Chapter VIII: Part 8

Morton was condemned for being ‘airt and part’[120] concerned in the murder of Darnley. He was more clearly an actor in the cruel slaughter of Riccio. After doing his best to insnare Mary into a marriage with Bothwell, he had headed a rebellion against her on hypocritical pretences. The extortions he had practised during his regency, in order to enrich himself, shewed an equally sordid and cruel character. Throughout all the time of his government, he had outraged decency by the grossness of his private life. Yet ‘he had great comfort that he died a Christian, in the true and sincere profession of religion, whilk he cravit all the faithful to follow, and abide thereat to the death.’--_Moy._ ‘He keepit the same countenance, gesture, and short sententious form of language upon the scaffold, whilk he usit in his princely government. He spake, led about and urgit by the commanders at the four nooks of the scaffold; but after that ance he had very fectfully[121] and gravely uttered, at guid length, that whilk he had to speak, thereafter almaist he altered not thir words: “It is for my sins that God has justly brought me to this place; for gif I had served my God as truly as I did my king, I had not come here. But as for that I am condemned for by men, I am innocent, as God knows. Pray for me.” ... I [am] content to have recordit the wark of God, whilk I saw with my ees and heard with my ears.’--_Ja. Mel._

‘After all was done, he went without fear and laid his neck upon the block, crying continually: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” till the axe of the Maiden--which he himself had caused make after the pattern which he had seen at Halifax in Yorkshire--falling upon his neck, put an end to his life and that note together. His body was carried to the Tolbooth, and buried secretly in the night in the Greyfriars. His head was affixed on the gate of the city.’--_H. of G._

The Maiden, which still exists in the Museum of the Society of the Antiquaries of Scotland, is an instrument of the same nature as the guillotine, a loaded knife running in an upright frame, and descending upon a cross-beam, on which the neck of the culprit is laid. It is not unlikely that the ex-Regent introduced the Maiden; but another allegation, which asserts him to have been the first to suffer by it, is untrue.

At the death of Morton, the common people were much occupied in discussing a prophecy that the Bleeding Heart should fall by the Mouth of Arran. Morton, as a Douglas, bore the Bleeding Heart in his coat-armorial. Captain Stuart having been made Earl of Arran between the time of the accusation and the execution, here, said they, is the prediction realised, though what the Mouth of Arran meant it would have puzzled them to tell. It was probably to this unintelligible stanza in the prophecies of Merling that they referred:

In the mouth of Arran an selcouth[122] shall fall,
Two bloody harts shall be taken with a false train,
And derfly dung down without any dome,
Ireland, Orkney, and other lands many,
For the death of those two great dule shall make.[123]

Morton may be taken as an example of a class of public men in that rude and turbulent time, who were to all appearance earnest Christians of the reforming and evangelical stamp, and nevertheless allowed themselves a licence in every wickedness, even to treachery and murder, whenever they had a selfish object in view, or, more strangely still, when the interests of religion, in their view of the matter, called on them so to act.

[Sidenote: 1581.]

Nothing is more remarkable in the history of this period than the coincidence of wicked or equivocal actions and pious professions in the same person. Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney, who performed the marriage-ceremony of Mary and Bothwell, and afterwards in the basest manner took active part against her--who was in constant trouble with the General Assembly on account of his shortcomings--writes letters full of expressions of Christian piety and resignation. He is constantly ‘saying with godly Job, gif we have receivit guid out of the hand of the Lord, why should we not alsae receive evil--giving him maist hearty thanks therefore, attesting our godly and stedfast faith in him, whilk is maist evident in time of probane.’ Sir John Bellenden, justice-clerk, who had a share in the murder of Signor David, and who, on receiving a gift of Hamilton of Bothwell-haugh’s estate of Woodhouselee from the Regent Moray, turned Hamilton’s wife out of doors, so as to cause her to run mad--this vile man, in his will, speaks of ‘my saul, wha baith sall meet my Maister with joy and comfort, to hear that comfortable voice that he has promisit to resotat [resuscitate], saying, Come unto me thou as ane of my elect.’[124]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: JUNE 11.]

An entry in the Lord Treasurer’s books reveals the mood of the gay king and his courtiers, nine days after the bloody end of Morton. It is Sunday, and James is residing with the Duke of Lennox at Dalkeith Castle. He attends the parish church within the town, and, after service, returns, with _two pipers playing before him_.[125]

[Sidenote: 1581.]

It was, however, only four days after the death of Morton, and while his blood was still fresh upon the streets, that the man who had brought him to the block passed through the gay scenes of a marriage. Captain Stuart--for Scottish history can scarcely be induced to recognise him as Earl of Arran--had formed a shameful connection with a lady of high birth and rank now figuring at the Scottish court. Born Elizabeth Stewart, as daughter of the Earl of Athole, she had first been wife of Lord Lovat--then, after his death, wife of the Earl of March, brother of the Regent Lennox. Her intrigue with Captain James, her divorce of the Earl of March on alleged reasons which history would blush to mention, her quick-following marriage to Arran while in a condition which would have given her husband a plea of divorce against herself, and this occurring so close to the time when Arran had shed the blood of his great enemy, form a series of events sufficient to mark the character of the court into which the young king had emerged from the strictness of Presbyterian rule. When the lady brought her husband a son in the subsequent January,[126] the king was invited to the baptism, and we only learn that he was prevented from attending in consequence of a temporary quarrel which had by that time taken place between Lennox and Arran.

A contemporary writer, speaking of the countess, calls her ‘the maistresse of all vice and villany,’ and says she ‘infectit the air in his Hieness’ audience.’ He accuses her of controlling the course of justice, and alleges that she ‘caused sundrie to be hanged that wanted their compositions, saying: What had they been doing all their days, that had not so much as five punds to buy them from the gallows?‘--_Cal._

The Presbyterian clergy regarded the frivolity of Lennox and Mombirneau, their foreign vices and oaths, joined to the coarser native profligacy of Arran and his lady, as forming a bad school for the young king. A love of amusement and buffoonery he certainly contracted from this source; but it is remarkable that he was not drawn into any gross vice by the bad example set before him.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: NOV.]

At this time, upwards of twenty years after the Reformation, it was still found that ‘the dregs of idolatry’ existed in sundry parts of the realm, ‘by using of pilgrimage to some chapels, wells, crosses ..., as also by observing of the festival-days of the sancts, sometime namit their patrons; in setting furth of banefires, [and] singing of carols within and about kirks at certain seasons of the year.’ An act of parliament was now passed, condemning these practices, and imposing heavy fines on those guilty of them; failing which, the transgressors to endure a month’s imprisonment upon bread and water.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: 1582.

JUNE.]

The archbishopric of Glasgow being vacant, Mr Robert Montgomery accepted it from the king, on an understanding with the king’s favourite, the Duke of Lennox, as to the income. The church excommunicated him. In Edinburgh, ‘he was openly onbeset [waylaid] by lasses and rascals of the town, and hued out by flinging of stones at him, out at the Kirk of Field port, and narrowly escaped with his life.’--_Moy._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: SEP. 4.]

One consequence of the _coup d’état_ at Ruthven was the return of John Durie from the banishment into which he had gone in May, to resume his ministry in Edinburgh. The affair makes a fine historic picture.

‘As he is coming from Leith to Edinburgh, there met him at the Gallow Green two hundred men of the inhabitants of Edinburgh. Their number still increased till he came within the Nether Bow. There they began [with bare heads and loud voices] to sing the 124th psalm--“Now Israel may say, and that truly,” &c., in four parts [till heaven and earth resounded]. They came up the street to the Great Kirk, singing thus all the way, to the number of two thousand. They were much moved themselves, and so were the beholders. The Duke [of Lennox, who was lodged in the High Street, and looked out and saw], was astonished and more affrayed at that sight than at anything that ever he had seen before in Scotland, and rave his beard for anger. After exhortation made in the reader’s place by Mr James Lowson, to thankfulness, and the singing of a psalm, they dissolved with great joy.’--_Cal._

[Sidenote: SEP. 5.

1582.

SEP. 28.]

Another consequence of the change at court was, that the Duke of Lennox was forced to leave the kingdom. The Presbyterian historians relate the manner of his departure with evident relish. ‘The duke departed out of the town, after noon, accompanied with the provost, bailies, and five hundred men.... He rode towards Glasgow, accompanied by the Lord Maxwell, the Master of Livingstone, the Master of Eglintoun, Ferniehirst, and sundry other gentlemen.’[127]... He ‘remained in Dunbarton at the West Sea, where, or [ere] he gat passage, he was put to as hard a diet as he caused the Earl of Morton to use there; yea, even to the other extremity that he had used at court; for, whereas his kitchen was sae sumptuous that lumps of butter was cast in the fire when it soked [grew dull], and twa or three crowns waired upon a stock of kale dressing, he was fain to eat of a meagre guse, scoudered with beare strae.’[128] Died in Edinburgh, George Buchanan, at the age of seventy-eight, immediately after concluding his _History of Scotland_. His high literary accomplishments, especially his exquisite Latin composition, have made his name permanently famous. His personal character was not without its shades, yet it stands forth amidst the rough scenes of that time as something, on the whole, venerable. Sir James Melville, in noting that, while acting as one of the king’s preceptors, he kept the young monarch in great awe, goes on to speak of him as ‘a stoic philosopher,’ who did not act in that capacity with any view to his worldly interests. ‘A man of notable endowments for his learning and knowledge in Latin poesy,’ says this mild contemporary, ‘much honoured in other countries, pleasant in conversation, rehearsing at all occasions moralities short and instructive, whereof he had abundance, inventing where he wanted. He was also religious, but was easily abused, and so facile, that he was led by every company that he haunted, which made him factious in his old days, for he spoke and wrote as those who were about him informed him; for he was become careless, following in many things the vulgar opinion; for he was naturally popular, and extremely revengeful against any man who had offended him, which was his greatest fault. For he did write despiteful invectives against the Earl of Monteith, for some particulars that were between him and the Laird of Buchanan. He became the Earl of Morton’s great enemy, for that a nag of his chanced to be taken from his servant during the civil troubles, and was bought by the Regent, who had no will to part with the said horse, he was so sure-footed and so easy, that albeit Mr George had ofttimes required him again, he could not get him. And, therefore, though he had been the Regent’s great friend before, he became his mortal enemy, and from that time forth spoke evil of him in all places, and at all occasions.’

[Sidenote: 1582.]

A little while before Buchanan’s death, while his history was passing through the press of Alexander Arbuthnot in Edinburgh, the Rev. James Melville, accompanied by his uncle Andrew, came from St Andrews ‘anes-errand’--that is, on set purpose--to see him and his work. ‘When we came to his chalmer,’ says Melville, ‘we fand him sitting in his chair, teaching his young man that servit in his chalmer, to spell, a, b, ab; e, b, eb; &c. After salutation, Mr Andrew says: “I see, sir, ye are not idle.” “Better this,” quoth he, “nor stealing sheep, or sitting idle, whilk is as ill.” Thereafter he shew[ed] us the Epistle Dedicatory to the King; the whilk when Mr Andrew had read he tauld him it was obscure in some places, and wanted certain words to perfite the sentence. Says he: “I may do nae mair for thinking on another matter.” “What is that?” says Mr Andrew. “To die,” quoth he; “but I leave that and mony mae things for you to help.”

‘We went from him to the printer’s wark-house, whom we fand at the end of the 17 buik of his chronicle, at a place whilk we thought very hard for the time, whilk might be an occasion of staying the haill wark, anent the burial of Davie.[129] Thereafter, staying the printer from proceeding, we came to Mr George again, and fand him bedfast by [contrary to] his custom; and asking him how he did--“Even going the way of weelfare,” says he. Mr Thomas, his cousin, shews him the hardness of that part of his story, [and] that the king might be offended with it, and it might stay all the wark. “Tell me, man,” says he, “gif I have tauld the truth?” “Yes,” says Mr Thomas, “sir, I think sae.” “I will bide his feid, and all his kin’s then,” quoth he: “pray, pray to God for me, and let Him direct all.”’

The sternness of Scottish prejudices here reaches the heroic.

With its eight centuries of fable in the front, and its glaring partisanship in the latter part, we cannot now attach much importance to Buchanan’s history. Yet in respect of its literary character, it contains some truly felicitous touches, as where he describes the surface of Galloway in four words--‘_in modicos colles tumet_;’ or the remarkable sea-board of Fife in two--‘_oppidulis præcingitur_.’ Expressions like these shew the master of literary art.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: DEC. 10.]

The king’s new councillors of course felt that hard measure had been dealt to the ex-Regent. At this date, ‘the Earl of Morton’s head was taken down off the prick which is upon the high gavell of the Tolbooth, with the king’s licence, at the eleventh hour of the day; was laid in a fine cloth, convoyed honourably, and laid in the kist where his body was buried. The Laird of Carmichael carried it, shedding tears abundantly by the way.’--_Cal._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: 1582-3.

JAN. 23.

FEB. 4.]

While the king was in the hands of the Ruthven conspirators, two gentlemen came as ambassadors from France to see what could be done for him, and were of course treated with little civility by the royal councillors. The second, M. de Menainville, must have been the less acceptable to them, if it was true which was alleged, that he had been one of the chief devisers of the league in Picardy against the Protestants. With some difficulty, De Menainville made his way into the royal presence at Holyroodhouse. ‘After some words spoken to the king, he craved that he might be used as an ambassador; that, as he had the use of meat and drink for his body, so he might have food for his soul, meaning the mass, otherwise he would not stay to suffer his most Christian prince’s authority and ambassage to be violated. The king rounded [whispered] and prayed him to be sober in that point, and all would be weel.’ It was not likely that the concession which had been sternly refused to Queen Mary would, at such a time, be granted to him. The king, with much ado, prevailed upon the magistracy of Edinburgh to give the other ambassador, the Sieur de la Motte Fenelon, a banquet on the eve of his departure. The kirk-session opposed the entertainment; and when they found they could not prevent it, they did the next best--held a solemn fast, with preachings and psalm-singing, during the whole time of the feast--namely, from betwixt nine and ten in the morning till two in the afternoon. The ministers called the banquet a holding fellowship with ‘the murderers of the sancts of God.’--_Cal._

[Sidenote: 1583.

MAR. 28.]

De Menainville remained for some time after. ‘Upon Thursday the 28th of March, commonly called Skyre Thursday, [he] called into his lodging thirteen poor men, and washed their feet according to the popish manner, whereat the people was greatly offended.’--_Cal._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: AUG. 23.

1583.]

All previous efforts at the finding of metals in the country having failed, a contract was now entered into between the king and one Eustachius Roche, described as a Fleming and mediciner, whereby the latter was to be allowed to break ground anywhere in search of those natural treasures, and to use timber from any of the royal forests in furthering of the work, without molestation from any one, during twenty-one years, on the sole condition that he should deliver for his majesty’s use, for every hundred ounces of gold found, seven ounces; and for the like weight of all other metals--as silver, copper, tin, or lead--ten ounces for every hundred found, and sell the remainder of the gold for the use of the state at £22 per ounce of utter fine gold, and of the silver at 50s. the ounce.--_P. C. R._

We light upon Eustachius again on the 3d of December 1585, and he is then in no pleasant plight with his mines. Assisted by a number of Englishmen, he had done his best to fulfil his share of the contract, but ‘as yet he has made little or nae profit of his travel, partly by reason of the trouble of this contagious sickness, but specially in the default of his partners and John Scolloce their factor,’ who would not fulfil either their duty to his majesty or their engagements to himself. Through these causes, ‘the haill wark has been greatly hinderit.’ He had Scolloce warded in Edinburgh; but he, ‘by his majesty’s special command, is latten to liberty, without ony trial taken.’ At the same time, the king’s treasurer ‘has causit arreist the leid ore whilk the complener has presently in Leith, and whilk was won in the mines of Glengoner Water and Winlock.’ This was the greater hardship, as it was the part he had to set aside for the Earl of Arran, in virtue of a contract for the protection of his lordship’s rights to certain lead-mines. The Lords were merciful to the poor adventurer, and ordered the arrestment to be discharged.--_P. C. R._

He rises once more before us in a new capacity under September 4, 1588.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: 1583-4.

SEP. 10.

JAN. 9.]

The king having now escaped from his Ruthven councillors and fallen once more under the influence of the Earl of Arran, Sir Francis Walsingham came as Elizabeth’s ambassador to express her concern about these movements, and see what could be done towards opposite effects. Coming to a king with an unwelcome message has never been a pleasant duty; but it must have been particularly disagreeable on this occasion, if it be true, as is alleged by a Presbyterian historian, that Arran--who, says he, within a few days after his return to court, ‘began to look braid’--hounded out a low woman, called _Kate the witch_, to assail the ambassador with vile speeches as he passed to and from the king’s presence. She was, it is alleged, hired by Arran ‘for a new plaid and six pounds in money, not only to rail against the ministry [clergy], his majesty’s most assured and ancient nobility, and lovers of the amity [English alliance], but also set in the entry of the king’s palace, to revile her majesty’s ambassador at Edinburgh, St Andrews, Falkland, Perth, and everywhere, to the great grief of all good men, and dishonour of the king and country.’ It is further stated, that, being imprisoned ‘for a fashion,’ large allowance was made for her entertainment, and she was relieved as soon as Walsingham had departed.--_Cal._

While the kirk was beginning to feel the consequences of the king’s emancipation from the Ruthven lords, it sustained an assault, though of a very petty character, from a different quarter. Robert Brown, a Cambridge student, had three years before attracted attention in Norfolk by his novel and startling ideas regarding ecclesiastical matters. The Bishop of Norwich imprisoned him, with the usual non-success as far as the correction of opinion was concerned. He had then taken refuge at Middleburgh, and there given forth his notions to the world in the form of a pamphlet. Now he was come to Scotland, perhaps thinking it a pity that a people should be in trouble between the contending claims of Prelacy and Presbytery, when he could shew them that both systems were wrong. Landing at Dundee, where, it is said, he received some encouragement, he advanced by St Andrews to Edinburgh, and there took up his quarters ‘in the head of the Canongate,’ along with four or five English followers, who were accompanied by their wives and children. The people--who, for the most part, were passionately attached to the simple fabric of their national church, and dreamt of no rivalship or enmity to it except in episcopacy--how they must have felt at the novel sight of a group of men who, in declaring against bishops, also found fault with sessions and synods, with indeed all ecclesiastical action whatever, considering each congregation independent in itself, and no member of it less entitled to pray and preach than the pastor!

[Sidenote: 1583-4.]

Brown, whose self-confidence in asserting his peculiar doctrines was very great, did not rest four days in Edinburgh before he had presented himself to the general kirk-session for a wrangle. We are told by a Presbyterian historian--he ‘made shew, in an arrogant manner, that he would maintain that witnesses at baptism was not a thing indifferent, but simply evil. But he failed in the probation.’ A week after, ‘in conference with some of the presbytery, he alleged that the whole discipline of Scotland was amiss; that he and his company were not subject to it, and therefore he would appeal from the kirk to the magistrate.’ Considering how the clergy stood with the court, this must have been a most offensive threat; the more so that the court had already shewn some symptoms of favour to Brown, in order to ‘molest the kirk.’ ‘It was thought good that Mr James Lowson and Mr John Davidson should gather out of his book such opinions as they suspected or perceived him to err in, and get them ready, to pose him and his followers thereupon, that thereafter the king might be informed.’ A week later, Brown and his ‘complices’ came before the presbytery, to answer the articles prepared against him. We only further learn that he left Edinburgh, ‘malcontent, because his opinions were not embraced, and that he was committed to ward a night or two till they were tried’ (_Cal._), a form of religious disputation highly characteristic of the age. Brown afterwards, when founding his sect of Independents in England, published a volume containing various invectives against the Scottish kirk and its leaders, of which Dr Bancroft took advantage in preaching against presbytery (9th February 1589), while probably ready to consign their author to the pains which the Bishop of Peterborough actually meted out to him by excommunication.

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[Sidenote: 1584.]

Thomas Vautrollier, a French Protestant, who had come to England early in Elizabeth’s reign, migrated about this time to Edinburgh, where he set up a printing-press. From his office proceeded this year a small volume of poems, composed by the young king, under the title of _The Essayes of a Prentise in the Divine Art of Poesie_; to which was added a prose treatise embracing the ‘rules and cautels for Scottish poesie:’ a volume of which it may be enough to say, that it betrays a laudable love of literature in the royal author, joined to some power of literary expression. Vautrollier does not appear to have met with sufficient encouragement to induce him to remain in Edinburgh, as he soon after returned to London.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: JULY.]

At the end of this month, the pest was brought into Scotland at Wester Wemyss, a small port in Fife--‘where many departed.’--_Moy._

King James tells us in his _Basilicon Doron_, that ‘the pest always smites the sickarest such as flies it furthest and apprehends deepliest the peril thereof.’ See his own conduct on this occasion. About the end of September, while he was hunting at Ruthven, ‘word came that there were five or six houses in Perth affected with the plague, where his majesty’s servants were for the time. Whereupon, his majesty _departed the same night_, with a very small train to Tullibardine, and next day to Stirling, leaving his whole household servants enclosed in the place of Ruthven, with express command to them not to follow, nor remove forth of the same, until they saw what became of them upon the suspicion.’--_Moy. R._

[Sidenote: 1584.]

The pest on this occasion remained in Perth for several months, working great destruction. It was ordained by the kirk-session, May 24, 1585, that ‘hereafter during the time of the plague, no banquets should be at marriages, and no persons should resort to bridals under pain of ten pounds ... forty pounds to be paid by them that call more than four on the side to the banquet, or bridal, during the pest.’

In the ensuing February, under an apprehension about the arrival of the pestilence in their city, the town-council of Edinburgh adopted a highly rational sanitary measure, ordering the ashes, dust, and dirt of their streets to be put up to auction. We do not learn that any one undertook to pay for the privilege of cleaning the streets of the capital, and Maitland remarks in his history, that many years elapsed before the movement was renewed, not to say carried into effect.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: DEC. 2.]

‘... a baxter’s boy, called Robert Henderson--no doubt by the instigation of Satan--desperately put some powder and a candle in his father’s heather-stack, standing in a close opposite to the Tron of Edinburgh [the public weighing-machine], and burnt the same, with his father’s house, which lay next adjacent, to the imminent hazard of burning the whole town. For which, being apprehended most marvellously, after his escaping out of the town, he was on the next day burnt quick at the Cross, as an example.’--_Moy. R._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: 1585.

APR. 7.]

John Lord Maxwell was at this time the most powerful man in the south-west province of Scotland. He possessed Caerlaverock Castle and many fair estates. The next man in the district was the chief of the clan Johnston, usually called Johnston of that Ilk, or the Laird of Johnston. The jealousy in which these great lords of the land usually stood of each other chanced at this time to be inflamed into hostilities, and Maxwell took such an attitude towards the profligate government of the Earl of Arran, as to cause himself to be denounced as a rebel. According to the common practice, the court gave a commission to Johnston to proceed against Lord Maxwell, only helping him with two companies of hired troops under the command of Captains Cranstoun and Lammie.

[Sidenote: 1585.]

This proved an unfortunate movement for the house of Johnston. The two hired bands were cut to pieces on Crawford Moor[130] by Robert Maxwell, natural brother to the earl. The same bold man proceeded to Johnston’s castle of Lochwood, and at the date noted set fire to it, jestingly remarking that he would give Lady Johnston light ‘to set her hood.’ Johnston himself sustained a defeat at the hands of the Maxwells, was made prisoner by them, and died of a broken heart.

This was only the beginning of a protracted feud between the Maxwells and Johnstons, which cost each family, as will be seen, the destruction of two of its chiefs.

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[Sidenote: APR. 30.

1585.]

John Livingstone of Belstane[131] complained to the Council of an assault which had been made upon him on the 3d of the preceding February by sundry persons, whose motive in so assailing him does not appear. The affair is most characteristic--indeed, a type of numberless other lawless proceedings of the time. John quietly leaves his house before sunrise, meaning no harm to any one, and expecting none to himself. He walks out, as he says, under God’s peace and the king’s, when suddenly he is beset by about forty people who had him at feud, ‘all bodin in feir of weir;’ namely, armed with jacks, steel-bonnets, spears, lance-staffs, bows, hagbuts, pistolets, and other invasive weapons forbidden by the laws. At the head of them was William, Master of Yester--a denounced rebel on account of his slaughter of the Laird of Westerhall’s servant--Alexander Jardine, younger of Applegarth; his servants, Stephen Jardine and Matthew Moffat in Woodend, James Borthwick of Colela, John Lauder of Hartpool, Michael Hunter of Polmood, John Hoppringle in Peebles, James Hoppringle of the same place, William Brenarde [Burnett?] of the Barns, John Cockburn of Glen, and Colin Langton of Earlshaugh, were among the company, evidently all of them men of some figure and importance. Having come for the purpose of attacking Livingstone, they no sooner saw him than they set upon him, with discharge of their firearms, to deprive him of his life. He narrowly escaped, and ran back to his house, which they immediately environed in the most furious manner, firing in at the windows and through every other aperture, for a space of three hours. A ‘bullon’ pierced his hat. As they departed, they met his wife and daughter, whom they abused shamefully. In short, it seems altogether to have been an affair of the most barbarous and violent kind. The offenders were all denounced rebels.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: MAY 7.]

The pest, which had commenced in Perth in the previous September, was believed to be now brought thence by a servant-woman to the Fishmarket in Edinburgh (_Moy._), where it ‘was first knawn to be in Simon Mercerbanks’s house.’ (_Bir._) From accident or otherwise, the king acted on this occasion exactly as he had done at Perth, when the plague first declared itself there. On the very day when the disease appeared in Edinburgh, he left the city, and ‘rode to Dirleton[132] to a sumptuous banquet prepared by the Earl of Arran.’ (_Cal._) The pest continued in the capital till the subsequent January, sometimes carrying off twenty-four people in a single night. ‘The haill people whilk was able to flee, fled out of the town: nevertheless there died of people which were not able to flee, fourteen hundred and some odd.’ (_Bir._) It was at St Andrews in August, ‘and continued till upwards of four hundred people died, and the place was left almost desolate.’ (_Moy._) Dunse is cited as a place where this pestilence ‘raged extremely.’ (_Mar._). In Perth, between 24th September 1584, and August 1585, when it ceased, it carried off fourteen hundred and twenty-seven persons, young and old, or thereby. (_Chron. Perth._) This could not be less than a sixth of the entire population.

June 23, 1585, on account of the pest being in Edinburgh, the business of the cunyie-house was ordered to be transported to Dundee, and the coining of gold, silver, and alloyed money to go on there as it had hitherto done in Edinburgh. On the alloyed pennies, OPPIDUM DUNDEE was to be substituted for OPPIDUM EDINBURGI. The Exchequer was also removed to Falkland, and the Court of Session to Stirling. On the 21st of October, the pest being now in Dundee, the coining was ordered to be removed to Perth, and the name of that burgh to be substituted in the circumscription.--_P. C. R._

[Sidenote: 1585.]

The severity of this pestilence excited the rage of the people against the Earl of Arran and his lady, the then ruling power of the country, to whose infamous life, and to the banishment of the Protestant leaders, the evil was attributed. In the course of the summer, the air being ‘perpetually nebulous,’ and the growing crop ‘universally corrupted,’[133] the popular feeling was further excited in the same direction, and the general cry was that the Lord would not stay his hand till the banished lords were brought home again. These lords actually did draw nearer to the Border, under the encouragement which the plague thus afforded them (_Ja. Mel._), and by reason that the citizens of Edinburgh were not now able to come forward and act, in blind obedience to court-orders, as they were wont.

The revolution effected by the ultra Protestant party at Stirling (November 2, 1585), was followed by a stoppage of the pestilence, ‘not by degrees or piecemeal, but in a instant, as it were; so that never any after that hour was known to have been infected, nor any of such as were infected before, to have died. The lane, also, in Stirling by which they [the banished lords] entered, was wholly infected; yet no man [of their party] was known to have been tainted with it, or to have received any hurt: nay, the men of Annandale did rob and ransack the pest-lodges which were in the field about Stirling, and carried away the clothes of the infected, but were never known to have been touched therewith themselves, or any others that got or wore the clothes. They also that were in the lodges, returned to their houses, and conversed with their neighbours in the town, who received them without fear, suspicion, or reproof, and no harm did ensue upon it. As for Edinburgh, before the 1st of February, within three months it was so well peopled and filled again with inhabitants, as none could perceive by the number that any had died out of it.’ This change--‘nothing can be alleged to have brought it to pass but the very finger of God. Let mankind advert and admire it; and whosoever shall go about to bereave God of his glory by laying it upon fortune, may his chance be such as his perverseness deserveth!‘--_H. of G._

The assumed immunity of the Border thieves is extremely amusing. Being here engaged in the right cause, it mattered not that they committed the monstrous inhumanity of plundering the sick and cheating the heirs of the dead.

[Sidenote: 1585.]

James Melville remarks the same connection of circumstances, but places the improvement of the public health a month later. From the meeting of the parliament in December, under the auspices of the king’s new advisers, ‘the pest abated, and began to be strangely and remarkably withdrawn by the merciful hand of God, sae that Edinburgh was frequented again that winter; and at the entry of the spring, all the towns, almost desolate before, repeopled--St Andrews among the rest.’

Melville relates a remarkable anecdote of this pestilence, under November, when he had occasion to return from banishment at Berwick, and to proceed through Edinburgh on his way to attend a General Assembly at Linlithgow. ‘On the morn, we made haste, and, coming to Losterrick [Restalrig], disjuned, and about eleven hours, came riding in at the Water-gate, up through the Canongate, and rade in at the Nether Bow, through the great street of Edinburgh, to the West Port, _in all whilk way we saw not three persons_, sae that I miskenned Edinburgh, and almost forgot that I had ever seen sic a town.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: NOV. 2.]

‘The news of the taking of Stirling was at the court of England and in London within aught and forty hours; for it being done on Tuesday in the morning, on the Thursday thereafter Mr Bowes tauld us, and on the Friday it was common in the mouths of all London.’--_Ja. Mel._

Under March 17, 1578, is another instance of extraordinary quickness in the communication of intelligence from Stirling to Edinburgh. In that case, we might suppose that the event only fulfilled a previous design. Such could scarcely be the case here. Sir John G. Dalyell remarks, that ‘rumours subsequently verified are undoubtedly sometimes in circulation. The author recollects very well that the result of the battle of Trafalgar, or of Corunna, was currently reported in the city of Edinburgh, previous to any certain intelligence known to have been received of the fact through what was esteemed the speediest channel: nor, on subsequently computing the intervals, could satisfactory conjectures be formed how it had arrived.’[134] It may be remembered by many that, in the war in Afghanistan in 1842-3, the natives were remarked often to be possessed of intelligence of events occurring at a distance, long before any information had come to the British through recognised channels. The author just quoted expresses his opinion that, in such cases, there has merely been an anticipation on probable grounds of an event which was subsequently ascertained to have happened.

REIGN OF JAMES VI.: 1585-1590.

These years were chiefly marked by the struggles of the more zealous clergy to replace the church upon a purely Presbyterian basis, and to maintain their assumed independence of the civil power. The king found his power encroached on, upon the one hand, by nobles richer, and having a greater command of followers, than himself; on the other, by divines who repudiated all subjection to civil authority in matters ecclesiastical, and yet arrogated powers which greatly concerned the secular rights and liberties of the people. While the reaction in his youthful mind against these besetting troubles inspired him with visionary ideas of the true rights of a monarch, the dissimulation practised at his court by the astute emissaries of Elizabeth, the restraints imposed on his liberty and natural sentiments by the more zealous Protestant party while he was under their rule, and the tricks he was tempted to have recourse to in order to recover his freedom, and obtain some share of real power, gave him, before he was twenty, such a tutoring in craft, as marked his character during the remainder of life. A more manly and resolute person would have either broken bravely through such a complication of troubles or perished in the attempt. With the help of a good-natured pliancy, James floated on. He was of a timid disposition, greatly disrelishing the sight of weapons, and along with this temper he exhibited much good-nature. Trembling at the outrageous dispositions of his nobles, and constitutionally a lover of peace, he exerted himself to conciliate offenders, and by persuasion to make them cease to break the laws, when a vigorous procedure against them in courts of justice would have been required. For the sake of his hopes of the English succession, if not from his own convictions--which, however, are not to be doubted--he maintained the Protestant cause. At the same time, seeing that the Catholics were friends of monarchy, and might have something to say in the English succession, he desired, if possible, to avoid offending them past forgiveness. Even the ultra-zealous Presbyterian clergy, who came to remonstrate with him, in his own palace, on his public acts or his private foibles, he could treat with such pleasantry as often disarmed them, when a more strenuous policy might have failed.

In February 1586-7, the unfortunate Mary was beheaded in Fotheringay Castle, a victim to the necessities of the Protestant cause.

In 1588, when this cause was threatened with destruction by the Spanish Armada, King James and his people manifested the greatest zeal in preparing for the defence of their part of the island. They entered into a Covenant or bond, in which they made solemn profession of the Protestant faith, and avowed their resolution to oppose Popery by every means in their power. After this danger had blown over, a new alarm was excited by the discovery of a conspiracy amongst the three leading Catholic nobles of Scotland, Huntly, Errol, and Crawford, to aid in introducing a Spanish army, through Scotland, for the conquest of the British island. These nobles having broken out in rebellion, in concert with a Protestant noble of irregular character, Stuart, Earl of Bothwell, the king led an army against them, and succeeded in reducing them to obedience (April 1589). Huntly, Crawford, Errol, and Bothwell were all convicted of treason; but the king shrank from inflicting a punishment which was certain to damage his prospects with a large party in England. They were liberated after only a few months’ imprisonment.

In the latter part of 1589, James effected his marriage with the Princess Anne of Denmark. His young bride being detained in Norway for the winter, in consequence of a storm, he sailed for that country (October 22), and solemnised his nuptials at Upslo (now Christiania). In May 1590, the royal pair arrived amidst great rejoicings at Leith. The first year of the king’s married life was strangely disturbed by a series of trials for the imaginary crime of witchcraft, in which the character of the age is strongly marked.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: 1586.

APR. 18.]

The Earl of Eglintoun, ‘a young nobleman of a fair and large stature’ (_Moy._), was murdered by Cunningham of Robertland.

Montgomery and Cunningham were the Montague and Capulet of Ayrshire in the sixteenth century. The feud had sprung up nearly a hundred years before the above date, in consequence of the Earl of Glencairn disputing the title of the Earl of Eglintoun to the bailiery of the district of Cunningham. There had been attempts at a stanching of the feud, and even a marriage had been proposed by way of fixing the parties in amity; but at a time when peace had nearly been effected, enmity was renewed in consequence of a Montgomery killing a Cunningham in self-defence.

[Sidenote: 1586.]

‘The Cunninghams, being grieved hereat, made presently a vow that they should be avenged upon the fattest of the Montgomeries (for these were their words) for that fact. This vow was sae acceptable to them all, that a band was concludit, subscrivit with the chiefest of their hands, to slay the young Earl [of Eglintoun] by whatsoever mean could be devisit, and that whasoever wald take the turn in hand, and perform it, he sould not only be sustenit upon the common expenses of the rest, but sould also be maintenit and defendit by them all from danger and skaith. At last ane Cunningham of Robertland took the enterprise in hand, whilk he accomplished in this manner:

‘Twa year before his treasonable attempt, he insinuate himself in familiarity and all dutiful service to the said young earl, whereby he movit him to take pleasure without ony suspicion, till he conqueist [acquired] sic favour at his hand, that neither the gold, money, horses, armour, clothes, counsel, or voyage was hid from him, that this same Robertland was made sae participant of them all, even as though they had been his awn; and besides all this, the confidence and favour that the earl shew unto him was sae great, that he preferrit him to be his awn bedfellow. Hereat Lord Hugo, auld Earl of Eglintoun, took great suspicion, and therefore admonist his son in a fatherly manner to beware of sic society, whilk, without all doubt, wald turn to his skaith; for he knew weel the nature of these Cunninghams to be subtle and false, and therefore willit him to give them nae traist, but to avoid their company altogether, even as he lovit his awn life or wald deserve his fatherly blessing. To this counsel the son gave little regard; but that was to his pains; and the domestic enemy was sae crafty indeed, that he wald attempt naething during the life of the father for many respects. But within short time thereafter [the father died June 1585], as the noble earl was passing a short way in pastime, accompanied with a very few of his household servants, and evil horsit himself, Robertland, accompanied with sixty armed men, came running furiously against him on horseback; and the earl, fearing the thing that followit, spurrit his horse to have fled away. His servants all fled another way, and he was left alone. The horsemen ran all upon him, and unmercifully killed him with shots of guns and strokes of swords.

[Sidenote: 1586.]

‘The complaint of this odious murder being made to the king, he causit the malefactors to be chargit to a trial. But they all fled beyond sea. Robertland, wha was the first to make the invasion, passed to Denmark, where he remainit at court till the king came to Queen Anne. And because nane of the rest could be apprehendit, the king ordainit their houses to be renderit to the earl’s brother, to be usit at his arbitrament, either to be demolishit or otherwise; and he swore the great aith, that he sould never pardon any of them that had committit that odious murder. Yet, how soon his majesty was arrivit in Denmark, his pardon was demandit of the queen for the first petition, and the same was obtenit, and he was receivit in grace there in presence of them all. Thereafter he came hame in the queen’s company, and remains as ane of her majesty’s master stablers.’--_H. K. J._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: MAY.]

The persecution of the Protestants in France at this time drove a vast number to England, where great sacrifices were made for their due entertainment. Scotland, with comparatively limited means, but perhaps warmer feeling, also made collections of money for the distressed people. According to James Melville, ‘all the Protestants in France were chargit off France within sic a day, under pain of life, lands, gudes, and gear; sae that the number of banished in England were sae great, and the poor of them sae many, that they were compelled to seek relief of us for the same ... in the poor bounds I had under charge at the first beginning of my ministry, we gathered about five hunder merks for that effect.... The sum of the haill collection whilk the French kirks gat, extended but till about ten thousand merks.’ A considerable number of the exiles, including Pierre du Moulin, the minister of Paris, came to Edinburgh, where the magistrates gave them the common hall of the university for their worship, along with a stated allowance of money for support of their clergy. It cannot be doubted that the sight of these poor French exiles would deepen the feeling of dread and antipathy towards popery and papists, which was already strongly rooted in Scotland.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: MAY 26.]

A singular collusive trial took place this day, for the purpose of clearing Mr Archibald Douglas, parson of Glasgow, of his concern in the murder of Darnley. He had been in exile or in hiding ever since, except during the regency of Morton, whose cousin he was. But now it was thought he might prove useful in advancing the king’s prospects in England; so, with the most barefaced contempt for the very forms of justice, he was tried by a packed jury, and acquitted.

[Sidenote: 1586.]

It is difficult to say to what extent the king was personally concerned in absolving one of his father’s murderers. Perhaps he was not over-squeamish about murders of old date. On this point an anecdote may be quoted, though it stands somewhat under question on the score of authority. ‘When Bothwell-haugh returned from France, whither he had fled upon the murder of the Regent, it is reported that he fell down at the king’s feet, told who he was, and implored pardon. On which the king said, raising him up: “Pardon you, man; pardon you, man! Blest be he that got you! for had you not shot that fellow, I had never been king.”’[135]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: JUNE 3.]

Sundry persons of the name of Burne, dwelling in the middle march of Scotland, had appointed a day of combat with several persons residing in the opposite country within England, ‘upon some light purpose unknown to his majesty, and without licence cravit of his majesty or of his dearest sister [Elizabeth] or of her officers, as aucht to be in sic case.’ It was much to be feared that amongst the many persons assembled, a very small accident might be sufficient to rekindle old feuds, and that thus serious evils would arise. The Council, therefore, forbade all assembling at the place and day appointed, under pain of treason.--_P. C. R._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: JULY.]

While the southern and more populous parts of Scotland were, as we see, sufficiently barbarous, the Highland districts were as the comparative, and the Hebrides as the superlative degree in the same quality. The king, in the first edition of his _Basilicon Doron_, tells his son to think no more of the Islanders than as ‘wolves and wild boars.’ Probably, when the reader has perused the following narrative, he will think the epithet not unjustly applied, although his majesty afterwards dropped it in reprinting his book. The tale is of a commotion betwixt Angus M‘Connel, Lord of Kintyre, and Maclean, Lord of Islay. ‘This Angus had to his wife the sister of Maclean, and although they were brether-in-law, yet the ane was always in sic suspicion with the other, that of either side there was sae little traist, that almaist sendle [seldom] or never did they meet in amity, like unto the common sort of people, but rather as barbares upon their awn guard, or by their messengers. True it is that thir Islandish men are of nature very proud, suspicious, avaritious, full of deceit and evil intention [each] against his neighbour, by what way so ever he may circumvent him. Besides all this, they are sae cruel in taking of revenge, that neither have they regard to person, age, time, or cause; sae are they generally all sae far addicted to their awn tyrannical opinions, that in all respects they exceed in cruelty the maist barbarous people that ever has been sin’ the beginning of the warld; ane example whereof ye sall hear in this history following:

[Sidenote: 1586.]