Part 1

DOMESTIC ANNALS OF SCOTLAND =From the Revolution to the Rebellion of 1745.=

BY ROBERT CHAMBERS,

F.R.S.E., F.S.A.Sc., &c.

W. & R. CHAMBERS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON.

MDCCCLXI.

Edinburgh: Printed by W. and R. Chambers.

PREFACE.

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 similar details with regard to the ensuing half-century. This is in many respects an interesting period of the history of Scotland. It is essentially a time of transition—transition from harsh and despotic to constitutional government; from religious intolerance and severity of manners to milder views and the love of elegance and amusement; from pride, idleness, and poverty, to industrious courses and the development of the natural resources of the country. At the same time, the tendency to the wreaking out of the wilder passions of the individual is found gradually giving place to respect for law. We see, as it were, the dawn of our present social state, streaked with the lingering romance of earlier ages. On these considerations, I am hopeful that the present volume will be pronounced in no respect a falling off in contrast with the former two.

It will be found that the plan and manner of treatment pursued in the two earlier volumes are followed here. My object has still been to trace the moral and economic progress of Scotland through the medium of domestic incidents—whatever of the national life is overlooked in ordinary history; allowing the tale in every case to be told as much as possible in contemporary language. It is a plan necessarily subordinating the author to his subject, almost to the extent of neutralising all opinion and sentiment on his part; yet, feeling the value of the self-painting words of these dead and gone generations—so quaint, so unstudied, so true—so corrective in their genuineness of the glozing idolatries which are apt to arise among descendants and party representatives—I become easily reconciled to the restricted character of the task. If the present and future generations shall be in any measure enabled by these volumes to draw from the errors and misjudgments of the past a lesson as to what is really honourable and profitable for a people, the _tenuis labor_ will not have been undergone in vain.

EDINBURGH, _January 1861_.

CONTENTS.

PAGE REIGN OF WILLIAM AND MARY: 1689–1694, 1 REIGN OF WILLIAM III.: 1695–1702, 107 REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE: 1702–1714, 257 REIGN OF GEORGE I.: 1714–1727, 389 REIGN OF GEORGE II.: 1727–1748, 535 APPENDIX, 619 INDEX, 627

=Illustrations.=

_Frontispiece_—CANONGATE TOLBOOTH, EDINBURGH. _Vignette_—BARGARRAN HOUSE. PAGE THE BASS, 106 AFRICAN COMPANY’S HOUSE AT BRISTO PORT, EDINBURGH, 123 PORTRAIT OF DR PITCAIRN, 224 MACPHERSON’S SWORD, 234 HOUSE OF LORD ADVOCATE STEUART, 256 DRESSES OF THE PEOPLE OF SCOTLAND, 1676, 270 BARGARRAN COAT OF ARMS, 511 LADY PLAYING ON SPINET, 574 OLD TOLBOOTH, EDINBURGH, 638

DOMESTIC ANNALS OF SCOTLAND.

REIGN OF WILLIAM AND MARY: 1689–1694.

Our narrative takes up the political story of Scotland at the crisis of the Revolution, when, King James having fled in terror to France, his nephew and daughter, the Prince and Princess of Orange, were proclaimed king and queen as William and Mary, and when the Episcopacy established at the Restoration, after a struggling and unhonoured existence of twenty-eight years, gave way to the present more popular Presbyterian Church. It has been seen how the populace of the west rabbled out the alien clergy established among them; how, notwithstanding the gallant insurrection of my Lord Dundee in the Highlands, and the holding out of Edinburgh Castle by the Duke of Gordon, the new government quickly gained an ascendency. It was a great change for Scotland. Men who had lately been in danger of their lives for conscience’ sake, or starving in foreign lands, were now at the head of affairs—the Earl of Melville, Secretary of State; Crawford, President of Parliament; Argyle restored to title and lands, and a privy-councillor; Dalrymple of Stair, Hume of Marchmont, Steuart of Goodtrees, and many other exiles, come back from Holland to resume prominent positions in the public service at home—while the instruments of the late unhappy government were either captives under suspicion, or living terror-struck at their country-houses. Common sort of people, who had last year been skulking in mosses from Claverhouse’s dragoons, were now marshalled in a regiment, and planted as a watch on the Perth and Forfar gentry. There were new figures in the Privy Council, and none of them ecclesiastical. There was a wholly new set of senators on the bench of the Court of Session. It looked like the sudden shift of scenes in a pantomime, rather than a series of ordinary occurrences.

Almost as a necessary consequence of the Revolution, a war with France commenced in May 1689. Part of the operations took place in Ireland, where James II., assisted with troops by King Louis, and supported by the Catholic population, continued to exercise sovereignty till his defeat at the Boyne (July 1, 1690). The subjugation of Ireland to the new government was not completed till the surrender of Limerick and other fortified places by treaty (October 3, 1691). Long before this time, the Jacobite movement in Scotland had come to a close by the dispersion of the Highlanders at Cromdale (April 1690). A fortress and garrison were then planted at Inverlochy (Fort William), in order to keep the ill-affected clans Cameron, Macdonald, and others, in check. At the same time, the Earl of Breadalbane was intrusted with the sum of twelve thousand pounds, with which he undertook to purchase the pacification of the Highlands. In 1691, there were still some chiefs in rebellion, and a threat was held out that they would be visited with the utmost severities if they did not take the oaths to the government before the 1st of January next. This led to the massacre of the Macdonalds of Glencoe (February 13, 1692), an affair which has left a sad shade upon the memory of King William.

In Scotland, it gradually became apparent that, though the late changes had diffused a general sense of relief, and put state control more in accordance with the feelings of the bulk of the people, there was a large enough exception to embarrass and endanger the new order of things. There certainly was a much larger minority favourable to Episcopacy than was at first supposed; whole provinces in the north, and a majority of the upper classes everywhere, continued to adhere to it. A very large portion of the nobility and gentry maintained an attachment to the ex-king, or, like the bishops, scrupled to break old oaths in order to take new. Even amongst those who had assisted in the Revolution, there were some who, either from disappointment of personal ambition, or a recovery from temporary fears, soon became its enemies. Feelings of a very natural kind assisted in keeping alive the interest of King James. It was by a nephew (and son-in-law) and a daughter that he had been displaced. A frightful calumny had assisted in his downfall. According to the ideas of that age, in losing a crown he had been deprived of a birthright. If he had been guilty of some illegal doings, there might be some consideration for his age. Anyhow, his infant son was innocent; why punish him for the acts of his father? These considerations fully appear as giving point and strength to the Jacobite feeling which soon began to take a definite form in the country. The government was thus forced into severities, which again acted to its disadvantage; and thus it happened that, for some years after the deliverance of Scotland from arbitrary power, we have to contemplate a style of administration in which arbitrary power and all its abuses were not a little conspicuous.

In the very first session of the parliament (summer of 1689), there was a formidable opposition to the government, headed chiefly by politicians who had been disappointed of places. The discontents of these persons ripened early next year into a plot for the restoration of the ex-king. It gives a sad view of human consistency, that a leading conspirator was Sir James Montgomery of Skelmorley, who was one of the three commissioners sent by the Convention in spring to offer the crown to William and Mary. The affair ended in Montgomery, the Earl of Annandale, and Lord Ross, informing against each other, in order to escape punishment. Montgomery had to flee to the continent, where he soon after died in poverty. The offences of the rest were overlooked.

Amongst the events of this period, the ecclesiastical proceedings bear a prominent place—efforts of statesmen for moderate measures in the General Assembly—debates on church-patronage and oaths of allegiance—tramplings out of old and rebellious Episcopacy; but the details must be sought for elsewhere.[1] During 1693, there were great alarms about invasion from France, and the forcible restoration of the deposed king; and some considerable severities were consequently practised on disaffected persons. By the death of the queen (December 28, 1694), William was left in the position of sole monarch of these realms.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: 1688. Nov.]

The first emotions of the multitude on attaining confidence that the Prince of Orange would be able to maintain his ground, and that the reigning monarch would be brought low, that the Protestant religion would be safe, and that perhaps there would be good times again for those who loved the Presbyterian cause, were, of course, very enthusiastic. So early as the close of November, the populace of Edinburgh began to call out ‘No pope, No papist,’ as they walked the streets, even when passing places where guards were stationed. The students, too, whose pope-burning enthusiasm had been sternly dealt with eight years back, now broke out of all bounds, and had a merry cremation of the pontiff’s effigy at the cross, ending with its being ‘blown up with art four stories high.’ This, however, was looked upon as a hasty [Sidenote: 1688.]business, wanting in the proper solemnity; so, two days after, they went to the law-court in the Parliament Close, and there subjected his Holiness to a mock-trial, and condemned him to be burned ceremoniously on Christmas Day, doubtless meaning by the selection of the time to pass an additional slight upon the religion over which they were now triumphing.

On the appointed day, the students had a solemn muster to execute the sentence. Arranged in bands according to their standing, each band with a captain, they marched, sword in hand, to the cross, preceded by the janitor of the college, carrying the mace, and having a band of hautbois also before them. There, in presence of the magistrates and some of the Privy Council, they solemnly burned the effigy, while a huge multitude looked on delighted.[2]

There were similar doings in other parts of the country; but I select only those of one place, as a specimen of the whole, and sufficient to shew the feeling of the time.

[Sidenote: 1689. JAN. 11.]

A Protestant town-council being elected at Aberdeen, the boys of the Marischal College resolved to celebrate the occasion with a burlesque _Pope’s Procession_. They first thought proper to write to the new magistrates, protesting that their design was not ‘tumultuary,’ neither did they intend to ‘injure the persons or goods of any.’ The ceremonial reminds us slightly of some of the scenes in Lyndsay’s _Satire of the Three Estates_. Starting from the college-gate at four in the afternoon, there first went a company of men carrying links, six abreast; next, the janitor of the college, with the college-mace, preceding six judges in scarlet robes. Next marched four fifers playing; then, in succession, four priests, four Jesuits, four popish bishops, and four cardinals, all in their robes; then a Jesuit in embroidered robes, carrying a great cross. Last came the pope, carried in his state-chair, in scarlet robes lined with ermine, his triple crown on his head, and his keys on his arm; distributing pardons and indulgences as he moved along.

Being arrived at the market-cross, the pope placed himself on a theatre, where a dialogue took place between him and a cardinal, expressing the pretensions commonly attributed to the head of the Catholic Church, and announcing a doom to all heretics. In the midst of the conference, Father Peter, the ex-king’s confessor, entered with a letter understood to convey intelligence of the late [Sidenote: 1689.] disastrous changes in London; whereupon his holiness fell into a swoon, and the devil came forward, as to help him. The programme anticipates that this would be hailed as a merry sight by the people. But better remained. The pope, on recovering, began to vomit ‘plots, daggers, indulgences, and the blood of martyrs,’ the devil holding his head all the time. The devil then tried in rhyme to comfort him, proposing that he should take refuge with the king of France; to which, however, he professed great aversion, as derogatory to his dignity; whereupon the devil appeared to lose patience, and attempted to throw his friend into the fire. But this he was prevented from doing by the entry of one ordering that the pope should be subjected to a regular trial.

The pontiff was then arraigned before the judges as guilty of high treason against Omnipotence, in as far as he had usurped many of its privileges, besides advancing many blasphemous doctrines. ‘The court adduced sufficient proofs by the canons of the church, bulls, pardons, and indulgences, lying in process;’ and he was therefore pronounced guilty, and ordered to be immediately taken to the public place of execution, and burned to ashes, his blood to be attainted, and his honours to be blotted out of all records. The procession was then formed once more, and the sentence was read from the cross; after which ‘his holiness was taken away from the theatre, and the sentence put in execution against him. During the time of his burning, the spectators were entertained with fireworks and some other divertisements.

‘After all was ended, the Trinity Church bell—which was the only church in Scotland taken from the Protestants and given to the papists, wherein they actually had their service—was rung all the night.’[3]

[Sidenote: MAR. 14.]

Patrick Walker relates,[4] with great relish, the close of the political existence of the unhappy episcopate of Scotland, amidst the tumults attending the sitting of the Convention at Edinburgh, during the process of settling the crown on William and Mary. For a day or two after this representative body sat down, several bishops attended, as a part of the parliamentary constitution of the country, and by turns took the duty of saying prayers. The last who did so, the Bishop of Dunkeld, spoke pathetically of the [Sidenote: 1689.] exiled king as the man for whom they had often watered their couches, and thus provoked from the impetuous Montgomery of Skelmorley a jest at their expense which will not bear repetition. They were ‘put out with disdain and contempt,’ while some of the members expressed a wish that the ‘honest lads’ knew of it, ‘for then they would not win away with hale gowns.’ And so Patrick goes on with the triumph of a vulgar mind, describing how they ‘gathered together with pale faces, and stood in a cloud in the Parliament Close. James Wilson, Robert Neilson, Francis Hislop, and myself were standing close by them. Francis Hislop with force thrust Robert Neilson upon them; their heads went hard upon one another. But there being so many enemies in the city, fretting and gnashing their teeth, waiting for an occasion to raise a mob, where undoubtedly blood would have been shed; and we having laid down conclusions among ourselves to guard against giving the least occasion to all mobs; kept us from tearing off their gowns.

‘Their graceless graces went quickly off; and neither bishop nor curate was seen in the streets; this was a surprising change not to be forgotten. Some of us would have been rejoiced more than in great sums, to see these bishops sent legally down the Bow, that they might have found the weight of their tails in a tow, to dry their hose-soles, that they might know what hanging was; they having been active for themselves, and the main instigators to all the mischiefs, cruelties, and bloodshed of that time, wherein the streets of Edinburgh, and other places of the land, did run with the innocent, precious, dear blood of the Lord’s people.’

A more chivalric adversary might have, after all, found something to admire in these poor prelates, who permitted themselves to be so degraded, purely in consequence of their reverence for an oath, while many good Presbyterians were making little of such scruples. On the other hand, a more enlightened bench of bishops might have seen that the political status which they now forfeited had all along been a worldly distinction working against the success of spiritual objects, and might thus have had some comfortable re-assurances for the future, as they ‘stood in a cloud in the Parliament Close,’ to receive the concussion of Robert Neilson pushed on by Francis Hislop.

Since Christmas of the past year, there had been constant mob-action against the Episcopal clergy, especially in the western shires, about three hundred having been rudely expelled or forced to [Sidenote: 1689.] flee for safety of their lives. On the rebound of such a spring, nothing else was to be expected; perhaps there is even some force in the defence usually put forward for the zealous Presbyterians on this occasion, that their violences towards those obnoxious functionaries were _less_ than might have been expected. I do not therefore deem it necessary to go into ‘the Case of the present Afflicted Clergy,’[5] or to call attention to the similar case of the faithful professors of the Edinburgh University, expelled by a commission in the autumn of 1690. There is, however, one anecdote exemplifying Christian feeling on this occasion, which it must be pleasant to all to keep in green remembrance. ‘The last Episcopal clergyman of the parish of Glenorchy, Mr David Lindsay, was ordered to surrender his charge to a Presbyterian minister then appointed by the Duke [Earl] of Argyle. When the new clergyman reached the parish to take possession of his living, not an individual would speak to him [public feeling on the change of church being here different] except Mr Lindsay, who received him kindly. On Sunday, the new clergyman went to church, accompanied by his predecessor. The whole population of the district were assembled, but they would not enter the church. No person spoke to the new minister, nor was there the least noise or violence till he attempted to enter the church, when he was surrounded by twelve men fully armed, who told him he must accompany them; and, disregarding all Mr Lindsay’s prayers and entreaties, they ordered the piper to play the march of death, and marched away the minister to the confines of the parish. Here they made him swear on the Bible that he would never return, or attempt to disturb Mr Lindsay. He kept his oath. The synod of Argyle were highly incensed at this violation of their authority; but seeing that the people were fully determined to resist, no further attempt was made, and Mr Lindsay lived thirty years afterwards, and died Episcopal minister of Glenorchy, loved and revered by his flock.’[6]

[Sidenote: APR.]

A little incident connected with the accession of King William and Queen Mary was reported to Wodrow as ‘beyond all question.’ When the magistrates of Jedburgh were met at their market-cross to proclaim the new sovereigns, and drink their healths, a Jacobite chanced to pass by. A bailie asked him if he [Sidenote: 1689.] would drink the king’s health; to which he answered no, but he was willing to take a glass of the wine. They handed him a little round glass full of wine; and he said: ‘As surely as this glass will break, I drink confusion to him, and the restoration of our sovereign and his heir;’ then threw away the glass, which alighted on the tolbooth stair, and rolled down unbroken. The bailie ran and picked up the glass, took them all to witness how it was quite whole, and then dropping some wax into the bottom, impressed his seal upon it, as an authentication of what he deemed little less than a miracle.

Mr William Veitch happening to relate this incident in Edinburgh, it came to the ears of the king and queen’s commissioner, the Earl of Crawford, who immediately took measures for obtaining the glass from Jedburgh, and ‘sent it up with ane attested account to King William.’[7]

[Sidenote: APR. 28.]

The sitting of the Convention brought out a great amount of volunteer zeal, in behalf of the Revolution, amongst those extreme Presbyterians of the west who had been the greatest sufferers under the old government. They thought it but right—while the Highlanders were rising for James in the north—that they should take up arms for William in the south. The movement centered at the village of Douglas in Lanarkshire, where the representative of the great House of that name was now devoted to the Protestant interest. On the day noted, a vast crowd of people assembled on a holm or meadow near the village, where a number of their favourite preachers addressed them in succession with suitable exhortations, and for the purpose of clearing away certain scruples which were felt regarding the lawfulness of their appearing otherwise than under an avowed prosecution of the great objects of the Solemn League and Covenant.