Part 38

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 Dutchmen, who had been brought over to assist Hislop’s successor, John Cairns, also printed a few respectable volumes, including the acts of parliament, and Sir Robert Sibbald’s _Prodromus_; but all tendency to attain or maintain the level formerly attained, was checked by a monopoly which was granted to one Andrew Anderson in 1671. This Anderson, who seems to have come from Glasgow, was early in that year condemned by the Privy Council for a very faulty edition of the New Testament; yet, for ‘payment of a composition in exchequer and other weighty reasons,’ they immediately after granted him, as king’s printer, an exclusive right to print all kinds of lawful books in Edinburgh, with a right of supervision over all other typographers within the kingdom. He died in 1679; but his widow succeeded to the monopoly, and exercised it for some years with the greatest rigour, persecuting all who attempted to interfere with the business of printing. As might be expected, the productions of her own press were miserable beyond all example; she both produced bad and erroneous editions of the Bible, and much fewer of them than were required to satisfy the demands of the public. A restriction was at length put upon her privilege, so as to allow general printing to be executed by others; but she continued through the whole term of her patent to be the sole printer of the Scriptures in Scotland. Fac-similes of a few pages from her Bibles—in poor blurred type, almost unintelligible with errors, with italic letters employed wherever the Roman fount fell short, and some lines wholly without spaces between the words—would appal the reader. It plainly appears that no such functionary as a corrector was at any time kept by Mrs Anderson; nor was she herself able to supply the deficiency. The Bible being then almost the only school-book in use, we may imagine what unrequired difficulties were added to the task of gaining a knowledge of the elements of the English language. What, for example, was a poor child to make of the following passage in her duodecimo Bible of 1705: ‘Whyshoulditbethoug tathingincredi ble w^tyou, y^t God should raise the dead?’ Mrs Anderson’s Bibles being of such [Sidenote: 1712.] a character, there was a great importation of English and foreign copies, but only in despite of strenuous efforts on her part to keep them out. Strange to say, when now her government patent expired, she contrived to obtain the appointment of printer to the Church of Scotland. Her ability to buy up a heavy stock of acts of the General Assembly was what secured her this piece of otherwise most unmerited patronage.

Had the government patent expired a few years earlier, she might, for anything that appears, have obtained a renewal of it also. But, now that a Tory ministry was in power, this lucrative privilege was conferred on two zealous Jacobites—Mr Robert Freebairn, publisher, and Mr James Watson, printer. These gentlemen were better typographers than Mrs Anderson; and the Bibles they issued were much superior. But their Tory principles prevented them from long enjoying the privilege. Probably acting in the spirit of their patrons, they ‘seem to have exercised a discretionary power of declining to publish royal proclamations when they were not consonant with their own views; otherwise it is difficult to discover why the queen’s proclamation against unlawful intruders into churches and manses was printed, not by either of her majesty’s printers, but by John Reid in Bell’s Wynd.’[440] This zeal led Freebairn, on the breaking out of the rebellion in 1715, to go to Perth with printing apparatus and materials, to act as printer for the person whom he called James the Eighth; and he consequently forfeited his patent.[441] Politics now favoured Mrs Anderson. In partnership with an Englishman named Baskett, the king’s printer for England, she once more became the exclusive printer of the Scriptures in Scotland, and for forty-one years more! The Bibles produced during the greater part of that time were indeed a little better than those under the former patent—the general progress of the country necessitated some little improvement—but they were still far inferior to the unprivileged productions of the Scottish press during the same epoch.

There is a reflection which must, or ought somewhat to modify [Sidenote: 1712.] our feeling regarding this monstrous absurdity; namely, that the printing of the Scriptures was kept upon the footing of a monopoly, with the effect of poor work and high prices, till our own age, and that so lately as 1823 the patentees, in a legal document, set forth their expenses in erecting a printing-office and ‘other charges of various descriptions,’ as entitling them ‘to enjoy the relative profits and emoluments without interference from any quarter.’

[Sidenote: MAR.]

Encouraged by the triumph of Mr Greenshields, and the popularity of the Tory administration, the Scottish Episcopalians began in many places to introduce the liturgy of the Church of England. The old Scottish horror for that form of devotion was excited in a high degree; church-courts were full of terror and grief; in some parts, the mob was ready to make a new reformation. In the course of 1711, a good deal of pretty effectual work was done for the appeasing of the popular anxiety. According to a contemporary narration—‘Mr Honeyman, for using the Church of England liturgy at Crail, was prosecuted and deposed by the presbytery, and if the magistrates and people were not Episcopal, he had fallen under very severe punishments. It is but few months since Mr Dunbreck was libelled by the presbytery, prosecuted by the magistrates, and threatened by the Lord Advocate, for using the English liturgy in the Earl Marischal’s own house at Aberdeen, to whom he was chaplain. The Earl of Carnwath this summer was threatened to have his house burned over his head, if he continued the English service in it, and his chaplain thereafter forced to leave his family.’ In November 1711, the presbytery of Perth deposed Henry Murray, a pre-Revolution incumbent of Perth hitherto undisturbed, because he used the English service at baptisms and burials, and the liturgy in worship.[442]

At the date of the present article, the two parties had what Wodrow calls ‘a little ruffle’ at Auchterarder—a bleak parish in Strathearn, which has at various times contrived to make a prominent appearance in ecclesiastical politics. The trouble arose in consequence of an attempt to use the funeral-service of the English Church at a funeral. ‘The common people,’ says Wodrow, ‘though not very Presbyterian in their principles, yet they reckoned the service popery, and could not away with it. When the corpse came to [Sidenote: 1712.] the churchyard, the women and country-people began and made a great mutiny. The Lord Rollo, a justice of the peace, interposed, but to no purpose. The Duke of Montrose’s bailie, Graham of Orchil, was there; and writes it was not Presbyterians, but the whole of the common people there; and they chased off the liturgy-man, and they behoved to bury in their wonted manner.’

Just at this crisis, the Tory administration of the Church-of-England-loving Anne interposed with an act of toleration for the distressed Episcopalians of Scotland, enabling clergymen, who had orders from Protestant bishops, and took the oaths of allegiance, assurance, and abjuration, to celebrate divine service—using, if they chose, the English liturgy—and to perform baptisms and marriages, without molestation; only further enjoining such clergymen to pray for the queen, the Princess Sophia, and the rest of the royal family, under a penalty of twenty pounds. The church commission had fasts, and prayers, and addresses against the measure—even spoke of reviving the Solemn League and Covenant—but their resistance was in vain.

Hitherto, the western section of the country had been clear of this abomination; but, in November, to the great distress of the serious people of Glasgow, an attempt was made there to set up the Episcopal form of worship. The minister officiating was one Cockburn, ‘an immoral profane wretch, and very silly,’ according to Mr Wodrow, ‘a tool fit enough for beginning such a work;’ who, however, had prepared well his ground by qualifying to the government. A number of persons of social importance joined the congregation. ‘The Earl of Marr, and [the Laird of] Bannockburn were there lately with two coaches, and many go out of curiosity to see it.’[443] The boys took the matter up in their usual decisive manner; but the Toleration Act compelled protection from the magistrates, and three town-officers stood guard at the chapel door. On the 27th of December, an English soldier having died, his officers wished to have him buried according to the solemn ritual of his church, and Mr Cockburn performed the ceremony in canonicals in the cathedral cemetery, the company all uncovered, and a rabble looking on with suppressed rage. The clergy took a look into the statute-book, to see if they should be obliged to endure this kind of insolence as well as the liturgy. Wodrow had hopes that Cockburn’s congregation would tire of [Sidenote: 1712.] supporting him, though his ‘encouragement’ did not exceed twenty-two pounds a year, or that his free conversation and minced oaths would make them put him away. A foolish shoemaker who attended his chapel having lost his wife, Cockburn wished to have a second exhibition of the funeral-service; but the magistrates would not allow it. One day, he was baptising a soldier’s child at a house in the Gorbals, and great was the commotion which it occasioned among the multitude. On coming out, he was beset by a host of boys calling to him ‘Amen, Amen!’ the use of this word in the service being so odious to the public, that it had stuck to Cockburn as a nickname. For nearly two years were the religious feelings of the people outraged by the open and avowed practice of the ‘modified idolatry’ in the midst of them, when at length a relief came with the Hanover succession. As soon as it was known that Queen Anne was no more, occidental human nature could no longer be restrained. On the evening of the 6th of August 1714, the little chapel was fairly pulled down, and the minister and his wife were glad to flee for their lives. So ended Episcopalian worship in Glasgow for a time.[444] A few verses from a popular ballad will assist in giving us some idea of the local feelings of the hour:

‘We have not yet forgot, sir, How Cockburn’s kirk was broke, sir, The pulpit-gown was pulled down, And turned into nought, sir.

· · · · ·

Long-neckèd Peggie H[ome], sir, Did weep and stay at home, sir, Because poor Cockburn and his wife Were forced to flee the town, sir.

· · · · ·

The chess-window did reel, sir, Like to a spinning-wheel, sir, For Dagon he is fallen now; I hope he’ll never rise, sir.’[445]

[Sidenote: MAR.]

A Dumfriesshire minister communicated to Wodrow an account he had got from the Laird of Waterside, a factor of the Duke of Queensberry, of a spectacle which the laird and many others had [Sidenote: 1712.] seen about sunset one evening in this month, about a mile from Penpont. ‘There appeared to them, towards the sea, two large fleets of ships, near a hundred upon every side, and they met together and fairly engaged. They very clearly saw their masts, tackling, guns, and their firing one at another. They saw several of them sunk; and after a considerable time’s engagement they sundered, and one part of them went to the west and another to the south.’

Wodrow goes on to relate what Mr James Boyes told him of shootings heard one morning about the same time in Kintyre. ‘The people thought it had been thunder, and went out to see what sort of day it was like to be. All appears clear, and nothing like thunder. There were several judicious people that saw, at some distance from them, several very great companies of soldiers marching with their colours flying and their drums beating, which they heard distinctly, and saw the men walking on the ground in good order; and yet there were no soldiers at all in that country, nor has been a long time. They heard likewise a very great shooting of cannon: ... so distinct and terrible, that many of the beasts broke the harrow and came running home.’

[Sidenote: MAY.]

Wodrow notes, at this time, a piece of bad taste on the part of Sir James Hall of Dunglass, whose family had in recent times acquired by purchase that ancient possession of the Home family. The old burial-place of the Earls of Home had been turned by Sir James into a stable, and he resisted both the clamour of the public and the private remonstrance of the aggrieved family on the subject. ‘Because the minister shewed some dislike at this unnatural thing, he is very uneasy to him.’

This act of Sir James Hall necessarily shocked Episcopalians; and to such an extent was the feeling carried, that a distinct pamphlet on the subject was published in London. The writer of this tells us, that, having made an excursion into Scotland in the summer of 1711, he tarried for a while at the post-house of Cockburnspath, and thus had an opportunity of seeing the ‘pretty little church’ near Dunglass House. He found that Sir James had gathered off all the grave-stones from the churchyard, to give scope for the growing of grass. He had ‘made the nave of the church a stable for his coach-mares, and dug up the graves of the dead, throwing away their bones, to make way for a pavement for his horses.... He has made the choir a coach-house, and [Sidenote: 1712.] broken down the great east end wall, to make a great gate to let his coaches in, that they may stand where the altar of God did stand. The turret is a pigeon-house, and over this new stable he has made a granary. There is also a building called an aile, adjoining the north side of the church, which is still a burying-place (still belonging to the Earl of Home), in which Sir James keeps hay for his horses, though his own first lady, who was daughter to Sir Patrick Home of Polwarth (now Earl of Marchmont), and his own only son, lie buried there.’

The writer states that Sir James’s father, though ‘of no family,’ but only a lord mayor of Edinburgh, had kept this church in good repair all his lifetime, and bestowed upon it a new pulpit. The neighbouring gentlemen had remonstrated against the desecration, and one had offered to build for him separate conveniences such as he wanted, provided he would spare the church; but all in vain. He adds: ‘Sir James is still as well esteemed by the whole party as ever he was, and in full communion with their kirk; nor could I learn of any reproof he ever had from his spiritual guides, the Mass Johns, upon this account; though ’tis most apparent that, had his Presbyterian holders-forth interposed, as they might and ought to have done, and as in other cases they are very apt to do when religion or even morality are not near so much concerned as here, Sir James durst not have attempted the doing this wicked thing.’

The writer goes on to remark what he calls the inconsistency of the Presbyterians in insisting that baptism shall always be performed in a church. ‘There are instances to be given, if need were, of their letting infants die without their baptism, rather than sprinkle them out of a church.’ ‘I shall mention but one other of their inconsistencies; ’tis that of their Judaical, if not Pharisaical observation of the Lord’s Day, which they call the Sabbath. This they set up most rigidly as their characteristic, though they pretend to admit of nothing as a principle, nor allow of any stated practice ecclesiastic, for which they have not a positive command in the Holy Scriptures. They despise the decrees and canons of the church, even in the early ages of it; nor does the unanimous consent of the primitive fathers of the first three centuries weigh with them; and yet I humbly think they must either take the observation of the first day of the week as the Lord’s Day or weekly Easter from the authority of the church; else it would puzzle them to get clear of the observation of the seventh day or [Sidenote: 1712.] Jewish Sabbath from the morality of the fourth commandment by any positive gospel precept.’[446]

[Sidenote: MAY 29.]

An ingenious piece of masked Jacobitism is described in a newspaper as taking place in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. ‘Thursday last’—so runs the paragraph—‘being the anniversary of the birth and happy restoration of King Charles II., of ever-blessed memory, was solemnly observed by Charles Jackson, merchant in Edinburgh, who had the honour to have his majesty stand godfather to him in the church of Keith at his baptism; and his majesty, by assuming the name of Jackson, was happily preserved from his enemies’ hands, after his escape out of the Royal Oak. In consideration of these honours conferred upon him by his sacred majesty, and being lineally descended from a stock of the loyalists, he invited all such, by public advertisement, to solemnise that memorable day, at an enclosure called Charles’s Field, lying a mile south from this city (where he hath erected a very useful bleaching-field), and there entertained them with diversity of liquors, fine music, &c. He had likewise a splendid bonfire, and a spacious standard erected, with a banner displayed upon it, whereon was very artfully drawn his sacred majesty in the Royal Oak, the bark wherein he made his escape, and the colonel who conducted him on board, taking leave of his majesty. The company round the bonfire drank her majesty, Queen Anne’s [health], and the memory of the happy Restoration, with great joy and demonstrations of loyalty. The night concluded with mirth; and the standard being brought back to Mr Jackson’s lodgings, carried by a loyal gentleman bareheaded, and followed by several others with trumpets, hautboys, and bagpipes playing before them, where they were kindly entertained.’[447]

[Sidenote: JUNE 10.]

Whatever might be the personal delinquencies and shortcomings of the judges, they never could be charged with a disposition to let other people off too easily. On the contrary, one is always struck by the appearances of severity in their treatment of those who fell into their hands. Two men of a humble order, named Rutherford and Gray, had been induced by a low agent, [Sidenote: 1712.] named Alexander Pitblado, to adhibit their names as witnesses to a paper bearing to be a guarantee by Dean of Guild Warrender for the rent of a house occupied by one Isabel Guild, being the insignificant sum of £25 Scots. It became Pitblado’s fortune—doubtless, not undeservedly—to be carried away as a recruit to Flanders. The guarantee was detected to be a forgery. Rutherford and Gray were taken into custody, and carried before the magistrates, where they readily admitted that Pitblado had induced them to give their signatures, on the assurance that Warrender had signed the paper.

The Lord Advocate thought the case worthy of the notice of the judges; so the two men were brought up to the court, with a statement of their offence against the 5th act 1681. It was determined that the matter was proper to be decided summarily, and the culprits made no objection to this course, for, as they said, they had not means of living in jail to wait for a more deliberate trial. It was also determined that the Lords could decide in the case with shut doors. Rutherford, now fearing that his fault inferred death, withdrew his former confession, but was at length prevailed on to confess once more, telling, what we can well believe to have been the truth, that he had been ensnared by Gray to do what he did in pure simplicity. ‘The Lords considered that, though it was a very small sum, yet it was a dangerous case to let witnesses escape on pretence of simplicity, where they neither see the party sign nor own the subscription; therefore resolved to impose some stigma and censure to terrify others; and so ordained them to be brought on Wednesday, being the market-day, to the great door of the Parliament House, by the hand of the hangman, with a paper on their breasts bearing their crime, and there to stand betwixt ten and eleven in the forenoon, and from that to be conducted to the pillory at the Tron, and there to stand the other hour between eleven and twelve, with papers on their breast: and in regard Gray had seduced Rutherford to sign, they ordained his lug to be nailed to the Tron; and being informed that Rutherford was a notar, they deprived him, and declared them both infamous.’

Four days later, having in the interval undergone their sentence, they petitioned for liberation from jail, which was granted. Then, however, came in George Drummond, the Goodman of the Tolbooth, with a claim for his dues, which they were totally unable to pay. Before the Union, the Lords in such a case could throw the expense upon the Treasury; but now they were [Sidenote: 1712.] without any such resource, and neither could they force the jailer to pass from his demand. In this dilemma, they after all acted a humane part, and made up the necessary sum out of their own pockets.[448]

[Sidenote: JUNE 21.]

The _Edinburgh Courant_ intimated, in an advertisement, that ‘Robert Campbell, commonly known by the name of Rob Roy Macgregor, being lately intrusted by several noblemen and gentlemen with considerable sums for buying cows for them in the Highlands, has treacherously gone off with the money, to the value of £1000 sterling, which he carries along with him.’ This is the first public reference to a person who has become the theme of popular legend in Scotland to an extent little short of Robin Hood in England, and finally has had the fortune to be embalmed in a prose fiction by one of the greatest masters in modern literature.