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Other documents randomly have
different content
The observance of Yule (Christmas), Pasch (Easter), and the various
saints’ days, had been sternly repressed at the Reformation. So were
the May-games and other holiday amusements in vogue under the
ancient faith. Nevertheless, we still find all of these matters enjoying
a sort of twilight life. They assert their vitality by the very efforts
made from time to time to extinguish them. Passing over the Robin
Hood play and other Edinburgh May-sports, to which repeated
reference has been made in the chronicle, we may advert to the
corresponding doings at the Fair City of the Tay.
The people of Perth had been in the habit, before the Reformation,
of observing Corpus Christi Day (second Thursday after Whitsunday)
and St Obert’s Day. On the former, it was customary to have a play.
After the change of religion, there was a great inclination to keep up
these old practices, which the church, however, condemned as
‘idolatrous, superstitious, and slanderous.’ In 1577, the kirk-session
of Perth prosecuted several persons for taking part in the Corpus
Christi play. Thomas Thorsails, who had borne the ensenyie or flag,
had to submit himself to the discipline of the kirk, and promise
‘never to meddle with such things again,’ in order that he might have
his bairn baptised. A considerable number of persons had to make
the like submission that they might be at peace with the session.
Nevertheless, on the ensuing 10th of December, being St Obert’s
Eve, there was a procession as usual; and several citizens were
brought to submission, ‘in that they superstitiously passed about the
town, disguised, in piping and dancing, and torches bearing.’ John
Fyvie afterwards confessed that on this occasion ‘he passed through
the town striking the drum, which was one of the common drums of
the town, accompanied with certain others—such as John Macbeth,
William Jack riding upon ane horse going in men’s shoes.’—P. K. S.
R.
In Aberdeen, December 30, 1574, certain persons were charged
before the kirk-session of Aberdeen ‘for playing, dancing, and
singing of filthy carols on Yule Day [Christmas Day] at even, and on
Sunday at even thereafter.’—A. K. S. R. January 10, 1575-6, ‘the haill
deacons of crafts within this burgh are ordained to take trial of their
crafts for sitting idle on Yule Day last was.’—Ibid. In Perth, January
10, 1596-7, ‘William Williamson, baxter, is accused of baking and
selling great loaves at Yule, which was slanderous, and cherishing a
superstition in the hearts of the ignorant.’—P. K. S. R.
[FROLICS AND MASQUERADINGS.]
The sessions appear to have everywhere had great battlings with
old-accustomed habits of festival-keeping and merry-making, in
which the people indulged, probably without any idea of committing
a sin. Some of their habits were connected with superstition, and
thus gave double offence.
There was a cave called the Dragon-hole, on the face of the Kinnoul
Hill near Perth. It was of difficult access, and old tradition had her
stories about it. The common sort of people were accustomed to
make a merry procession to the Dragon-hole once a year in May;
perhaps they had continued to do so since the days of heathenrie.
May 2, 1580, ‘because that the assembly of minister and elders
understand that the resort to the Dragon-hole, as well by young men
as women, with their piping and drums striking before them through
this town, had raised no small slander to this congregation,’ they
therefore ordain that each person guilty of this practice shall pay
twenty shillings to the poor, and make public repentance.
Notwithstanding all efforts at repression, cases of excessive
conviviality and of questionable frolics are not infrequent in these
moral registers. It seems to have been a favourite prank to
interchange the dresses of the sexes, and make a parade through
the town by night, singing merry songs. At Aberdeen, February 9,
1575-6, Madge Morison is ‘decreit to pay 6s. 8d. to the magistrate,
and Andrew Caithness is become caution for her repentance-making
when she is required, and that for the abusing of herself in claithing
of her with men’s claiths at the lyke [wake] of George Elmsly’s wife.’
A month after, in the same place, a group of women, ‘tryit presently
as dancers in men’s claiths, under silence of night, in house and
through the town,’ are assured that if found hereafter in the same
fault, ‘they sall be debarrit fra all benefit of the kirk, and openly
proclaimit in pulpit.’
At some blithesome bridal which took place in Aberdeen in August
1605, a number of young men and women danced through the town
together, ‘the young men being clad in women’s apparel, whilk is
accounted ane abomination (Deut. xxii. 5), and the young women
with masks on their faces, thereby passing the bounds of modesty
and shamefacedness, whilk aught to be in young women, namely
[especially] in a reformed city.’ The matter was referred to the
provincial assembly, and severe penalties threatened for future
instances of the offence.—A. K. S. R.
At Perth, in 1609, we find the kirk-session dealing with an ultra-
merry company, composed of Andrew Johnston, James Jackson, and
David Dickson, and three women, two of whom were the wives of
the first two men. They were accused of having gone about the
town on the evening of the preceding Tuesday, disguised, and with
swords and staves, molesting their neighbours. They stated that
they had been supping, and after supper, from mere merriness, had
gone about the town, but without molesting anybody. ‘It was
certainly found that they were disguised; namely, Andrew Johnston’s
wife having her hair hanging down, and a black hat upon her head;
her husband with a sword into his hand; James Jackson having a
mutch [woman’s cap] upon his head, and a woman’s gown; and that
they hurt and molested several persons.’ The matter was aggravated
by the consideration that it was a time of plague, and the offenders
were convalescents new come in from the fields, with ‘the blotch
and boil’ still on their persons. A public repentance was decreed to
them.—P. K. S. R.
The chief element of conviviality among the common people, at this
time, and for several generations later, was a light ale which the
keepers of taverns made at home; hence browster-wife came to be
a synonym for a woman keeping a public-house. The fierier and
more fatal whisky was, however, not unknown. In the Aberdeen Kirk-
session Register, under March 1606, we have two men brought up
for ‘abusing themselves last week by extraordinar drinking of aqua-
vitie.’
[OBSERVANCE OF SUNDAY.]
The Protestant Church took the observance of Sunday as a Sabbath
from the ancient church; and the Presbyterians of Scotland adopted
it fully, while rejecting all the other festivals—a fact with which
Ninian Winzet did not fail to taunt them as an inconsistency in his
Tractates, published immediately after the Reformation.253 Not
merely ecclesiastical acts, but several statutes of the realm, were put
in effect for the purpose of enforcing the observance of the day as a
day of rest and of religious exercises. From the terms of these,
however, and from the accounts we have of frequent punishments
for their neglect or infraction, it is evident that many years elapsed
before the people of Scotland attained to that placid acquiescence in
the order for the day which we now see.
The main demands of the new church were for a complete
abstinence from work and market-holding, as well as from public
amusements, and a regular attendance on the sermons. We have
seen some instances of the struggles of the church to induce
mercantile people to abandon Sunday-marketing. So late as 1596, it
is evident that their wishes were not fully attained, as we find the
presbytery of Meigle then complaining to the Privy Council of the
obstinate refusal of the people in their district to abandon a Sunday-
market.254 Two years later, the Town Council of Aberdeen was
content to ordain that ‘nae mercat, either of fish or flesh, shall be on
the Sabbath-day in time of sermon‘—a clear proof that they did not
look for a complete suppression of marketing on that day, but only
its cessation in time of church-service. There are many similar
indications that at this early period taverns were allowed to be open,
and public amusements permitted, at times of the day apart from
‘the sermons.’ It is somewhat startling to find the General Assembly
itself, in 1579, expressing indifference to marriages being solemnised
on Sunday (B. U. K.), and only so late as January 1586, discharging
‘all marriages to be made on Sundays in the morning in time
coming.’ Nor is it less surprising to find a kirk-session, so late as
1607, requiring that ‘the mill be stayit from grinding on the Sabbath-
day, at least by eight in the morning.’255 It clearly appears to have
been common in 1609 for tailors, shoemakers, and bakers in
Aberdeen, to work till eight or nine every Sunday morning, ‘as gif it
were ane ouk day.’—A. K. S. R.
Breach of the Sunday arrangements was usually punished by fines.
In Aberdeen, in 1562, for an elder or deacon of the church to be
absent from the preachings, inferred a penalty of ‘twa shillings;’ for
‘others honest persons of the town,’ sixpence. November 24, 1575, it
is statute that ‘all persons being absent fra the preachings on the
Sunday, without lawful business, and all persons ganging in the gait
or playing in the links [downs], or other places, the times of
preaching or prayers on the Sunday, and all persons making mercat
merchandise on Sunday within the town ... sall be secluded fra all
benefit of the kirk unto the time they satisfy the kirk in their
repentance, and [the] magistrate by ane pecunial fine.’
Notwithstanding this statute, we find the Town Council in 1588
referring to the fact, that a great number of the inhabitants of the
burgh keep away from church both on Sundays and week-days, and
give themselves to ‘gaming and playing, passing to taverns and ale-
houses, using the trade of merchandise and handy labour in time of
sermon on the week-day;’ for which reason it is ordained that all
shall attend the sermons on Sunday, ‘afore and after noon;’ as also
every Tuesday and Thursday ‘afore noon,’ under certain penalties—a
householder or his wife, 13s. 4d.; a craftsman, 6s. 8d.; ‘and in case
ony merchand or burgess of guild be found within his merchand
booth after the ringing of the third bell to the sermon on the week-
day, to pay 6s. 8d.’ These ordinances were acted upon. November
28, 1602, ‘the wife of James Bannerman, for working on the
Sabbath-day, [is] unlawit in 6s. 8d.’ ‘The same day, the session
ordains that nae baxters within this burgh work, nor bake any baken
meat, in time coming, on the Sabbath-day.’ Four Aberdeen citizens
were, January 16, 1603, ‘unlawit, ilk ane of them, in 3s. 4d., for their
absence fra the sermons on Sunday last, confessit by themselves.’—
Ab. C. R. Soon after we find a bailie and two elders appointed to go
through the town in time of sermon, and searching any house they
pleased, note the names of all they found at home; likewise to
watch the ferry-boat, and note the names of ‘sic as gangs to
Downie, that they may be punishit.’—A. K. S. R.
At Perth, January 8, 1582-3, ‘it was ordained that an elder of every
quarter shall pass through the same every Sunday in time of
preaching before noon, their time about, and note them that are
found in taverns, baxters’ booths, or on the gaits, and delate them
to the Assembly, that every one of them that is absent from the kirk
may be poinded for twenty shillings, according to the act of
parliament.’ Soon after, a married woman named Hunter was fined
three pounds for her absence from church during the bygone year,
and other three pounds for her absence during the time of fasting.
In September 1585, tavern-keepers were subjected to a heavy fine
for selling wine and ale in time of sermon. In 1587, the Sunday
penalties were extended to the Thursday sermon. February 21,
1591-2, John Pitscottie, younger of Luncarty, and several other
persons, ‘confessed that on the Sunday of the fast, in the time of
preaching in the afternoon, they were playing at foot-ball in the
Meadow Inch of the Muirton, and that the same was an offence;
therefore they were ordained on Sunday next to make their
repentance.’
In the same town, January 29, 1592-3, ‘the Lady Innernytie being
called, and accused for absenting herself and the rest of her family
from the hearing of the word on Sabbath, compears and confesses
that she does it not, neither in contempt of the word nor of the
minister, but only by reason of her sickness, and promises when she
shall be well in health, to repair more frequently to the kirk and
hearing of the word.’ This lady was the wife of Elphinstone of
Innernytie, a judge of the Court of Session, and a Catholic. It is
therefore probable that her submission was hypocritical. July 31,
1598, ‘Andrew Robertson, chirurgeon, being accused of breaking the
Sabbath-day by polling and razing of the Laird of ... , declared he did
it quietly at the request of the gentleman, without outgoing.’ He was
ordained to make repentance, and warned for the future. It will be
understood that under the designation of chirurgeon both surgery
and the functions of the barber were embraced.
The Perth kirk-session also exerted itself to prevent Highland reapers
from sauntering on the streets on Sunday, waiting to be hired
(August 1593); and they took strong measures to put an end to the
practice of cadgers departing from the Saturday market on Sunday
morning (March 1599). Four persons were rebuked in November of
this last year for ‘playing at golf on the North Inch in the time of the
preaching after noon on the Sabbath’—a sport which would not now
be indulged in on Sunday in any part of Scotland. April 13, 1601,
‘George Murray [was] accused for suffering of ale to be sold in time
of preaching on the Sabbath in his house. [He] answered that he
was in the kirk himself, and his wife also; but his servant came, and
brought his wife out of the kirk to ane daughter of Tullibardine’s
[Murray of Tullibardine—the family since become Dukes of Athole],
to give her some clothes which she had of hers in custody, and in
the mean time caused fill drink to the said gentlewoman and her
servants with her.’ Murray was dismissed with an admonition.
By a stern act of the Aberdeen town-council, passed in 1598, a
severe tariff of fines was ordained for various ranks of people on
their staying away from Sunday and week-day services in the
churches, every husband to be answerable for his wife, and every
master for his servants. A burgess of guild or his wife was to pay
13s. 4d. for absence from church on Sunday. ‘Likewise, following the
example of other weel-reformit congregations of this realm, [the
council] statutes and ordains that the wives of all burgesses of guild,
and of the maist honest and substantious craftsmen of this burgh,
sall sit in the midst and body of the kirk in time of sermon, and not
in the side-ailes, nor behind pillars, to the effect that they may mair
easily see and hear the deliverer and preacher of the word; and
siclike ordains, that the women of the ranks aforesaid sall repair to
the kirk, every ane of them having a cloak, as the maist comely and
decent outer garment, and not with plaids, as has been frequently
used; and that every ane of them likewise sall have stules, sae mony
as may commodiously have the same, according to the decent form
observed in all reformit burghs and congregations of this realm.’—
Ab. C. R.
While it is thus apparent that observance during time of sermon and
attendance thereupon were the principal objects held in view, it
clearly appears that the day, in its totality, was then a different thing
from what it now is. It was, as in Norway still, held to commence at
sunset of Saturday, and to terminate on Sunday at sunset, or at six
o’clock. As illustrations of this fact, two curious notices may be cited.
In May 1594, the presbytery of Glasgow is found forbidding a piper
to play his pipes on Sunday ‘frae the sun rising till the sun going-
to.’256 When a fast was ordained in Edinburgh, in December 1574,
on account of impending pestilence, it was to commence ‘on
Saturday next at aucht hours at even, and sae to continue while
[until] Sunday at six hours at even.’257 An act of the presbytery of
Glasgow, January 1, 1635, ordered that the Sabbath be from 12 on
Saturday night to 12 on Sunday night;258 a clear proof that there
was previously a different arrangement.
Another curious fact, indicative of a progress in the ideas of the
reformed kirk as to Sabbath-keeping, is that there were ‘play-
Sundays’ till the end of the sixteenth century. The presbytery of
Aberdeen ordered in 1599 that ‘there be nae play-Sundays hereafter,
under all hiest pain.’—A. P. R.
In April 1600, in obedience to an ordinance of the General Assembly,
it was arranged at Aberdeen—and of course a similar arrangement
would be made in other places—that ‘on Thursday, ilk ouk [every
week], the masters of households, their wives, bairns, and servants
should compeir, ilk ane within their awn parish kirk, to their awn
minister, to be instructit by them in the grunds of religion and heads
of catechism, and to give, as they should be demanded, ane proof
and trial of their profiting in the said heads.’
After this arrangement had been made, the religious observances of
the citizen occupied a considerable share of his time. He was bound
under penalties to be twice in church on Sunday, to make Monday a
‘pastime-day, for eschewing of the profanation of the Sabbath-day,’
to give Tuesday forenoon to a service in the parish church, to do the
same on Thursday forenoon, and on that day also to attend a
catechetical meeting with his family. Three forenoons each week
remained for his business and ordinary affairs. Notwithstanding this
liberal amount of external observance, the General Assembly
appointed, in 1601, ‘a general humiliation for the sins of the land
and contempt of the gospel, to be kept the two last Sabbaths of
June and all the week intervening.’
[LICENTIOUS CONDUCT.]
Licentious conduct was from the first an object of severe observation
to the reformed church, and many sharp measures were taken and
harsh punishments inflicted for its repression.
In 1562, the kirk-session of Aberdeen ordained as its punishment,
for the first offence, exposure before the congregation; for the
second, carting and ducking; for the third, banishment from the
town. A subsequent act of parliament imposed still severer
punishment—‘That is to say, for the first fault, as weel the man as
the woman sall pay the sowm of forty pounds, or than [else] he and
she sall be imprisoned for the space of aucht days, their food to be
breid and small drink, and thereafter present[ed] to the mercat-
place of the town or parochin, barehead[ed], and there stand
fastened, that they may not remove, for the space of twa hours.’ To
this punishment some additions were made for a second offence, as
cold water for food, and a shaving of the head. A third inferred
ducking and banishment.
At Aberdeen, in 1591, in a case where a marriage relationship
existed, the punishment inferred the depth of horror with which the
offence was on that account regarded, the man being ordained to be
banished from the town, but first to be set up at the cross on three
several market-days, bound to the pillar by a pair of branks, and
having a paper-crown on his head inscribed with his crime; also to
stand on three several Sundays at the kirk-door, in haircloth,
barelegged and barefooted, while the people are assembling; after
which to be exposed in like guise at the pillar of repentance during
the whole time of worship.259
November 20, 1582, the kirk-session of Perth ordains John
Ronaldson, having offenders of this class in his custody, ‘to put every
one of them in a sundry house in time coming, to give them bread
and small drink, to let none of them come to the nether window
[probably a window where they could see or converse with the
people passing on the street]; and when they come to the cross-
head, that they shall be fast locked in the irons two hours, their
kurchies [caps] off their heads, and their faces bare, without ane
plaid or any other covering.’
A stool or seat was raised in a conspicuous situation in each church,
where penitents under this as well as other offences had to sit
during service, and afterwards bear the rebuke of the minister. Many
entries in the session records shew the difficulty there had always
been in getting penitents, while in this situation, to remain
unmuffled or uncovered. The only correction that seems to have
been available was to ordain that such a sitting went for nothing.
The Aberdeen session, August 1608, ordain that, ‘because, in times
past, most part of women that come to the pillar to make their
public repentance, sat thereon with their plaids about their head,
coming down over their faces the haill time of their sitting on the
stool, so that almaist nane of the congregation could see their faces,
or knaw what they were, whereby they made nae account of their
coming to the stool, but misregarded the same altogether’—the
officer should thenceforth take the plaid away from each penitent
‘before her upganging to the pillar.’ The Perth session, in August
1599, had to take sharp measures with Margaret Marr, because
being exalted to the seat of repentance, ‘she sat in the back side
with her face covered, and being desired by John Jack, officiar, to sit
on the fore side, and uncover her face that she might be seen, she
uttered words against him in a bitter manner, and extended her
voice in such sort that she was heard through all the kirk in time of
sermon, and so behaved herself uncomely in the presence of
strangers, to the great slander of this congregation.’ In very gross
cases, a paper-crown was added to the external marks of infamy
inflicted on delinquents.
As a specimen of the interference with private life to which the
clergy were led in their anxiety to suppress licentiousness—the kirk-
session of Perth (1586-7) would not suffer two unmarried sisters to
continue to live together in one house, but ordained them to go to
service, ‘or where they may be best entertained without slander,’
under pain of imprisonment and banishment from the town.
A custom obtained in those days of entering into conjugal life on the
strength simply of a contract of marriage. It was called hand-fasting.
The ceremony of marriage might take place afterwards or not, as
the parties pleased. This the reformed clergy denounced as immoral,
and they set themselves to correct it. The Aberdeen session,
December 10, 1562, ordained, ‘Because sundry and many within this
town are hand-fast, as they call it, and made promise of marriage a
long space bygane, some seven year, some sax year, some langer,
some shorter, and as yet will not marry and complete that
honourable band, nother for fear of God nor love of their party’—
that ‘all sic persons as has promised marriage faithfully complete the
samen betwixt this and Fasteren’s Even next to come;’ penalty left
blank. Such parties are also ordained in the meantime to live as
single persons. April 12, 1568, the same session ordained that
‘neither the minister nor reader be present at contracts of marriage-
making, as they call their hand-fastings, nor make nae sic band.’
The kirk-session records of the period must be held as revealing on
the whole a very low state of morals, particularly among the
humbler classes of the people.
[ECCLESIASTICAL DISCIPLINE IN OTHER MATTERS.]
Ecclesiastical discipline took upon it in those days to interfere with
many matters in which it would be set at defiance in our day. It was
part of the earnestness of the general religious feeling, while as yet
no one had ventured to think that there are points which may best
be left to the private consciousness, or which, at least, it can serve
no good end to make matter of public regulation.
Of the sharp dealing of the Presbyterian preachers and their courts
with avowed Catholics, we have already seen abundant illustrations,
and more will yet be presented. Having become satisfied that the
Catholic religion was a system of damnable error, our ancestors
acted logically on the conviction, and thought no measure, however
forcible or severe, misapplied, if it could save the people of that
persuasion from the unavoidable consequences, and prevent the evil
from spreading. To purge the land of papists and idolaters was
therefore an object held constantly in view by the church-courts.
The slightest suspicion of being papistically inclined was sure to
bring any one to trouble. One David Calderwood in Glasgow being
found in possession of a copy of Archbishop Hamilton’s popish
catechism, the presbytery sent a minister ‘to try and find of the said
David’s religion.’ Another citizen of Glasgow was taken to task, on a
charge of having, in the way of his profession as a painter, painted
crucifixes in sundry houses. A Lady Livingston being suspected of
unsoundness in the faith, in order ‘that she may be won to God,’ a
deputation was sent by the presbytery to confer with her, ‘anent the
heads of religion,’ and she was summoned under pain of
excommunication. The same reverend body, hearing of one James
Fleming, an Irishman, sent ‘to inquire of him his religion,’ On the 5th
of June 1599, they are found taking measures for discovering
Irishmen in their bounds, and ascertaining ‘wha are papists and
pernicious to others they haunt amang.’
That to receive a Catholic priest into one’s house was a serious
matter in those days, there is abundant evidence, some of which will
be found in the sequel. But even to receive or keep company with an
excommunicated papist, inferred severe pains; and in the Perth kirk-
session register there are several instances of these being inflicted.
For example, Gabriel Mercer was, in 1595, ordered to make public
declaration from his seat in church of his offence in entertaining for
three days Elphinstone of Innernytie, an excommunicated papist.
The same order was given in 1610 in the case of Alexander Crichton
of Perth, ‘who was convicted on his own confession of haunting and
frequenting the company of Robert Crichton, excommunicate papist,
eating and drinking with him in taverns, and walking on the street.’—
P. K. S. R.
In 1598, we find the presbytery of Glasgow concerning itself about a
young man who had passed his father without lifting his bonnet. He
was judged ‘a stubborn and disobedient son to his father.’ About
1574, the kirk-session of Edinburgh was occupied for some days in
considering the case of Niel Laing, accused of making a pompous
convoy and superfluous banqueting at the marriage of Margaret
Danielston, ‘to the great slander of the kirk,’ which had forbid such
doings.
The absence of external appearances of joy in Scotland, in contrast
with the frequent holidayings and merry-makings of the continent,
has been much remarked upon. We find in the records of
ecclesiastical discipline clear traces of the process by which this
distinction was brought about. To the puritan kirk of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries every outward demonstration of natural
good spirits was a sort of sin, to be as far as possible repressed. To
make marriages sober and quiet was one special object. It was
customary in humble life for a young couple, on being wedded, to
receive miscellaneous company, and hold a kind of ball, each person
contributing towards the expenses, with something over for the
benefit of the young pair. Such a custom has been kept up almost to
our own time, but much shorn of its original spirit. In the latter years
of the sixteenth century, it was customary for the party to go to the
Market-cross, and dance round it. At Stirling, October 30, 1600, the
kirk-session, finding ‘there has been great dancing and vanity
publicly at the Cross usit by married persons and their company on
their marriage-day,’ took measures to put a stop to the practice. It
ordained ‘that nane be married till ten pounds be consigned, for the
better security that there be nae mair ta’en for ane bridal lawing
than five shillings according to order,’ ‘with certification, gif the order
of the bridal lawing be broken, the said ten pounds sall be
confiscat.’260
In like manner the kirk-session of Cambusnethan, in September
1649, ordained ‘that there suld be no pipers at bridals, and who ever
suld have a piper playing at their bridal, sall lose their consigned
money.’ And in June next year, the same reverend body decreed that
men and women ‘guilty of promiscuous dancing,’ should stand in a
public place and confess their fault.261
The power of the kirk to enforce its discipline and maintain
conformity, was a formidable one, resting ultimately on their
sentence of excommunication, of which the following contemporary
description may be given: ‘... whasoever incurs the danger thereof is
given over in thir days by the ministers, in presence of the haill
people assembled at the kirk, in the hands of Satan, as not worthy
of Christian society, and therefore made odious to all men, that they
should eschew his company, and refuse him all kind of hospitality;
and the person thus continuing in refusal by the space of a haill year,
his goods are decerned to appertain to the king, sae lang as the
disobedient lives.’262—H. K. J.
No unprejudiced person can doubt that the Presbyterian clergy of
this age were in general correct in their own deportment, and
sincerely anxious to promote virtue among the people; but it is also
evident to us, under our superior lights, that they carried their
discipline to a pitch at once irreconcilable with the natural rights of
mankind, and calculated to have effects different from what were
intended. It dived too much into the details of private life, was too
inconsiderate of human infirmity, was extremely cruel, and
altogether erred in trusting too much to force and too little to moral
suasion. Even the innocent playfulness of the human heart seems to
have been viewed by these stern moralists as an evil thing, or at
least a thing leaning to the side of vice. On the injurious tendency of
any system which equally makes a crime out of some peculiarity of
opinion, or indifferent action, and of an actual infraction of the rights
of our fellow-creatures, it were needless to insist.
[CUSTOMS.]
In the Council Register of Aberdeen, we obtain many notices of the
customs of the burgh, most of which were probably common to
other towns.
It seems to have been the practice of the whole people to assemble,
but only at command of the council, in order to deliberate together
upon any matter of importance, and make such arrangements as
were required for the general weal. For this purpose, they were
summoned by the bellman, who went through ‘the haill rews of the
town’ ringing his bell, of which he had to make oath in order to
render legal what was ordained by the meeting.
In 1574, it was ordained at such a meeting that John Cowpar should
‘pass every day in the morning at four hours, and every nicht at
eight hours, through all the rews of the town, playing upon the
Almany whistle [German flute?], with ane servant with him playing
on the tabroun, whereby the craftsmen their servants and all others
laborious folks, being warnit and excitat, may pass to their labours
and frae their labours in due and convenient time.’
In 1576, it is ‘statute with consent of the haill town, that every
brother of guild, merchant, and craftsman, shall have in all time
coming ane halbert, Danish axe, and javelin within his booth.’ The
wearing of plaids by the citizens was at the same time strictly
forbidden, also the use of blue bonnets—for what reason does not
clearly appear. The town’s landmarks were ridden every year. The
keeping of swine within the town is (1578) forbidden, on penalty of
having the animals taken and slain.
December 5, 1582, the town-council of Aberdeen ratified a contract
with John Kay, lorimer, ‘anent the mending of the town’s three
knocks [clocks], and buying fra him of the new knock, for payment
to the said John of twa hundred merks.’ December 17, 1595, the
council, considering that ‘the twa common knocks of this burgh—
namely, the kirk knock and the tolbooth knock—sin Martinmass last,
has been evil handlit and rulit, and has not gane induring the said
space, feed Thomas Gordon, gunmaker, to rule the said twa knocks,
and to cause them gang and strike the hours richtly baith night and
day.’ The employment of a lorimer and a gunmaker in this business
seems to imply, that a clockmaker or watchmaker was not yet one of
the trades of Aberdeen.
By an old custom, the boys of the grammar-school of Aberdeen had
at Christmas taken possession of the school, to the exclusion of their
masters and all authority, and a vacation of about a fortnight took
place. In 1580 and 1581, the magistrates are found exerting
themselves to enforce certain statutes by which this assumed
privilege of the boys had been abrogated and discharged; and they
agreed that to make up for the vacation, there should be three
holidays at the beginning of each quarter, making twelve in all for
the year. From this and other facts, it appears that the long vacation
now customary in summer or autumn in Scottish schools, was then
unknown.
The school disorder at Yule is again spoken of in 1604 as very
violent, the boys ‘keeping and halding the same against their
masters with swords, guns, pistols, and other weapons, spulying and
taking of puir folks’ geir, sic as geese, fowls, peats, and other vivres,
during the halding thereof.’ It is ordered that, to avoid such disorders
in future, no boy from without the town shall be admitted without a
caution for his good-behaviour.
The Aberdeen magistrates, on hearing (February 22, 1593-4) how
the burghs of Edinburgh, Perth, Dundee, and Montrose had
celebrated the birth of a son and heir to the king ‘by bigging of fires,
praising and thanking God for the benefit, by singing of psalms
through the haill streets and rews of the towns, drinking of wine at
the crosses thereof, and otherwise liberally bestowing of spiceries,’
ordained that it should be similarly observed in their burgh on
Sunday next, the 24th instant, immediately after the afternoon
sermon. It was ordered that there should be ‘ane table covered at
the Cross, for the magistrates and baith the councils, with twa
boyns263 of English beer ... the wine to be drunken in sic a
reasonable quantity as the dean of guild sall devise, four dozen
buists264 of scorchets,265 confeits, and confections, to be casten
among the people, with glasses to be broken.’
June 7, 1596, a number of persons are cited as contravening the
ancient statutes ordaining that ‘all burgesses of guild and freemen of
free regal burghs sall dwell, mak their residence and remaining, with
their wives, bairns, servants, households, and family, hauld stob and
stake,266 fire and flet,267 within the burgh where they are free, scot,
lot, watch, walk, and ward.’ In the event of their not conforming to
the rule by an appointed day, they are assured that they shall lose
their privileges.
A prayer appointed (1598) to be said before the election of the
magistrates of Aberdeen is not unworthy of preservation, as a trait
of the feelings of such communities in that age: ‘Eternal and ever-
hearing God, who has created mankind to society, in the whilk thou
that is the God of order and hates confusion, has appointed some to
rule and govern, and others to be governed, and for this cause has
set down in thy word the notes and marks of sic as thou hast
appointed to bear government; likeas of thy great mercy thou has
gathered us to be ane of the famous and honourable burghs of this
kingdom, and has reservit to us this liberty, yearly to cheise our
council and magistrates; we beseech thee, for thy Christ’s sake,
seeing we are presently assembled for that purpose, be present in
the midst of us, furnish us with spiritual wisdom, and direct our
hearts in sic sort, that, all corrupt affections being removed, we may
cheise baith to be council and magistrates, for the year to come, of
our brethren fearing God, men of knawledge, haters of avarice, and
men of courage and action, that all our proceedings herein may tend
to thy glory, to the weel of the haill inhabitants of this burgh, and we
may have a good testimony of conscience before thee....’
In the Aberdeen council records, frequent allusions are made to ‘a
custom observit in this burgh heretofore in all ages,’ of giving an
entertainment to strangers of distinction on their arriving in the
town. Being informed, December 13, 1598, that the Duke of Lennox
and the Earl of Huntly are to be in the town this night, the council
‘ordains the said twa noblemen, in signification of the town’s guid
will and favour, to be remembered with the wine and spicery at their
here-coming.’ The articles ordered are, ‘ane dozen buists of
scorchets, confeits, and confections, together with six quarts of
wine, thereof three quarts of the best wine, to wit, Hullock and wine
tent, and three quarts of other wine.’ The Earl of Huntly got another
similar entertainment, March 28, 1599, on coming to Aberdeen, ‘for
halding of justice-courts on shooters and havers of pistols.’
A comical regulation regarding public worship occurs in the Perth
kirk-session record under 1616. The session ordained ‘John
Tenender, session-officer, to have his red staff in the kirk on the
Sabbath-days, therewith to wauken sleepers, and to remove
greeting bairns furth of the kirk.’ Acts of session referring to the
practice of the bringing of dogs into church, by which worship was
much disturbed, are also frequent.
The hours for meals were in those days of a primitive description.
King Henry, Lord Darnley, dined at two o’clock. This was, however,
comparatively a late hour. In 1589, King James, then living in William
Fowler’s house in Edinburgh, went out to the hunting in the
morning, ‘trysting to come in to his dinner about ane afternoon.’—
Moy. In 1607, the wooden bridge of Perth was carried away by a
flood ‘betwixt twelve and ane, on ane Sunday, in time of dinner.’
Queen Mary was sitting at supper between five and six in the
afternoon, when Riccio was reft from her side and slaughtered. And
Agnes Sampson, the noted witch, appointed certain persons to meet
her in the garden at Edmondstone, ‘after supper, betwixt five and
sax at even.’ The reader will remember that it was after supper, and
probably some conviviality following upon it, that King James (May
1587) led forth his nobility in procession to the Cross of Edinburgh,
and delighted the citizens with the spectacle of so many reconciled
enemies.
[TRAITS OF MANNERS.]
The Aberdeen council, in 1592, ‘considering the wicked and ungodly
use croppen in and ower frequently usit amang all sorts of people, in
blaspheming of God’s holy name, and swearing of horrible and
execrable aiths,’ ordained the same to be punished by fine. To make
this the more effectual, masters were ordained to exact the fines
from their servants, and deduct them from wages; husbands to do
the same from their wives, keeping a box in which to put the money,
and punish their children for the like offence with ‘palmers’ [an
instrument for inflicting lashes on the open hand]—‘according to the
custom of other weel-reformed towns and congregations.’ In 1604,
the presbytery of Aberdeen enforced this effort of the magistracy by
an edict, ordering that, for the repression of oaths and blasphemous
language, the master of every house should keep a ‘palmer,’ and
therewith punish all offenders who have no money to pay fines.—A.
P. R.
In February 1592-3, the Aberdeen council, when expecting a visit of
the king, ordained that ‘there sall be propynit to his majesty’s house
... ane puncheon of auld Bourdeaux wine, gif it may be had for
money, and, gif not, ane last of the best and finest ale that may be
gotten within this burgh, together with ... four pund wecht of
pepper, half pund of maces, four unces of saffron, half pund of
cannel, fourteen pund of sucker, twa dozen buists of confeits, ane
dozen buists of sucker-almonds, twa dozen buists of confections,
and ane chalder of coals.’
The king informed the council of Aberdeen in a letter, June 1596,
that he understood ‘that the inhabitants and others resorting to this
burgh, cease not openly to wear forbidden weapons, to the great
contempt of his hieness’ authority and laws.’ He demands, and the
council agrees, that strict order shall be taken to put down this
custom, agreeably to acts of parliament.
The council records of Aberdeen do not bear traces of such frequent
street-conflicts as prevailed in Edinburgh during this period. Such
troubles were not, however, unknown. We find, for example, one
citizen now and then drawing his whinger upon another, and either
commencing a fight, or frightening away his adversary. In November
1598, a quarrel having taken place between a gentleman named
Gordon, brother of Gordon of Cairnbarrow, and one Caldwell, a
dependent and servant of Keith of Benholm, the magistrates
immediately feared a disturbance in which Keith’s chief, the Earl
Marischal, would as a matter of course be involved, and hearing that
the parties were ‘convocating their friends on either side to come to
the cawsey and trouble the town, and to invade others,’ they
ordered that ‘the haill neighbours of this burgh, merchants and
craftsmen, should ... compear in their arms, and specially in lang
weapons ... for staying of trouble to be betwixt the said parties ...
and that the town be warnit to that effect by the officers in
particular, bell or drum, as sall be thought expedient in general.’
Popery, not infidelity, was the bugbear of those days; but heterodox
opinions were not altogether unknown. The public notice taken of
them was of a kind which might be expected in an age of sincere
faith, unacquainted with reactions or with refined policy. At
Aberdeen, one Mr William Murdo was apprehended by the
magistrates, 6th January 1592, as ‘a maintainer of errors, and
blasphemer against the ancient prophets and Christ’s apostles, ane
wha damns the haill Auld Testament except the ten commandments,
and the New Testament except the Lord’s Prayer; an open railer
against the ministry and truth preached’—who ‘can not be sufferit in
ane republic.’ He was ordained to be banished from the burgh, with
a threat of having his cheeks branded and ears cropped if he should
come back.—Ab. C. R.
There are many entries in the Council Record of Aberdeen, shewing
that the burgal authorities took upon them to inquire into cases of
reckless and disorderly life, and cases where regular communicating
at the Lord’s table was neglected. In 1599, one John Hutcheon, a
flesher, was threatened with banishment on these accounts.
The kirk-sessions were rigorous in punishing slander and scolding.
That of Aberdeen made a statute, in 1562, ordaining a fine for
slander, ‘and gif the injurious person be simple and of puir degree,
he sall ask forgiveness before the congregation of God and the party,
and say: “Tongue, ye lied,” for the first fault, for the second sall be
put in the cockstool, and for the third fault sall be banished the
town.’ The same body ordained at the same time that ‘all common
scolds, flyters, and bards be banished the town, and not to be
suffered to remain therein for nae request;’ bards being strolling
rhymers, who were felt in those days as an oppression much the
same as sturdy beggars.
At the Perth kirk-session, August 4, 1578, ‘Catherine Yester and John
Denite were poinded each in half a merk for flyting, while John Tod,
for slandering, was ordained to pay a like sum, and stand in the
irons two hours, besides asking Margaret Cunningham forgiveness.’
In May 1579, Thomas Malcolm was fined and imprisoned for ‘having
called Thomas Brown loon carle.’ In August of the same year, it was
ordained that such as were convicted of flyting, and not willing ‘to
pass to the Cross-head [that is, to be exposed on the Cross],
according to the act passed before, should pay half a merk money to
the poor, besides that other half-merk mentioned in the act of
before.’ Subsequently the session gave up this leniency, and finally
returned to it again. ‘Money,’ it has been remarked, ‘must have been
of great value at that time, when so small a sum was proposed as
the price of exemption from a most shameful punishment.’
April 25, 1586, the kirk-session of Perth has this minute:
‘Forasmeikle as John Macwalter and Alison Brice his spouse have
been sundry and divers times called before the assembly for
troubling their neighbours, and especially for backbiting and
slandering of Robert Dun and his wife, and of Malcolm Ferguson and
his wife, and presently are convicted of the crimes laid to their
charge by Robert Dun and Malcolm Ferguson; therefore it is
ordained, first, that the said John Macwalter and his wife be put in
ward until the time repentance be found in them for their slanderous
life; secondly, they shall come to the place where they made the
offence, and there on their knees crave pardon of the offence
committed, at the persons whom they have offended; thirdly, they
shall pay a sufficient penalty to the poor, according to the act made
against flyters; lastly, if they ever be found in word or deed hereafter
to offend any neighbour, the bare accusation shall be a sufficient
plea of conviction, that so the act made against flyters be extended
against them, and finally to be banished the town for ever.’
November 2, 1589, the act against slandering was put in force at
Perth, on an occasion where we should have little expected it.
‘Forasmeikle as this day was assigned to certain honest neighbours
of Tirsappie268 to be present, and of their conscience to declare if it
was true that Guddal, spouse to Richard Watson, was ane witch, as
John Watson then alleged, or what evil likelihood they saw in her—
Walter Watson, John Cowing, George Scott, James Scott, being
inquired severally, as they would answer to God, what they knew,
altogether agreed in one without contradiction, that they saw never
such things into her whereby they might suspect her of the same,
but that she was ane honest poor woman, who wrought honestly for
her living, without whose help her husband, Richard Watson, would
have been dead, who was ane old aged man: therefore the minister
and elders ordain the act of slander to be put in execution against
the said John Watson and Helen Watson his daughter.’
[TRAITS OF THE PUBLIC ECONOMY.]
At Aberdeen, in a time of scarcity in 1579, the transportation of
victual by sea to other parts of the realm was forbidden. In 1583, it
was forbidden to take any sums of money from merchants in other
towns ‘to buy wares and salmon, against the common weal.’ The
exportation of sheep-skins to Flanders was at this time prohibited,
Edinburgh, Perth, and Dundee having done the like. In 1584, a
severe fine is imposed on all who should buy grain on its way to
market, ‘whilk is the occasion of great dearth, and the cause that the
poor commons of this burgh are misservit.’ A statute aiming at the
same object was passed in 1598, because such enormities could no
longer be sustained ‘without the imminent peril and wrack of this
commonwealth.’
In September 1584, when the pest raged in divers parts of the
realm, the Aberdeen authorities ordered a port to be built on the
bridge of Dee, and other ports to be built at entrances to the town,
in order to check the entrance of persons who might bring the
infection. In May of the ensuing year, the danger becoming more
extreme, the magistrates erected gibbets, ‘ane at the mercat-cross,
ane other at the brig of Dee, and the third at the haven mouth, that
in case ony infectit person arrive or repair by sea or land to this
burgh, or in case ony indweller of this burgh receive, house, or
harbour, or give meat or drink to the infectit person or persons, the
man to be hangit, and the woman to be drownit.’ Frequent notices
occur in the Aberdeen Council Records of precautions adopted on
similar occasions: yet it is remarkable, that in an act of council on
the subject in 1603, it is mentioned that ‘it has pleasit the guidness
of God of his infinite mercy to withhald the said plague frae this
burgh thir fifty-five years bygane.’
October 8, 1593, the magistrates of Aberdeen found it necessary to
take order with ‘a great number of idle persons, not having land nor
masters, neither yet using ony lawful merchandise, craft, nor
occupation, fleeing as appears frae their awn dwelling, by reason of
some unlawful causes and odious crimes whereof they are culpable,
whilk are very contagious enemies to the common weal of this
burgh.’ The town was ordered to be cleared of them, and their
future harbourage by the inhabitants was forbidden.
In those days, and for a long time subsequently, there was no
regular post for the transmission of letters in Scotland. When there
was pressing or important business calling for a transmission of
letters to a distance, a special messenger had to be despatched with
them at a considerable expense. The city of Aberdeen seems to have
kept a particular officer, called the Common Post, for this duty; and
in September 1595, this individual, named ‘Alexander Taylor, alias
Checkum,’ was ordered by the magistrates a livery of blue, with the
town’s arms on his left arm. Other persons were occasionally
employed, and the town’s disbursements on this ground continue to
occupy a prominent place in its accounts down to 1650, if not later.
In 1574, a general assembly of the inhabitants agreed to weekly
collections for the native poor, according to a roll formerly made with
their own consents, ‘except they wha pleases to augment their
promise.’ It was at the same time decreed that beggars not native
should be removed, while those born in the town should wear ‘the
town’s taiken on their outer garment, whereby they may be known.’
In 1587, the council, ‘having consideration of the misorder and
tumult of the puir folks sitting at the kirk-door begging almous,
plucking and pulling honest men’s gowns, cloaks, and abulyment,’
ordained the repression of the nuisance. Eight years thereafter,
January 23, 1595-6, there was another public meeting, at which it
was agreed to arrange the poor in four classes—‘babes, decayed
persons householders, lame and impotent persons, and sic as were
auld and decrepit.’ Individuals agreed to take each man ‘ane babe’
into his own house, and a quarterly collection for the rest was
agreed to; begging to be suppressed.
September 2, 1596, the council took into consideration a petition of
‘Maister Quentin Prestoun, professor of physic, craving at them the
liberty and benefit, in respect of his debility, being somewhat
stricken in age, and sae not able to accomplish the duty without ane
coadjutor, to entertain ane apothecar and his apothecary-shop, for
the better furnishing of this burgh and of the country, of all sorts of
physical and chirurgical medicaments.’ The request was granted
during the will of the council.
April 6, 1599, four fleshers in Aberdeen were fined for contravening
the acts of parliament which forbade that ‘ony flesh should be slain
or eaten frae the first day of March inclusive to the first day of May
exclusive.’

Among the violences of the age, what would now

be called agrarian outrages were very common. 1601. Feb.
Sometimes it was a pretender to proprietorship 1601.
who came in to trouble the tenants of the landlord in possession;
sometimes a tenant was the object of wrathful jealousy among
persons of his own class. Of the former order of troubles we have an
example at this time, in a charge brought before the Privy Council
(February 19, 1601) against David Hamilton, younger, of Bothwell-
haugh, ‘servant to the Laird of Innerwick.’ It was for the turning out
of his wife from Woodhouselee, that Hamilton of Bothwell-haugh
murdered the Good Regent. We now see his representative breaking
other laws on account of the same lands.269 Sir James Bellenden of
Broughton, who was landlord de facto, complains against David
Hamilton, that, with a company ‘bodin and furnist in feir of weir,’ he
had come, on the 10th of February instant, to the tenants of the
lands of Woodhouselee, ‘where they were in peaceable and quiet
maner at their plews,’ and there assailed them with furious
speeches, ‘threatening to have their lives gif they insistit in manuring
and lawboring of the said lands,’ and actually compelled them
through fear to give up their work. As David failed to appear and
answer this charge, letters were ordered to denounce him as a rebel.
Before a month elapsed, the Council had under its attention a still
more violent affair, forming a specimen of the second class of
outrages. The complainer here is Patrick Monypenny of Pilrig—an
estate with an old manor-house situated between Edinburgh and
Leith. Patrick states that he was of mind to have set that part of his
lands of Pilrig, called the Round-haugh, to Harry Robertson and
Andrew Alis, to his utility and profit. But on a certain day not
specified, David Duff, indweller in Leith, came to these persons, and
uttered furious menaces against them in the event of their occupying
these lands, so that they had departed from their purpose of
occupying them. Duff, accompanied with two men named Matheson,
had also, on the 2d March instant, attacked the servants of
Monypenny, as they were labouring the lands in question, with
similar speeches, threatening their lives if they persisted in working
there; and at night, they, or some persons hounded out by them,
had come and broken their plough, and thrown it into the river. ‘John
Matheson, after the breaking of the complenar’s plew, come to John
Porteous’s house, his tenant, and bad him gang now betwix the plew
stilts, and see how she wald gang while [till] the morn.’ To this was
added a threat to break his head if he should ever say that Duff had
broken his plough. ‘Likeas the said David sinsyne come to the
complenar’s lands, being tilled, and trampit and cast the tilled furs
down, thus committing manifest oppression upon the complainant.’
In this case, the accused persons were assoilzied, but only, it would
appear, by hard swearing in their own cause.

‘The king’s majesty came to Perth, and was made

burgess at the mercat-cross. There was ane Apr. 15. 1601.
puncheon of wine set there, and all drucken out. Apr. 17.
He receivit the banquet frae the town, and
subscribit the guild book with his awn hand—“Jacobus Rex: parcere
subjectis, et debellare superbos.”’—Chron. Perth.
John Watt, Deacon of the deacons in Edinburgh, or he would have
latterly been called Convener of the Trades, was shot dead on the
Burgh-moor. This was the same gallant official who raised the trades
for the protection of the king at the celebrated tumult of the 17th
December 1596. One Alexander Slummon, a by-stander, was tried
for the murder, but found innocent. We are told by Calderwood that
Watt, having offered to invade the person of the minister, Robert
Bruce, was well liked by the king, who accordingly was exact in
regard to Slummon’s trial. The historian also relates that ‘the
judgment threatened against this man by Mr Robert Bruce came to
pass.’ Such threatenings or prognostications of judgments are of
course very likely to bring their own fulfilment.

‘Sundry Jesuits, seminary priests, and trafficking

papists, enemies to God’s truth and all Christian Apr. 24.
government,’ were stated to be at this time ‘daily creeping within the
country,’ with the design, ‘by their godless practices, not only to
disturb the estate of the true religion, but also his hieness’ awn
estate, and the common quietness of the realm.’—P. C. R.
William Barclay, a new-made advocate, brother of Sir Patrick Barclay
of Tollie, was tried in Edinburgh for the crime of being present at
‘twa messes whilk were said by Mr Alex. M‘Whirrie, ane Jesuit priest,
within Andro Napier’s dwelling-house in Edinburgh,’ aggravated by
perjury, he having some time before sworn and subscribed before
the presbytery of Edinburgh, that he was of the religion presently
professed within the realm. The culprit was declared infamous, and
banished from the country, ‘never to return to the same, unless, by
satisfaction of the kirk, he obtain our special licence to that effect.’—
Pit. Cal.
A week later, Malcolm Laing and Henry Gibson, servants of the
Marquis of Huntly, confessing their having been present ‘at the late
mass within the burgh of Edinburgh,’ were adjudged by the Council
to banishment for life. At the same time, two female servants of the
marchioness having made similar confession, the Council, ‘seeing
their remaining with the said marquesse may procure a forder
sclander to the kirk,’ ordained that her ladyship should remove them
from her company, and no more receive them, under pain of
rebellion.

‘... Archibald Cornwall, town-officer, hangit at the

Cross, and hung on the gibbet twenty-four hours; Apr. 27.
and the cause wherefore he was hangit—He being
an unmerciful greedy creature, he poindit ane 1601.
honest man’s house, and among the rest, he
poindit the king and queen’s pictures; and when he came to the
Cross to comprise the same, he hung them up upon twa nails on the
same gallows to be comprisit; and they being seen, word gaed to
the king and queen, whereupon he was apprehendit and hangit.’—
Bir.
Cornwall sustained a regular trial before a jury, eight of whom were
tailors. The dittay bears that ‘in treasonable contempt and disdain of
his majesty, he stood up upon ane furm or buird, beside the gibbet,
and called [drove] ane nail therein, as heich as he could reach it,
and lifted up his hieness’ portraitor foresaid, and held the same upon
the gibbet, pressing to have hung the same thereon, and to have
left it there, as an ignominious spectacle to the haill world, gif he
had not been stayed by the just indignation of the haill people,
menacing to stane him dead, and pulling him perforce frae the
gibbet.’
The punishment goes so monstrously beyond the apparent offence,
that one is led to suspect something which does not appear. The
‘honest man’ whose goods were taken might be a known friend of
the king, while Cornwall was known to be the reverse. It was
perhaps inferred that the ‘unmerciful greedy creature’ was only too
ready to embrace the opportunity of holding up the king to
contempt. These remarks are only meant to suggest motives, not to
justify the severity of the punishment.
The gibbet on which the portrait had been hung—as something
rendered horrible by that profanity—was ‘taken down and burnt with
fire.’

James Wood, fiar—that is, heir—of Bonnington, in

Forfarshire, was a Catholic, and received 1601.
excommunication on that account a few years
before. He had at the same time had quarrels with Apr. 27.
his father regarding questions of property. In
March of the present year, he again drew observation upon himself
by coming to Edinburgh and attending the mass in Andrew Napier’s
house. It was further alleged of him that he had harboured a
seminary priest. On the 16th of March, accompanied by his brother-
in-law, William Wood of Latoun, by two blacksmiths named Daw,
and some other persons, he broke into his father’s house, and took
therefrom certain legal papers belonging to the Lady Usen, besides a
quantity of clothes, napery, and blankets. The circumstances
connected with this act, did we know them, would probably
extenuate the criminality. The father made no movement to
prosecute his son. He was, however, tried along with Wood of
Latoun before an assize in Edinburgh; when both were found guilty,
and condemned to be hanged. Wood of Latoun obtained a
remission, and great interest was made for the principal culprit by
the Catholic nobles, Huntly, Errol, and Home. James might have
listened favourably, and been content, as in Kincaid’s case, with a
good fine payable ‘to us and our treasurer;’ but ‘the ministers were
instant with the king, to have a proof of his sincerity:’ so says
Calderwood, without telling us whether it was his sincerity against
papists or his sincerity against malefactors in general that was
meant. The young man regarded himself, by admission of the same
author, as suffering for the Catholic religion—though, perhaps, he
only meant that, but for his being a papist, his actual guilt would not
have been punished so severely. He was beheaded at the Cross at
six o’clock in the morning, ‘ever looking for pardon to the last
gasp.’—Pit. Cal. Bir.

The General Assembly arranged that certain

ministers should go to the Catholic nobles, Huntly, May.
Errol, Angus, Home, and Herries, and plant
themselves in their families for the purpose of converting them from
their errors. These ministers were to labour at all times for this
object by preaching, reading, and expounding, and by purging the
said houses of profane and scandalous persons. They were also to
catechise their families twice a day, ‘till they attain some good
reasonable measure of knowledge.’—Row.
It fully appears that this arrangement was carried into effect. We
find in 1604 that Lord Gordon, the eldest son of the Marquis of
Huntly, and the Master of Caithness, eldest son of the Earl of
Caithness, were being brought up together, under the care of two
pedagogues, Thomas Gordon and John Sinclair, who were compelled
to declare themselves adherents of the reformed faith, and
examined as to the nature of the religious instructions which they
imparted. John Sinclair admitted that, in France, he had gone to
mass, but only for the purpose of seeing the king there. The mass
itself he professed to ‘abhor and detest frae his heart.’ The two
pedagogues stated that they instructed the two young nobles in
grammar and oratory, and on Sunday trained them by a little
catechism, besides reading and expounding of the New Testament.—
A. P. R.
In 1609, to insure that the sons of noblemen sent
abroad under preceptors, should not be liable to 1601.
have their religious convictions perverted, it was
enacted by parliament that no preceptor could lawfully undertake
such a duty without a licence from the bishop of his diocese.

An effort was made at this time by the burghs to

introduce a cloth-manufacture into Scotland. Seven June.
Flemings were engaged to settle in the country, in
order to set the work agoing, six of them being for says, and the
seventh for broadcloth. When the men came, expecting to be
immediately set to work in Edinburgh, a delay arose while it was
debated whether they should not be dispersed among the principal
towns, in order to diffuse their instructions as widely as possible. We
find the strangers on the 28th of July, complaining to the Privy
Council that they were neither entertained nor set to work, and that
it was proposed to sunder them, ‘whilk wald be a grit hinder to the
perfection of the wark.’