The Chancellor Dunfermline, who took the lead in this severe administration of the law, tells the king in a letter written on the day of the execution: ‘This company of pirates did enterteen one whom they did call their Person [parson] for saying of prayers to them twice a day, who belike either wearied of his cure, or foreseeing the destruction of his flock, had forsaken them in Orkney, and, privily convoying himself over land, was at length deprehendit in the burgh of Dundee.’ As he confessed and gave evidence against the rest, besides bringing some of them to confession, he was reserved for the king’s pleasure, and probably let off.—Pit. C. K. Sc.

There was at this time ‘a great visitation of the young children [of Aberdeen] with the plague of the pocks.’ There were also ‘continual weets,’ which threatened to destroy the crops and cause a famine. The cause being ‘the sins of the land,’ a public fast and humiliation was ordered in Aberdeen, ‘that God may be met with tears and repentance.’—A. K. S. R.

‘The Archbishop of St Andrews [Gladstanes], reposing in his bed in time of the afternoon sermon, the Sabbath after his diocesan synod in St Andrews, was wakened, and all the kirk and town with him, with a cry of blood and murder. For his sister son [Walter Anderson], master of his household, with a throw of his dagger, killed his cook [Robert Green], while as he was busy in dressing the lord-bishop’s supper. The dagger light[ed] just under the left pap of the cook, who fell down dead immediately.’—Cal.

The young man was committed to prison; but, ‘the poor man’s friends being satisfied with a piece of money, none being to pursue the murder, he was by moyen [influence] cleansed by a white assize (as they call it) and let go free.’—Row. This trial took place before the regality court of St Andrews. On the ensuing 17th January, letters were raised by the king’s advocate against the assize, but with what result does not appear.—P. C. R.

‘... before the going to of the sun, there were seen by twelve or thretteen husbandmen, great companies of men in three battles, joining together and fighting the space of an hour, on certain lands perteening to my Lord Livingston and the Laird of Carse. The honest men were examined in the presence of divers noblemen, barons, and gentlemen, and affirmed constantly that they saw such appearance.’—Cal.

We have now the first hint at public conveyances in Scotland in a letter of the king, encouraging Henry Anderson of Trailsund to bring a number of coaches and wagons with horses into Scotland, and licensing him and his heirs for fifteen years ‘to have and use coaches and wagons, ane or mae, as he shall think expedient, for transporting of his hieness lieges betwixt the burgh of Edinburgh and town of Leith ... providing that he be ready at all times for serving of his majesty’s lieges, and that he tak not aboon the sum of twa shillings Scots money for transporting of every person betwixt the said twa towns at ony time.’

A patent was granted for the establishment of a glass-manufacture in Scotland. The business was commenced at Wemyss, in Fife, and, about ten years after, we find it, to all appearance, going on prosperously. ‘Braid glass’—that is, glass for windows—was made, measuring three quarters of a Scots ell and a nail in length, while the breadth at the head was an ell wanting half a nail, and at the bottom half an ell wanting half a nail. It was declared to be equal in quality to Danskine glass. The glasses for drinking and other uses not being of such excellence, it was arranged that some specimens of English glass should be bought in London and established in Edinburgh Castle, to serve as patterns for the Scotch glass in point of quality. For the encouragement of the native manufacture, and to keep money within the country, the importation of foreign glass was (March 6, 1621) prohibited.—P. C. R.

The Veitches and Tweedies of the upper part of Peeblesshire had long been at issue,337 and peace was only kept between them by means of mutual assurances given to the Privy Council. The king heard of the case, and was the more concerned about it, because he believed he had, by his personal exertions, so entirely suppressed what he called the auld and detestable monster of deidly feid in Scotland, that ‘we do hardly think there be any one feid except this in all that kingdom unreconciled.’ As to these belligerent men of the Tweed, ‘the wrongs and mischiefs done by either of, as we understand, to others’ [each other], is ‘in such a proportion of compensation, as neither party can either boast of advantage, or otherwise think himself too much behind.’ He now ordered his Scottish Council, ‘that you call before you the principals of either surname, and then take such course for removing of the feid, and reconceiling, as you have been accustomed to do in the like cases’—that is, force them into bonds of amity, if they would not go of their own accord.—P. C. R.

It was found necessary to put some restraint upon the number of poor Scotch people who repaired to the English court in hope of bettering their circumstances. The evil is spoken of as a ‘frequent and daily resort of great numbers of idle persons, men and women, of base sort and condition, and without ony certain trade, calling, or dependence, going from hence to court, by sea and land.’ It was said to be ‘very unpleasant and offensive to the king’s majesty, in so far as he is daily importuned with their suits and begging, and his royal court almost filled with them, they being, in the opinion and conceit of all behalders, bot idle rascals and poor miserable bodies;’ the country, moreover, ‘is heavily disgracit, and mony slanderous imputations given out against the same, as gif there were no persons of guid rank, comeliness, nor credit within the same.’ The Council, therefore, deemed it necessary to cause an order to be proclaimed in all the burghs and seaports, forbidding masters of vessels to carry any people to England without first giving up their names, and declaring their errands and business to the Lords, under heavy penalties.—P. C. R.

A number of the king’s Scottish courtiers had, as is well known, accompanied or followed him into England, and obtained shares of his good-fortune. Sir George Home, now Earl of Dunbar; Sir John Ramsay, created Earl of Haddington; Sir James Hay, ultimately made Earl of Carlisle; and recently, Mr Robert Ker, who became the king’s especial favourite, and was made Earl of Somerset, are notable examples. The English, regarding the Scottish courtiers with natural jealousy, called them ‘beggarly Scots,’ of which they complained to the king, who is said to have jocosely replied: ‘Content yourselves; I will shortly make the English as beggarly as you, and so end that controversy.’ On one occasion, this jealousy broke out with some violence at a race at Croydon, in consequence of a Scotsman named Ramsay striking the Earl of Montgomery with his riding-switch. ‘The English,’ says the scandal-mongering Osborne, ‘did, upon this accident, draw together, to make it a national quarrel; so far as Mr John Pinchbeck, a maimed man, having but the perfect use of two fingers, rode about with his dagger in his hand, crying: “Let us break our fast with them here, and dine with the rest in London!” But Herbert, not offering to strike again, there was nothing lost but the reputation of a gentleman.’338 A ballad of the day described the metamorphosis which Scotchmen were understood to have undergone after their migration into England:

Even Osborne acknowledges that the ordinary conceptions as to the enrichment of the Scots courtiers were exaggerated. He says: ‘If many Scots got much, it was not more with one hand than they spent with the other;’ and he explains how Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, the king’s English treasurer, ‘had a trick to get the kernel, and leave the Scots but the shell, and yet cast all the envy on them. He would make them buy books of fee-farms, some £100 per annum, some 100 marks; and he would compound with them for £1000 ... then would he fill up this book with such prime land as should be worth £10,000 or £20,000, which was easy for him, being treasurer, so to do.... Salisbury by this means enriched himself infinitely.’ The case is a significant one. The experience by the Scots, a simple rustic people, of the superior mercantile sharpness of the English, on coming into business relations with them, is probably the main cause of that dry cautious manner which the English censure in them as a national characteristic.

From an act of the Privy Council of this date, we get a curious idea of the customs of the age regarding legal suits. It was declared that one of the chief causes of ‘the frequent and unlawful convocations, and the uncomely backing of noblemen and pairties upon the streets of Edinburgh,’ was the fact that ‘noblemen, prelates, and councillors repairing to this burgh, do ordinarily walk on the streets upon foot, whereby all persons of their friendship and dependence, and who otherwise has occasion to solicit them in their actions and causes, do attend and await upon them, and without modesty or discretion, importunes and fashes them with untimely solicitations and impertinent discourses, and sometimes by their foolish insolence and misbehaviour gives occasion of great misrule and unquietness within this burgh.’

The remedy ordered was as curious as the evil itself. It was, that noblemen, prelates, and councillors, when they come to the council, or are abroad in the town on their private affairs, should, as became their rank, ‘ride on horseback with footmantles or in coaches’—thus freeing themselves of that flocking of suitors which so much beset them when they appeared on foot.—P. C. R.

This day, John Mure of Auchindrain, James Mure, his son, and James Bannatyne of Chapeldonald, were brought to trial in Edinburgh for sundry crimes of a singularly atrocious character. The first of these personages has been before us on two former occasions—namely, under January 1, 1596-7, and May 11, 1602; to which reference may be made for an introduction to what is now to be related.

Auchindrain, it appears, felt that the boy William Dalrymple, who had carried the letter making the appointment for a meeting with Colzean, was a living evidence of his having been the deviser of the slaughter of that gentleman. He got the lad into his hands, and kept him for a time in his house; then, on his wearying of confinement, sent him to a friend in the Isle of Arran; thence, on his wearying of being ‘in a barbarous country among rude people,’ he had him brought back to his own house, and, as soon as possible, despatched him with a friend to become a soldier in Lord Buccleuch’s regiment, serving under Maurice Prince of Orange. Dalrymple had not been long in the Low Countries, when he tired of being a soldier, and came back to Scotland. Once more he was at large in Ayrshire, and a source of uneasiness to Mure of Auchindrain. It was now necessary to take more decisive measures. Mure and his son (September 1607) sent a servant to the young man to take him to the house of James Bannatyne of Chapeldonald, and arranging to join them on the way, ‘held divers purposes, speeches, and conferences with him, tried of him the estate of the Low Countries and sundry other matters,’ and finally placed him as a guest in Chapeldonald House, under the name of William Montgomery.

According to appointment, at ten o’clock of the evening of next day, James Bannatyne came with Dalrymple to meet the two Mures on the sands near Girvan. There, the elder Mure explained to Bannatyne the cause of his fears regarding the young man, telling him ‘he saw no remeed but to redd Dalrymple furth of this life, since he could not otherwise be kept out of his way. Whereunto Bannatyne making answer, that it was ane cruel purpose to murder the poor innocent youth, specially seeing they might send him to Ireland, to be safely kept there.... Auchindrain seemed to incline somewhat to that expedient; and, in the uncertainty of his resolution, turning toward the part where his son stood, of purpose, as appeared, to consult with him, young Auchindrain perceived them no sooner near, but, thereby assuring himself of their assistance, in the execution of that whilk his father and he had concluded, he did violently invade Dalrymple, rushed him to the ground, and never left him till, helped by his father, with his hands and knees he had strangled him.’

The horrid deed being accomplished, the Mures, with spades they had brought, tried to bury Dalrymple in the sand; but, finding the hole always fill up with water, they were at length obliged to carry the body into the sea, going in as far as they could wade, and hoping that an outgoing wind would carry it to the coast of Ireland. Five nights after, it was thrown back upon the beach at the very scene of the murder, and was soon found by the country people. The Earl of Cassillis heard of it, and caused an account of the discovery to be published throughout the district. By the mother and sister of Dalrymple, it was at once pronounced to be his corpse, and suspicion instantly alighted upon the Mures. A relative, advised with about the rumour, said it could not be safe for them to brave the law in the teeth of so much prejudice; neither, supposing they absconded under such a suspicion, could their friends stand up for them. The only expedient was to make an excuse for going out of the way—assault, for instance, Hugh Kennedy of Garriehorn, a servant of the Earl of Cassillis, a man against whom they had many ‘probable quarrels.’ The Mures actually adopted this expedient, setting upon Garriehorn in the town of Ayr, and only failing to slay him by reason of the vigour of his defence. The earl then saw that it was necessary to take strong measures against enemies capable of such doings, and he accordingly had them summoned both for Dalrymple’s murder and for the assault of Garriehorn. They allowed themselves to be put to the horn—that is, denounced as rebels for not appearing—but loudly professed that, if freed on the score of the assault, they would stand their trial for the murder, alleging their entire innocence of that transaction. The king was now made acquainted with the case, and, by his orders, Auchindrain the elder was seized, and thrown into the Tolbooth in Edinburgh. The two culprits nevertheless continued to feel confidence in the want of proof against them, believing that, if Bannatyne were out of the way, it would be impossible to bring the fact home to them. The younger Mure, still at large, accordingly dealt with Bannatyne to induce him to go to Ireland. It is a wonder he did not at once send his friend to a more distant bourn. When Bannatyne was gone, young Mure came boldly forward to take his trial, somewhat to the embarrassment of the officers of justice. However, by the suggestion of his majesty, he was not allowed to depart till he should have suffered the torture, with a view to making him confess. To the admiration of all, he bore this treatment with unflinching fortitude, and confessed nothing.

Public sentiment now rose in favour of the Mures as persecuted men, and the Privy Council was inclined to let them off; and would have done so, had not the king continued firm in his belief of their guilt, and ordered them to be detained. Some years passed on, and proof seemed still past hope, when the Earl of Abercorn contrived to find out Bannatyne in Ireland, and caused him to be brought over to his own house in Paisley. There, Bannatyne gave a full account of the murder, but claimed, as fulfilment of a condition, that he should be allowed his freedom. The earl told him he had had no such understanding of the matter; but, to take away all ground of complaint, he would liberate him for the meantime, but at the end of ten days make every possible effort to take him unconditionally, whether dead or alive. At this Bannatyne hesitated; he knew that already the Mures had been laying plots to get him cut off in Ireland—now, between their vengeance and the extreme persecution threatened by Lord Abercorn, he could see no chance for safety. He therefore avowed his inclination to make a full confession before a court of law, and trust to his majesty’s clemency.

On being confronted with Bannatyne, the Mures appeared as obstinate in their protestations of innocence as ever, contradicting everything he said, and denouncing him as a tool of their enemies. They were, nevertheless, brought to trial, along with Bannatyne, on the day noted in the margin—found guilty, and condemned to be beheaded at the Cross of Edinburgh, with forfeiture of all they possessed to his majesty’s use. So ended this extraordinary tissue of crimes, old Auchindrain being at the time about eighty years of age.340

Macleod of Raasay had been proprietor of the lands of Gairloch on the mainland of Ross-shire. He had the misfortune to live in the same time with Kenneth Mackenzie of Kintail, who has already been described as a man much too clever for his neighbours. Lord Kintail—for he had recently been made a peer—had a wadset or bond over a third of Gairloch, and by proper use of this legal footing in the estate, joined to neglect of legal defences by the insular chieftain, was in the way of becoming proprietor of the whole. While Raasay, however, neglected law, he had no reluctance to use the sword: so a hot feud subsisted between him and the crafty Mackenzie. The latter had already pursued the Macleods out of Gairloch with fire and sword.

Under the date noted in the margin, Lord Kintail hired a ship, that his son Murdo Mackenzie might go to Skye with a proper following, in order to apprehend one John Holmogh MacRorie, a duniwassal of Raasay,341 who had given him some trouble in the Gairloch. The vessel, with whatever design it set out, soon changed its course, and arrived opposite Macleod’s castle in the isle of Raasay—the same place where Johnson and Boswell afterwards found such an elegant scene of Highland hospitality. MacGilliecallum—such is the Highland appellative of the Laird of Raasay—seeing the vessel, went out to it with twelve of his followers, to buy some wine. ‘When Murdo Mackenzie did see them coming, he, with all his train, lest they should be seen, went to the lower rooms of the ship, leaving the mariners only above the decks. The Laird of Raasay entered; and, having spoken the mariners, he departed, with a resolution to return quickly. Murdo Mackenzie, understanding that they were gone, came out of the lower rooms; and perceiving them coming again, he resolved to conceal himself no longer. The Laird of Raasay desired his brother Murdo to follow him into the ship with more company in another galley, that they might carry to the shore some wine which he had bought from the mariners; so returning to the ship, and finding Murdo Mackenzie there beyond his expectation, he consulteth with his men, and thereupon resolveth to take him prisoner, in pledge of his cousin John MacAllan MacRorie, whom the Laird of Gairloch detained in captivity.’—G. H. S.

The History of the Mackenzie family (MS.) says that Raasay, on coming the second time into the vessel, fell to drinking with Murdo Mackenzie in loving terms. ‘Four of Murdo’s men, fearing the worst, kept themselves fresh [sober].... Raasay, sitting on the right hand of Murdo, said to him: “Murdo, thou art my prisoner!” Murdo, hearing this, starts, and, taking Raasay by the middle, threw him upon the deck, and said he scorned to be his prisoner. With that a fellow of Raasay’s strake him with a dirk. He, finding himself wounded, drew back to draw his sword, [so] that he went overboard. He, thinking to swim to the coast of Sconsarie, was drowned by the small boats that were coming from Raasay. His men, seeing him killed, resolved to sell their lives at the best rate they could. The four men that kept themselves fresh, fought so manfully in their own defence, and in revenge of their master, that they killed the Laird of Raasay and Gilliecallum More, the author of this mischief, his two sons, with all the rest that came to the vessel with Raasay. Tulloch’s son, with six of Murdo’s company, were killed as they were coming above deck from the place where they lay drunk. The four [sober] men ... were all pitifully hurt. When they were drawing the anchor, the fourth man, called Hector Oig M‘Echin Vich Kinnich, ane active young gentleman, was shot with a chance bullet from the boats. The other three, cutting the tow of the anchor, did sail away with the dead corpses of both parties.’

‘Thus,’ says Sir Robert Gordon in conclusion to this murderous story, ‘hath the Laird of Gairloch obtained peaceable possession of that land.’

‘Sir James Lawson of Humbie, riding in Balhelvie Sands, where many other gentlemen were passing their time, sank down in a part of the sands and perished. He was found again on the morn, but his horse was never seen.’—Cal.

It had been customary for the Scottish universities to receive students who had, through misbehaviour, become fugitives from other seats of learning; and now, as a natural consequence, it was found that the native youth at the university of Edinburgh, presuming on impunity for any improprieties they might commit, or a resource in case of punishment being attempted, ‘has ta’en and takes the bauldness to misknow the principal and regents, and to debord in all kind of uncomely behaviour and insolencies, no wise seemly in the persons of students and scholars.’ The Privy Council therefore issued a strict order forbidding the reception of fugitive students into the universities.—P. C. R.

The Privy Council was at this time obliged to renew former acts against Night-walkers of the city of Edinburgh—namely, idle and debauched persons who went about the streets during the night, in the indulgence of wild humours, and sometimes committing heinous crimes. If it be borne in mind that there was at that time no system of lighting for the streets of the city, but that after twilight all was sunk in Cimmerian darkness, saving for the occasional light of the moon and stars, the reader will be the better able to appreciate the state of things revealed by this public act.

Reference is made to ‘sundry idle and deboshit persons, partly strangers, who, debording in all kind of excess, riot, and drunkenness ... commit sundry enormities upon his majesty’s peaceable and guid subjects, not sparing the ordinar officers of the burgh, who are appointit to watch the streets of the same—of whom lately some has been cruelly and unmercifully slain, and others left for deid.’ The Council ordered that no persons of any estate whatsoever presume hereafter to remain on the streets ‘after the ringing of the ten-hour bell at night.’ The magistrates were also ordained to appoint some persons to guard the streets, and apprehend all whom they might find there after the hour stated.—P. C. R.

In this year there happened a strife between the Earl of Caithness on the one side, and Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonston and Donald Mackay on the other, highly illustrative of a state of things when law had only asserted a partial predominancy over barbarism.

One Arthur Smith, a native of Banff, had been in trouble for coining so long ago as 1599, when his man actually suffered death for that crime. He himself contrived to escape justice, by making a lock of peculiarly fine device, by which he gained favour with the king. Entering into the service of the Earl of Caithness, he lived for seven or eight years, working diligently, in a recess called the Gote, under Castle Sinclair, on the rocky coast of that northern district. If we are to believe Sir Robert Gordon, the enemy of the Earl of Caithness, there was a secret passage from his lordship’s bedroom into the Gote, where Smith was often heard working by night, and at last Caithness, Sutherland, and Orkney were found full of false coin, both silver and gold. On Sir Robert’s representation of the case, a commission was given to him by the Privy Council to apprehend Smith and bring him to Edinburgh.

While the execution of this was pending, one William MacAngus MacRorie, a noted freebooter, was committed to Castle Sinclair, and there bound in fetters. Contriving to shift off his irons, William got to the walls of the castle, and jumping from them down into the sea which dashes on the rocks at a great depth below, swam safely ashore, and escaped into Strathnaver. There an attempt was made by the Sinclairs to seize him; but he eluded them, and they only could lay hold of one Angus Herriach, whom they believed to have assisted the culprit in making his escape. This man being taken to Castle Sinclair without warrant, and there confined, Mackay was brought into the field to rescue his man—for so Angus was—and Caithness was forced to give him up.

The coiner Smith was living quietly in the town of Thurso, under the protection of the Earl of Caithness, when a party of Gordons and Mackays came to execute the commission for apprehending him. They had seized the fellow, with a quantity of false money he had about him, and were making off, when a set of Sinclairs, headed by the earl’s nephew, John Sinclair of Stirkoke, came to the rescue with a backing of town’s-people, and a deadly conflict took place in the streets. Stirkoke was slain, his brother severely wounded, and the rescuing party beat back. During the tumult, Smith was coolly put to death, lest he should by any chance escape. The invading party were then allowed to retire without further molestation. ‘The Earl of Caithness was exceedingly grieved for the slaughter of his nephew, and was much more vexed that such a disgraceful contempt, as he thought, should have been offered to him in the heart of his own country, and in his chief town; the like whereof had not been enterprised against him or his predecessors.’

The strife is now transferred in partially legal form to Edinburgh, where the parties had counter-actions against each other before the Privy Council. Why the word partially is here used, will appear from Sir Robert Gordon’s account of the procedure. ‘Both parties did come to Edinburgh at the appointed day, where they did assemble all their friends. There were with the Earl of Caithness and his son Berriedale, the Lord Gray, the Laird of Roslin, the Laird of Cowdenknowes (the earl’s sister’s son), the Lairds of Murkle and Greenland (the earl’s two brethren); these were the chief men of their company. There were with Sir Robert Gordon and Donald Mackay, the Earl of Winton and his brother the Earl of Eglintoun, with all their followers; the Earl of Linlithgow, with the Livingstones; the Lord Elphinstone, with his friends; the Lord Forbes, with his friends; Sir John Stewart, captain of Dumbarton (the Duke of Lennox’s bastard son); the Lord Balfour; the Laird of Lairg Mackay in Galloway; the Laird of Foulis, with the Monroes; the Laird of Duffus; divers of the surname of Gordon ... with sundry other gentlemen of name too long to set down. The Earl of Caithness was much grieved that neither the Earl of Sutherland in person, nor Hutcheon Mackay, were present. It galled him to the heart to be thus overmatched, as he said, by seconds and children; for so it pleased him to call his adversaries. Thus, both parties went weel accompanied to the council-house from their lodgings; but few were suffered to go in when the parties were called before the Council.’

All of these friends had, of course, come to see justice done to their respective principals—that is, to outbrave each other in forcing a favourable decision as far as possible. What followed is equally characteristic. While the Council was endeavouring to exact security from the several parties for their keeping the peace, both sent off private friends to the king to give him a favourable impression of their cases. ‘The king, in his wisdom, considering how much this controversy might hinder and endamage the peace and quietness of his realm in the parts where they did live, happening between persons powerful in their own countries, and strong in parties and alliances, did write thrice very effectually to the Privy Council, to take up this matter from the rigour of law and justice unto the decision and mediation of friends.’ The Council acted accordingly, but not without great difficulty. While the matter was pending, Lord Gordon, son of the Marquis of Huntly, happened to come to Edinburgh from court; and his friends, having access to him, were believed by the Earl of Caithness to have given him a favourable view of their case against himself. ‘So, late in the evening, the Lord Gordon coming from his own lodging, accompanied with Sir Alexander Gordon and sundry others of the Sutherland men, met the Earl of Caithness and his company upon the High Street, between the Cross and the Tron. At the first sight, they fell to jostling and talking; then to drawing of swords. Friends assembled speedily on all hands. Sir Robert Gordon and Mackay, with the rest of the company, came presently to them; but the Earl of Caithness, after some blows, given and received, perceiving that he could not make his part good, left the street, and retired to his lodging; and if the darkness of the night had not favoured him, he had not escaped so. The Lord Gordon, taking this broil very highly, was not satisfied that the Earl of Caithness had given him place, and departed; but, moreover, he, with all his company, crossed thrice the Earl of Caithness his lodging, thereby to provoke him to come forth; but perceiving no appearance thereof, he retired himself to his own lodging. The next day, the Earl of Caithness and the Lord Gordon were called before the Lords of the Privy Council, and reconciled in their presence.’

It was not till several years later that these troubles came to an end.

Proceeding upon the principle that the smallest trait of industrial enterprise forms an interesting variety on the too ample details of barbarism here calling to be recorded, I remark with pleasure a letter of the king of this date, agreeing to the proposal lately brought before him by a Fleming—namely, to set up a work for the making of ‘brinston, vitreall, and allome,’ in Scotland, on condition that he received a privilege excluding rivalry for the space of thirteen years. About the same time, one Archibald Campbell obtained a privilege to induce him ‘to bring in strangers to make red herrings.’ In June 1613, he petitioned that the king would grant him, by way of pension for his further encouragement, the fourteen lasts of herrings yearly paid to his majesty by the Earl of Argyle, ‘as the duty of the tack of the assize of herrings of those parts set to him,’ being of the value of £38 yearly.—M. S. P.

Some of the principal Border gentlemen—Scott of Harden, Scott of Tushielaw, Scott of Stirkfield, Gladstones of Cocklaw, Elliot of Falnash, and others—had a meeting at Jedburgh, with a view to making a final and decisive effort for stopping that system of blood and robbery by which the land had been so long harassed, even to the causing of several valuable lands to be left altogether desolate. They entered into a sort of bond, declaring their abhorrence of all the ordinary violences, and agreeing thenceforth to shew no countenance to any lawless persons, but to stand firm with the government in putting them down. Even where the culprits were their own dependents or tenants, they were to take part in bringing them to justice, and, if they fled, were to deprive them of their ‘tacks and steedings,’ and ‘put in other persons to occupy the same.’ Should any fail to act in this way, or to pursue culprits to justice, they agreed that a share of guilt should lie with that person. This bond seems to have been executed with the concurrence of the state-officers, and more especially under encouragement from the king, who, they say, had shewn his anxiety every way ‘for the suppressing of that infamous byke342 of lawless limmers.’343

The Presbyterian historian of this period notes, that ‘in the months of March and April fell forth prodigious works and rare accidents. A cow brought forth fourteen great dog-whelps, instead of calves. Another, after the calving, became stark mad, so that the owner was forced to slay her. A dead bairn was found in her belly. A third brought forth a calf with two heads. One of the Earl of Argyle’s servants being sick, vomited two toads and a serpent, and so convalesced; but after[wards] vomited a number of little toads. A man beside Glasgow murdered both his father and mother. A young man going at the plough near Kirkliston, killeth his own son accidentally with the throwing of a stone, goeth home and hangeth himself. His wife, lately delivered of a child, running out of the house to seek her husband, a sow had eaten her child.’—Cal. It is curious thus to see what a former age was capable of believing. The circumstances here related regarding the first two cows are now known to be impossibilities; and no such relation, accordingly, could move one step beyond the mouths of the vulgar with whom it originated. Yet it found a place in the work of a learned church historian of the seventeenth century.

There was at this time an ‘extraordinary drowth, whilk is likely to burn up and destroy the corns and fruits of the ground.’ On this account, a fast was ordered at Aberdeen.—A. K. S. R. In September, and for some months after, there are notices of ‘great dearth of victual,’ doubtless the consequence of this drouth. ‘The victual at ten pound the boll.’—Chron. Perth.

Gregor Beg Macgregor, and nine others of his unhappy clan, were tried for sundry acts of robbery, oppression, and murder; and being all found guilty, were sentenced to be hanged on the Burgh-moor of Edinburgh.—Pit. The relics of the broken Clan Gregor lived at this time a wild predaceous life on the borders of the lowlands of Perthshire—a fearful problem to the authorities of the country, from the king downward. One called Robin Abroch, from the nativity of his father (Lochaber), stood prominently out as a clever chief of banditti, being reported, says Sir Thomas Hamilton, king’s advocate, as ‘the most bluidy murderer and oppressor of all that damned race, and most terrible to all the honest men of the country.’344 In a memoir of the contemporary Earl of Perth occurs an anecdote of Robin, which, though somewhat obscure, speaks precisely of the style of events which modern times have seen in the Abruzzi and the fastnesses of the Apennines. The incident seems to have occurred in 1611.

‘In the meantime, some dozen of the Clan Gregor came within the laigh of the country—Robin Abroch, Patrick M‘Inchater, and Gregor Gair, being chiefs. This Abroch sent to my chamberlain, David Drummond, desiring to speak to him. After conference, Robin Abroch, for reasons known to himself, alleging his comrades and followers were to betray him, was contented to take the advantage, and let them fall into the hands of justice. The plot was cunningly contrived, and six of that number were killed on the ground where I, with certain friends, was present; three were taken, and one escaped, by Robin and his man. This execution raised great speeches in the country, and made many acknowledge that these troubles were put to ane end, wherewith King James himself was well pleased for the time.’345 We nevertheless find the king’s advocate soon after desiring of the king that, for the sake of public peace, he would withdraw a certain measure of protection he had extended to Robin, and replace him under the same restrictions as had been prescribed to the rest of his clan.

In this year, a large body of troops was levied in Scotland in a clandestine manner for the service of the king of Sweden, in his unsuccessful war with Christian IV. of Denmark. As the king of Great Britain was brother-in-law of the latter monarch, this illegal levying of troops was an act of the greater presumption. The Privy Council fulminated edicts against the proceedings as most obnoxious to the king,346 but without effect. One George Sinclair—a natural brother of the Earl of Caithness, and who, if we are to believe Sir Robert Gordon (an enemy), had stained himself by a participation in the treacherous rendition of Lord Maxwell—sailed with nine hundred men, whom he had raised in the extreme north.

The successful course of the king of Denmark’s arms had at this time closed up the ordinary and most ready access to Sweden at Gottenburg, and along the adjacent coast. A Colonel Munckhaven, in bringing a large levy of mercenaries from the Netherlands in the spring of 1612, had consequently been obliged to take the riskful step of passing through Norway, then a portion of the dominions of the Danish monarch. The greater part of his soldiery entered the Trondiem Fiord, landed at Stordalen, and proceeded through the mountainous regions of Jempteland towards Stockholm, where they arrived in time to save it from the threats of the Danish fleet.347

Colonel Sinclair resolved to take a similar course; but he was less fortunate. Landing in Romsdalen, he was proceeding across Gulbrandsdalen, and had entered a narrow pass at Kringelen, utterly unsuspicious of the presence of an enemy, when he fell into a dire ambuscade formed by the peasantry. Even when aware that a hostile party had assembled, he was craftily beguiled on by the appearance of a handful of rustic marksmen on the opposite side of the river, whose irregular firing he despised, till his column had arrived at the most difficult part of the pass. The boors then appeared amongst the rocks above him, in front and in rear, closing up every channel of egress. Sinclair fell early in the conflict. The most of his party were either cut off by the marksmen, or dashed to pieces by huge rocks tumbled down from above. Of the nine hundred, but sixty were spared. These were taken as prisoners to the houses of various boors, who, however, soon tired of keeping them. It is stated that the wretched Scots were brought together one day in a large meadow, and there murdered in cold blood. Only one escaped.

The Norwegians celebrated this affair in a vaunting ballad, and, strange to say, still look back upon the destruction of Sinclair’s party as a glorious achievement. In the pass of Kringelen, there is a tablet bearing an inscription to the following purport: ‘Here lies Colonel Sinclair, who, with nine hundred Scotsmen, was dashed to pieces like clay-pots by three hundred boors of Lessöe, Vaage, and Froen. Berdon Segelstadt of Ringeböe was the leader of the boors.’ In a peasant’s house near by were shewn to me, in 1849, a few relics of the poor Caithness-men—a matchlock or two, a broadsword, a couple of powder-flasks, and the wooden part of a drum.

After the treacherous slaughter of the Laird of Johnston in 1608, Lord Maxwell was so hotly prosecuted by the state-officers, as to be compelled to leave his country. His Good-night, a pathetic ballad, in which he takes leave of his lady and friends, is printed in the Border Minstrelsy: afterwards, he returned to Scotland, but could not shew himself in public. A succession of skulking adventures ended in his being treacherously given up to justice by his relative, the Earl of Caithness; and he was, without loss of time, beheaded at the Cross of Edinburgh—the sole noble victim to justice out of many of his order who, during the preceding thirty years, had deserved such a fate.

When informed by the magistrates of the city that they had got orders for his execution, he professed submission to the will of God and the king, but declined the attendance of any ministers, as he adhered to the ancient religion. ‘It being foreseen by the bailies and others that gif he sould at his death enter in any discourse of that subject before the people, it might breed offence and sclander, he was desirit, and yielded to bind himself by promise, to forbear at his death all mention of his particular opinion of religion, except the profession of Christianity; which he sinsyne repented, as he declared to the bailies, when they were bringing him to the scaffold.’ On the scaffold, the unfortunate noble expressed his hope that the king would restore the family inheritance to his brother. He likewise ‘asked forgiveness of the Laird of Johnston, his mother, grandmother, and friends, acknowledging the wrong and harm done to them, with protestation that it was without dishonour for the worldly part of it.... Then he retired himself near the block, and made his prayers to God; which being ended, he took leave of his friends and of the bailies of the town, and, suffering his eyes to be covered with ane handkerchief, offered his head to the axe.’348

Thus at length ended the feud between the Johnstons and Maxwells, after, as has been remarked, causing the deaths of two chiefs of each house.