Domestic annals of Scotland

THE DOMESTIC ANNALS OF SCOTLAND FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE REVOLUTION having experienced a favourable reception from the public, I have been induced to add a volume containing...

After some difficulties on these and similar points, a regiment was actually constituted on the 14th of May, and nowhere out of Scotland perhaps could a corps have been formed u...

Dundee consented to overlook this wild episode, on account of the supplies it brought him; but there was another person grievously offended. The Macdonald who lived among the Gr...

Our old acquaintance, Captain John Slezer, turns up at this time in an unexpected way. Three or four months before, he [Sidenote: 1690.] had obtained a commission as captain of...

‘DEAR MOTHER—The long designed marriadge betwixt Mary Campbell and mee was accomplished upon the 18th of this instant, and I having stayed here longer than I thought to doe, tho...

The Master and his friend Mowat, who are described on the occasion as excited by liquor, but not beyond self-control, were sitting in the hall drinking a little ale, while beds...

The Quakers residing at Glasgow gave in to the Privy Council a representation of the treatment they received at the hands of their neighbours. It was set forth, that the severe...

Captain John Crighton, once a dragoon in the service of King James, and whose memoirs were afterwards written from his own information by Swift, was kept in jail for twenty-one...

The Earl of Moray, being pursued at law for a tradesman’s account, which was referred to his oath, craved the Court of Session to appoint a commission to take his oath at Dunnib...

A rope-manufactory had been some years before established at Newhaven by James Deans, bailie of the Canongate, and one of his sons; but it had been discontinued for want of enco...

It was not till the spring of this year that the measures of the government for cutting off supplies from the Bass began sensibly to tell upon the besieged. When reduced to a po...

During this period, the affairs of Scotland were in a marked degree subordinate to those of England. The king, absorbed in continental wars and continental politics, paid little...

It was long before justice in Scotland took any qualm about this free-and-easy way of dealing with accused persons. So late as 1732, two men of humble rank—Henderson, a sedan-ca...

In the ensuing year, William Marshall, William Gray, John Kirkmyre, and William Donaldson, merchants in Glasgow, projected the setting up of a work there for making of ‘pins and...

It is remarked by a Presbyterian historian of the popular class, that the time of the ‘Persecution’ was one of general abundance. God, he believed, did not choose to let his peo...

We find the cause of this order in the fact, that John Fraser, book-keeper to Alexander Innes, factor, was before the Council on a charge from the Lord Advocate of having had th...

On a low sandy plain near the mouth of the Eden, in Fife, in sight of the antique towers of St Andrews, stands the house of Earlshall, now falling into decay, but in the sevente...

There had been for two years under process in the Court of Session a case in which a husband was sued for return of a deceased wife’s _tocher_ of eight thousand merks (£444, 8_s...

The homicide made his way to a foreign country, and thus for some years escaped justice. He afterwards returned to England, and was little taken notice of. William Stewart of Ca...

Mr Burton, in his Life of President Forbes, states that it was the custom at Culloden House in the days of John Forbes—_Bumper John_, he was called—to prize off the top of each...

The Council appointed a committee of inquiry, and ordered the sheriff of the county—the Earl of Eglintoun—to apprehend the suspected witches, ‘that it may appear whether, after...

In April 1699, notwithstanding the severe procedure in the recent case of the Catholics who met for worship at Aberdeen, it was found that the Duke of Gordon made bold to have s...

Apostacy from the Protestant religion was held as a heinous crime in Scotland. By an act of James VI., all persons who had been abroad were enjoined, within twenty days after th...

On the 25th of January, Pitcairn was brought before the Council on a charge of contravening various statutes against _leasing-making_—that is, venting and circulating reproaches...

Finding Macpherson, the Browns, and others at the ‘Summer’s Eve Fair in Keith, the stout-hearted Braco made up his mind to attack them. To pursue a narrative which appears to be...

With regard to the department for commercial intelligence, it was evident that ‘men are often straitened how and where to inquire for bargains they intend,’ while others are equ...

On the 5th of August, John Fraser came from Stratherrick with a party of fifty armed followers, and gathering more as he passed through the Aird, he fell upon the house of Fanel...

Long after this period—in 1738—the Earl of Ilay, writing to Sir Robert Walpole from Edinburgh, said: ‘I am forced to send this letter by a servant twenty miles out of town, _whe...

The country was at this time in a state of incandescent madness regarding its nationality, and the public feeling found expression through the medium of parliament. By its order...

The same Sir Norman Macleod was one day playing with some of his friends at a game called the Tables (in Gaelic, _palmermore_), which requires three on a side, each throwing the...

Notwithstanding this treatment, we find it reported in 1709, that ‘papists do openly and avowedly practise within the city of Edinburgh and suburbs.’ It was intimated at the sam...

Cowbairdie, being at length, at the instance of old Lady Gicht and her husband, taken upon a legal caption, was, with the messenger, John Duff, at the Milton of Fyvie, at the da...

The superior enterprise shewn in the conducting of the _Courant_, aided, perhaps, by some dexterous commercial management, seems to have quickly told upon the circulation of the...

Defoe revisited Scotland in the summer of 1708, on a mission the purpose of which has not been ascertained; and again in the summer of 1709. His stay on the last occasion extend...

According to the subsequent confession of Thomson, as they returned through the Grassmarket, they swore to each other to give their souls and bodies to the devil, if ever either...

Burt, who, as an English stranger, viewed the moral police of Scotland with a curious surprise, broadly asserts that the Kirk-treasurer employed spies to track out and report up...

At Inchinnan, in Renfrewshire, there fell out a ‘pretty peculiar accident.’ One Robert Hall, an elder, and reputed as an estimable man, falling into debt with his landlord, the...

After the Restoration, one Archibald Hislop, a bookseller, with William Carron as his workman, produced a neat edition of Thomas à Kempis and some other small books. Some Dutchm...

It is generally admitted that Rob Roy was a man of good birth and connections, though belonging to a family or clan which for upwards of a century had been under proscription, a...

Two months later, Wodrow notes: ‘The papists are turning very open at Edinburgh, and all over Scotland there is a terrible openness in the popish party.’ It is alleged in a popu...

At length, on the 10th of November, having gathered nearly all the forces he could expect, he resolved to force the pass so well guarded by his opponent. When the Duke of Argyle...

‘After his appointment, Mr Anderson directed his attention to the establishment of horse-posts on the western road from Edinburgh. The first regular horse-post in Scotland appea...

It was with no little surprise and no little irritation that these English Whig gentlemen discovered how hard it was to turn the forfeited estates into money, or indeed to make...

‘By the indulgence of a very worthy father,’ says Sir Archibald, ‘I was allowed [in] 1716, though then very young, to begin to enclose and plant, and provide and prepare nurseri...

He appears to have taken the same house for the same period in 1719, and to have revisited Scotland in the same manner in 1720, when he occupied the house of Mr William Scott, p...

Hitherto, no sort of literary or scientific association had been formed in Scotland. For a long time bypast, almost the only learning that existed was theological, and there was...

Robert Ker, who seems to have been an inhabitant of Lasswade, was a censor of morals much after the type of the Tinklarian Doctor. He at this time published _A Short and True De...

The editor of a very scarce reprint of this curious volume,[545] remarks that, from the manifest sincerity of the author’s delineations of good breeding, and the graphic charact...

Some years after, one Thomas Erskine, a brewer, made himself conspicuous as a Quaker preacher in Edinburgh. One Saturday, January 17, 1736, he ‘made a religious peregrination th...

To return to personal matters connected with the speculative baronet of Stanhope—the beauty, accomplishments, and moral graces of Lady Murray made it the more unfortunate that s...

A Society for cultivating historical literature was established in Edinburgh, though not destined to make any great or permanent [Sidenote: 1724.] mark on the age. It took its r...

If we may believe a statement which there is all reason to believe except one—the character of its author, who was no other than Simon Lord Lovat—it was high time that something...

The peerages being politely silent about this affair, we do not learn how or when the duke was restored to Scottish society. More than thirty years after, when turned of sixty,...

After all, the merchants of infant Glasgow were able to overcome the difficulties which an iniquitous rivalry threw in the way of their tobacco-trade. It went on gradually incre...

Having taken personal surveys of the Highlands in the two preceding years, General Wade was prepared, in this, to commence the making of those roads which he reported to be so n...

The best of the national troops being engaged in service abroad, the government could only oppose to this enterprise a few raw regiments under the commander-in-chief for Scotlan...

The convivialities indulged in at funerals were productive to-day of a tragedy long remembered in Scotland. Mr Carnegie of Lour, residing in the burgh of Forfar, had a daughter...

The _Edinburgh Courant_ of February 24th gravely records that, ‘some days ago, died a young man in the parish of Glencorse, who since Hallarday last hath been grievously torment...

About fifteen months after this date, the worthy pastor of Eastwood adverted to the ‘great losses, hardships, and impositions’ which the trade of Glasgow had recently undergone,...

As a consequence of the narrowness of house accommodation in those days, taverns were much more used than they are now. A physician or advocate in high practice was to be consul...

England was pleasingly startled in 1721 by the report which came home regarding a singularly gallant defence made by an English ship against two strongly armed pirate vessels in...

The magistrates being present at the windows of a tavern close by, it was inexcusable of Porteous to have fired without their orders, even had there been any proper occasion for...

In consequence of the failure of the crop of this year, Scotland was now undergoing the distresses attendant upon the scarcity and high price of provisions. The populace of Edin...

The same author justly remarks the peculiar code of morality which circumstances, partly political, had brought into existence [Sidenote: 1745.] in the Highlands, whereby cattle...

A circumstance somewhat like the Tain entertainment, in honour of Governor Macrae, took place in Edinburgh, on this king’s birthday, which was observed with unusual rejoicings,...

Funeral at Glasgow, described by Walter Scott (‘Beardie’), 387; of Campbell of Lochnell (1713), 387; of Robertson of Struan, 526; convivialities at one, 309, give rise to a murd...

PITCAIRN, Dr Archibald, introduces dissection in Edinburgh, 105; anecdotes concerning, 223; brought before the Council for _leasing-making_, 224; raises an action for defamation...

_Melville Correspondence_, p. 150. The parliament, on the 18th July 1690, gave a warrant for subjecting one Muir or Ker to the torture, in order to expiscate the truth regarding...

Alexander Duff was descended from a race of gentry in Morayshire—the Duffs of Muldavit—and it stems to have been by saving, prudence, and good management that he was enabled to...

Watson was a man of some merit, and deserves to be remembered as the first publisher of a collection of Scottish poetry. His death, with the style of ‘his majesty’s printer,’ on...

Mr Jackson had heard that Aston’s theatre was ‘in a close on the north side of the High Street, near Smith’s Land. A Mrs Millar at that time was esteemed a capital actress, and...