Chapter XXX (2)

An Act touching beggars and vagabonds was passed in 1663, which, after referring to the failure of the many former acts on this matter, proceeds to declare it lawful “for all persons or companies, who have or may erect manufactories, to seize any vagabonds who shall be found begging, or masterless and out of service, and have nothing to maintain themselves; and then to employ them in their works as they shall think fit; this being done with the advice of the magistrates of the place where these persons are seized; and commands that the parishes where such vagabonds and idle persons were born, or in case the place of their nativity be unknown, then the parishes where they have any residence, haunt, or frequent resort, for the three years preceding their apprehension, which, being thus relieved of the burden of them, to make payment to the persons or companies who may happen to employ them――the sum of twopence per day for the first year, and one penny for the next three years; the one-half of this to be paid by the proprietors of the several parishes, and the other half by the possessors and the inhabitants dwelling upon the land of each heritor.” The Act also directed, that public intimation of a meeting should be made at the parish church, to frame a rate-roll for the support of the poor in their parish, who should be employed as above stated. “The poor thus employed shall continue in the service of their employers, under their direction and correction, not only during the time which the parishes pay for them, but also for seven years thereafter, receiving only their meat and clothing.”¹

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume VII., pages
485‒486.

At the first glance, this Act appears to offer great facilities to commercial companies and corporations, as they were empowered to seize, and compel to work for their benefit, all beggars, vagabonds, and persons out of employment; and instead of paying for their labour, being themselves paid for employing such persons. This was carrying the encouragement of manufactures far enough; and as such companies were also exempted from all import and export duties, and protected from home competitors by a previous Act, and to have labour for nothing, what more could they desire? But work performed under these conditions could hardly have been successful, and it does not appear that any attempt was ever made to put the Act into operation.

In September, 1672, it was stated in Parliament that in bypast times many good laws had been passed for the suppression of beggars, vagabonds, and other idle persons, but still a numerous brood of such persons remained, and were daily increasing, living without law or rule, civil or sacred, and a great burden and a reproach to the kingdom. Therefore it was enacted that the magistrates of all the burghs in the kingdom should provide correction-houses for beggars, vagabonds, and other idle persons, before the month of June, 1673, under the penalty of five hundred merks quarterly until such houses were provided: and the sums raised from these penalties were to be applied for building or purchasing correction-houses. They were directed to be built with an open close, that the health of the poor people might not be hurt by keeping them always within doors. At the same time, it was again declared to be lawful for coal-masters, salt-masters, and manufacturers, “to seize upon any vagabonds and beggars, wherever they can find them, and put them to work in their coal-haughs and manufactories.” The execution of the Act was committed to the Privy Council, with full powers to enforce it. But in spite of all this, no correction-houses were erected in conformity with the provisions of the Act, which remained inoperative.¹

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume VIII.,
pages 89‒91. “There does not exist in Scotland a single
correction-house applied to the purposes set forth in the
act.”――_Dunlop on the Poor-Law of Scotland_, page 20.

In the three years from the beginning of 1692 to 1694, the Privy Council emitted several proclamations concerning the poor; and Parliament, in 1695, revived and ratified all the former acts for maintaining paupers, and for the repression and punishment of beggars, and ordered them to be put into vigorous execution. Owing to a succession of bad harvests during the later years of the century, the distress among the lower classes in Scotland was very great, the sufferings of the poor, and mendicancy were increased, and the Government had to endeavour to meet and to mitigate both. In 1698, Parliament passed another Act touching the poor, ratifying former Acts for repressing beggars and for maintaining paupers; reciting portions of the Act of 1617 referring to the employment and upbringing of poor children; quoting the Act of 1663 which empowered the masters of manufactories to seize idle vagabonds and set them to work; and also referring to the Act of 1672, and to the proclamations of the Council, ordering the erection of correction-houses――all of which were commanded to be put into vigorous execution in every point. The Privy Council was empowered to appoint supervisors and inspectors of the poor, to see that the laws were put into effect: and moreover, it was authorised to frame and issue regulations (as far as consistent with the standing laws) to ensure employment and maintenance of the poor, and freeing the kingdom of vagabonds and idle beggars.¹ For a long time the various burghs had their own regulations for the relief of the poor. In the beginning of the year 1639 the magistrates of Glasgow adopted a rule to the effect “that the sum of six hundred pounds be advanced, and for the better collection of it, they have ordered, that there should be a fifth part added to the rate of each parish, and the bailies to collect it with the stint-money.” About the end of April the same year, the magistrates “concluded that the poor be kept in their houses for a quarter to come, and ordered a contribution to be gathered to that effect, and intimation made through the town by sound of drum, to come on Wednesday next at the ringing of the bell, with certification to be poinded for the double of the sum if they failed.”²

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume IX., page 463;
Volume X., pages 177‒178.

² _Burgh Records of Glasgow_, page 400.

The preceding is but a brief account of what was attempted to be done to provide for the poor, and to relieve the nation of the mass of vagabondism and vagrancy. Throughout the history of the nation the difficulty of treating the matter effectively resulted from the fact that the country was oppressed with a great number of able-bodied idlers and wandering characters, well able, but determined not to work; being from circumstances and by evil habits engendered through centuries of idleness, socially and morally insensible of the duty of supporting themselves by honest energy and industry. Accordingly the attempt to introduce the labour test was distinctly and repeatedly made, and it has continued as a special feature of the Scotch Poor-Law system down to the present century.

The idle and vagrant population in the later years of the seventeenth century was enormous. Besides the general causes of the prevalence of vagrancy in Scotland, which had engaged the attention of Government from an early period, there were, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, particular causes which tended greatly to increase the number of such persons. For a time, at least, the religious revolution of the sixteenth century augmented the pauper classes; and in Scotland this was followed by the Civil War in the first half of the seventeenth century, which again was succeeded by twenty-seven years of misgovernment and persecution. This latter period especially was attended with so much confiscation of property, so many ruinous fines, so many apprehensions, imprisonments, and banishments, so much interruption of regular industry by military occupation and execution, and so much waste of the means and goods of the most industrious classes of the people――all which could not fail to increase their poverty. Thus it was that, toward the close of the seventeenth century, in spite of all the legislative enactments, in spite of the influences of religion, in spite of all the restraints and the inducements to honest exertion, arising from a slowly advancing civilisation, Scotland still presented the gloomy spectacle of an enormous mass of vagrancy.

Fletcher estimated the idle and vagabond population of Scotland at 200,000, living without religious, moral, or domestic restraint, revelling in iniquity, and committing crime with impunity.¹ Though his statement is probably exaggerated, we know from other sources that the amount of vagrancy and wretchedness was very great in proportion to the population, and that several generations later, there was still a large body of poor in Scotland.

¹ Fletcher’s _Second Discourse on Public Affairs_, published in
1698.

The police arrangements of the kingdom were extremely imperfect; while in many places the local hereditary powers continued intact with all their capriciousness and irregularity. Even in the chief towns there was no regularly organised police force, their place being supplied by the town-sergeants, and in times of special danger or the alarm of impending war, a night-watch was appointed.

From the earliest times the Scots had a vivid and deep sense of the supernatural, and the ideas and dogmas associated with the Reformation had taken a firm hold on their minds. Their leading ideas of religion, indeed, had been modified, and a new external form of polity adopted by the people; yet many of the older notions and customs, interwoven with their former beliefs and habits, still survived here and there in more or less vigour. Their ideas of supernatural powers, of evil spirits, and of witchcraft, were little abated: while they were animated with an earnestness of conviction and a fervency of feeling, which stir the deepest cores of the human heart. In an age when beliefs are firmly held, and ideas and doctrines vividly realised in the mind, when belief in a definite creed is deemed essential to secure salvation and everlasting happiness, when people are fully satisfied and quite certain that they are right, there is an inevitable tendency to intolerance. This was the condition of the nation in the seventeenth century; to expect tolerant views of religion was vain.¹

¹ A good example of the religious ideas and feelings of the
time may be seen in the _Diary of Alexander Brodie_, printed
for the Spalding Club, 1863; it embraces the period from 1652
to 1685. Brodie was a Lord of Session, and had held a seat in
parliament.

From the Reformation onwards, the laws against Roman Catholics were severe, while they were more or less persecuted throughout the seventeenth century, save during the short reign of James VII. About the middle of the century, the Quakers, against whom the Scots manifested much aversion, began to attract attention. During the government of Cromwell these dissenters began to multiply; they having been allowed at that time more freedom than was usual in Scotland. In 1656, they became bold, and held meetings on the Castle-hill of Edinburgh, which were well attended; about the same time their doctrines began to spread among the people. On the 30th of April, 1657, the presbytery of Lanark excommunicated eight persons for their adherence to Quakerism.

In 1665, three Quakers were imprisoned in Edinburgh. In the end of the year 1663, the town council of Aberdeen ordered that George Keith, William Neper, and William Stuart, three trafficking Quakers, should be conveyed out of the town by the officers, and warned that, if they returned, they would be given in charge to the hangman, and punished as the magistrates thought fit. The inhabitants of the town were forbidden to receive such persons into their houses or families, under the following penalties for each offence: If a burgess of guild, sixty pounds; if a tradesman, thirty pounds; and if one of the lower classes, ten pounds; and for the offence of attending any of their meetings, a penalty of five hundred merks was to be exacted.¹

¹ _Register of the Privy Council_; _Burgh Records of Aberdeen_,
Volume IV., page 207.

The magistrates of Aberdeen, in 1670, stated, that in spite of the Acts of Parliament, of the Privy Council, and the former acts of the town council, it was found that the Roman Catholics and the Quakers often held meetings in the city. They had expected that at least some respect would have been shown to the laws by the citizens; and to manifest their own earnestness in attempting to reclaim the obstinate and disobedient, they ratified the former acts against such persons, and ordered them to be proclaimed. But only a month after, the authorities again met to consider the fact that, notwithstanding all the acts emitted against the Quakers’ meetings, they still continued to be held. It was then resolved that all persons found at the next Quakers’ meeting should be apprehended and imprisoned, and detained till they became bound to desist from meeting; and lest the female Quakers might also meet, it was commanded that the doors of the houses where they usually met should be closed and the keys taken from them, that the city might be entirely free from their meetings. The hopes of the council were not realised. In November, 1671, they were informed that Thomas Milne, a shoemaker, and a professed Quaker, had buried his child on a Sunday afternoon, in a kail yard, on the east side of the Gallowgate, which was never before used as a burial-place. This was an intolerable encroachment upon the privileges of the burgh and the rights of the citizens, and after deliberation, the magistrates ordered that the body of the child should be disinterred, and carried to Footdee Chapel burial-ground, and there re-interred. At the same time, they resolved to deprive Milne of the rights of a citizen, and ordered his shop to be shut up, and himself to be removed from the burgh within one month. This, however, was not carried out, for the following year his case was again before the council, and he was accused of burying his child in a kail-yard on the east side of the Gallowgate. He was now fined twenty pounds for contempt, and sentenced to be imprisoned till he paid it. The Quakers had enclosed the piece of ground in question with the intention of using it as a burial-place for themselves, but the council ordered the walls to be destroyed, and the place to be used as it was before.¹ The council were, however, unsuccessful, many Quakers afterwards being interred in the same ground.

¹ _Burgh Records of Aberdeen_, Volume IV., pages 261, 265, 277,
280, 283, 289.

In November, 1674, the town council of Aberdeen received an order from the Government to liberate two Quakers, Thomas Dockey and William Gelley, who had petitioned for liberation. They had been long in prison, and were set free on condition that if they were again found attending meetings, they would be punished according to the laws. At a meeting in 1675, the council had under consideration the increase of Popery and Quakerism in the city, and since the town council was prohibited by Acts of Parliament and Council from letting houses to such persons under penalties, it was resolved that no Catholic or Quaker should hereafter be admitted a burgess or freeman of the city, and that they “are and shall be altogether debarred therefrom, excepting always the sons of burgesses of guild succeeding to their fathers in lands or in waters held by the town, who are and may be allowed the foresaid liberty in virtue of their fathers’ right.” In March, 1676, one of the bailies informed the council that he had discovered that John Forbes was printing a book for the Quakers, and that he had seized a part of it from the printer. The council approved of his action, and resolved to consult the bishop on the matter. The Synod of Aberdeen, in 1668, adopted a special form of excommunication against the Quakers: “Forasmuch as A. B. has fallen from the truth of God and the unity of the Church into pernicious errors and unchristian practices of that lately risen sect, commonly called Quakers, particularly in slighting and reviling the public ordinances of God, and being convicted thereof ... I do, in the name of the Great God, and by the authority of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Head of this Church, excommunicate the said A. B. from the communion of the Church, and reject him from the privileges and fellowship of the faithful, leaving him bound to the judgment of the Lord, until he gives sufficient evidence of his repentance; requiring you, and all Christian people, according to the commandment of Christ, to avoid the said person, and to have no company with him, that he may be ashamed, until he be reconciled to the Church, as you would not incur the displeasure of God and the servants of the Church, which upon such as transgress therein will be inflicted.” The Synod, in 1671, also commanded the ministers of the presbytery of Garioch to use their utmost endeavours to restrain Quakerism.¹

¹ _Burgh Records of Aberdeen_, Volume IV., pages 289, 292,
294; _Selections from the Register of the Synod of Aberdeen_,
pages 288‒289, 295.

About the year 1671, Robert Barclay of Urie, the author of the well-known work, _An Apology for the Quakers_, joined this sect. In the dedication of his work to the King, he stated that the Quakers did not intermeddle with politics; and even when they were subjected to the most violent persecution, they boldly stood to their testimony for God, without creeping into holes or corners, or hiding themselves, as other dissenters had done. But the authorities continued to treat the Quakers with great severity. In the beginning of 1672, fifteen of them were imprisoned at once for holding a meeting at Montrose; and in March, 1673, eleven persons were imprisoned at Kelso for holding a meeting. Yea, in 1683, the Bishop of Aberdeen reported to the Privy Council that in this district the Quakers were so bold as to build meeting-houses for their worship, and schools for their children, instructing them “in their godless and heretical opinions;” and also providing funds for supporting these establishments, and in some places adding burial-grounds for their own special use. The council issued orders for an inquiry among the leading Quakers concerning the owners of the ground on which these unnecessary houses and schools had been built. The result of such an inquiry is obvious. Even after the Revolution, the Quakers in Edinburgh, in Glasgow, and in other towns, were very severely treated.¹

¹ _Register of the Privy Council._

Trials and executions of witches frequently occurred in this century, but it would be tedious to enter into particulars of the trials. Indeed, many of these are quite unfit for publication, such as the descriptions of the dealings of some of the witches with the devil, and the horrible stories which were adduced as evidence.

In 1622, Margaret Wallace, the wife of John Dinning, clothier in Glasgow, was tried before the Justiciary Court at Edinburgh, for various acts of witchcraft, and as a common practiser of witchery. It was stated, as an element against her, that she had been a confederate of Christian Graham, a notable witch, executed in the preceding year. It was affirmed that she had been a witch for eight years, and a common consulter with witches. It was alleged that she had conceived a deadly hatred of Cuthbert Greig, a cooper and a burgess of Glasgow, because he had spoken against Christian Graham. “She avowed that she should make him, within a few days thereafter, unable to work or to win a cake of bread for himself.” Accordingly he was soon after attacked and troubled with a strange, unnatural, and unknown disease, by which he was most cruelly tormented with continual sweating for two weeks, when he was reduced to extreme weakness. The man’s friends endeavoured to induce her to interpose for his recovery, but she for a long time refused. At last she came to his house, and “to manifest her skill for his help, took him by the wrist with the one hand, and laid the other hand upon his breast, and, without speaking a word, save only moving her lips, left him immediately. She returned next morning, took him by the hand and bade him arise, who at that time, and for fifteen days before, was unable to move his limbs without help; having urged him to rise, she took him by the hand, brought him out of his bed, and through the house into the outer room, where, by her sorcery and charming, he walked up and down the floor without any support.” After this, it was stated, that he soon recovered from his illness. She was also associated with Graham in curing children of sickness by unlawful means, “by devilry, sorcery, and witchcraft.” The onlaying and offtaking of sickness among children form a considerable part of the indictment against her, and it was alleged that in one instance, when she had inflicted sickness on a child, she allowed it to die. At her trial she was ably defended; but she was convicted and sentenced to be hanged and burned, and she was accordingly executed on the Castle-hill of Edinburgh.¹

¹ Pitcairn’s _Criminal Trials_, Volume III., pages 508‒536.
Margaret Wallace’s trial was a very long one; her counsel
contested every point of the indictment, which consisted of
ten charges. The jury was unanimous in finding her guilty
of the general charge――“as a common consulter with witches
these eight or nine years ... and as practising devilry,
incantation, and witchcraft, especially forbidden by the
laws of Almighty God, and the municipal laws of the realm.”

In 1623, Thomas Grieve was tried in Edinburgh for practising a sort of medical witchcraft. He was accused of having cured a number of persons of sickness and grievous diseases, by sorcery and witchcraft, by making signs and crosses, and the uttering of certain unknown words. “He took sickness off a woman in Fife, and put it upon a cow, which thereafter ran mad and died.” He also cured a woman “of a great and painful sickness, by drawing her nine times backwards and forwards by the leg.” He cured a child of a disease which was rapidly consuming it, “by straiking back the hair of his head, and wrapping him in an anointed cloth, and by that means putting him asleep, and thus through his devilry and witchcraft cured the child.” Another point of his indictment was, “for curing of William Cousine’s wife by sorcery and witchcraft, by causing her husband to heat the coulter of his plough, and to cool the same in water brought from the Holy Well of Hillside, and thereafter making certain conjurations, crosses, and signs upon the water, causing her to drink thereof for her health, and thus, by sorcery, cured her of her sickness.” One point of the indictment described a different mode of curing sickness. “For curing of James Mudie, with his wife and children, of the fever, and namely, in curing of his wife, he caused a great fire to be put on, and a hole to be made in the north wall of the house, and a live fowl to be put forth thereat, at three several times, and taken in at the house-door backwards) or contrary to the course of the sun), and thereafter taking the fowl and putting it under the sick woman’s arm-pit, and then carrying it to the fire, where it was held down and burnt alive; and in that devilish manner, practiced by him, cured her of her sickness.” For this he received twenty pounds from her husband. When curing diseased cattle, he put them thrice through a hesp of yarn, and sprinkled the fire with enchanted water. The hesp of yarn was supposed to possess peculiar healing virtues. Thomas Grieve put several of his patients three times through a hesp of yarn, and then threw it into the fire, where it burned blue, so that his patients were cured. The jury found him guilty of sorcery and witchcraft, and he was sentenced to be executed on the Castle-hill of Edinburgh.¹

¹ Pitcairn’s _Criminal Trials_, Volume III., pages 555‒558.
In the appendix to the third volume of Pitcairn’s _Criminal
Trials_, the confessions of three women accused of witchcraft,
in the years 1649 and 1662, are given at length; and they
contain a great mass of the most repulsive details of this
degrading superstition. Of all the records of witchcraft
which I have examined, these are the most vulgar and absurd.

During the reign of Charles I. many witches were tried and executed in Scotland. When such crude notions prevailed, it was not surprising that pretence and imposture should come to the surface. So in 1633, John Balfour in Corshouse had assumed the profession of a discoverer of witches, “by observing the devil’s mark upon some part of their person, and thrusting of pins in the same.” The Privy Council record mentions that, “upon presumption of this knowledge, he goes through the country, abusing simple and ignorant people, for his own private gains.” It was therefore resolved to inquire into his pretensions to such knowledge, and by what means he acquired it.

In the records of the Church courts many notices of witchcraft, and of persons using charms for curing disease, occur throughout the century. The kirk-session of Aberdeen, in 1630, summoned James Hall to appear in the church before God and the congregation, to confess his fault, and to crave forgiveness for seeking relief of his fever by means of charming. In 1637, Isabel Malcolm appeared before the presbytery of Strathbogie, and when accused of charming, she confessed that she had practised charming for twenty years.¹ The case “was continued in the hope that she should be found yet more guilty.” These cases of witchcraft and charming referred to in the ecclesiastical records were often connected with attempts to cure some severe disease. Associated with this form of the superstition there was a kindred one called “neid-fire,” that is, fire produced by the friction of two pieces of wood; and this was resorted to for curing diseased cattle, and seems to have descended from prehistoric times.

¹ _Selections from the Records of the Kirk-Session of
Aberdeen_, page 111; _Extracts from the Presbytery Book of
Strathbogie_, page 15. Other notices of charming and sorcery
occur in the records of this presbytery.

The General Assembly of 1649 had under consideration the sin of charming and witchcraft, and appointed a commission to deal with the matter. At this time there was a general attack made upon the witches and charmers throughout the kingdom; and in the summer many of these poor creatures were tried, condemned, and executed; while the Committee of Estates issued various commissions for the trial and execution of the witches. It also passed an Act “against consulters with devils and familiar spirits, and against witches and consulters with them,” and ratified all former acts on the subject. These trials were infectious, as when one witch was brought up, she often accused others, and under the influence of this mania strange declarations were uttered. In the month of March, 1650, Janet Couts, a confessed witch then imprisoned in Peebles, accused eleven women in Lanark of witchcraft. They were accordingly apprehended, and Cathie, the pricker, before witnesses, “did prick pins in every one of them, and in several of them without pain when the pin was put in, as the witnesses can testify;” the women were therefore detained in prison. Efforts were made to induce them to confess their guilt, and every exertion was made to collect evidence against them, but hardly anything could be found, though at length charges were framed against three of the women. One of them, however, was liberated upon the statement of Janet Couts herself. The other two were tried by a Commission, and witnesses on oath minutely examined, but nothing could be proved against them; and they were dismissed on giving caution to appear again if required. About this time a man of the name of John Kincaid acted as a pricker of the witches. A quotation from his evidence in a trial for witchcraft will give an idea of this feature of the proceedings. The parties accused, Patrick Watson and Manie Haliburton, were tried in 1649, and the pricker’s testimony was to this effect:――“I, John Kincaid, was desired to use my trial of them, as I have done to others; which, when I had done, I found the devil’s mark upon the back of the said Patrick Watson, a little under the point of his left shoulder; and upon the left side of the said Manie Haliburton’s neck, a little above the left shoulder; whereof they were not sensible, neither came forth thereof any blood, after I had tried the same as exactly as ever I did any others. This I testify to be of verity upon my credit and conscience.” At the same period, there was a pricker in the north of Scotland, called John Dick. And he, without any authority, pricked an old man, John Hay, a messenger in Tain, and then caused him to be sent to Edinburgh and imprisoned. But on a petition from Hay, accompanied with certificates of character, the Lords of Council ordered him to be liberated. In this way suspected women were sometimes subjected to great torture.¹

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume VI., pages 447,
464‒465, 492, 359; Pitcairn’s _Criminal Trials_, Volume III.,
page 599.

Thus it was, that under the influence of a malignant and debasing belief, many innocent persons were insulted, annoyed, injured, and imprisoned, dragged to trial, and sometimes sentenced to death itself.

During Cromwell’s sway in Scotland, the prosecutions for witchcraft were much restrained; but after the Restoration, for two or three years, many were executed. The first session of the Restoration Parliament of 1661 granted many commissions for trying persons accused of witchcraft, to make up for the lenity of the past period. In illustration of the notions adduced as facts at these trials, the case of Margaret Bryson may be taken: she came to words with her husband about selling her cow, “went in a passion to the door of the house in the night-time, and there did imprecate that God or the devil might take her from her husband; and the devil immediately appeared to her, and threatened to take her body and soul, if she did not enter into his service.” Another woman covenanted with the devil, and received a sixpence from him; he said that God bade him give her that, and asked how the minister was, and other questions. A domestic servant named Scott had much intercourse with the devil, and by his aid she raised gales of wind for the destruction of shipping. She often met the devil at night.¹

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume VII., pages
123, 196, 233, 235, 247, 248, 268, 283, 336; _Register of
the Privy Council_. In the records of the Council there are
instances of witches being acquitted, but detained in prison
at the request of magistrates and clergymen, in the hope that
more conclusive evidence would yet be obtained against them.

During the period of the persecution, the zeal against witches flagged, and the executions for witchcraft decreased. After the Revolution there was a short outburst against them; but from this time onward, the belief began to languish, until it has gradually, and with difficulty in some parts of the country, died out. The last execution for witchcraft in Scotland occurred in 1722. The crude and most pernicious notions associated with witchcraft faded with the advance of education, the diffusion of definite intelligence, and more exacting modes of testing evidence; and lingered longest in the remote corners of the country, least affected by the stirring influences of modern civilisation.

The social morality of the nation in the seventeenth century cannot be characterised as elevated, though in some directions there was evidence of improvement. An account of the means adopted for the amelioration of the morals of the people after the Reformation was given in the second volume of this work, and an indication of its operation on the national character throughout the century under review is all that seems requisite. The discipline exercised by the Presbyterian Church was rather severe and rigid, though from this standpoint it has frequently been greatly exaggerated. It should be distinctly remembered that the presbyterian form of worship and polity was the choice of the people themselves, that they were fully represented in all the Church courts, in the sessions, the presbyteries, the synods, and the General Assemblies; they had a voice in the election of their ministers, and members of every congregation had votes in the election of the elders and deacons, who constituted the session. In fact, in the history of presbyterianism, we meet with evidence at every turn, that the clergy themselves were much under the influence of the people, who in various ways wielded a practical and effective control over their ministers. The Scots submitted to some severe rules and curious forms of punishment for social and moral offences, which emanated from the Church courts; but even in these matters resistance was frequent, and the tyranny of the presbyterians over one another was never of long duration.

All licentious conduct in the relations of the different sexes was severely handled. In the beginning of the century the kirk session of Aberdeen was exercising a strict surveillance over the citizens. John Mitchel was ordered to be imprisoned in the vault of the church, until he found caution that he would adhere to his wife, and maintain her. At the same time, John Davidson, a wright, who had been twice warned to appear and answer to the complaint of his wife, but had failed to appear, was for his contumacy ordered by the session to be apprehended, and put into the steeple until he obeyed their ordinance touching his adhering to his wife and his future behaviour to her. Christian Burnet was ordained to stand a certain time in the session-house, “and then to be led through the town in a cart, with a crown of paper on her head, and to be publicly banished at the market-cross, because she had seduced her sister to harlotry with James Sinclair, which was committed in Christian’s own house; and the reason why she was so punished to be openly proclaimed by the hangman.” It was quite common for the Session to interfere on the side of a wife against her husband, or on the side of a husband against his wife, when either of them had failed in performing their mutual duties.¹

¹ _Selections from the Records of the Kirk-Session of
Aberdeen_, pages 23, 40‒1.

The kirk session of Aberdeen adopted the following heads of reformation in 1604, applicable to every family in the city. The whole family should keep the Sabbath, abstaining from all manual labour, attending all the sermons in the parish church, and all those who could read should learn to sing publicly. The heads of families should attend all the sermons on the week days, and should meet to the catechising as often as they were called by the church-officer. All families should humble themselves, privately or openly, twice every day, using divine worship and frequent prayers. There should be no swearing, no profane language, no unseemly behaviour in any family; and if a member of the family transgressed, he was “to be sharply punished with a palmer on the hand, or a penalty in money, and in case of persistence, it should be reported to the visitors. The masters of families should diligently report all persons guilty or suspected of charming, popery, harlotry, drinking, night-walking, or any other inordinate livers. No house proprietor in the town should let houses to, or lodge, persons known or suspected to be excommunicated, or any obstinate Catholic, Jesuit, priest, or other stranger, till they have first informed the magistrates and the minister, and received their permission.” Certain rules were also approved for the guidance of the visitors of the burgh. The ministers resolved that every Thursday afternoon they should wait on their people for examining and catechising them, and to continue this instead of the morning sermons until the people be better acquainted with the knowledge and the grounds of their salvation. The visitors were instructed to assemble the families under them for examination, and to inform the examiners of such faults in the families as required rebuke and admonition, before making any public complaint against them.¹

¹ _Selections from the Records of the Kirk-Session of
Aberdeen_, pages 32‒34.

At stated times each presbytery visited the churches within its bounds, when a strict and searching examination was instituted into the life and the work of the pastors, as well as their flocks. An example or two will give an idea of these proceedings, and of the ecclesiastical economy of the time. In September, 1609, the presbytery of Aberdeen visited the church of Durris, and after prayer by the bishop, they proceeded with the matters of the visitation. The elders of the congregation were present, and Alexander Youngson, the minister, was removed, and then the elders gave their opinion of his ministry. The record says that he was well commended both by the eldership and the parishioners, “praising God for him.” The minister and the elders were commanded to put their acts into execution against all who contravened them, and amongst the rest against sleepers in the church during divine service.¹

¹ _Ibid._, pages 201‒202.

The presbytery of Strathbogie visited the church of Gartly on the 16th of July, 1651, and directly proceeded to business. John Chalmer, the minister of the parish, was called, and gave in a list of the elders and deacons of the parish, containing eighteen names, and they were all sworn “to declare boldly what they knew in their minister, his doctrine, his life, his conversation, and the exercise of his calling among them, as in the sight of God, before whom they were shortly to answer. The minister and the other elders being removed, John Innes of Codrain, one of the elders, was asked whether the minister behaved himself like a man of his calling in his private conversation: answered, he did lead an innocent, blameless life, and exemplary in these points, and that he did not frequent ale-houses or such places, but was diligent in the restraint of such unlawful exercise when occasion offered. Being asked whether he had the worship of God set up in his own family, and reading of the Bible morning and evening: answered, that he had indeed, and that he was not forgetful of such holy exercise to have his children also instructed in this. Being asked concerning his doctrine, how he taught, how often, and if on the week-days: answered, that he did teach them soundly and convincingly out of the Scriptures, and seasonably, bringing forth ordinarily abundance of food, conveniently, sensibly, and articulately delivering the same in such a manner as all might be able to understand it; and that sometimes, as his text led him, as he saw the necessity, he did express himself against the errors of the times, to wit, malignancy and sectarianism; in his sermons he constantly showed himself against both, and argued for obedience to the public resolutions of the times. He preached twice on Sunday, and lectured before sermon in summer, baptised after it, before the blessing, with such reverence and due respect as stirs up all to be attentive and to countenance the ordinance. Sometimes he lectured on the week-days, and sometimes catechised; always had the psalms sung in the time of divine service; and before the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, was more punctual and frequent in examining his people than ordinarily. Moreover, he declared that the minister was exact in discipline, and used no partiality in punishing delinquents, and was careful both in admonishing and in censuring when he saw it expedient; and he visited the sick of his parish, and urged family worship. In a word, he remembered nothing at present to have the minister admonished for.” Gordon of Colithy, the next elder called, concurred in everything that the last one had said, and added: “that their minister had a good popular gift of preaching, and was every day improving, for he applied himself to his work more than before, and engaged less in worldly business.” All the rest of the elders intimated their concurrence, and also said that he was active in the distribution of the poor’s money at set times of the year, according to their necessities, and was not behind anyone in giving them of his own when he saw it needful.

The minister was then recalled, “and gravely encouraged to the work, with serious entreaty to consider the weight of his calling, and to be earnest with God for assistance and direction in it.” The elders were then removed, and the minister reported favourably of their fidelity to the discipline of the Church. When recalled, they were encouraged to further diligence, and exhorted to hold family worship in their own homes.¹

¹ _Extracts from the Presbytery Book of Strathbogie_, pages
200‒202.

In August, 1651, at a similar visitation by the Presbytery of the Church of Rhynie, Mr. William Watson, the schoolmaster, being removed, “was called a tippler and idle speaker sometimes; but he was careful enough of the children, and had taken much pains in educating them. He was admonished for the time, and exhorted to amend; or otherwise to be removed.” In 1652, James Reid, having been nominated and elected by the session of Grange to be schoolmaster there, appeared before the Presbytery: “and having produced famous testimony of his literature and Christian conversation under the hands of presbytery of Old Aberdeen, his election was approved; and for his trial, prescribed to him the 3rd Ode, book 4, of Horace, to expound and explain, grammatically, logically, and rhetorically.”¹

¹ _Extracts from the Presbytery Book of Strathbogie_, pages
202, 209, 226.

Under the presbyterian polity, the members of the congregation were generally allowed to choose their own minister, and throughout the local records of the sessions, the presbyteries, and the synods, there is much interesting information on this matter. The people were not the mere slaves of the clergy; they had a pretty strong hold over the ministers. In 1642, James Horne, in the parish of Kinnor, was summoned before the presbytery, and accused of being drunk in the time of divine service. When called before the session for this, he had publicly railed against the minister and the elders. He told them, “all that he had said he would say it again, and worse also; and took up a straw and held it out before the session, and said that he would not give that straw for all they could say or do to him, and that there were none there that would cause him to make his repentance for anything that he had said.” The presbytery ordered him to be summoned again, and if he failed to appear, then to censure him without any more citation. In July, 1643, the case of George Mitchell was reported to a meeting of the presbytery at Gartly; his offence was, that he prevented his wife from satisfying the discipline of the session, for her visiting of wells and chapels, and for assaulting the minister and the elders――especially for upbraiding George Gordon of Colithie: “saying that he would not be corrected by him, and told him to go home and correct his cottars; and that he had as much money as himself; and that he should meet him whenever he pleased, with other abusive speeches, and went out of the session with threatening and menacing words.” The presbytery commanded him to pay a fine of twenty pounds, and to make his public repentance in the church next Sunday. But the same day, Mitchell gave in a complaint against George Gordon of Colithie for slandering him; he was told, however, that he must lodge a pledge to prove it, according to the order. He then answered, “that he saw no law for him here, and would crave no law; ye may direct what ye please, but he would not obey, and he should get a better advocate against the next day.” In 1644, James Middleton of Tullobeg was brought before the presbytery for speeches which he had uttered in the church, and for quarrelling with the minister. The witnesses against him deponed that, “when the minister chided him for his ignorance, he said that he cared not for him nor any minister in Scotland, and bade the minister come out to the churchyard and try himself if he pleased. Also, when the minister said that he should cause him to be put in the stocks, he replied, that neither he nor the best minister within seven miles durst do so much.” The presbytery ordered that he should make satisfaction in sackcloth, and pay ten pounds; but when this was intimated to him, he answered in the hearing of the minister, “that he should as soon go and hang himself as obey anything of the kind.” Thomas Dey in the parish of Glass, was summoned by the presbytery, in October, 1648, because he had failed to give satisfaction for his absence from church. Instead of giving satisfaction on the appointed day when he was called by the minister, he sat in his own seat opposite the pulpit and railed against the minister, “and with execrable oaths said that he would not acknowledge them nor their sentence.” The presbytery ordered him to be again summoned.¹

¹ _Extracts from the Presbytery Book of Strathbogie_, pages 34,
37‒38, 46, 93.

These are only a few instances out of many of a similar character, which tend to show that the clergy had not always submissive people to deal with; indeed, they often encountered extreme opposition in their efforts to reform the people to regular habits of life. Even during the heat of the Covenanting period, when the Presbyterians attained their greatest height of power, there was no lack of opposition to many of their proceedings.

In the last volume it was stated that the reformed clergy and the authorities continuously exerted themselves to secure the observance of Sunday, but rooted customs and habits are persistent, and it requires a long time to change or to direct them into other channels. It will be remembered that, prior to the Reformation, it was the universal custom to hold markets on Sunday, military musters of the people, and to engage in many other affairs not at all connected with religion. Accordingly, in spite of all the laws enacted after the Reformation, all the efforts of the local magistrates, and all the discipline of the Church, the complete observance of Sunday was not attained till well through the seventeenth century. In the Acts of Parliament, the proceedings of the Privy Council, the records of the burghs, and in the records of all the Church courts, from the sessions to the General Assemblies, there is a great mass of evidence of the vehemence of the struggle for the observance of Sunday; and without entering into long details, I will give illustrative and expository instances to complete this part of social history.

The magistrates of Aberdeen, in 1608, asserted that one of the manifold sins of the city was the breaking of Sunday by openly fishing salmon, though this had been already four times condemned, “the possessors of the waters preferring, as it appears, their own greed and avarice to the glory and the worship of God, the manifest contempt of His law, and the slander of the gospel.” Some promised to desist from this practice of fishing on Sunday if their neighbours would do so, but others refused to abandon it. The following year the session ordered visitors to be appointed at the four chief outlets of the city, to watch those who went out of the town on Sunday. The town’s piper was forbidden to play his pipes on Sunday, under the penalty of losing his office, and banishment from the city; while William Stewart, a fiddler, was admonished not to play on Sunday. The tailors, the shoemakers, and the bakers, were still in the habit of working in their booths every Sunday morning for three or four hours, “to the dishonour of God and the slander of the gospel,” and these parties were henceforth prohibited from working at their trade on Sunday, under the penalty of ten shillings. In 1647 the Town Council passed an act for enforcing a more strict observance of Sunday. Many of the citizens were in the habit of going to the Old Town and to other places, before and in the time of preaching, quite regardless of the laudable acts of the kirk-session which forbade such wandering upon Sunday; therefore, the council not only ratified these acts in all points, but also anew ordained that all should attend the parish church on Sunday in the forenoon and in the afternoon, and hear the Word of God. All who disobeyed the act were to be fined forty shillings, one-half of which was to be applied to maintain the fabric of the church, and the other half to be given to the poor. The council recommended the kirk-session to appoint captains for taking the names of all who were found going to the Old Town fields or walking about; and this was ordered to be intimated to the people from the pulpit.¹

¹ _Selections from the Kirk-Session of Aberdeen_, pages 64‒68;
_Burgh Records of Aberdeen_, Volume IV., page 76.

During the Covenanting period, Parliament passed several acts for securing a more complete observance of Sunday. After the custom of holding markets on Sunday was abolished, it was found when they were held on Mondays and Saturdays that they encroached upon the observance of the Sabbath. A series of acts was therefore passed prohibiting markets on Saturdays and Mondays, and everything was done to obtain an entire cessation of all work and business on Sunday. But from the frequent re-enactment of the acts prohibiting work on Sunday, it may be inferred that they were often disregarded. According to the acts of Parliament, the labour most persistently engaged in on Sunday was the working of mills, salt-works, and salmon fishing, which were emphatically specified in all the acts prohibiting labour on Sunday.¹

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume V., pages 300,
301, 302, 473; Volume VI., pages 127, 128, 215, 370.

It was announced from the pulpits of Aberdeen in 1651, that no inhabitant of the town should walk about the fields or go in companies to the Castle Hill on Sunday. The same year, Jane Barclay was sharply rebuked and admonished for going to the Old Town between the sermons, and several other persons were called before the session for travelling on Sunday.¹

¹ _Selections from the Records of the Kirk-Session of
Aberdeen_, pages 115, 136, 137.

The subject of Sunday-breaking by salmon fishing in the Dee and the Don came before the synod of Aberdeen in 1657, and the discipline of the Church was ordered to be enforced against all who engaged in such profanation, and the assistance of the magistrates was asked to curb the offenders. In 1663, the synod ordered that the Lord’s Day should be strictly kept, and notice taken of those who travelled on Sunday, who were to be censured according to the degree of their offence. As late as 1680, it was stated that the Lord’s Day was everywhere profaned by drinking, travelling to markets, engaging of servants, and making bargains and contracts.¹

¹ _Selections from the Register of the Synod of Aberdeen_,
pages 234, 271, 272, 285, 332. There is some curious
information on the attempts to secure the observance of
Sunday in Dr. Davidson’s _History of Inverurie and the
Earldom of the Garioch_. This work contains much valuable
matter of a varied character, and to those with a taste for
local lore it is exceedingly interesting.

But, by the combined application of the means above indicated, and chiefly by the constant exertion of the Church, ultimately an observance of the Sabbath was attained in Scotland, unmatched in any other nation.