Chapter XXVII: Part 27

A Border thief, described as Adie Usher in Birkinhaugh, servant of Robert Elliot of Redheugh, was condemned and hanged at Edinburgh for sundry acts of cattle-stealing. In most of his proceedings he had been accompanied by his son, Willie Usher, a mere boy, who was also presented for trial, but spared on account of his youth.--_Pit._ After Willie Usher had spent some months in the Thieves’ Hole in Edinburgh, the Lords of the Privy Council received a complaint from him, ‘heavily regretting his hard estate and condition by his detention, thir mony owks bygane, miserably in ward in the Thieves’ Hole of Edinburgh, without possibility or mean to entertein himself, he being a young innocent boy not past the age of fourteen years, and his umwhile father having underlain his punishment and sufferit death for the crime laid to the said Willie’s charge.’ The Lords consequently ordered the magistrates ‘to attend the commodity of some ship going to the Low Countries,’ and see Willie set aboard thereof, ‘and mak intimation to the said Willie that if at ony time hereafter he sall return without licence, it sall be capital unto him.’--_P. C. R._

[Sidenote: 1624.]

The master of Adie Usher seems to have been under suspicion of a concern in his delinquencies. In November, when about to fly from the city on account of infection, the Privy Council entered an order in the case of Lady Jean Stewart, whose husband, Robert Elliot of Redheugh, had been for some time a prisoner in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh. She had represented ‘the utter distress, misery, and want whereunto she and her poor children are reduced, having contracted great debts and impandit her abulyiements and clothes for enterteinment of her husband in ward--and she is brocht to that pitch of necessity, that she has nowther means to live nor credit to afford him ony further supply.’ The Council ordered her a hundred merks for past charges, and granted her the sum of ‘threttein shillings and four pennies’ during pleasure--apparently meaning a daily allowance of 1s. 1-1/3d. sterling.--_P. C. R._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: AUG. 30.]

Poland is described as in this age swarming with Scotch pedlers. Its port, Dantzig, contained a number of settled merchants of a respectable order, some of whom were seen from time to time returning to their native country with considerable realised wealth. Formerly, the Scotch merchants at Dantzig, having a kind of rule and governance among themselves, lived in such a way as to secure the esteem of the people of the country. But latterly, ‘discipline being dissolved, the most part of them use such a dissolute form of living, that they are odious to the inhabitants, hurtful to themselves, and despised by strangers, to the great ignominy of the whole nation.’ There was also a continual immigration of multitudes of miserable, debauched, and weakly people from Scotland, including ‘exorbitant numbers of young boys and maids unfit for any service,’ reminding us of the overflowings of the Irish population into England, Scotland, and the United States of America in more recent days.[415] During this summer, owing, doubtless, to the pressure of the famine, this scandalous system had been carried to such a height, that the Scotch merchants were threatened with expulsion from the city. In this exigency, they wrote to the king, craving his intercession. Patrick Gordon, who acted as agent for the king in Dantzig, also wrote, apparently, at the same time, shewing how matters stood, and entreating that some order and rule should be established among his countrymen, as they should not otherwise be able much longer to withstand the strength of their enemies.[416]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: NOV. 1.]

[Sidenote: 1624.]

The king wrote to the Earl of Mar, requesting him to send into Argyleshire and Glenorchy, for four or five couples of _earth-dogs_ (terriers), which he was desirous of obtaining in order to transmit them to France. His majesty further requested ‘that ye have a special care that the oldest of them be not passing three years of age, and that ye send them not all in one ship, but some in one ship, and other some in another, lest one ship should miscarry.’[417]

The same Earl of Mar, having to spend the winter of 1631 in Stirling, and designing to amuse himself with fox-hunting, sent a letter to his cousin, the Laird of Glenurchy, entreating the favour of ‘a couple of good earth-dogs;’ and adding, what shews the importance of the favour, ‘I pray you use me as familiarly as I do you, for without ceremony, cousin, you shall not have a friend over whom ye have greater power than over me.’ _P. S._--‘What ye send me, let it be good, although it be but one.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: NOV. 2.]

There is at this time a glimpse of rationality regarding witchcraft in the public authorities, in as far as the Privy Council deemed it right to hesitate about the granting of commissions for the trial of persons charged with that crime. The Council had been troubled by the importunity of persons seeking for such commissions, and at the same time concerned to find that the informations on which the commissions were sought for ‘seemed to be very obscure and dark.’ As anxious for the truth, and to the intent that neither should the innocent be molested nor the guilty escape, they now arranged that all informations should henceforth pass through the hands of the bishop of the diocese, ‘to be seen and considered by him, and such of the ministry as he shall call unto him.’--_P. C. R._

We have here a revelation of that doubt about the reality of witchcraft which is suspected to have lurked in the minds of all the principal official people throughout the seventeenth century. It was a time of comparative triumph for the established church. The bishops were not particularly in need of popularity. They could afford to be easy with both Romanists and necromancers. It was precisely in such circumstances that we could expect to find the chief administrative body letting slip a doubt as to the soundness of many of the alleged instances of sorcery lately subjected to trial.

[Sidenote: NOV. 23.]

[Sidenote: 1624.]

The pest, which had been for some time before in Holland, broke out ‘in sundry houses in Edinburgh, to the great terror of the whole town. It began in Paul Hay[418] a merchant’s house, a month before, and was not known till now; therefore the more dangerous, because hard to discern the clean from the unclean. Upon the last day of November, the president and other lords of Council and Session, meeting together, resolve to rise, and continue the session till the 8th of Januar.’--_Cal._

One consequence of the occurrence of the pest at this time was, that the king’s design of enforcing a communion at Christmas, where all the people should kneel, was frustrated. Another result generally satisfactory was a relaxation of the severity against the Edinburgh citizens who were banished and imprisoned for opposing the new ceremonies. William Rig was allowed to leave his prison of Blackness, and remain for fifteen days with his wife at his house of Morton, where she was ‘very heavily visite with infirmity and sickness.’ Mean, having ‘a numerous family and his wife grit with child, and nane to have ane care for order-taking with them, how they sall be providit for and governit in this [time of] danger,’ was in like manner permitted to repair to Edinburgh, to see after them, and there remain till the 15th of January. So also John Hamilton was relieved from the Tolbooth to attend on his wife, who chanced to be in the same delicate condition as Mrs Mean. After all, ‘the pest raged not; few houses were infected with it; so that it appeared the chief end wherefore the Lord had sent it, was to disappoint the king by scattering the people.’--_Cal._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: DEC.]

Amidst the alarms regarding the pest, people heard of a strange case of personal quarrel and vindictiveness. One William Hamilton, a soldier, son of the deceased William Hamilton, ‘called of Inchmachan,’ was lately come from the Low Countries, avowing ‘a settled purpose and resolution to appeal Captain Harie Bruce to the single combat, or otherwise to watch the opportunity to bereave him of his life.’ The Privy Council was obliged to take means for preventing a hostile collision.--_P. C. R._

[Sidenote: DEC. 8.]

[Sidenote: 1624.]

The Privy Council readily apprehended that the prosecution of ‘this damnable and cruel intention’ would both breed danger to the parties and produce great trouble and controversy among their friends, to the disturbance of his majesty’s peace, if timous remeed be not provided. They therefore summoned the parties before them to give assurance of their good behaviour.

Deeming, as was formerly remarked, anything that illustrates the progress of the arts as worthy of notice in this record, though perhaps trifling in itself, we may advert to Mr Alexander Hamilton, brother to the secretary Earl of Melrose, as having now obtained a patent of twenty-one years for a new _cart_ invented by him, ‘wherein greater weight and burdens may with far less force be drawn, and conveniently carried, than hath been done with ony other kind of cart hitherto known or heretofore used.’[419]

‘Sandy Hamilton,’ or ‘Dear Sandy,’ as he was called, was a man of note on account of his skill in some of the useful arts, particularly in those connected with the munitions of war. He practised these arts for some time in Germany, whence he was recalled to England, where the king granted him pensions and allowances to the amount of £800 sterling _per annum_. When the Civil War broke out, he joined his countrymen, and helped to fit out the Covenanting army of 1640 with a species of short but effective gun, which was carried slung between two horses, and the serviceableness of which was proved at the battle of Newburn-ford, when the Scots crossed the Tyne in the face of the enemy and became masters of Newcastle.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: 1624.]

In this year we have the latest known notice of a woman of extraordinary attainments who had lived for many years in Edinburgh, practising an art in which she was long after pronounced to have never been excelled. Caligraphy, or the art of beautiful writing, was in greater vogue in the seventeenth century than in our more utilitarian days. Under what circumstances Esther Inglis, a Frenchwoman residing in the Scottish capital, came to give her days to so laborious an art, we do not learn. Neither are we aware how it was that Esther came to live in the Scottish capital. There, however, we find her, so early as 1599, writing one of the little manuscript volumes which have given her celebrity. This book, preserved in the Bodleian Library, is entitled _Les Proverbes de Salomon, escrites en diverses sortes de Lettres, par Esther Anglois, Françoise. A Lislesbourg en Ecosse._ 1599. ‘This delicate performance,’ says Ballard,[420] ‘gains the admiration of all who see it; every chapter is wrote in a different hand; as is the dedication, and some other things at the beginning of the book, which makes near forty several sorts of hands. The beginnings and endings of the chapters are adorned with most beautiful head and tail pieces, and the margins are elegantly decorated with the pen, in imitation, I suppose, of the beautiful old manuscripts. The book is dedicated to the Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth’s great favourite. At the beginning are his arms, neatly drawn, with all its quarterings--in number fifty-six. In the fifth leaf is her own picture, done with the pen, in the habit of that time. In her right hand, a pen, the left resting upon a book opened; in one of the leaves of which is written _De l’Eternel le bien: de moi le mal, ou rien_. On the table before her there is likewise a music-book lying open, which perhaps intimates that she had some skill in that art. Under the picture is an epigram in Latin, made by Andrew Melvin; and on the next page another, composed by the same author, which is as follows:

Æmula naturæ manus exprimit una figuras
Mille, animans pictis Signa pusilla notis,
Signa creans animata, polûm spirantia signa:
Quæ picturata margine limbus obit.
Mirum opus: at mage mira Manus; mira omnia vincit
Mens manui moderans, dum manus urget opus.

ANDRÆUS MELVINUS.

Thus translated into English:

One hand dame nature’s mimic does express
Her larger figures, to the life, in less.
In the rich border of her work do stand,
Afresh created by her curious hand,
The various signs and planets of the sky,
Which seem to move and twinkle in our eye.
Much we the work, much more the hand admire,
Her fancy guiding this does raise our wonder higher.

Another of Esther’s transcripts was entitled _Historiæ Memorabiles Genesis_, 1600. A copy of the French Psalms, written by her, and presented to Queen Elizabeth, is in the library of Christ Church, Oxford. There is also in the Bodleian a manuscript of hers, entitled _Les Vingts et Six Quatrains de Guy de Faur, Sieur de Pybrac, escrits par Esther Inglis, pour son dernier Adieu, ce 21 Jour de Juin 1617_. It seems to have been a gift to the celebrated Dr Hall--subsequently Bishop of Norwich--on parting from him at the time of the king’s visit to Scotland. The latest known of Esther’s works is a volume preserved in the Royal Library, _Esther Inglis’s Fifty Emblems_, dated at Edinburgh 1624.

[Sidenote: 1624.]

When the king was at Stirling, Esther’s son presented to him a little book entitled _Sidus Celeste_, and he experienced some of James’s good-natured patronage in consequence. In June 1620, Esther is found addressing the king in behalf of this son, who, having completed a school-course, ‘would gladly follow theology.’ But ‘as Dædalus was not able to free himself of his imprisonment in the isle Creta but by the help of wings made of pens and wax, even so my son is not able to free himself of inability to effectuate this his affection, but by the wings of your majesty’s letter, composed by pen and wax, through which he may wing his flight happily to some fellowship, either in Cambridge or Oxford, as occasion sall fall out.’ If so far favoured by his majesty, ‘I may have my tossed mind relieved of the great care I have perpetually for this said youth.’--_An. Scot._

Ballard states, on the authority of a memorandum of Hearne, the antiquary, that Esther Inglis was married to a Scotsman, named Bartholomew Kello, and had a son, named Samuel Kello, who was educated at Christ Church College, Oxford, and was afterwards minister at Speckshall, in Suffolk.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: 1625.

MAR.]

‘At this time arose great discontentment betwixt the provost, bailies, and council of Edinburgh, and their ministers, because the ministers had procured the king’s letter and direction to the magistrates and council, for augmentation of their yearly stipends. They were not content with twelve hundred merks for every one, beside their house mail [rent], which was more than their predecessors, worthier than they, had, but importunately craved two thousand. The people,’ says the zealous Presbyterian historian, ‘detested them for their ambition, their avarice, and malice at honest and godly professors. They were well fingerfed in other men’s houses, howbeit they had sufficient to maintain them at home.’--_Cal._

In June 1626, Charles I. enjoined the magistrates to give each of their ministers £100 sterling of yearly stipend, with a free house.--_Bal._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: MAR. 30.]

[Sidenote: 1625.]

The news of the death of King James--which occurred on the 27th of March--reached Edinburgh on the 30th, at the outbreak of a storm of extraordinary violence which raged along the whole coast, destroying much shipping, and throwing down several harbours. ‘The water raise above the harbour of Leith, and ran into the houses of the town; yea, the boats and barks within the same floated so above the shore, that some of them were cast away upon the sides of the houses; and great ships therein could not be keepit, with all their anchors and cables, from doing great skaith, ilk ane to ane other, whereof the like was never heard tell of in our days. Sundry mariners, keeping their ships [fra] skaith, were hurt themselves, and in special James Langlands and Robert Dury, two masters of ships, very expert in that art, were baith cast away, working for the relief of their awn ships.’--_Jo. H._

‘The like harm was done in sundry other parts upon the coast along the Firth, in Saltpreston, Kirkcaldy, Ardross, and other parts. Salt-pans were overthrown, ships and boats broken, coal-heughs beside Culross drowned. The like of this tempest was not seen in our time, nor the like of it heard in this country in any age preceding. It was taken by all men to be a forerunner of some great alteration. And, indeed, the day following--to wit, the last of March--sure report was brought hither from court, that the king departed this life, the Lord’s day before, the 27th of March.’--_Cal._

This was long after remembered as the storm of the _Borrowing Days_, such being a popular appellation for the last three days of March, as expressed in a well-known popular rhyme. It is a proverbial observation of the weather, which seems to be justified by fact, the bad weather being connected with the vernal equinox.

END OF VOL. I.

Edinburgh:
Printed by W. and R. Chambers.

See pages 143 and 255.]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] ‘A man of science as well as of philosophic mind would employ himself well in examining those accounts of prodigies in the early annalists and chroniclers, which of late years have been regarded as only worthy of contempt.’--SOUTHEY--_Omniana_, i. 266.

[2] De Fratribus Minoribus nulla est quæstio, professi siquidem simulatam paupertatem, nulla prædia, nullos fundos habent; sed sub prætextu pietatis ex interceptis testamentis, et stultæ pietatis zelo, ditissimi facti sunt: quod ex eventu, post infelicem pugnam de Flodden, compertum est: nam qui eo pugnaturi proficiscebantur, nisi confessione facta remissionem a Fratribus Minoribus impetrassent, omnia mala ominabantur. Interea omnem pecuniam, monumenta, et si quid pretiosum alioqui habebant, eorum fidei committebant, sperantes, se mortuis, illos ea quæ credebantur omnia fide integra posteris suis restituros: at illi, eorum qui in prælio occubuerunt, nec fidem reposcere poterant, bona in fundi comparatione, et ecclesiæ et monasterii exstructione ad sui ordinis homines convertebant: nec aliter accidit in acie Pinquini.--_Craig, Jus Feudale_, lib. i.

[3] _Registrum Episcopatus Aberdonensis_, ii., 309, 310.

[4] As often as I turn my eyes to the niceness and elegance of our own times, the ancient manners of our forefathers appear sober and venerable, but withal rough and horrid.--_Buchanan: De Jure Regni, as quoted by Dugald Stewart in Preliminary Dissertation, Encyclopædia Britannica._

[5] This phrase occurs in an order of the provost of Edinburgh (Earl of Arran), dated 1518, excusing Francis Bothwell from taking the part of Little John.--_Napier’s Life of Napier of Merchiston_, p. 53.

[6] See the Rev. Joseph Hunter’s tract, _The Ballad Hero Robin Hood_, 1852; making it at length tolerably certain that the outlaw lived in the reign of Edward II, and for a short time held office in that king’s household.

[7] Arnot’s _History of Edinburgh_.

[8] Scots Acts, 1555.

[9] Persons in the employment of the craftsmen; journeymen.

[10] From a sculpture on the Magdalen Chapel, Cowgate, Edinburgh.

[11] Refreshment at 4 o’clock afternoon. Latterly, the term has been applied to tea-drinking.

[12] A road in the line of the present Princes Street.

[13] Knox says she frowned here, and gave the books to Arther Erskine, the captain of her guard, ‘the maist pestilent papist within the realm.’

[14] Anti-tune, antiphone, or response.

[15] _Notes to Ancient Scottish Poems from the Bannatyne Manuscript_, 1770.

[16] From a unique copy of this tract a reprint was given by Mr John Robertson to the Bannatyne Club, 1833.

[17] See under October 1570; also April 5, 1603.

[18] _Comedy of Errors_, Act III. sc. 2.

[19] In July 1538, there is an entry in the treasurer’s books, of 14s. ‘to Alexander Naper for mending of the Queen’s sadill and her _cheriot_, in Sanct Androis.’ In January 1541-2, there is another: ‘To mend the Quenis cheriot vi-1/4 elnis blak velvet, £16, 17s. 6d.’ Besides something for cramosie, satin, and fringes.

[20] History of the Family of Mackenzie, MS. in possession of J. W. Mackenzie, Esq., W.S., Edinburgh.

[21] A tract containing the disputation was printed by Lekprivik in 1563, and has been republished, Edinburgh, George Ramsay & Co., 1812. Dr M‘Crie, in his _Life of John Knox_, gives an ample abstract of this curious pamphlet.

[22] Randolph to Cecil, Edin. Nov. 30, 1562. Chalmers’s _Life of Queen Mary_.

[23] Edin. Council Register, apud Maitland.

[24] In England, the spring of 1562 had been marked by excessive rains, and the harvest was consequently bad. Towards the end of the year, plague broke out in the crowded and harassed population of Havre, in France, then undergoing a siege, and from the garrison it was imparted to England, which had been prepared for its reception by the famine. There it prevailed throughout the whole year 1563, carrying off 20,000 persons in London alone. ‘The poor citizens,’ says Stowe, ‘were this year plagued with a threefold plague--pestilence, dearth of money, and dearth of victuals; the misery whereof were too long here to write. No doubt the poor remember it.’ On account of the plague at Michaelmas, no term was kept, and there was _no lord-mayor’s dinner!_ The plague spread into Germany, where it was estimated to have carried off 300,000 persons.

[25] See notes to Scott’s _Lay of the Last Minstrel_.

[26] This curious contract is printed entire in Pitcairn, iii. 390.

[27] Scott’s notes, _ut supra_.

[28] There is a place called Tarlair near Banff.

[29] Nicol Burne’s Disputation, p. 143.

[30] While Drury lay before the castle, Lord Fleming entered into a hostile correspondence with Sir George Carey, one of Elizabeth’s officers. This is given in _Holinshed’s Chronicle_.

[31] Mr Pennant, from whom the above translation is borrowed, says, by a strange mistake, ‘on one of the deer.’

[32] William Barclay, _De Regno et Regali Potestate adversus Monarchomachos_. Parisiis, 1600. This author was a native of Aberdeenshire, but finally settled at Angers, in France, as Professor of Civil Law in the University there. He died in 1604.

Bishop Geddes, in introducing this extract from Barclay’s forgotten work to the notice of the Society of the Antiquaries of Scotland (1782), remarks that a still more grand entertainment of the same kind was given in 1529 to King James V., his mother, Queen Margaret, and the pope’s legate, by the then Earl of Athole, and that an account of the affair has been preserved in Lindsay of Pitscottie’s _History of Scotland_. The venerable bishop adds: ‘Need I take notice that the hunting described by Barclay bears some resemblance to the _batidas_ of the present king of Spain, where several huntsmen form a line and drive the deer through a narrow pass, at one side of which the king, with some attendants, has his post, in a green but of boughs, and slaughters the poor animals as they come out almost as fast as charged guns can be put into his hand and he fire them. These are things sufficiently known; and the same manner of stag-hunting is practised in Italy, Germany, and other parts of Europe.’[421]

[33] Gunn’s _Historical Enquiry respecting the Harp in the Highlands_. 1807.

[34] Agnes Strickland’s _Life of Queen Mary_.

[35] _Archæologia Scotica_, ii. 287.

[36] Richard Bannatyne’s _Memorials_, p. 238.

[37] Dalyell’s _Darker Superstitions of Scotland_, p. 130.

[38] Walter Goodall and Miss Agnes Strickland have been misled by the description of the place in Bothwell’s Act of Forfeiture--‘_ad pontes, vulgo vocatos foulbriggs_‘--into the belief that the queen was seized at the suburb of Edinburgh formerly called Foulbriggs, and now Fountain Bridge. In reality, the expression in the Act, rightly translated, applies to the place indicated in the _Diurnal of Occurrents_--‘at the Briggs, commonly called Foulbriggs,’ the syllable _foul_ being presumably a vulgar casual addition which the ancient marshy condition of the place rendered appropriate. All the other contemporary writers place the scene of the seizure at the Almond--Buchanan, Birrel, and Herries--while Sir James Melville, who was one of the party seized, says ‘betwixt Linlithgow and Edinburgh’--an expression he could scarcely have used if the fact had happened close to the city. In _Ane Chronicle of the Kings of Scotland_, printed by the Maitland Club, and apparently contemporary, _the brig of Awmont_ is the locality assigned. But the most powerful evidence on the subject, and what sets the matter at rest, is a Remission under the Privy Seal, of date October 1, 1567, to Andrew Redpath, for his being concerned in ‘besetting the queen’s way ... _near the water of Awmond_, and for taking and ravishing her,’ &c. It may be remarked that there is no evidence of the suburb alluded to by Miss Strickland having been called Foulbriggs, or having existed at all, at that time, while we have proof of the existence of a place on the Almond Water, under the name of the _Briggs_, long before this time. In the Register of the Privy Seal is ‘ane lettre maid to Robert Hamilton in Briggis, makand him capitane and kepar of the place and palace of Linlithgow,’ &c. 1543, Aug. 22.

[39] Privy Seal Register.

[40] Carries.

[41] Nickname.

[42] Garret.

[43] Searches.

[44] Thievery.

[45] Ere.

[46] Till.

[47] _Ancient Scottish Poems_, 2 vols. 1786.

[48] _Border Minstrelsy_, i. 157.

[49] Burgh Record of Canongate, _Maitland Club Mis._, ii. 303.

[50] Babees, halfpence, from _bas billon_, a low piece of money.

[51] Hume’s _Hist. House of Douglas_.

[52] Privy Seal Register.

[53] _Discoverie and Historie of the Gold Mynes in Scotland._ Written in 1619. Bannatyne Club, 1825.

[54] _Holinshed’s Chronicle._

[55] The original, preserved in the General Register House, is printed at length in Pitcairn, iii. 394.

[56] Privy Seal Register.

[57] Council Register, quoted in _Maitland’s History of Edinburgh_, p. 32.

[58] _Ane Breve Descriptioun of the Pest_, &c. 1568.

[59] Mr M. Napier’s Notes to Spottiswoode’s History, Spot. Club edition.

[60] Where Napier had other estates.

[61] The bishop was about to go to York, to attend the investigation respecting the queen.

[62] Justiciary Records, MS., Adv. Lib., quoted by Mr Mark Napier.

[63] Burgh Records of Canongate, _Mait. Club Mis._, ii. 313.

[64] The pest was severe in London in autumn 1569, whether by communication from Scotland does not appear.

[65] Ane Addicioun of Scottis Cornicklis and Deidis, printed from an original manuscript by Thomas Thomson, Esq.

[66] _Memorials of George Bannatyne._ Edited by Sir Walter Scott. Bannatyne Club-book, 1829.

[67] Extracts from Canongate Council Register, _Maitland Club Miscellany_, ii. 814.

[68] _Ane Trajedie in forme of ane Diallog betwix Honour, Gude Fame, and the Authour heirof, in ane Trance._ Lekprevik, 1570.

[69] Dalyell’s _Illustrations of Scottish History_, p. 521.

[70] Harrison’s translation, _apud_ Holinshed.

[71] _Extracta e Chronicis Scocie._ Edin. 1842.

[72] Sir William Sinclair, who records these curious particulars, was Lord Justice-general of Scotland, and altogether an estimable person. According to Father Hay: ‘He gathered a great many manuscripts, which had been taken by the rabble out of our monasteries in the time of the Reformation.’--_Genealogy of the Sinclairs of Roslin_, edited by James Maidment, Esq. 1835. See something further about him under June 1623.

[73] The distance from Bathgate to Edinburgh is eighteen miles.

[74] _Bannatyne’s Journal_, 46.

[75] _Calderwood_, iii. 20, 167, and _note_.

[76] The couplet almost verbatim occurs in the prophecies of Bertlingtoun, in R. Waldegrave’s brochure, already quoted (under Jan. 1, 1561-2):

‘However it happen for to fall,
The Lyon shall be lord of all.’

[77] Eupham M‘Calyean subsequently attained still higher notoriety in the character of a witch. See under Dec. 26, 1590.

[78] The whole series is printed in _Abbotsford Miscellany_, p. 5.

[79] Crawford’s _Memoirs_, 215.

[80] The Lady Scotland is understood to address ‘the richt honorable and godly learnit gentleman, the Laird of Dun, minister of God’s word.’

[81] Bruised.

[82] He ‘wes extremelie pynit in the beitis lang of befoir.’--_D. O._

[83] _Calderwood_, iii. 393.

[84] The word _its_ did not then exist, and writers were forced to use either _his_ or _her_ instead.

[85] Humboldt’s _Cosmos_.

[86] Brewster’s _Encyclopædia_.

[87] Tytler, vii. 388.

[88] Under the care of John Smith, youngest, the secretary of the Club. 1832.

[89] So called ‘for that in old Fathers’ days the people would that day shear their heads and clip their beards, and so make them honest against Easter Day.’--Authority quoted in Brand’s _Pop. Antiquities_, by Ellis.

[90] ‘Robert Gurlay, the duke’s servant,’ is the last in the list of persons forfeited by the parliament of James VI., August 1571.

[91] Calderwood.

[92] Register of the General Kirk of Edinburgh, _Maitland Club Mis._, i. 101.

[93] Reg. of Gen. Kirk of Edinburgh, _Maitland Club Mis._, i. 111.

[94] As this conduct was such as might lead to a collision between the parties, it is not easy to see how it illustrates the author’s proposition of Wedderburn’s pacific temper.

[95] From a copy in the editor’s possession of a manuscript long preserved in Broomhouse, Berwickshire.

[96] ‘There was presented to the Queen Regent (1558), by Robert Ormiston, a calf having two heads, whereat she scripped [mocked], and said: “It was but a common thing.”‘--_Knox._

[97] Coloured stripes sewed on a garment.

[98] Fringes or trimmings.

[99] This seems too high a phrase of compliment for the Regent Morton. _His Grace_ was the ordinary phrase, according to Sir James Melville.

[100] Aberdeen Council Register, _Spal. Cl. Mis._ i. 30.

[101] _Abbotsford Miscellany_, 45.

[102] _Hist. of the House of Douglas_, ii. 260.

[103] The wife of the earl--Margaret Fleming, relict of the Master of Montrose and the Master of Erskine--was believed to have the powers of incantation. See under June 19, 1566.

[104] The seat of the Earl of Montrose, on the skirts of the Ochil Hills.

[105] Crawford’s _Officers of State_. Moysie’s _Memoirs_.

[106] As much as to say, ‘Sport, and be at your ease.’

[107] Moysie.

[108] Calderwood.

[109] Arranged--not lying as rubbish.

[110] _Documents Relative to Royal Receptions_, 4to. Edinburgh, 1822.

[111] _Maitland Club Miscellany_, ii. 19.

[112] General Assembly, April 1578.

[113] A house called the _Novum Hospitium_, in the Priory Park. It has long been demolished, excepting only the court-gate.

[114] _Atkinson’s Discoverie of Gold Mynes in Scotland._

[115] _Trans. Ant. Soc. Scot._ iii. 312.

[116] Row’s _History of the Kirk of Scotland_.

[117] The original of this document, commonly called the _King’s Confession_, is preserved in the Advocates’ Library.

[118] See under May 1574.

[119] Fr. _clientèle_, dependents.

[120] This Scotch law-phrase has become familiar in England, under the form of ‘art and part,’ and is not in general correctly understood. The first word is not art, but _airt_, meaning direction, implying that the accused was believed to have counselled and guided the actual perpetrators of the crime.

[121] Powerfully.

[122] A strange thing.

[123] See under Jan. 1, 1561-2.

[124] For the above illustrations of his remark, the author is indebted to Mr Mark Napier’s curious notes to the edition of Spottiswoode’s History published by the Spottiswoode Club.

[125] ‘Item, to ane pyper and ane young boy his sone that playit in Dalkeytht upon Sonday the xj day of Junii, fra the kirk to the castell befoir his Hienes ... xx_s._‘

[126] A noteworthy anecdote of this lady is stated in Anderson’s _History of the Family of Fraser_. On the death of her first husband, the tutorship of her infant son, Lord Lovat, became a matter of contention between the child’s grand-uncle, Fraser of Struie, and his uncle Thomas; and it seemed likely there would be a fight between their various partisans. In these circumstances, a clerical gentleman of the clan, Donald Fraser Dhu, entreated the widow to interfere, and ask Struie to retire. She gave an evasive reply, remarking that whatever might befall, ‘not a drop of Stewart blood would be spilt.’ The mediator then drew his dirk, and told her ladyship with a fierce oath, that _her_ blood would be the first that would be spilt, if she did not do as he requested. She then complied, and Thomas, the child’s uncle, was accordingly elected as tutor.

[127] Calderwood.

[128] Melville’s Diary.

[129] He states that David Riccio was buried by the queen in the royal vault, ‘almost in the arms of Magdalene Valois,’ and thence draws a shameful inference against the chastity of Mary. To dedicate to the young king a book in which he endeavoured to prove his mother an adulteress, and the murderer of her husband, gives a strange idea of the sense of that age regarding the rules of good taste, to say nothing more.

[130] On this occasion Captain Lammie was killed. Sir Walter Scott, in relating the incident in the _Border Minstrelsy_, expresses a hope that he was ‘the same miscreant who, in the day of Queen Mary’s distress, “his ensign being of white taffety, had painted on it the cruel murder of King Henry, and laid down before her majesty, at what time she presented herself as prisoner to the Lords.”--_Birrel’s Diary._’ It was very probably so, as we find that he then, as well as now, was a hired soldier of the government. As his painted ensign makes rather a conspicuous appearance in Scottish history, it may be not unworthy of notice that the following entry occurs in the Lord Treasurer’s books, under March 18, 1567-8, nine months after the incident in question: ‘To Captain Andro Lambie for his expenses passand of Glasgow to Edinburgh to uplift certain men of weir, and to mak ane _Handsenyie_ of white taffety, £25.’ He was then acting for the Regent Moray. It seems probable that, having spoiled his ensign by the picture of the king’s murder, he was now gratified with a new one at the expense of his employer.

[131] In the parish of Carluke, Lanarkshire.

[132] He remained at this fine old castle twelve days, attended by Arran, Sir Robert Melville, Secretary Maitland, Ferniehirst, Colonel Stuart, and the Master of Gray; and regaled with ‘the play of Robin Hood.’ ‘After the banquet was ended, Arran fell deadly sick.’--_Cal._

[133] _History of King James VI._

[134] _Darker Superstitions of Scotland_, p. 484.

[135] Note in _Maitland Club Miscellany_, iv. 123.

[136] _Gregory’s History of the Western Highlands and Isles_, p. 234.

[137] Estate--piece of ground.

[138] Threatens.

[139] A horn had originally, or perhaps was still used, in proclaiming a man rebel; hence the term, horning, or being put to the horn.

[140] October ... 1587, ‘his majesty raid with ane host to Peebles, for order-taking with the broken men, and returnit the tent day.’--_Moysie’s Memoirs._

[141] It is understood that this was the place of worship formed out of the choir or eastern portion of the church of St Giles. Opposite to the pulpit, which was attached to the first pillar from the east end, was the royal gallery or loft, also attached to a pillar. Thus the king and the minister were sufficiently near each other for the colloquies in which they occasionally indulged. See Wilson’s _Memorials of Edinburgh_.

[142] Harrington’s _Nugæ Antiquæ_, by Park. 2 vols. 1804. Vol. i., p. 369.

[143] A light bark with one mast.

[144] Rascal.

[145] Worthless fellows.

[146] Value.

[147] A bulk, a corpse.

[148] A gun in the poop of the ship.

[149] Discharged.

[150] _Maitland Club Miscellany_, i. 276.

[151] Transverse.

[152] It is to be feared that Abacuck was a person of a litigious and troublesome temper. A complaint was made against him before the Privy Council by Kenneth M‘Kenzie of Kintail, to the effect that Bisset had purchased letters to force Kenneth to produce a clansman named Rory M‘Allister M‘Kenzie, alleged to be at the horn for default in a civil cause. It was alleged that, knowing that on the case being called, he (Kenneth) could shew many good arguments for exonerating himself of this responsibility, Bisset had delayed the calling, in hopes of being able to do it when Kenneth should not be at hand to make his own defence. The matter being brought fully before the Lords in the presence of parties, it was decreed that Kenneth should be absolved from the duty implied in Bisset’s letters.--_P. C. R._

In July 1608, Abacuck was involved in a still worse-looking affair. He was charged before the Privy Council with having prosecuted Mr William Reid, of Aberdeen, in a malicious manner at law, from no cause but that of ‘some little eleist’ fallen out between him and Andrew Reid, brother of William, in which the said William had no interest. He had also traduced William Hay in regard to the propriety of his marriage, though it was well known to be ‘an honest and famous marriage.’ The Council found the charge just, and commanded Abacuck’s proceedings to be stopped.

[153] _Melville Diary_, 291.

[154] The conduct of the clergy on this occasion is defended, but in rather subdued terms, by Dr M‘Crie, _Life of Andrew Melville_, i. 395.

[155] _Statistical Acc. of Scot._ ed. 1845, v. 258.

[156] A leek (Fr. _cibolle_).

[157] _Maitland Club Mis._, i. 278.

[158] See the entire letter in _Blackwood’s Magazine_, ii. 313.

[159] _Chronicle Kings of Scotland._

[160] _Moysie’s Memoirs._

[161] Act of Privy Council, Notes to Waverley Novels (_Legend of Montrose_).

[162] James Melville’s _Diary_.

[163] In this article, both editions of Moysie are used.

[164] Birrel’s _Diary_.

[165] Latterly called the West Bow.

[166] A public weighing-machine at the head of the West Bow.

[167] Johnston’s _Hist. Scot._ MS.

[168] From the reprint of a rare contemporary tract, in _Papers relative to the Marriage of James VI._ (Bannatyne Club), 1828.

[169] Regals, or rigols, an ancient musical instrument, composed of a series of reeded tubes resting on a bellows, which the player worked with his left hand. See Dalyell’s _Musical Memoirs of Scotland_, 1849, p. 117.

One is at a loss to understand how the poet thought of expressing his admiration of the strings of the organ and regals.

[170] Burel’s _Description of the Queen’s Entry_, &c., 1590, in Watson’s _Collection of Scottish Poetry_, 1712.

[171] Johnston’s _Hist. Scot._ MS.

[172] Edin. Council Record.

[173] _Maitland Club Misc._, i. 280.

[174] The entire letter is printed in _Blackwood’s Magazine_, ii. 628, and in the _Caldwell Papers_.

[175] Calderwood.

[176] ‘Wha were lately pardonit by his majesty for slaughter of the Laird of Dawick’s son.’

[177] Mr C. Innes’s preface to _Black Book of Taymouth_, xxv.

[178] Anderson’s _Hist. of the Frasers_, p. 102.

[179] See onward, under May 1600.

[180] See onward, under August 1618.

[181] _Britain’s Distemper_, by Patrick Gordon, Spald. Club.

[182] Tytler’s _History_, quoting letters in the State-paper Office.

[183] This lady did not long enjoy the position of a duchess. She died on the 11th of May 1592, and was ‘buried in the Trinity College, in the east end thereof, very solemnly.’--_Jo. Hist._ When the Trinity College Church was taken down, that its site might form part of a railway station, the remains of a female, believed to be those of the royal foundress, Mary de Gueldres, were found in a side-aisle, and duly re-interred in the royal sepulchre at Holyrood. Afterwards, the remains of another female, who had apparently been buried under circumstances of distinction, were found in the east end of the church, and suspected by some to be the remains of the queen. The probability is, that these latter remains were those of the youthful Sophia Ruthven, Duchess of Lennox.

[184] May 19, 1591, the town-council of Aberdeen made arrangements for the support of one Robert Abell, who was ‘visited with leprosy, and thereby unable to win his living or frequent honest men’s society.’ He was placed in the house here described.--_Ab. C. R._ In 1612, the magistrates made the like provision for Agnes Jameson, spouse to Patrick Jack, ‘vexed and diseased with the sickness of leprosy,’ although she was not born and bred in the burgh.

[185] Edin. Council Record. See Professor Simpson’s curious Notices of Leprosy in Scotland, _Edin. Med. and Surg. Journal_, No. 149.

[186] Now La Mancha.

[187] It will be found that the body of the Bonny Earl remained above ground for six years, probably with a view to keeping up the popular indignation against his murderers. (See under February 16, 1597-8.)

[188] It is necessary to distinguish this from the murder of another Laird of Brackla in 1667, on which a ballad has been composed. See Jamieson’s _Northern Ballads_.

[189] In a memoir of the family of Grant, written by Mr James Chapman, minister of Cromdale, in 1729, and preserved in the Macfarlane Collections in the Advocates’ Library, there is a curious traditionary anecdote, which the writer connects with the murder of the Laird of Brackla, and yet dates in 1540. It is given in the following terms: ‘[James Laird of Grant, called _Shemus nan Creagh_, or James the Ravager] distinguished himself in assisting the Earl of Huntly, his cousin, against the insults of several enemies, and particularly in revenging the murder of Gordon Baron of Brackla, on Dee water-side, who was murdered by the countrymen there. The revenge went such a length, that above sixscore orphans were left in the desolate country on Deeside, nobody knowing who their parents were. These miserable orphans were, out of pity and commiseration, carried by the Earl of Huntly into his castle, where they were maintained and fed thus. A long trough of wood was made, wherein was put pottage or any other kind of food allowed them; and the young ones, sitting round about the trough, did eat their meat out of it as well as they could. The Laird of Grant visiting the earl, was, for diversion’s sake, brought to see the orphans slabbing at the trough; which comical sight so surprised him, that he proposed to carry one-half of them to Balcastle, alleging that, having a hand in destroying their parents, he was bound in justice to take a concern in their preservation and maintenance. Those of them that were brought to Castle-Grant are to this day called _Slioch Namor_--that is, the Posterity of the Trough.’ As _Shemus nan Creagh_ died in 1553, and the Grants were not engaged on the Earl of Huntly’s side on this occasion, but participated with their relatives and allies the Mackintoshes in suffering from his vengeance, it may be presumed that this barbarous tale refers to the date assigned for it by Chapman--namely, a period fully fifty years earlier than the murder of the Laird of Brackla. It has nevertheless been introduced by Sir Walter Scott in his _Tales of a Grandfather_, as applicable to the reign of James VI.; and the reader who turns it up there, may experience some amusement in contrasting its ample and picturesque details with the simple original anecdote as above narrated.

[190] The Earl of Angus in this anecdote was a Protestant, and succeeded by the earl noticed in the preceding article, who was of the ancient faith.

[191] Fairnyear, the last year: the phrase means, formerly a lord.

[192] Andrew Wauchope of Niddry, and John Hamilton, younger, of Samuelston.

[193] The king, probably from recollection of some incident of their early school-days, used to recognise the grave earl by the name of _Jock o’ Sklaitts_.

[194] The above anecdote was communicated to me by Sir Walter Scott in 1827, immediately after he had derived it from the Earl of Haddington (Earl Charles), to whom, I suppose, it had come through his predecessors, the descendants of Lord Mar’s brother-statesman, Thomas, first Earl of Haddington.

[195] _Letters and State Papers of the Reign of James VI._ Abbotsford Club Series. 1838. P. 16.

[196] Calderwood. _History of James VI._ Pitcairn’s _Criminal Trials_. Gregory’s _History of the Western Highlands and Isles_.

[197] This interlined in the manuscript in a different hand. Another report is, that Lord Maxwell was slain by Willie Johnston, nephew of the _Galliard_, mentioned under July 22, 1593.

[198] G. L. Meason’s preface to _Discoverie and Historie of the Gold Mynes of Scotland_. Bannatyne Club. 1825.

[199] _Archæologia Scotica_, iv. 404.

[200] Napier’s _Life of Napier of Merchiston_.

[201] Another writer represents the Master of Montrose as setting upon Sir James Sandilands.

[202] The writer of this curious story speaks of the form of the funeral as rare.

[203] Council Register in Maitland.

[204] Patrick Anderson’s History MS. He adds: ‘I was at the time by chance an eye-witness myself.’

[205] _Hist. K. Ja. 6._

[206] March 16, 1575-6, John Macmoran, messenger, reported to the Privy Council, that in January last, when using his office in execution of letters upon Patrick M‘Kie, burgess of Wigton, he had been set upon by Alexander M‘Kie of Myreton and his two brothers, who cruelly struck and chased him, giving him despiteful words, and threatening him with worse if he ever again came there in a professional capacity. The offenders, failing to appear on call to answer for this outrage, were put to the horn.--_P. C. R._

[207] See _ante_, p. 143.

[208] Lady Yester in her widowhood founded a church in Edinburgh, which has perpetuated her name. Her ladyship, after the above date, brought Lord Yester two sons, the elder of whom earned on the line of the family, and was the first Earl of Tweeddale.

[209] Patrick Anderson’s Hist. MS. Genealogy of the Hays of Tweeddale.

[210] Thrown down.

[211] For the ballad of _Kinmont Willie_, and many particulars of the affair, see _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_.

[212] Napier’s _Life of Napier_, 4to, p. 247.

[213] Wood’s _Peerage_, quoting Urquhart.

[214] Cockalane--Fr. _coq-à-l’âne_, defined in the dictionary of the Academy, ‘Discours qui n’a point de suite, de liaison, de raison.’ Equivalent to the English phrase, a _cock-and-bull story_. The word occurs in at least one English author--Etheridge.

[215] Through his connection with the Lovat family, his wife being the mother of the present Lord Lovat, he was sheltered for some time in a small island in the lake of Bruiach, a few miles from Beaufort Castle.--_Anderson’s Hist. Acc. Fraser Family_, p. 90, note.

[216] _Spottiswoode_, iii. 40. Johnston’s Hist. Scot. MS. Scott’s _Staggering State of Scots Statesmen_.

[217] He was put to the horn, and an edict of Privy Council denounced those who should ‘reset’ him.

[218] Letter of Sir Thomas Hamilton, king’s advocate, Pitcairn, iii. 162.

[219] _History of the Kennedies_, 27.

[220] Letter above cited.

[221] The resemblance of this case to the phenomena of what is called electro-biology will be apparent.

[222] The original documents regarding these trials are given in full in the _Spalding Club Miscellany_, vol. i. Aberdeen. 1841.

[223] _William Shakspere, a Biography._ 1843.

[224] _Chronicle of the Cid_, translated by Robert Southey, pp. 75-83.

[225] Near Cramond Island.

[226] Fr. _Bon aller_, an entertainment at the commencement of a journey.

[227] _Genealogical Deduction of Kilravock Family_, written in 1683-4.

[228] Letter of Thomas Mallison, Aberdeen, June 28, 1597. _Spalding Club Misc._, ii. lx.

[229] _Mait. Club Misc._, i. 89.

[230] He held a privy-council on the 4th November, and occasionally during the month till the 29th, at Dumfries.

[231] Calderwood.

[232] ‘... that fearful eclipse of the sun which continued the space of two hours, so fearful that that Saturday is yet called by the people the BLACK SATURDAY; a prognostic, as the times give occasion to interpret, of that darkness which was to fall upon the kirk.’--_Scot’s Narration._

[233] The house of Bailie Macmoran, who was killed by a boy at the High School in 1595. This house still exists (see p. 263), and the room where the duke was banqueted is now used as the Mechanics’ Library.

[234] Fynes Moryson’s _Itinerary_, folio, 1617.

[235] For an anecdote of this lady, see under October 1590.

[236] Pitcairn’s _Crim. Trials_, iii. 116.

[237] Gordon’s _Hist. House of Sutherland_. Phillips’s _Geology_. _New Stat. Acc. Scot._ H. Miller’s _Testimony of the Rocks_, p. 496.

[238] _Calderwood_, iii. 76.

[239] Notes to James Melville’s _Diary_, Wodrow edition.

[240] See in _Deliciæ Literariæ_ (Edin. 1840), the title of the rare tract printed by Waldegrave in 1599, announcing this disputation.

[241] Gregory’s _History of the Western Highlands and Isles_.

[242] This James Learmont of Balcomie had, nearly twenty years before, fixed on the college-gate at St Andrews a placard offensive to Andrew Melville, who consequently broke out upon him as he sat in church, to this effect: ‘Thou Frenchiest, Italianest jolly gentleman, wha has defiled the bed of sae many married [men], and now boasts with thy bastinadoes to defile this kirk and put hands on His servants, thou sall never enjoy the fruits of marriage, by having lawful succession of thy body; and God shall baston thee in His righteous judgments!’ ‘This,’ says James Melville, ‘was remembered when the said James lived many years in marriage without child, and taken by the Highlandmen coming out of Lewis, was siccarly bastoned, and sae hardly used, that soon thereafter he died in Orkney.’

[243] _A. P. R._ Pit. Wood’s _Peerage_.

[244] _Gordon Papers_, _Spalding Club Misc._, iv. 123-319.

[245] _Stat. Acc. Scotland_, xi. 477.

[246] Published in the _Scots Magazine_, January 1807.

[247] Brazil fowls; that is, turkeys.

[248] Macfarlane’s _Genealogical Collections_, Adv. Lib.

[249] Butler’s _Lives of the Saints_.

[250] Extracts from Presbytery Book of Strathbogie (Spald. Club), xxiv.

[251] Father Blackhall’s _Narrative_.

[252] Shaw’s _History of the Province of Moray_, p. 326.

[253] Winzet, remarking how John Knox had put down festival-days as unsanctioned in Scripture, says: ‘I misknow not some of you to object the command, charging _sex days to labour, and the sevint to sanctify the Lord_; therefore I desire the doubtsome man to cause his doctor and prophet aforesaid [John Knox], with all the assistance of his best learned scholars, to answer in writ, what Scripture has he, or other authority, by [besides] the consent of the haly kirk universal, to sanctify the Sunday to be the sevint day. And gif he abolishes with us the Saturday, as ceremonial and not requirit in the law of the evangel, what has he by [besides] the consent of God’s kirk to sanctify ony day of the seven, and not to labour all the seven days.... Why abolishes he not the Sunday, as he does Yule, Pasch, and the rest, &c.?‘--_Tractates_, 1563, reprinted for Maitland Club, 1835.

[254] Privy Council Record.

[255] Extracts from Reg. Kirk-session of Rothiemay, Spal. Club.

[256] See extracts from their Register, Maitland Club Miscellany, i. 67.

[257] _Extracts from Register of General Kirk of Edinburgh_, same book, p. 111.

[258] Niel’s edition of Zachary Boyd’s poems (1855), p. xli.

[259] _Extracts from the Council Registers of Aberdeen_, p. 71.

[260] _Maitland Club Misc._, i. 135.

[261] _Ibid._ p. 431.

[262] ‘... in that church excommunication is so terrible, that few will have any manner of conversation with one excommunicated; and the generality of the people, when they see a man whom their ministers declare to be excluded from heaven, are easily induced to think him unworthy to live on earth.’--_Ed. Phillips’s Cont. of Baker’s Chronicle_, 1670, p. 617.

[263] Tubs.

[264] Boxes.

[265] Supposed to be a kind of sweetmeats.

[266] To hold stob and stake in a place, is an old periphrasis for making it one’s permanent residence.

[267] The flet was the inside of a house.

[268] A neighbouring hamlet.

[269] January 12, 1591-2, the king repossessed David Hamilton of Bothwell-haugh, Isobel Sinclair and Alison Sinclair, heretrices-portioners of the lands of Woodhouselee, of ‘their lands, houses, tacks, steadings, and possessions, wherefra they were dispossest upon occasion of the late troubles.’--_P. C. R._

[270] Miss Gordon having married Mr Byron without any ‘settlement,’ her property was seized by his creditors, and sold for £18,500, while she and her son, the future poet, were left to penury.

[271] The name has been changed to Formartin--a proceeding against which every person interested in the verity of history, not to speak of considerations of taste, must protest.

[272] Pitcairn’s _Criminal Trials_, ii. 429. See also vol. iii. 409.

[273] See the ballad of Christie’s Will, with the notes, in the _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_, iii. 151. This ballad was composed by the editor on the traditionary story, in which the Earl of Traquair is introduced as a litigant for whose benefit the capture of the judge was made, the object being to prevent an adverse judgment in the Court of Session.