Chapter XXII: Part 22

James Somerville, younger of Drum, riding home to that place from Edinburgh, found on the way two friends fighting with swords--namely, Thomas Learmont, son of Mr Thomas Learmont, an advocate, and Hew Paterson, younger of Bannockburn. These two young men had quarrelled over their cups. Young Somerville dismounted, and tried to separate them, but received a mortal wound from Paterson’s sword, though inflicted by the hand of Learmont, the two combatants having perhaps, like Hamlet and Laertes, exchanged weapons. The wounded man lived two days, and expressed his forgiveness of Learmont, who, by his advice, fled. ‘Some alleged his wounds were not mortal, but misguided.’ Somerville was the progeny of the marriage described as having taken place at Corehouse in November 1650. He left an infant son, who carried on the line of the family.--_Foun._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: AUG. 17.]

A comet began to appear in the north-west. ‘The star was big, and the tail broad and long, at the appearance of four yards.’ It continued visible for twenty days.--_Law._

This was the celebrated _Halley’s Comet_, so called in honour of the illustrious astronomer who first ascertained, by his calculations regarding it, the periodicity of comets. The same object had been observed by Kepler in 1607, and by Apian in 1531. ‘The identity of these meteors seeming to Halley unquestionable, he ventured to predict that the same comet would reappear in 1758, and that it would be found to revolve in a very elongated ellipse in about seventy-six years. As the critical period approached, which was to decide so momentous a question regarding the system of the world, the greatest mathematicians endeavoured to track the comet’s course with a minuteness which Halley’s opportunities did not permit him to reach. The illustrious Clairhaut, feeling that a general prediction was not enough, undertook the most complex problem as to the disturbing effects of the planets through whose orbits it must pass.... He succeeded in predicting one of the positions for the comet for the middle of April; stating, however, that he might be in error by thirty days. The comet occupied the position referred to on the 12th of March.’--_Nichol’s Contemplations on the Solar System._

[Sidenote: 1682.]

It is humiliating to have to remark, that the notices of comets which we derive from Scotch writers down to this time, contain nothing but accounts of the popular fancies regarding them. Practical astronomy seems to have then been unknown in our country; and hence, while in other lands men were carefully observing, computing, and approaching to just conclusions regarding these illustrious strangers of the sky, our diarists could only tell us how many _yards_ long they seemed to be, what _effects_ were apprehended from them in the way of war and pestilence, and how certain pious divines ‘improved’ them for spiritual edification. Early in this century, Scotland had produced one great philosopher--who had supplied his craft with the mathematical instrument by which complex problems, such as the movement of comets, were alone to be solved. It might have been expected that the country of Napier, seventy years after his time, would have had many sons capable of applying his key to such mysteries of nature. But not one had arisen--nor did any rise for fifty years onward, when at length Colin Maclaurin unfolded in the Edinburgh University the sublime philosophy of Newton. There could not be a more expressive signification of the character of the seventeenth century in Scotland. Our unhappy contentions about external religious matters had absorbed the whole genius of the people, rendering to us the age of Cowley, of Waller, and of Milton, as barren of elegant literature, as that of Horrocks, of Halley, and of Newton, was of science.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: NOV. 23.]

John Corse, Andrew Armour, and Robert Burne, merchants in Glasgow, were now arranging for the setting up of a manufactory ‘for making of damaties, fustines, and stripped vermiliones,’ expecting it would be ‘a great advantage to the country, and keep in much money therein which is sent out thereof for import of the same.’ Seeing ‘it undoubtedly will require a great stock and many servants, strangers, which are come and are to be sent for,’ the enterprisers deemed themselves entitled to have their work declared a manufactory, so that it might enjoy the privileges accorded to such by act of parliament. This favour was granted by the Council for nine years, ‘but prejudice to any other persons to set up and work in the said work.’--_P. C. R._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: DEC.]

[Sidenote: 1682.]

Daniel Mure of Gledstanes,[294] out of health and mental vigour, and believed to be on his death-bed, was induced to make a disposition of his estate to Thomas Carmichael of Eastend. Such a disposition, however, could not be valid by the law of Scotland, unless the testator appeared afterwards ‘at kirk and market’--an arrangement designed to insure that natural heirs should not be cheated. By ‘a most devilish contrivance’ of William Chiesley, writer in Edinburgh, Thomas Bell, Carmichael’s servant, was dressed up to personate the sick man, and taken with all due form to the public places appointed by the law. The notary before whom the man presented himself was so doubtful of his being Daniel Mure, that he caused him to take his oath that he was truly that person. When Carmichael and his man afterwards retired to a tavern with the notary, the latter once more expressed his doubt, saying: ‘This person is certainly not like Daniel Mure;’ to which Carmichael answered, that he was really the man, but much altered by sickness. On the death of Daniel Mure soon after, Carmichael accordingly appeared as the inheritor of the estate of Gledstanes, to the exclusion of Francis Mure, merchant in Edinburgh, the brother of the deceased. The affair was the more wicked, as the estate was one which had been long in Mure’s family.

[Sidenote: DEC. 21.]

On the whole matter being brought before the Privy Council by Francis Mure, the truth became clear, and Carmichael was punished by a fine of five thousand merks, whereof two thousand were assigned to Francis, as a compensation for the damage he had sustained; while Chiesley, the writer, was mulcted in three thousand merks for being accessory to the cheat. An obligation which Francis Mure had been induced to give to Carmichael, binding himself never to expose or pursue the forgery, was at the same time discharged. It is not unworthy of remark, that Chiesley, who had devised this forgery and drawn up the iniquitous obligation aforesaid, was one of those members of the legal profession who had refused, from scruples of conscience, to take the Test.--_P. C. R._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: DEC. 23.]

Alexander Nisbet of Craigentinny and Macdougall of Makerston had gone abroad to fight a duel, attended by Sir William Scott of Harden and ---- Douglas, ‘ensign to Colonel Douglas,’ as seconds. The Privy Council hearing of it, ordered the four gentlemen to be confined in the Tolbooth in different rooms, until it should be inquired into. The principals were, on petition, set at liberty in a few days, after giving caution for reappearance.--_P. C. R._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: 1683.

JAN. 5.]

[Sidenote: 1683.]

The widow of Andrew Anderson at this time carried on business in Edinburgh as the king’s printer, by virtue of a royal gift debarring others from exercising the like art. The bibles produced by her are said by Fountainhall to have been wretchedly executed. One David Lindsay having now got a similar gift, Mrs Anderson endeavoured to keep him out of the trade, setting forth that she had been previously invested with the privilege, and ‘_one press is sufficiently able to serve all Scotland_, our printing being but inconsiderable.’[295] The Lords ordained that Mrs Anderson’s monopoly should be held as only including the printing of such things as had been specified in the gift to her husband’s predecessor Tyler.

There were at this time printers in Glasgow and Aberdeen, but probably no other part of Scotland--though St Andrews had had a press before the Reformation. The business of the printer has been of slow growth in our country. Edinburgh contained in 1763 only six printing-offices; in 1790, sixteen;[296] there are, in 1858, sixty-two printing firms, besides several publishing offices, in which special printing work is executed.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: FEB. 1.]

It was represented to the Privy Council by the Bishop of Aberdeen that the Quakers in his diocese were now proceeding to such insolency, as to erect meeting-houses for their worship and ‘schools for training up their children in their godless and heretical opinions;’ providing funds for the support of these establishments, and in some instances adding burial-grounds for their own special use. The Council issued orders to have proper investigations made amongst the leading Quakers concerned and the proprietors of the ground on which the said meeting-houses and schools had been built.--_P. C. R._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: APR. 5.]

At the funeral of the Duke of Lauderdale at Haddington, while the usual dole of money was distributing among the beggars, one, named Bell, stabbed another. ‘He was apprehended, and several stolen things found on him; and, he being made to touch the corpse, the wound bled afresh. The town of Haddington, who it seems have a sheriff’s power, judged him presently, and hanged him over the bridge next day.’--_Foun._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: APR. 19.]

[Sidenote: 1683.]

Alexander Robertson of Struan, whom we saw two years back breaking out with mortal fury against an agent of the Marquis of Athole in the chamber of the Privy Council, now comes before us in a more agreeable light--namely, as one seeking to cultivate an industrial economy in the midst of the vicious idleness and barbarism of the Highlands. Far up among the Perthshire alps, on the dreary shores of Loch Rannoch, there was then ‘a considerable wood,’ the property of Struan. This would have been useless to him and the country--being in so remote a wilderness--‘if he had not, with great expenses and trouble, caused erect _saw-mills_, in which, these divers years past, there has been made the number of 176,000 deals.’ This had redounded ‘to the great benefit and conveniency of the country adjacent, besides the keeping of many persons at work’ who would otherwise have been idle and in wretchedness. Struan, however, could not obtain a market for the great bulk of his timber, without sending it in floats along Loch Rannoch, and down the water of Tummel into the Tay; and in this long and tedious passage, it was sometimes driven by storms and spates [floods] on shore, or on the banks of the rivers, where it was made prey of by the country people, ‘thinking they would be no further liable than to a _dead spulyie_.’ Occasionally, ‘louss and broken men’ attacked his mills in the night-time, and helped themselves to such timber as they wanted. ‘So that his work was likely to be broken and ruined.’ The Privy Council, on Struan’s petition, issued a strong edict for the prevention of these spoliations, and further gave him power to make roads between his saw-mills in Carrie and Apnadull, and to take a charge of those from Rannoch to Perth, so that he might have the alternative of land-carriage for his timber.--_P. C. R._

The chance of getting the spoliations put down must have been very small, for thieving raged like a very pestilence in the Highlands. The Earl of Perth, writing from Drummond in July 1682, says expressively: ‘We are so plagued with thieving here, it would pity any heart to see the condition the poor people are in.’[297]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: APR.]

Sir Thomas Stewart of Coltness[298] was obliged to fly to Holland, in consequence of a vague threat held out by Sir George Mackenzie, supposed to have been designed to frighten the unfortunate gentleman away, that his estate might be seized. The subsequent circumstances, as related by his son, give a striking view of the troubles in which a Presbyterian family of rank might then be involved, even while making no active demonstrations against the government.

[Sidenote: 1683.]

‘The day after he was gone, came one of the Lord Advocate’s emissaries, Irvine of Bonshaw, with a party of dragoons heated with fury and with liquor.... They demanded the family horses, though their warrant bore no more than to apprehend the person of Thomas Stewart of Coltness; and when Irvine was told by Mr James Stewart, Coltness’s second son, that he was acting beyond orders in offering to seize horses or goods, he swore and blasphemed against rebels and assassins, and that any treatment was warrantable against such. The child Robert made some childish noise, and he threw down the boy of eight years old from a high leaping-on stone. The lady, seven months gone with child, came down to reason with him, but he was so much the more enraged. He offered to shoot the groom [who] stood behind, for denying the keys of the stable, and at length carried off the young gentlemen David and James’s horses.... There was a complaint given in at Edinburgh, and the horses were returned, jaded and abused by ramblers. This Mr Irvine, some months after, in a drunken quarrel at Lanark, was stabbed to death on a dunghill by one of his own gang: a proper exit for such a blood-hound.’

The lady immediately displenished her house, and, notwithstanding the delicate state in which she was, prepared to follow her husband to Holland. Taking with her her step-son David, and a niece of three years, the child of Mr James Stewart, also an exile in Holland, she set sail from Borrowstounness in the beginning of June. The ship encountered a severe storm. ‘The sea was so boisterous, the lady was in danger of being tossed from her bed, and her step-son was alarmed, and got up staggering in the hold, and bewailing; but she composedly said: “David, go to your cabin-bed, and be more quiet, for there is no back-door here to fly out by.” In some days after, they got safe to harbour. They took the treck-scuit from Rotterdam to Utrecht, and a surprising accident happened by the way, and in the scuit close by her: a Dutch minister’s wife, a fellow-traveller and with child, miscarried and died instantly. The husband was as one distracted, and would not be persuaded she was dead, but in a swoon. He made lamentable outcries, but all to no effect. This was alarming to the lady, and made her reflect and acknowledge the kind Providence had preserved her and the fruit of her womb, when in danger both in the journey and the stormy voyage. Coltness has a remark of thanksgiving on this in his diary, and concludes with this, “God makes our hymn sound both of mercy and judgment.”

[Sidenote: 1683.]

‘Her husband, with Mr Pringle of Torwoodlee, came half-way on to Leyden, and met these recent fugitives, and conducted them to Utrecht, where trouble was in part forgot, and sorrow in some measure fled, upon the first transports of being safe and together. Here was the ingenuous, upright Archibald Earl of Argyle, too virtuous for so licentious a court as that of King Charles. Here was the Earl of Loudon, who died anno 1684, and lies buried in the English church at Leyden. There was here the Lord Viscount Stair, and with him for education his son, Sir David Dalrymple, in better times Lord Advocate, and his grandson John, that great general under Queen Anne, and the ambassador of elegant figure in France, and a field-marshal under King George. Here was also Lord Melville, [who became] High Commissioner to the Restitution Parliament under King William, and secretary of state, and with him his son the Earl of Leven, who went to the king of Prussia’s service, and after this was commander-in-chief in Scotland, and governor of Edinburgh Castle in Queen Anne’s reign. But it were endless to name all the honest party of gentry and ministers, outlawed, banished, and forfaulted, for the cause of religion and civil liberty.’

In July, Lady Coltness brought into the world the person who relates the above particulars. ‘The occasion was joyful to the parents; but the mother had not the blessing of the breasts, and there was hard procuring a nurse for a stranger. This gave a damp; but a Dutch lady was so kind as wean her daughter a little sooner, and so a careful and experienced nurse was procured.’

[Sidenote: 1683.]

‘... Coltness fell in straits ... for he soon spent the little he brought with him, and remittances were uncertain and but small. His friends at home were under a cloud. Alertoun, his brother-in-law, was imprisoned and fined; Sir John Maxwell, his other brother-in-law, was fined £10,000 and imprisoned; and his younger children had none to care for them, but their grandmother, Sir James Stewart’s widow. She had a large jointure [that] was not affected, and acted the part of a kind parent.... In this present situation, the old widow lady could give little relief to those banished. It was chargeable supporting the expenses of a family in Holland, and all visible sources were stopped or withdrawn; yet a kind Providence raised up friends in a strange land. Of these the most sympathising was Mr Andrew Russell, merchant-factor at Rotterdam; he generously proffered money, and genteelly, as it were, forced it upon Coltness (and so he did to Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth, Mr James Stewart, advocate, and others), though he could have no probable prospect of recovering it; and yet all was thankfully repaid after the Revolution.’

‘In the end of 1684, Coltness removed to Rotterdam, and there he received many civilities and friendships from his countrymen, merchants, and others, and had some remittances, and in part provisions, transmitted in Scotch ships. Here he had much society of fellow-sufferers, and they had select meetings for conference and intelligence. The badge of such select club was a seal in wax, upon a bit of rounded card, with a blue ribbon and a knot, all in a small spale-box. I have seen Coltness’s ticket; the device was handsome, the motto _Omne tulit punctum_, the seal was upon a single spot of the heart suite card.’[299]

[Sidenote: 1683.]

[Sidenote: 1683.]

These severities against the Coltness family form a striking example of those now practised every day upon the known adherents of the more extreme Presbyterian views, and the whole would be quite unintelligible to a candid mind in our times, if we were not aware that, thirty years before, the party in which Sir Thomas Stewart’s father was a leader, were subjecting _their_ dissidents to precisely similar treatment:[300] see, for example, the case of the family of Menzies of Pitfoddels, fined, confiscated, driven from their native land and means of living, and the lady and one of her sons lost in a storm at sea;[301] see the case of Dr Forbes of Corse, thrust from his college and country because he scrupled to subscribe the Solemn League and Covenant; his very bones refused burial in his own ground! It happened that, in the very same month which saw Sir Thomas Stewart’s family subjected to the harsh treatment above described, there was an application to the Privy Council regarding the sufferings of an Episcopalian family through two generations, in consequence of the rigours exercised partly under the dictation of Sir Thomas’s father. It is in the form of a petition from Mr John Ross, minister of Foveran in Aberdeenshire, and Mr Alexander Ross, parson of Perth. Their grandfather, Mr John Ross, parson of Birse in Aberdeenshire, had been turned out of his ministry in 1647, merely for his ‘opposition to the rebellious and seditious principles and practices which at that time had overspread the land.’ He was likewise ‘fined at several times in five thousand merks, and imprisoned in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh for the space of nine months together, and forced to lend the sum of four thousand merks on the public bands, as they were called, for carrying on that unnatural war.’ He had ‘his house frequently plundered by the rebellious armies then on foot, so that [he] was prejudged in at least the sum of twenty thousand pounds Scots.’ Thus pillaged, and kept out of his ministry for thirteen years, he had been reduced to great straits, and left his family in poverty. The claim of the sufferer and his family was acknowledged at the Restoration by an order of two hundred pounds out of the vacant stipends; but it had never been paid. His eldest son, parson of Monymusk, the father of the petitioners, and who had likewise suffered for his loyalty, was kept poor all his days through the losses of his father, and had lately died, leaving a widow and eight children alive, besides the petitioners, with no means of support but what the petitioners could contribute.[302] Here, in short, was a clerical family originally of some substance, reduced to poverty through the oppressions which had been exercised upon it by those now in their turn suffering, or their predecessors.[303] In such facts there is certainly no valid excuse for the severities of the present time; but they tell us how these severities came to be practised. The reaction, however, from the Presbyterian reign of terror in the middle of the century was now beginning to strain and crack, and a settlement of the political pendulum was not far distant.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: JUNE 5.]

At the circuit court at Stirling, a man was tried for reviling a parson, ‘in causing the piper play _The Deil stick the Minister_. Sundry pipers were there present as witnesses, to declare it was the name of ane spring.’[304]--_Foun._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: JULY 12.]

Captain Thomas Hamilton, merchant in Edinburgh, who had for some years carried on a considerable trade with the American plantations in the importation of beaver and racoon skins, craved and obtained privileges for a manufactory of _beaver hats_ which he proposed to set up, being the first ever attempted in Scotland. He set forth his design as one which ‘will do no prejudice to any felt-makers,’ while it would benefit the kingdom by furnishing a particular class of articles ‘at easy rates.’ He expected also to be able to export his hats.--_P. C. R._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: SEP.]

Alexander Young, Bishop of Ross, ‘a moderate and learned man,’ being afflicted with stone, was obliged, like his predecessor in the like circumstances above a hundred years before,[305] to travel to Paris for the purpose of having a surgical operation performed for his relief. Like his predecessor, also, he sank under the consequences of the operation.--_Foun._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: SEP. 10.]

[Sidenote: 1683.]

It was believed that much native copper existed in Scotland; yet all attempts at realising it by mining had failed. A German named Joachim Gonel, highly skilled in copper-mining, now proposed to the Privy Council to work a copper-mine in the parish of Currie with proper workmen brought from abroad, all at his own expense, provided only he got a present of the mine from the state. The Council, deeming such a work calculated to be useful to the public interest, recommended the government to comply with the request.--_P. C. R._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: NOV.]

At this time began a frost which lasted with great severity till March, ‘with some storms and snow now and then.’ ‘The rivers at Dundee, Borrowstounness, and other places where the sea ebbs and flows, did freeze, which hath not been observed in the memory of man before; and thereby the cattle, especially the sheep, were reduced to great want ... the like not seen since the winter 1674.’--_Foun._

This frost prevailed equally in England and Ireland, producing ice on the Thames below Gravesend. One remarkable circumstance arising from it is noted by a gentleman residing in London, that printing was hindered for a quarter of a year (by the hardening of the ink).[306]

Patrick Walker speaks emphatically of this frost, and says: ‘Even before the snow fell, when the earth was as iron, how many graves were in the west of Scotland in desert places, in ones, twos, threes, fours, fives together, which was no imaginary thing! Many yet alive, who measured them with their staves, [found them] exactly the deepness, breadth, and length of other graves, and the lump of earth lying whole together at their sides, which they set their feet upon and handled with their hands. Which many concluded afterwards did presage the two bloody slaughter years that followed, when eighty-two of the Lord’s people were suddenly and cruelly murdered in desert places.’

‘An old minister, Mr Bennet, records in his manuscripts, that, before our late troubles [the Civil War], there were a number of graves cast open in a moor in the south.’--_Law._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: DEC.]

A scandal broke forth against Mr John M‘Queen, one of the ministers of Edinburgh. It was alleged that, having fallen besottedly in love with Mrs Euphame Scott, who despised him, he contrived by a trick to obtain possession of one of her under-garments, out of which he made a waistcoat and pair of drawers, by wearing which he believed the lady would infallibly be induced to give him her affections. ‘He was suspended for thir fooleries; but in the beginning of February 1684, the bishop reponed him.’--_Foun._

[Sidenote: 1683.]

If the Presbyterian satirists are not altogether fable-mongers, the bishop (Paterson) must have had a strong fellow-feeling for M‘Queen. ‘He is said to have kissed his band-strings in the pulpit, in the midst of an eloquent discourse, which was the signal agreed upon betwixt him and a lady to whom he was suitor, to shew he could think upon her charms even while engaged in the most solemn duties of his profession. Hence he was nicknamed _Bishop Band-strings_.’[307]

* * * * *

It appears there were now two sugar-works in the kingdom, and only two--being placed at Glasgow[308]--and one of them was in danger of being stopped in consequence of the death of Peter Gemble, one of the four partners, his widow refusing to advance her share of what was necessary for carrying on of the work. Materials, utensils, and men, to the extent of £16 sterling of wages monthly, were thus thrown idle--a general calamity. The Privy Council (December 20) enjoined the magistrates of Glasgow to use their endeavours to get the difference composed and the work kept up.--_P. C. R._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: DEC. 26.]

[Sidenote: 1683.]

A dismally tragical incident occurred at the Hirsel, the seat of the Earl of Home near Coldstream. The earl having been long detained in London, the countess, to beguile the time during the Christmas holidays, had a party of the neighbouring gentlemen invited to the house. Amongst these were Johnston of Hilton, Home of Ninewells, and the Hon. William Home, brother of the earl, and the sheriff of Berwickshire--three gentlemen who, like the countess, have all been before us lately in connection with the abduction of the young Lady Ayton. Cards and dice being resorted to, and William having lost a considerable sum, a quarrel took place among the gentlemen, and Johnston, who was of a haughty and hot temper, gave William a slap in the face. The affair seemed to have been amicably composed, and all had gone to bed, when William Home rose and went to Johnston’s chamber, to call him to account for the affront he conceived himself to have suffered. What passed in the way of conversation between the two is not known; but certain it is that Home stabbed Johnston in his bed with nine severe wounds. Home of Ninewells, who slept near by, came to see what caused the disturbance, and, as he entered the room, received a sword-thrust from the sheriff, who was now retiring, and who immediately fled into England upon Johnston’s horse.

The unfortunate Hilton died in a few days. Ninewells recovered. The sheriff--of whom it was shudderingly remarked that this bloody fact happened exactly a twelvemonth after the execution of a Presbyterian rebel whom he had apprehended--was never caught. He was supposed to have entered some foreign service, and died in battle. In advanced life, he is said to have made an experiment to ascertain if he could be allowed to spend the remainder of his days in his native country. A son of the slaughtered Johnston, while at a public assembly, ‘was called out to speak with a person, who, it was said, brought him some particular news from abroad. The stranger met him at the head of the staircase, in a sort of lobby which led into the apartment where the company were dancing. He told young Johnston of Hilton, that the man who had slain his father was on his death-bed, and had sent him to request his forgiveness before he died. Before granting his request, Johnston asked the stranger one or two questions; and observing that he faltered in his answers, he suddenly exclaimed: “You yourself are my father’s murderer,” and drew his sword to stab him. Home--for it was the homicide himself--threw himself over the balustrade of the staircase, and made his escape.’[309]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: 1683.]

This year a great alarm was excited by a conjunction of the planets Saturn and Jupiter in the constellation of Leo. It was announced as an extraordinary conjunction, which had only happened twice before since the creation of the world; and ‘our prognosticators all spoke of it as very ominous,’ ‘portending great alterations in Europe.’ Mr George Sinclair, Professor of Natural Philosophy in Glasgow, considered it as nothing less than ‘terrible.’ To add to the general uneasiness, some one brought out a treatise on comets, promising a further one under the title of _Catastrophe Mundi_. Fountainhall was evidently puzzled, for from November 1682 to March 1683, the season had been ‘like a spring for mildness,’ and he really could not say whether such an event as this could be ascribed to the conjunction. Had he waited a little, he might have seen the matter in a clearer light, for in April there took place pestilential fevers, with other terrible and uncommon disorders. ‘In Montrose, several families were taken with an _unco disease_, like unto convulsion fits, their face thrawing about to their neck, their hands griping close together, so as the very nails of their fingers make holes in their _looves_; lose their senses, and have a devouring appetite, eat much, yet not satisfied.’--_Law._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: 1684.

APR. 8.]

We have already seen several instances of a considerable town burnt down by accidental fire, with the inevitable consequence to the inhabitants, of their being driven into the shelterless fields, in a state of utter desolation; all reminding us of a time when as yet no mechanical arrangements had been made for checking such conflagrations, and no process of assurance had been instituted for providing against the loss and penury following. We have now another and highly characteristic example, in the almost entire destruction of the town of Kelso. It will be observed that the town, being probably composed of thatched houses, in few instances exceeding two stories in height, was extremely inflammable, and therefore the fire was rapid.

[Sidenote: 1684.]

The fire began, between three and four in the afternoon, in a malt-kiln, and quickly caused the destruction of several stacks of corn. Thence, under the influence of a violent wind, it spread over the whole town, and so quickly, ‘that these[310] who were helping their neighbours did not know when their own houses were burning. Before nine o’clock at night, not only all the houses, but the most part of all the goods therein, and several merchants’ shops of considerable value, and above four thousand bolls of victual lying in girnels, and all the corn-stacks in the town, were laid in ashes. The fury of the flame and rage of the smoke were so great in all places of the town, that with great difficulty sick and infirm persons and infant children could be carried away from the danger to the open fields. Three hundred and six families had their houses utterly burnt down, and of these not twenty will ever be able to rebuild upon their own means. The loss of merchants is so great that it cannot weel be known, the particular loss of some of them being valued above twenty thousand pounds Scots, and of others, above ane thousand pounds sterling. The more indigent sort of people have lost the whole sustenance of their livelihood.’ If we are to understand that the three hundred and six burnt-out families composed the whole population, we may estimate that this town, now so remarkable for its beauty, and which contains a population of 5000, was then a comparatively poor village of about 1400 inhabitants. It is remarkable, however, to find that it contained merchants’ shops so well stocked with goods.

The usual and only resource of that age for such cases of public calamity was taken advantage of by the Privy Council, to whom the inhabitants appealed for succour; namely, a collection at the parish churches on one Sunday throughout the kingdom. And till this collection could take place, it was ordered that some of the money now in the course of being raised for the relief of prisoners in the hands of the Turks, should be given to the distressed people of Kelso, to be afterwards replaced from the money collected on account of the fire. Some time afterwards, we find a petition from the magistrates of Glasgow, setting forth that a sum of money had been collected there for the unfortunate people at Kelso, but in the meantime Glasgow had had a conflagration of its own, resulting in the destitution of a number of people; so they had thought proper to ask for permission to apply the money for the relief of the distress in their own community--which was granted.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: APR.]

Cornelius a-Tilbourne, a German mountebank, craved from the Privy Council licence to erect a stage in Edinburgh. It was granted, notwithstanding opposition from the College of Physicians. He had made a successful experiment on himself, in London, in presence of the king, for counteracting some poisons which the physicians there had prescribed to him, the secret consisting in drinking a considerable quantity of oil. But it appears that he expressly excluded mercury, aqua-fortis, and other corrosives from the trial. The king, who had a curiosity about chemical experiments, had granted Cornelius a medal and chain. He repeated the experiment in Edinburgh, on his man or servant, who died under it.

Men of this class appear to have also practised surgery. In March 1683, the Town Council of Glasgow disbursed five pounds to John Maxwell, to replace a like sum ‘whilk he payit to the mountebank for cutting off _umwhile_ Archibald Bishop’s leg.’--_M. of G._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: APR. 22.]

[Sidenote: 1684.]

A petition from the Earl of Errol to the Privy Council set forth that it was the custom of the north country for ‘the seamen of fish-boats’ to be ‘tied and obliged to the same servitude and service that coal-hewers and salters are here in the south,’ and ‘it is not lawful for any man whatsomever to resett, harbour, or entertein the fishers and boatmen who belong to another.’ His lordship complained of Alexander Brodie and Andrew Buchlay, who were fishermen in his service, having ‘fled away from him without leave, to his damage and prejudice;’ and he demanded warrants for reclaiming them. The petition was complied with.--_P. C. R._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: APR. 24.]

A proclamation proceeding upon the recent sumptuary act, makes us aware that it had comparatively failed to accomplish its object. ‘Several women, even [!] in our capital city of Edinburgh and elsewhere, have presumed to go abroad with clothes made of the prohibited stuffs, upon pretext that they are only night-gowns, undresses, or manteaux, whereas all manner of wearing of the said stuffs was discharged.’ In like manner, to elude that part of the law forbidding mourning cloaks, or ‘in downright mockery’ of the same, ‘several persons have presumed to wear mantle-cloaks (albeit more expensive than the cloaks formerly worn) at burials and other occasions upon the death of their relations.’ ‘Also several persons have lately run to that height of extravagancy, as to cause cover the coffins of persons to be buried with fine black cloth and fringes.’ Others, since the passing of the act, ‘have presumed to make penny-weddings, where great confluence of our subjects have resorted, which is a most extravagant expense to our lieges.’

The public was now therefore forbidden by regular proclamation to wear the prohibited stuffs in any manner of way. Tailors were discharged from making or setting out, and gentlemen from wearing, the long black mantle-coats. All were prohibited from ‘making use of any coffin covered with silk cloth or fringes,’ or which bore any ornamental metal-work. Penny-weddings were denounced in the strongest terms. And all these prohibitions were enforced by the threat of a full exaction of the fines specified in the act.--_P. C. R._.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: JULY 22.]

[Sidenote: 1684.]

A strong representation was made to the Privy Council against the Messrs Fountain, who have ‘gone almost through all Scotland and charged every person both in town and country who keeps a change, who has in their house a pair of tables, cards, or kylles, and others of that nature for gentlemen’s divertisement, upon pretence that they ought not to have any such plays in their house without licence from them as Masters of the Revels.’ It was reckoned that they had forced six thousand people to compound with them, and had thus realised about £16,000 sterling, ‘which is a most gross and manifest oppression.’ The lords forbade the Fountains to take any further legal steps. _P. C. R._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: AUG.]

An instrument of torture, called the _Thumbikens_, was introduced into practice by the Privy Council, as a means of extorting confessions. This was done at the recommendation of Generals Dalyell and Drummond, who had seen the thumbikens used in Russia. One of the first persons, if not the first, subjected to this torture, was Mr William Spence, a servant of the Earl of Argyle, who for some weeks had been tortured in various less compulsory ways to make him confess what he knew of the rebellious designs of his master. He had maintained firmness under the _boots_, and contrived to endure without flinching the torture of being kept awake for five nights, though driven by it ‘half distracted.’ But after his thumbs had been crushed by the thumbikens, on the boots being again presented to him, his firmness gave way.[311]

The thumbikens consists of a bar of iron, moving loose upon a vertical screw, and under which, by the use of a nut moving on the screw, provided with a handle, the thumbs of the victim can be squeezed so as to produce the most exquisite pain.

In September of this year, Mr William Carstairs, who had been concerned in some of the plots of the day, was tortured by the thumbikens before the Privy Council. He bore the pain with firmness, though not without giving vent to his agony by cries, until the Dukes of Hamilton and Queensberry left the room, unable any longer to witness the revolting spectacle. He was at length induced by these means, to give some information regarding Baillie of Jerviswood and others.

[Sidenote: 1684.]

After the Revolution, this remarkable man became, as is well known, Principal of the University of Edinburgh, and the confidential adviser of King William regarding the affairs of Scotland; he was familiarly recognised as _Cardinal Carstairs_. The identical thumbikens by which he had been tortured, was presented to him by the Privy Council, and it was long preserved by his family. An anecdote was handed down by his descendants respecting the horrible little instrument. ‘I have heard, Principal,’ said King William to him, ‘that you were tortured with something they call _thumbikens_; pray, what sort of instrument of torture is it?’ ‘I will shew it you,’ answered Carstairs, ‘the next time I have the honour to wait upon your majesty.’ Soon after, accordingly, the Principal brought the thumbikens to be shewn to the king. ‘I must try it,’ said the king; ‘I must put in my thumbs here--now, Principal, turn the screw. O not so gently--another turn--another. Stop, stop! no more! Another turn, I am afraid, would make me confess anything.’[312]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: AUG. 15.]

Monro, the Edinburgh executioner, having beaten a beggar with undue severity, was deprived of his post, and moreover punished by being thrown into the Thieves’ Hole. One hears with surprise of such an interference for humanity, amidst the atrocious cruelties to which political and religious exasperations were provoking the government. The vacant post was conferred on one George Ormiston, whom Fountainhall describes as ‘a well-favoured discreet fellow.’ If we are to believe Milne’s Account of the Parish of Melrose, 1743, this man was a member, if not the representative, of the Ormistons of Westhouse, a family once of some account, possessing a tower on the Tweed, near Melrose, and having the custom of a bridge across the river at that place; ‘a memorandum to old families not to be puffed up with pride, on account of their antiquity, for they know not what mean offices they or theirs may be obliged to stoop to.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: SEP. 10.]

Colonel Graham of Claverhouse, as constable of Dundee, represented to the Privy Council that he found several persons in prison there for petty thefts, ‘which will be fitter to be punished arbitrarily than by death.’ In compliance with his humane suggestion, he was empowered to restrict the treatment of these persons and any others that might hereafter commit the like offences, ‘to ane arbitrary punishment, such as whipping or banishment, as he shall find cause.’--_P. C. R._

[Sidenote: 1684.]

It will excite surprise to find the _Bloody Claverse_ interposing for a gentler justice in behalf of ordinary criminals--he who coolly ordered the summary death of so many people in Clydesdale and Galloway, for merely sentimental offences. But, while the _nil admirari_ is nowhere more applicable than in matters concerning human inconsistency, it were perhaps no more than justice to one who was at least a gallant soldier and a steadfast friend in adversity to the sovereign who had employed him, if we remembered how amiable in private life have been many modern statesmen noted for severity in public action. Claverhouse was a political enthusiast, who had made up his mind to the particular course--rather a rough one--by which the interests of his country were to be protected and advanced; and with the help of a strong will, and under the call of what came to him as duty, he scrupled not to walk in that path, though by no means inhumane or harsh in the matters of ordinary life. In a letter to the Earl of Aberdeen, written in June 1683, he reveals to us his principle of action in a sentence: ‘I am,’ says he, ‘as sorry to see a man die, even a Whig, as any of themselves; but when one dies justly for his own faults, and _may save a hundred to fall in the like_, I have no scruple.’[313]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: OCT.]

One Marion Purdie, dwelling at the West Port of Edinburgh, once a milk-wife, and now a beggar, was apprehended and imprisoned as a witch. She was accused of laying diseases and frenzies upon her neighbours. The king’s advocate was now giving little heed to such cases, and so poor Marion ‘dies of cold and poverty in prison about the Christmas.’--_Foun._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: OCT.]

It is remarked at this time that Colonel Douglas was training and exercising his regiment with extreme diligence. He studied to get his men all of one height, and would allow none to keep their beards long or have bad cravats or cravat-strings, being anxious that they should all look young and brisk. When they were deficient in these articles, he bought them new ones with their pay. He also ‘caused them all tie their hair back with a ribbon, so it cannot blow in their eyes when they visy at their firing.’ (Can this have been the origin of tied hair?) A more important regulation still of this commander--‘_He discharges any of their officers to keep cellars, whereby they made their soldiers waste their pay in drinking_.’--_Foun._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: OCT.]

[Sidenote: 1684.]

A tempest which took place at the end of this month, accompanied both by snow and thunder, caused the throwing ashore of ‘a new kind of fish like a mackerel or herring, but with a long snout like a snipe’s beak. Dr Sibbald says it is the _Acus marinus_, the Sea Needle, described by him in his _Naturalis Historia_. They have been seen before, but are not frequent, and therefore are looked upon by the vulgar as ominous.’--_Foun._

When Charles II. died three months after, Fountainhall remarked there having been few or no prognostics of the event, ‘unless we recur to the comet, which is remote, or to the strange fishes mentioned above, or the vision of blue bonnets ... in none of which is there anything for a rational man to fix his belief upon.’

* * * * *

By an act of the second parliament of Charles II., fines were appointed for all who withdrew themselves from the regular parish churches; but as, because of the law which gives the husband exclusive power over the goods held by him and his wife in communion, it was impossible to exact any fine for the delinquency of a married woman, it had become necessary to make the husband answerable when his wife offended. Under this arrangement, some ladies of rank, addicted to attending conventicles, had brought no small trouble upon their partners. The Council, at length feeling it was a hard law where the husband was a conformist, requested power from the king to remit the fines in such cases. Soon after the following case occurred.

[Sidenote: DEC. 4.]

[Sidenote: 1684.]

David Balcanquel of that Ilk, having been, in virtue of the act, amerced in three years of his valued rent or fifteen hundred pounds, ‘upon the account of his wife not keeping the church,’ represented the matter very pathetically to the Privy Council, setting forth how he himself had always kept his parish church, and, ‘notwithstanding the distractions and disorders that have been in the country where he lives [Fife], has always demeaned himself as ane dutiful and loyal subject.’ The Council took the case into favourable consideration, and, ‘seeing it never was the intention of his majesty that his weel-affected subjects should be ruined by _the mad and wilful opinions of phanatick wives_, without any fault of their own’--seeing, moreover, that Balcanquel protested ‘_it is not in his power to persuade his wife to go to church_, notwithstanding of all the endeavours he has used for that effect, and _he is willing to deliver her up to the Council to be disposed of at their pleasure_‘--they agreed to discharge his fine, taking him only bound ‘to deliver up his wife to justice whenever required.’--_P. C. R._

It was not always as in this case in regard to conventicle troubles. Wodrow had heard the following converse case ‘very weel attested:‘[314] About the time of the Circuit Court in 1685, there was an honest man in the parish of Baldernock, who was sore bested with a graceless and imperious wife, a hater of all seriousness. When he performed family worship, she interrupted him; when he went to a conventicle, she cursed him; and when he came home, she threw stools at him. Scarce durst the poor man return from these meetings without a few neighbours to protect him from his wife’s violence. Being denounced and cited to the court at Glasgow, he failed to appear; but _she_ came forward, and, on his name being called, cried out: ‘My lords, it’s all true--he is a rebel; there is not a conventicle in all the country but he is at it. He deserves to be hanged. Hang him, my lords!’ The lords asked who she was, and on being told, and hearing her go on further in the same strain, they ordered the man to be scored out of the roll, saying: ‘That poor fellow suffers enough already from such a wife!’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: DEC.]

Amongst those now suffering under the severities of government, there was no one more remarkable than Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth, a Berwickshire gentleman of large fortune, of vigorous character, and great zeal as a Presbyterian and Whig. Though only recognised by the government as ‘a factious person,’ he had been several times rather severely handled. Being now under suspicion of a concern in the Rye-house plot, he was denounced on the 13th of November as guilty of treason, and obliged to go out of the way. The harshness with which his friend Robert Baillie of Jerviswood was treated, was sufficient to shew that the more closely he concealed himself the better.

[Sidenote: 1684.]

Polwarth, who was a man of forty-three years of age, had a wife and ten children, all young, residing at his house of Redbraes in the Merse. Patrick, the eldest son, was taken up and put in prison; and on the 26th of December, there was a petition from him to the Privy Council, setting forth the piteous condition of the family now deprived of their father and threatened with the loss of their estate. He was but ‘a poor afflicted young boy,’ he said, who could do no harm to the state; he, moreover, cherished loyal principles and a hatred of plots. All he craved was liberty, that he might ‘see to some livelihood for himself,’ and ‘be in some condition to help and serve his disconsolate mother and the rest of his father’s ten starving children.’ The boon was granted grudgingly, the young man being obliged first to obtain security for his good-behaviour to the extent of two thousand pounds sterling.--_P. C. R._

[Sidenote: 1684.]

[Sidenote: 1684.]