burgh before the said day, to suffer deith as said is.”

Generally in cases of theft, and where there were no aggravating circumstances, justice was satisfied by simple restitution or compensation.

John Cathro is relieved from the charge of carrying away the iron band of Will Cathro’s door by his offer to make a new band “as gude as it was at first.” John shortly after comes up again “for the wrangous taking of five lilies out of John Gagy’s harth, and is ordainit to put in five fresh lillies again.” A gleaner who has been helping herself to corn from a farmer’s stooks, only has the blanket seized in which she carried it. When there were aggravating circumstances theft was punished by flogging.

“Vehement suspicion,” without direct proof, was sometimes held to justify punishment. “James Richardson, tailzour, being accusit of pickrie, is adjudgit to be punishit with twelve straiks with ane double belt, because there could be nae sufficient proof gotten, but vehement suspicion, and syne to be banishit this burgh for year and day.” Another tailor is, however, able to prove his honesty. Sande Loke is accused by Jonet Sands, of keeping back some of the cloth that should have gone into her kirtle. The kirtle was produced, and Sande ripped open the seams, and laid it upon “ten quarters of new claith of like breid, and it was found to be nocht minished by the craftsman.”

The habit of wearing swords, or “whingers,” as they are called, was a fertile cause of quarrelling and personal injury. Sometimes offenders were degraded by being for a time prohibited from wearing swords: thus, William Fyf and James Richardson are, after an encounter, “convict for troublance of this burgh by invading ilk other with wapins; William is discernit to pay the barbour whilk heals James’ arm, stricken by him with ane whinger; and baith are forbidden to wear whingers for the space of ane year, or to invade other by word or deed in time coming, under the pain of banishing the party whilk sall be found culpable.”

John Anderson “is decernit to pay to the common gude, the soum of five pounds for his unlaw in breaking of the acts, by drawing of ane whinger and invading of Archibald Kyd for his bodily harm, publicly in open mercat; and he sall pass to the place where he offendit Archibald, and, upon his knees, desire of him forgiveness. And his whinger is to be taken from him, and put in the cuck-stule.” Jonkyn Davidson “hurt and woundit John Jack in his body, with ane whinger, to the effusion of his blude in grite quantitie.” The Bailies for amends “decernit that, upon Saturday next Jonkyn sall come to the Mercat Cross in his sark alane, his head discoverit, and, upon his knees, take his whinger by the point and deliver the same to John; and thereafter the officer sall affix it in the place whair the whingers of those are affixit that commit tulzie within the burgh. And Jonkyn sall ask mercy and forgiveness at John, for God’s sake, for his crime; and then sall act himself to be true friend to John, and sall never hear nor see his hurt nor skaith, but will tak part with him in all lawful things; and sal never draw a whinger hereafter, on ony inhabitant, under the pain of banishing this burgh for ever.” Furthermore he becomes bound to pay John by instalments the sum of one hundred pounds. On the day named, Jonkyn, at the Market Cross, made the prescribed atonement, “and then John receivit him in favour, embracit him in his arms, and forgave him the crime.”

PENALTIES FOR IMMORALITY.

It was not only overt crimes which came under the jurisdiction of the magistrates; they also took cognizance of conduct and habits which were considered indecent, or which might lead to breaches of the public peace. Thus the ringing of the ten o’clock bell was the call to a general clearance of the streets and alehouses, a notification that the burgh was entering into “the silence of nicht.” It was enacted that “Nae person be fund walking in the nicht season, prevatlie or openlie in the streets or gaits of the burgh, or drinking in ony ale or wine tavern efter ten hours of the nicht, under the pain of forty shillings[2] for the first fault, and for the next fault to be banishit; and that nane sell ale or wine to sic persons, under the pain of banishing.”

Footnote 2:

The comparatively low value of Scots money is always to be taken into
account.

It was also enacted, “Forsameikle as we know it to be the command of God that there sall nocht be ony drunkards among his people, we therefore ordain that gif ony man be apprehended in drunkenness, he sall pay for the first fault five merks unforgiven, for the second ten merks, and for the third ten pounds, to be taken up by the deacons and distribute to the puir. And gif he will nocht mend, but continue, then the Bailies sall give him ane sys [assize] of neighbours, and gif he beis convictit, he sall be banishit for year and day, and sall nocht be receivit without his open repentance.” Provision is made for inability to pay fines; this is commuted for so many days in “thiefs hol,” and the same act to proceed upon drunken women.

And again, “That gif ony men or women be notit as common blasphemers of the holy name of God, the Bailies sall give them ane sys of neighbours; and gif they be convicted of it, they sall be usit samen as drunkards, quhidder they be rich or puir.” But a more summary system than that of assize was also adopted. “Quhasover is apprehendit banning, execrating, swearing, or blaspheming openly, sall be taen incontinent and put an hour in the choks.” This instrument of punishment was furnished with a gag which entered the mouth; and besides the one for public offenders, the citizens were “ordainit” to keep in readiness their own “choks for correcting of the banners and swearers in their awn domestic houses.”

It is ordered that keepers of houses of ill-fame, “sall dispatch themselves off the town, or else amend, and leave sic vicious manner of leiving; for gif they be apprehendit therewith in time coming, they sall be openly banishit at the Mercat Croce.” Unchaste conduct met with severe reprobation. Men and women were “for the first fault to be admonishit by the preachers to forbear, and to shaw their open repentance publicly in presence of the haill congregation, and so forbear in time coming. But gif he and she be again apprehendit in the same fault, they sall stand three hours in the gyves, and be thrice doukit in the sea, and gif that punishment serves nocht for amendment, they sall be banishit for ever.” But the life of a coming child was not to be endangered in punishing an unchaste woman; it was enacted that, under such circumstances, “the woman, of what estate so ever she be, sall be brocht to the Mercat Croce openly, and there her hair sall be cuttit of, and the same nailit upon the cuck-stool, and she make her public repentance in the Kirk.”

Exposing offenders to popular derision was a common mode of punishment in Scotland. The stocks and the cuck-stool in the market-place, and the stool-of-repentance in the church, were all used on the supposition that the evildoer had still shame and a wholesome dread of the finger of scorn lingering in the heart. The _jougs_—a hinged iron band for the neck, attached by a chain to the market cross, the gate-post of the parish church, or the tolbooth, a tree, or other wise—were a common institution. The offence of the culprit would be placarded in bold characters and very plain terms on his or her breast, or overhead.

ADMINISTRATION OF THE EFFECTS OF PERSONS DYING. DRESS REGULATIONS.