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History of Civilization in England, Vol. 3 of 3

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In the midst of such general stagnation, the most flourishing towns were, as may be easily supposed, very thinly peopled. Indeed, men had so little to do, that if they had collected in large numbers, they must have starved. Glasgow is one of the oldest cities in Scotland, and is said to have been founded about the sixth century.48 At all events, in the twelfth century, it was, according to the measure of that age, a rich and prosperous place, enjoying the privilege of holding both a market and a fair.49 It had also a municipal organization, and was governed by its own provosts and baillies.50 Yet, even this famous town had no kind of trade before the fifteenth century, when the inhabitants began to cure salmon, and export it.51 That was the only branch of industry with which Glasgow was acquainted. We need not, therefore, be surprised at hearing, that so late as the middle of the fifteenth century, the entire population did not exceed fifteen hundred persons, whose wealth consisted of some small cattle, and a few acres of ill-cultivated land.52

Other cities, though bearing a celebrated name, were equally backward at a still more recent period. Dunfermline is associated with many historic reminiscences; it was a favourite residence of Scotch kings, and many Scotch parliaments have been held there.53 Such events are supposed to confer distinction; but the illusion vanishes, when we inquire more minutely into the condition of the place where they happened. In spite of the pomp of princes and legislators, Dunfermline, which at the end of the fourteenth century was still a poor village, composed of wooden huts,54 had, by the beginning of the seventeenth century, advanced so slowly that its whole population, including that of its wretched suburbs, did not exceed one thousand persons.55 For a Scotch town, that was a considerable number. About the same time, Greenock, we are assured, was a village consisting of a single row of cottages, tenanted by poor fishermen.56 Kilmarnock, which is now a great emporium of industry and of wealth, contained, in 1668, between five and six hundred inhabitants.57 And, to come down still lower, even Paisley itself, in the year 1700, possessed a population which, according to the highest estimate, did not amount to three thousand.58

Aberdeen, the metropolis of the north, was looked up to as one of the most influential of the Scotch towns, and was not a little envied during the Middle Ages, for its power and importance. These, however, like all other words, are relative, and mean different things at different periods. Certainly, we shall not be much struck by the magnitude of that city, when we learn, from calculations made from its tables of mortality, that so late as 1572, it could only boast of about two thousand nine hundred inhabitants.59 Such a fact will dispel many a dream respecting the old Scotch towns, particularly if we call to mind that it refers to a date, when the anarchy of the Middle Ages was passing away, and Aberdeen had for some time been improving. That city – if so miserable a collection of persons deserves to be termed a city – was, nevertheless, one of the most densely peopled places in Scotland. From the thirteenth century to the close of the sixteenth, no where else were so many Scotchmen assembled together, except in Perth, Edinburgh, and possibly in Saint Andrews.60 Respecting Saint Andrews, I have been unable to meet with any precise information;61 but of Perth and Edinburgh, some particulars are preserved. Perth was long the capital of Scotland, and after losing that preëminence, it was still reputed to be the second city in the kingdom.62 Its wealth was supposed to be astonishing; and every good Scotchman was proud of it, as one of the chief ornaments of his country.63 But, according to an estimate recently made by a considerable authority in these matters, its entire population, in the year 1585, was under nine thousand.64 This will surprise many readers; though, considering the state of society at that time, the real wonder is, not that there were so few, but that there were so many. For, Edinburgh itself, notwithstanding the officials and numerous hangers-on, which the presence of a court always brings, did not contain, late in the fourteenth century, more than sixteen thousand persons.65 Of their general condition, a contemporary observer has left us some account. Froissart, who visited Scotland, and records what he saw, as well as what he heard, gives a lamentable picture of the state of affairs. The houses in Edinburgh were mere huts, thatched with boughs; and were so slightly put together, that when one of them was destroyed, it only took three days to rebuild it. As to the people who inhabited these wretched hovels, Froissart, who was by no means given to exaggeration, assures us, that the French, unless they had seen them, could not have believed that such destitution existed, and that now, for the first time, they understood what poverty really was.66

 

After this period, there was, no doubt, considerable improvement; but it was very slow, and even late in the sixteenth century, skilled labour was hardly known, and honest industry was universally despised.67 It is not, therefore, surprising, that the citizens, poor, miserable, and ignorant, should frequently purchase the protection of some powerful noble by yielding to him the little independence that they might have retained.68 Few of the Scotch towns ventured to elect their chief magistrate from among their own people; but the usual course was, to choose a neighbouring peer as provost or baillie.69 Indeed, it often happened that his office became hereditary, and was looked upon as the vested right of some aristocratic family.70 To the head of that family, every thing gave way. His authority was so incontestable, that an injury done even to one of his retainers was resented, as if it had been done to himself.71 The burgesses who were sent to parliament, were completely dependent on the noble who ruled the town. Down to quite modern times, there was in Scotland no real popular representation. The so-called representatives were obliged to vote as they were ordered; they were, in fact, delegates of the aristocracy; and as they possessed no chamber of their own, they sat and deliberated in the midst of their powerful masters, by whom they were openly intimidated.72

 

Under these circumstances, it would have been idle for the crown to have expected aid from a body of men who themselves had no influence, and whose scanty privileges existed only on sufferance. But there was another class, which was extremely powerful, and to which the Scotch kings naturally turned. That class was the clergy; and the interest which both parties had in weakening the nobles, caused a coalition between the church and the throne, against the aristocracy. During a long period, and indeed until the latter half of the sixteenth century, the kings almost invariably favoured the clergy, and increased their privileges in every way they could. The Reformation dissolved this alliance, and gave rise to new combinations, which I shall presently indicate. But while the alliance lasted, it was of great use to the clergy, by imparting to their claims a legitimate sanction, and making them appear the supporters of order and of regular government. The result, however, clearly proved that the nobles were more than equal to the confederacy which opposed them. Indeed, looking at their enormous power, the only wonder is, that the clergy could have prolonged the contest as they did; since they were not actually overthrown until the year 1560. That the struggle should have been so arduous, and should have extended over so considerable a period, is what, on a superficial view, no one could have expected. The reason of this, I shall now endeavour to explain; and I shall, I trust, succeed in proving, that in Scotland there was a long train of general causes, which secured to the spiritual classes immense influence, and which enabled them, not only to do battle with the most powerful aristocracy in Europe, but to rise up, after what seemed their final defeat, fresh and vigorous as ever, and eventually to exercise, as Protestant preachers, an authority nowise inferior to that which they had wielded as Catholic priests.

Of all Protestant countries, Scotland is certainly the one where the course of affairs has for the longest period been most favourable to the interests of superstition. How these interests were encouraged during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, I shall hereafter relate. At present, I purpose to examine the causes of their early growth, and to show the way in which they were not only connected with the Reformation, but gave to that great event some peculiarities which are extremely remarkable, and are diametrically opposed to what happened in England.

If the reader will bear in mind what I have elsewhere stated,73 he will remember that the two principal sources of superstition are ignorance and danger; ignorance keeping men unacquainted with natural causes, and danger making them recur to supernatural ones. Or, to express the same proposition in other words, the feeling of veneration, which, under one of its aspects, takes the form of superstition, is a product of wonder and of fear;74 and it is obvious that wonder is connected with ignorance, and that fear is connected with danger.75 Hence it is, that whatever in any country increases the total amount of amazement, or whatever in any country increases the total amount of peril, has a direct tendency to increase the total amount of superstition, and therefore to strengthen the hands of the priesthood.

By applying these principles to Scotland, we shall be able to explain several facts in the history of that country. In the first place the features of its scenery offer a mark contrast to those of England, and are much more likely, among an ignorant people, to suggest effective and permanent superstitions. The storms and the mists, the darkened sky flashed by frequent lightning, the peals of thunder reverberating from mountain to mountain, and echoing on every side, the dangerous hurricanes, the gusts sweeping the innumerable lakes with which the country is studded, the rolling and impetuous torrent flooding the path of the traveller and stopping his progress, are strangely different to those safer and milder phenomena, among which the English people have developed their prosperity, and built up their mighty cities. Even the belief in witchcraft, one of the blackest superstitions which has ever defaced the human mind, has been affected by these peculiarities; and it has been well observed, that while, according to the old English creed, the witch was a miserable and decrepit hag, the slave rather than the mistress of the demons which haunted her, she, in Scotland, rose to the dignity of a potent sorcerer, who mastered the evil spirit, and, forcing it to do her will, spread among the people a far deeper and more lasting terror.76

Similar results were produced by the incessant and sanguinary wars to which Scotland was exposed, and especially by the cruel ravages of the English in the fourteenth century. Whatever religion may be in the ascendant, the influence of its ministers is invariably strengthened by a long and dangerous war, the uncertainties of which perplex the minds of men, and induce them, when natural resources are failing, to call on the supernatural for help. On such occasions, the clergy rise in importance; the churches are more than usually filled; and the priest, putting himself forward as the exponent of the wishes of God, assumes the language of authority, and either comforts the people under their losses in a righteous cause, or else explains to them that those losses are sent as a visitation for their sins, and as a warning that they have not been sufficiently attentive to their religious duties; in other words, that they have neglected rites and ceremonies, in the performance of which the priest himself has a personal interest.

No wonder, therefore, that in the fourteenth century, when the sufferings of Scotland were at their height, the clergy flourished more than ever; so that as the country became poorer, the spiritual classes became richer in proportion to the rest of the nation. Even in the fifteenth, and first half of the sixteenth century, when industry began somewhat to advance, we are assured that notwithstanding the improvement in the position of laymen, the whole of their wealth put together, and including the possessions of all ranks, was barely equal to the wealth of the Church.77 If the hierarchy were so rapacious and so successful during a period of comparative security, it would be difficult to overrate the enormous harvest they must have reaped in those earlier days, when danger being much more imminent, hardly any one died without leaving something to them; all being anxious to testify their respect towards those who knew more than their fellows, and whose prayers could either avert present evil, or secure future happiness.78

Another consequence of these protracted wars was, that a more than ordinary proportion of the population embraced the ecclesiastical profession, because in it alone there was some chance of safety: and the monasteries in particular were crowded with persons who hoped, though frequently in vain, to escape from the burnings and slaughterings to which Scotland was exposed. When the country, in the fifteenth century, began to recover from the effects of these ravages, the absence of manufactures and of commerce, made the Church the best avenue to wealth;79 so that it was entered by peaceful men for the purpose of security, and by ambitious men as the surest means of achieving distinction.

Thus it was, that the want of great cities, and of that form of industry which belongs to them, made the spiritual classes more numerous than they would otherwise have been; and what is very observable is, that it not only increased their number, but also increased the disposition of the people to obey them. Agriculturists are naturally, and by the very circumstances of their daily life, more superstitious than manufacturers, because the events with which they deal are more mysterious, that is to say, more difficult to generalize and predict.80 Hence it is, that, as a body, the inhabitants of agricultural districts pay greater respect to the teachings of their clergy than the inhabitants of manufacturing districts. The growth of cities has, therefore, been a main cause of the decline of ecclesiastical power; and the fact that, until the eighteenth century, Scotland had nothing worthy of being called a city, is one of many circumstances which explain the prevalence of Scotch superstition, and the inordinate influence of the Scotch clergy.

To this, we must add another consideration of great moment. Partly from the structure of the country, partly from the weakness of the Crown, and partly from the necessity of being constantly in arms to repel foreign invaders, the predatory habits incidental to an early state of society were encouraged, and consequently the reign of ignorance was prolonged. Little was studied, and nothing was known. Until the fifteenth century, there was not even an university in Scotland, the first having been founded at St. Andrews in 1412.81 The nobles, when they were not making war upon the enemy, occupied themselves in cutting each other's throats, and stealing each other's cattle.82 Such was their ignorance, that, even late in the fourteenth century, there is said to be no instance of a Scotch baron being able to sign his own name.83 And as nothing approaching to a middle class had been yet formed, we may from this gain some idea of the amount of knowledge possessed by the people at large.84 Their minds must have been immersed in a darkness which we can now barely conceive. No trades, or arts, being practised which required skill, or dexterity, there was nothing to exercise their intellects. They consequently remained so stupid and brutal, that an intelligent observer, who visited Scotland in the year 1360, likens them to savages, so much was he struck by their barbarism and their unsocial manners.85 Another writer, early in the fifteenth century, uses the same expression; and classing them with the animals which they tended, he declares that Scotland is fuller of savages than of cattle.86

By this combination of events, and by this union of ignorance with danger, the clergy had, in the fifteenth century, obtained more influence in Scotland than in any other European country, Spain alone excepted. And as the power of the nobles had increased quite as rapidly, it was natural that the Crown, completely overshadowed by the great barons, should turn for aid to the Church. During the fifteenth century, and part of the sixteenth, this alliance was strictly preserved;87 and the political history of Scotland is the history of a struggle by the kings and the clergy against the enormous authority of the nobles. The contest, after lasting about a hundred and sixty years, was brought to a close in 1560, by the triumph of the aristocracy, and the overthrow of the Church. With such force, however, had the circumstance just narrated, engrained superstition into the Scotch character, that the spiritual classes quickly rallied, and, under their new name of Protestants, they became as formidable as under their old name of Catholics. Forty-three years after the establishment of the Reformation in Scotland, James VI. ascended the throne of England, and was able to array the force of the southern country against the refractory barons of the northern. From that moment the Scotch aristocracy began to decline; and the equipoise to the clergy being removed, the Church became so powerful, that, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was the most effectual obstacle to the progress of Scotland; and even now it exercises a sway which is incomprehensible to those who have not carefully studied the whole chain of its antecedents. To trace with minuteness the long course of affairs which has led to this unfortunate result, would be incompatible with the object of an Introduction, whose only aim it is to establish broad and general principles. But, to bring the question clearly before the mind of the reader, it will be necessary that I should give a slight sketch of the relation which the nobles bore to the clergy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and of the way in which their relative positions, and their implacable hatred of each other, brought about the Reformation. By this means, we shall perceive, that the great Protestant movement, which, in other countries, was democratic, was in Scotland aristocratic. We shall also see, that, in Scotland, the Reformation, not being the work of the people, has never produced the effects which might have been expected from it, and which it did produce in England. It is, indeed, but too evident, that, while in England Protestantism has diminished superstition, has weakened the clergy, has increased toleration, and, in a word, has secured the triumph of secular interests over ecclesiastical ones, its result in Scotland has been entirely different; and that, in that country, the Church, changing its form, without altering its spirit, not only cherished its ancient pretensions, but unhappily retained its ancient power; and that, although that power is now dwindling away, the Scotch preachers still exhibit, whenever they dare, an insolent and domineering spirit, which shows how much real weakness there yet lurks in the nation, where such extravagant claims are not immediately silenced by the voice of loud and general ridicule.

CHAPTER II
CONDITION OF SCOTLAND IN THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES

Early in the fifteenth century, the alliance between the Crown and the Church, and the determination of that alliance to overthrow the nobles, became manifest. Indications of this may be traced in the policy of Albany, who was Regent from 1406 to 1419, and who made it his principal object to encourage and strengthen the clergy.88 He also dealt the first great blow upon which any government had ventured against the aristocracy. Donald, who was one of the most powerful of the Scottish chieftains, and who, indeed, by the possession of the Western Isles, was almost an independent prince, had seized the earldom of Ross, which, if he could have retained, would have enabled him to set the Crown at defiance. Albany, backed by the Church, marched into his territories, in 1411, forced him to renounce the earldom, to make personal submission, and to give hostages for his future conduct.89 So vigorous a proceeding on the part of the executive, was extremely unusual in Scotland;90 and it was the first of a series of aggressions, which ended in the Crown obtaining for itself, not only Ross, but also the Western Isles.91 The policy inaugurated by Albany, was followed up with still greater energy by James I. In 1424, this bold and active prince procured an enactment, obliging many of the nobles to show their charters, in order that it might be ascertained what lands they held, which had formerly belonged to the Crown.92 And, to conciliate the affections of the clergy, he, in 1425, issued a commission, authorizing the Bishop of Saint Andrews to restore to the Church whatever had been alienated from it; while he at the same time directed that the justiciaries should assist in enforcing execution of the decree.93 This occurred in June; and what shows that it was part of a general scheme is, that in the preceding spring, the king suddenly arrested, in the parliament assembled at Perth, upwards of twenty of the principal nobles, put four of them to death, and confiscated several of their estates.94 Two years afterwards, he, with equal perfidy, summoned the Highland chiefs to meet him at Inverness, laid hands on them also, executed three, and imprisoned more than forty, in different parts of the kingdom.95

By these measures, and by supporting the Church with the same zeal that he attacked the nobles, the king thought to reverse the order of affairs hitherto established, and to secure the supremacy of the throne over the aristocracy.96 But herein, he overrated his own power. Like nearly all politicians, he exaggerated the value of political remedies. The legislator and the magistrate may, for a moment, palliate an evil; they can never work a cure. General mischiefs depend upon general causes, and these are beyond their art. The symptoms of the disease they can touch, while the disease itself baffles their efforts, and is too often exasperated by their treatment. In Scotland, the power of the nobles was a cruel malady, which preyed on the vitals of the nation; but it had long been preparing; it was a chronic disorder; and, having worked into the general habit, it might be removed by time, it could never be diminished by violence. On the contrary, in this, as in all matters, whenever politicians attempt great good, they invariably inflict great harm. Over-action on one side produces reaction on the other, and the balance of the fabric is disturbed. By the shock of conflicting interests, the scheme of life is made insecure. New animosities are kindled, old ones are embittered, and the natural jar and discordance are aggravated, simply because the rulers of mankind cannot be brought to understand, that, in dealing with a great country, they have to do with an organization so subtle, so extremely complex, and withal so obscure, as to make it highly probable, that whatever they alter in it, they will alter wrongly, and that while their efforts to protect or to strengthen its particular parts are extremely hazardous, it does undoubtedly possess within itself a capacity of repairing its injuries, and that to bring such capacity into play, there is merely required that time and freedom which the interference of powerful men too often prevents it from enjoying.

Thus it was in Scotland, in the fifteenth century. The attempts of James I. failed, because they were particular measures directed against general evils. Ideas and associations, generated by a long course of events, and deeply seated in the public mind, had given to the aristocracy immense power; and if every noble in Scotland had been put to death, if all their castles had been razed to the ground, and all their estates confiscated, the time would unquestionably have come, when their successors would have been more influential than ever, because the affection of their retainers and dependents would be increased by the injustice that had been perpetrated. For, every passion excites its opposite. Cruelty to-day, produces sympathy to-morrow. A hatred of injustice contributes more than any other principle to correct the inequalities of life, and to maintain the balance of affairs. It is this loathing at tyranny, which, by stirring to their inmost depth the warmest feelings of the heart, makes it impossible that tyranny should ever finally succeed. This, in sooth, is the noble side of our nature. This is that part of us, which, stamped with a godlike beauty, reveals its divine origin, and, providing for the most distant contingencies, is our surest guarantee that violence shall never ultimately triumph; that, sooner or later, despotism shall always be overthrown; and that the great and permanent interests of the human race shall never be injured by the wicked counsels of unjust men.

In the case of James I., the reaction came sooner than might have been expected; and, as it happened in his lifetime, it was a retribution, as well as a reaction. For some years, he continued to oppress the nobles with impunity;97 but, in 1436, they turned upon him, and put him to death, in revenge for the treatment to which he had subjected many of them.98 Their power now rose as suddenly as it had fallen. In the south of Scotland, the Douglases were supreme,99 and the earl of that family possessed revenues about equal to those of the Crown.100 And, to show that his authority was equal to his wealth, he, on the marriage of James II., in 1449, appeared at the nuptials with a train composed of five thousand followers.101 These were his own retainers, armed and resolute men, bound to obey any command he might issue to them. Not, indeed, that compulsion was needed on the part of a Scotch noble to secure the obedience of his own people. The servitude was a willing one, and was essential to the national manners. Then, and long afterwards, it was discreditable, as well as unsafe, not to belong to a great clan; and those who were so unfortunate as to be unconnected with any leading family, were accustomed to take the name of some chief, and to secure his protection by devoting themselves to his service.102

What the Earl of Douglas was in the south of Scotland, that were the Earls of Crawford and of Ross in the north.103 Singly they were formidable; united they seemed irresistible. When, therefore, in the middle of the fifteenth century, they actually leagued together, and formed a strict compact against all their common enemies, it was hard to say what limit could be set to their power, or what resource remained to the government, except that of sowing disunion among them.104

But, in the mean time, the disposition of the nobles to use force against the Crown, had been increased by fresh violence. Government, instead of being warned by the fate of James I., imitated his unscrupulous acts, and pursued the very policy which had caused his destruction. Because the Douglases were the most powerful of all the great families, it was determined that their chiefs should be put to death; and because they could not be slain by force, they were to be murdered by treachery. In 1440, the Earl of Douglas, a boy of fifteen, and his brother, who was still younger than he, were invited to Edinburgh on a friendly visit to the king. Scarcely had they arrived, when they were seized by order of the chancellor, subjected to a mock trial, declared guilty, dragged to the castle-yard, and the heads of the poor children cut off.105

Considering the warm feelings of attachment which the Scotch entertained for their chiefs, it is difficult to overrate the consequences of this barbarous murder, in strengthening a class it was hoped to intimidate. But this horrible crime was committed by the government only, and it occurred during the king's minority: the next assassination was the work of the king himself. In 1452, the Earl of Douglas106 was, with great show of civility, requested by James II. to repair to the court then assembled at Stirling. The Earl hesitated, but James overcame his reluctance by sending to him a safeconduct with the royal signature, and issued under the great seal.107 The honour of the king being pledged, the fears of Douglas were removed. He hastened to Stirling, where he was received with every distinction. The evening of his arrival, the king, after supper was over, broke out into reproaches against him, and, suddenly drawing his dagger, stabbed him. Gray then struck him with a battle-axe, and he fell dead on the floor, in presence of his sovereign, who had lured him to court, that he might murder him with impunity.108

The ferocity of the Scotch character, which was the natural result of the ignorance and poverty of the nation, was, no doubt, one cause, and a very important one, of the commission of such crimes as these, not secretly, but in the open light of day, and by the highest men in the State. It cannot, however, be denied, that another cause was, the influence of the clergy, whose interest it was to humble the nobles, and who were by no means scrupulous as to the means that they employed.109 As the Crown became more alienated from the aristocracy, it united itself still closer with the Church. In 1443, a statute was enacted, the object of which was, to secure ecclesiastical property from the attacks made upon it by the nobles.110 And although, in that state of society, it was easier to pass laws than to execute them, such a measure indicated the general policy of the government, and the union between it and the Church. Indeed, as to this, no one could be mistaken.111 For nearly twenty years, the avowed and confidential adviser of the Crown was Kennedy, bishop of Saint Andrews, who retained power until his death, in 1466, during the minority of James III.112 He was the bitter enemy of the nobles, against whom he displayed an unrelenting spirit, which was sharpened by personal injuries; for the Earl of Crawford had plundered his lands, and the Earl of Douglas had attempted to seize him, and had threatened to put him into irons.113 The mildest spirit might well have been roused by this; and as James II., when he assassinated Douglas, was more influenced by Kennedy than by any one else, it is probable that the bishop was privy to that foul transaction. At all events, he expressed no disapprobation of it; and when, in consequence of the murder, the Douglases and their friends rose in open rebellion, Kennedy gave to the king a crafty and insidious counsel, highly characteristic of the cunning of his profession. Taking up a bundle of arrows, he showed James, that when they were together, they were not to be broken; but that, if separated, they were easily destroyed. Hence he inferred, that the aristocracy should be overthrown by disuniting the nobles, and ruining them one by one.114

48. ‘This city was founded about the sixth century.’ M'Ure's History of Glasgow, edit. 1830, p. 120. Compare Denholm's History of Glasgow, p. 2, Glasgow, 1804.
49. In 1172, a market was granted to Glasgow; and in 1190, a fair. See the charters in the Appendix to Gibson's History of Glasgow, pp. 299, 302, Glasgow, 1777.
50. ‘By the sale of land made by Robert de Mythyngby to Mr. Reginald de Irewyne, a. d. 1268, it is evident that the town was then governed by provosts, aldermen, or wardens, and baillies, who seem to have been independent of the bishop, and were possessed of a common seal, distinct from the one made use of by the bishop and chapter.’ Gibson's History of Glasgow, p. 72.
51. ‘A Mr. William Elphinston is made mention of as the first promoter of trade in Glasgow, so early as the year 1420; the trade which he promoted was, in all probability, the curing and exporting of salmon.’ Gibson's History of Glasgow, p. 203. See also M'Ure's History of Glasgow, p. 93.
52. Gibson (History of Glasgow, p. 74), with every desire to take a sanguine view of the early state of his own city, says, that, in 1450, the inhabitants ‘might perhaps amount to fifteen hundred;’ and that ‘their wealth consisted in a few burrow-roods very ill-cultivated, and in some small cattle, which fed on their commons.’
53. ‘Dunfermline continued to be a favourite royal residence as long as the Scottish dynasty existed. Charles I. was born here; as also his sister Elizabeth, afterwards Queen of Bohemia, from whom her present Majesty is descended; and Charles II. paid a visit to this ancient seat of royalty in 1650. The Scottish parliament was often held in it.’ M'Culloch's Geographical Dictionary, London, 1849, vol. i. p. 723. Compare Mercer's History of Dunfermline, 1828, pp. 56, 58, and Chalmers' History of Dunfermline, 1844, p. 264.
54. In 1385, it was ‘only a sorry wooden village, belonging to the monastery.’ Mercer's History of Dunfermline, p. 62.
55. See ‘Ms. Annals,’ in Chalmers' History of Dunfermline, p. 327. In 1624, we learn from Balfour's Annales, edit. 1825, vol. ii. p. 99, that ‘the quholl bodey of the towne, which did consist of 120 tenements, and 287 families was brunt and consumed.’
56. ‘Greenock, which is now one of the largest shipping towns in Scotland, was, in the end of the sixteenth century, a mean fishing village, consisting of a single row of thatched cottages, which was inhabited by poor fishermen.’ Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. iii. p. 806, 4to, 1824.
57. In May 1668, Kilmarnock was burnt; and ‘the event is chiefly worthy of notice as marking the smallness of Kilmarnock in those days, when as yet, there was no such thing as manufacturing industry in the country. A hundred and twenty families speaks to a population of between five and six hundred.‘ Chambers' Annals, Edinburgh, 1858, vol. ii. p. 320. In 1658, their houses are described by an eye-witness as ‘little better than huts.‘ Franck's Northern Memoirs, reprinted Edinburgh, 1821, p. 101.
58. ‘Betwixt two and three thousand souls,‘ Denholm's History of Glasgow, p. 542, edit. Glasgow, 1804.
59. In 1572, the registers of Aberdeen show that seventy-two deaths occurred in the year. An annual mortality of 1 in 40 would be a very favourable estimate; indeed, rather too favourable, considering the habits of the people at that time. However, supposing it to be 1 in 40, the population would be 2880; and if, as I make no doubt, the mortality was more than 1 in 40, the population must of course have been less. Kennedy, in his valuable, but very uncritical, work, conjectures that ‘one fiftieth part of the inhabitants had died annually;’ though it is certain that there was no town in Europe any thing like so healthy as that. On this hypothesis, which is contradicted by every sort of statistical evidence that has come down to us, the number would be 72 × 50 = 3600. See Kennedy's Annals of Aberdeen, vol. i. p. 103, London, 1818, 4to.
60. ‘St. Andrews, Perth, and Aberdeen, appear to have been the three most populous cities before the Reformation.’ Lawson's Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, 1836, p. 26. The same assertion is made in Lyon's History of St. Andrews, 1843, vol. i. p. 2. But neither of these writers appear to have made many researches on the subject, or else they would not have supposed that Aberdeen was larger than Edinburgh.
61. I have carefully read the two histories of St. Andrews, by Dr. Grierson and by Mr. Lyon, but have found nothing in them of any value concerning the early history of that city. Mr. Lyon's work, which is in two thick volumes, is unusually superficial, even for a local history; and that is saying much.
62. ‘Of the thirteen parliaments held in the reign of King James I., eleven were held at Perth, one at Stirling, and one at Edinburgh. The National Councils of the Scottish clergy were held there uniformly till 1459. Though losing its pre-eminence by the selection of Edinburgh as a capital, Perth has uniformly and constantly maintained the second place in the order of burghs, and its right to do so has been repeatedly and solemnly acknowledged.’ Penny's Traditions of Perth, Perth, 1836, p. 231. See also p. 305. It appears, however, from Froissart, that Edinburgh was deemed the capital in the latter half of the fourteenth century.
63. I find one instance of its being praised by a man who was not a Scotchman. Alexander Necham ‘takes notice of Perth in the following distich, quoted in Camden's Britannia: Transis ample Tai, per rura, per oppida, per Perth: Regnum sustentant illius urbis opes. Thus Englished in Bishop Gibson's Translations of Camden's Book: Great Tay, through Perth, through towns, through country flies: Perth the whole kingdom with her wealth supplies.’ Sinclair's Scotland, vol. xviii. p. 511.
64. 1427 × 6 = 8562, the computed population in 1584 and 1585, exclusive of the extraordinary mortality caused by the plague. Chambers' Annals of Scotland, 1858, vol. i. p. 158.
65. ‘The inhabitants of the capital, in the reign of Robert II., hardly exceeded sixteen thousand.’ Pinkerton's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 152.
66. When the French arrived in Edinburgh, the Scotch said, ‘“Quel diable les a mandés? Ne savons-nous pas bien faire notre guerre sans eux aux Anglois? Nous ne ferons jà bonne besogne tant comme ils soient avec nous. On leur dise que ils s'en revoisent, et que nous sommes gens assez en Escosse pour parmaintenir notre guerre, et que point nous ne voulons leur compagnie. Ils ne nous entendent point, ni nous eux; nous ne savons parler ensemble; ils auront tantôt riflé et mangé tout ce qui est en ce pays: ils nous feront plus de contraires, de dépits, et de dommages, si nous les laissons convenir, que les Anglois ne feroient si ils s'étoient embattus entre nous sans ardoir. Et si les Anglois ardent nos maisons, que peut il chaloir? Nous les aurons tantôt refaites à bon marché, nous n'y mettons au refaire que trois jours, mais que nous ayons quatre ou six estaches et de la ramée pour lier par dessus.”’ ‘Ainsi disoient les Escots en Escosse à la venue des seigneurs de France,’ … ‘Et quand les Anglois y chevauchent ou que ils y vont, ainsi que ils y ont été plusieurs fois, il convient que leurs pourvéances, si ils veulent vivre, les suivent toujours au dos; car on ne trouve rien sur le pays: à grand'peine y recuevre-l'en du fer pour serrer les chevaux, ni du cuir pour faire harnois, selles ni brides. Les choses toutes faites leur viennent par mer de Flandre, et quand cela leur défaut, ils n'ont nulle chose. Quand ces barons et ces chevaliers de France qui avoient appris ces beaux hôtels à trouver, ces salles parées, ces chasteaux et ces bons mols lits pour reposer, se virent et trouvèrent en celle povreté, si commencèrent à rire et à dire: “En quel pays nous a ci amenés l'amiral? Nous ne sçumes oncques que ce fût de povreté ni de dureté fors maintenant.”’ Les Chroniques de Froissart, edit. Buchon, Paris, 1835, vol. ii. pp. 314, 315. ‘The hovels of the common people were slight erections of turf, or twigs, which, as they were often laid waste by war, were built merely for temporary accommodation. Their towns consisted chiefly of wooden cottages,’ … ‘Even as late as 1600, the houses of Edinburgh were chiefly built of wood.’ Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. i. p. 802. Another account, written in 1670, says, ‘The houses of the commonalty are very mean, mudwall and thatch, the best; but the poorer sort live in such miserable huts as never eye beheld.’ … ‘In some parts, where turf is plentiful, they build up little cabbins thereof, with arched roofs of turf, without a stick of timber in it; when the house is dry enough to burn, it serves them for fuel, and they remove to another.’ Harleian Miscellany, vol. vi. p. 139, 4to, 1810.
67. ‘Our manufactures were carried on by the meanest of the people, who had small stocks, and were of no reputation. These were, for the most part, workmen for home-consumpt, such as masons, house-carpenters, armourers, blacksmiths, taylors, shoemakers, and the like. Our weavers were few in number, and in the greatest contempt, as their employments were more sedentary, and themselves reckoned less fit for war, in which all were obliged to serve, when the exigencies of the country demanded their attendance.’ The Interest of Scotland Considered, Edinburgh, 1733, p. 82. Pinkerton (History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 392), referring to the Sloane manuscripts, says, ‘The author of an interesting memoir concerning the state of Scotland about 1590, observes, that the husbandmen were a kind of slaves, only holding their lands from year to year; that the nobility being too numerous for the extent of the country, there arose too great an inequality of rank and revenue; and there was no middle station between a proud landholder and those who, having no property to lose, were ready for any tumult. A rich yeomanry, numerous merchants and tradesmen of property, and all the denominations of the middle class, so important in a flourishing society, were long to be confined to England.’ Thirteen years later, we are told that the manufactures of Scotland ‘were confined to a few of the coarsest nature, without which the poorest nations are unable to subsist.’ Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 7, under the year 1603.
68. Thus, for instance, ‘the town of Dunbar naturally grew up under the shelter of the castle of the same name.’ … ‘Dunbar became the town, in demesn, of the successive Earls of Dunbar and March, partaking of their influences, whether unfortunate or happy.’ Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. ii. p. 416. ‘But when the regal government became at any time feeble, these towns, unequal to their own protection, placed themselves under the shelter of the most powerful lord in their neighbourhood. Thus, the town of Elgyn found it necessary, at various periods between the years 1389 and 1452, to accept of many charters of protection, and discharges of taxes, from the Earls of Moray, who held it in some species of vassalage.’ Sinclair's Scotland, vol. v. p. 3. Compare Pinkerton's History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 396; and two letters, written in 1543 and 1544, by the magistrates of Aberdeen, to the Earl of Huntly, and printed in the Council Register of Aberdeen, vol. i. pp. 190, 201, Aberdeen, 1844, 4to. They say to him, ‘Ye haf our band as protectour to wss.’
69. Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 225. See also p. 131; and Pinkerton's History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 179. Sometimes the nobles did not leave to the citizens even the appearance of a free election, but fought it out among themselves. An instance of this happened at Perth, in 1544, ‘where a claim for the office of provost was decided by arms, between Lord Ruthven on the one side, supported by a numerous train of his vassals, and Lord Gray, with Norman Leslie, master of Rothes, and Charteris of Kinfauns, on the other.’ Tytler, vol. iv. p. 323.
70. For illustrations of this custom, see Hollinshead's Scottish Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 230. Brown's History of Glasgow, vol. ii. p. 154. Denholm's History of Glasgow, p. 249. Mercer's History of Dunfermline, p. 83.
71. ‘An injury inflicted on the “man” of a nobleman was resented as much as if he himself had been the injured party.’ Preface to the Council Register of Aberdeen, vol. i. p. xii.
72. See, in Macaulay's History of England, vol. i. p. 93, 1st edit., a spirited description of Scotland in 1639. ‘The parliament of the northern kingdom was a very different body from that which bore the same name in England.’ … ‘The three estates sat in one house. The commissioners of the burghs were considered merely as retainers of the great nobles,’ &c. To come down much later, Lord Cockburn gives a terrible account of the state of things in Scotland in 1794, the year in which Jeffrey was called to the bar. ‘There was then, in this country, no popular representation, no emancipated burghs, no effective rival of the established church, no independent press, no free public meetings, and no better trial by jury, even in political cases (except high treason), than what was consistent with the circumstances, that the jurors were not sent into court under any impartial rule, and that, when in court, those who were to try the case were named by the presiding judge. The Scotch representatives were only forty-five, of whom thirty were elected for counties, and fifteen for towns. Both from its price and its nature (being enveloped in feudal and technical absurdities), the elective franchise in counties, where alone it existed, was far above the reach of the whole lower, and of a great majority of the middle, and of many even of the higher, ranks. There were probably not above 1500 or 2000 county electors in all Scotland; a body not too large to be held, hope included, in government's hands. The return, therefore, of a single opposition member was never to be expected.’ … ‘Of the fifteen town members, Edinburgh returned one. The other fourteen were produced by clusters of four or five unconnected burghs electing each one delegate, and these four or five delegates electing the representative. Whatever this system may have been originally, it had grown, in reference to the people, into as complete a mockery as if it had been invented for their degradation. The people had nothing to do with it. It was all managed by town-councils, of never more than thirty-three members; and every town-council was self-elected, and consequently perpetuated its own interests. The election of either the town or the county member was a matter of such utter indifference to the people, that they often only knew of it by the ringing of a bell, or by seeing it mentioned next day in a newspaper; for the farce was generally performed in an apartment from which, if convenient, the public could be excluded, and never in the open air.’ Cockburn's Life of Jeffrey, Edinburgh, 1852, vol. i. pp. 74–76. On the state of Scotch representation between this and the Reform Bill, compare Irving's History of Dumbartonshire, 4to, 1860, pp. 275, 276, with Moore's Memoirs, edited by Lord John Russell, vol. iv. p. 268, vol. vi. p. 163, London, 1853–4.
73. History of Civilization, vol. i. pp. 125–129, 373–380.
74. History of Civilization, vol. ii. p. 171.
75. We must discriminate between wonder and admiration. Wonder is the product of ignorance; admiration is the product of knowledge. Ignorance wonders at the supposed irregularities of nature; science admires its uniformities. The earlier writers rarely attended to this distinction, because they were misled by the etymology of the word ‘admiration.’ The Romans were very superficial thinkers upon all matters except jurisprudence; and their blundering use of ‘admirari’ gave rise to the error, so common among our old writers, of ‘I admire,’ instead of ‘I wonder.’
76. ‘Our Scottish witch is a far more frightful being than her supernatural coadjutor on the south side of the Tweed. She sometimes seems to rise from the proper sphere of the witch, who is only the slave, into that of the sorcerer, who is master of the demon.’ … ‘In a people so far behind their neighbours in domestic organization, poor and hardy, inhabiting a country of mountains, torrents, and rocks, where cultivation was scanty, accustomed to gloomy mists and wild storms, every impression must necessarily assume a corresponding character. Superstitions, like funguses and vermin, are existences peculiar to the spot where they appear, and are governed by its physical accidents.’ … ‘And thus it is that the indications of witchcraft in Scotland are as different from those of the superstition which in England receives the same name, as the Grampian Mountains from Shooter's Hill or Kennington Common.’ Burton's Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. i. pp. 240–243. This is admirably expressed, and exhausts the general view of the subject. The relation between the superstition of the Scotch and the physical aspects of their country is also touched upon, though with much inferior ability, in Brown's History of the Highlands, vol. i. p. 106, and in Sinclair's Scotland, vol. iv. p. 560. Hume, in his Commentaries on the Laws of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 556, has an interesting passage on the high pretensions of Scotch witchcraft, which never degenerated, as in other countries, into a mere attempt at deception, but always remained a sturdy and deep-rooted belief. He says, ‘For among the many trials for witchcraft which fill the record, I have not observed that there is even one which proceeds upon the notion of a vain or cheating art, falsely used by an impostor to deceive the weak and credulous.’ Further information respecting Scotch witchcraft will be found in Mackenzie's Criminal Laws of Scotland, Edinburgh, folio, 1699, pp. 42–56; Correspondence of Mrs. Grant of Laggan, London, 1844, vol. iii. pp. 186, 187; Southey's Life of Bell, London, 1844, vol. i. p. 52; Vernon Correspondence, edited by James, London, 1841, vol. ii. p. 301; Weld's History of the Royal Society, London, 1848, vol. i. p. 89; Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland, edit. 1815, vol. i. pp. 220, 221; The Spottiswoode Miscellany, vol. ii. p. 41, Edinburgh, 1845; Lyon's History of St. Andrews, Edinburgh, 1843, vol. ii. pp. 56, 57. The work of James I., and that of Sir Walter Scott, need hardly be referred to, as they are well known to every one who is interested in the history of witchcraft; but Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, though less read, are, in every respect, more valuable, on account of the materials they contain for a study of this department of Scotch superstition.
77. Pinkerton (History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 414) says that, in the reigns of James II. and James III., ‘the wealth of the Church was at least equivalent to that of all the lay interest.’ See also Life of Spottiswoode, p. liii., in vol. i. of his History of the Church of Scotland. ‘The numerous devices employed by ecclesiastics, both secular and regular, for enriching the several Foundations to which they were attached, had transferred into their hands more than half of the territorial property of Scotland, or of its annual produce.’ In regard to the first half of the sixteenth century, it is stated by a high authority, that, just before the Reformation, ‘the full half of the wealth of the nation belonged to the clergy.’ M'Crie's Life of Knox, p. 10. And another writer says, ‘If we take into account the annual value of all these abbeys and monasteries, in conjunction with the bishoprics, it will appear at once that the Scottish Catholic hierarchy was more munificently endowed, considering the extent and resources of the kingdom, than it was in any other country in Europe.’ Lawson's Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, p. 22. See also, respecting the incomes of the Scotch bishops, which, considering the poverty of the country, were truly enormous, Lyon's History of St. Andrews, Edinburgh, 1843, vol. i. pp. 97, 125.
78. ‘They could employ all the motives of fear and of hope, of terror and of consolation, which operate most powerfully on the human mind. They haunted the weak and the credulous; they besieged the beds of the sick and of the dying; they suffered few to go out of the world without leaving marks of their liberality to the Church, and taught them to compound with the Almighty for their sins, by bestowing riches upon those who called themselves his servants.’ History of Scotland, book ii. p. 89, in Robertson's Works, London, 1831. It is interesting to observe the eagerness with which the clergy of one persuasion expose the artifices of those of another. By comparing their different statements, laymen gain an insight into the entire scheme.
79. Pinkerton observes, under the year 1514, that ‘ecclesiastical dignities presented almost the only path to opulence.’ History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 123.
80. Buckle's History of Civilization, vol. i. pp. 376–380.
81. Arnot (History of Edinburgh, p. 386) says, that the University of St. Andrews was founded in 1412; and the same thing is stated in Kennedy's Annals of Aberdeen, vol. ii. p. 83. Grierson, in his History of St. Andrews, Cupar, 1838, p. 14, says, ‘In 1410, the city of St. Andrews first saw the establishment of its famous university, the most ancient institution of the kind that exists in Scotland;’ but, at p. 144 of the same work, we are told, that the charter, ‘constituting and declaring it to be a university,’ is ‘dated at St. Andrews, the 27th of February, 1411.’ See also Lyon's History of St. Andrews, vol. i. pp. 203–206, vol. ii. p. 223. At all events, ‘at the commencement of the fifteenth century, no university existed in Scotland; and the youth who were desirous of a liberal education were under the necessity of seeking it abroad.’ M'Crie's Life of Melville, vol. i. p. 211. The charter granted by the Pope, confirming the university, reached Scotland in 1413. Lawson's Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, Edinburgh, 1836, p. 12.
82. Those were times, when, as a Scotch lawyer delicately expresses himself, ‘thieving was not the peculiar habit of the low and indigent, but often common to them with persons of rank and landed estate.’ Hume's Commentaries on the Law of Scotland, 4to, 1797, vol. i. p. 126. The usual form of robbery being cattle-stealing, a particular name was invented for it; see p. 148, where we learn that it ‘was distinguished by the name of Hership or Herdship, being the driving away of numbers of cattle, or other bestial, by the masterful force of armed people.’
83. Tytler, who was a great patriot, and disposed to exaggerate the merit of everything which was Scotch, does nevertheless allow that, “from the accession of Alexander III. to the death of David II. (i. e. in 1370), it would be impossible, I believe, to produce a single instance of a Scottish baron who could sign his own name.” Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 239, 240. Early in the sixteenth century, I find it casually mentioned, that ‘David Straiton, a cadet of the house of Laureston,’ … ‘could not read.’ Wodrow's Collections, vol. i. pp. 5, 6. The famous chief, Walter Scott of Harden, was married in 1567; and ‘his marriage contract is signed by a notary, because none of the parties could write their names.’ Chambers' Annals, vol. i. p. 46. Crawfurd (History of Renfrew, part iii. p. 313) says: ‘The modern practice of subscribing names to writes of moment was not used in Scotland till about the year 1540;’ but he forgets to tell us why it was not used. In 1564, Robert Scot of Thirlstane, ‘ancestor of Lord Napier,’ could not sign his name. See Pitcairn's Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. iii. p. 394.
84. A Scotchman, of considerable learning, says: ‘Scotland was no less ignorant and superstitious at the beginning of the fifteenth century, than it was towards the close of the twelfth.’ Dalrymple's Annals of Scotland, vol. i. p. 428.
85. ‘Et sont ainsi comme gens sauvages qui ne se savent avoir ni de nulli accointer.’ Les Chroniques de Froissart, edit. Buchon, Paris, 1835, vol. ii. p. 315.
86. ‘Plus pleine de sauvagine que de bestail.’ Hist. de Charles VI, par Le Laboureur, quoted in Pinkerton's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 149.
87. Occasionally, we find evidence of it earlier, but it was hardly systematic. Compare Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 66, with Dalrymple's Annals, vol. i. pp. 72, 110, 111, 194, vol. iii. p. 296; Nimmo's History of Stirlingshire, p. 88; Chalmers' History of Dunfermline, pp. 133, 134.
88. ‘The Church was eminently favoured by Albany.’ Pinkerton's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 86. But Pinkerton misunderstands his policy in regard to the nobles.
89. Skene's Highlanders, vol. ii. pp. 72–74; Browne's History of the Highlands, vol. i. p. 162, vol. iv. pp. 435, 436.
90. Chalmers (Caledonia, vol. i. pp. 826, 827), referring to the state of things before Albany, says, ‘There is not a trace of any attempt by Robert II. to limit the power of the nobles, whatever he may have added, by his improvident grants, to their independence. He appears not to have attempted to raise the royal prerogative from the debasement in which the imprudence and misfortunes of David II. had left it.’ And, of his successor, Robert III., ‘So mild a prince, and so weak a man, was not very likely to make any attempt upon the power of others, when he could scarcely support his own.’
91. In 1476, ‘the Earldom of Ross was inalienably annexed to the Crown; and a great blow was thus struck at the power and grandeur of a family which had so repeatedly disturbed the tranquillity of Scotland.’ Gregory's History of the Western Highlands, Edinburgh, 1836, p. 50. In 1493, ‘John, fourth and last Lord of the Isles, was forfeited, and deprived of his title and estates.’ Ibid. p. 58.
92. As those who held crown lands were legally, though not in reality, the king's tenants, the act declared, that ‘gif it like the king, he may ger sūmonde all and sindry his tenand at lauchfull day and place to schawe thar chartis.’ The Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 4, § 9, edit. folio, 1814.
93. ‘On the 8th June, 1425, James issued a commission to Henry, bishop of St. Andrews, authorising him to resume all alienations from the Church, with power of anathema, and orders to all justiciaries to assist.’ This curious paper is preserved in Harl. Ms. 4637, vol. iii. f. 189. Pinkerton's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 116. Archbishop Spottiswoode, delighted with his policy, calls him a ‘good king,’ and says that he built for the Carthusians ‘a beautiful monastery at Perth, bestowing large revenues upon the same.’ Spottiswoode's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. i. p. 113. And Keith assures us that, on one occasion, James I. went so far as to give to one of the bishops ‘a silver cross, in which was contained a bit of the wooden cross on which the apostle St. Andrew had been crucified.’ Keith's Catalogue of Scotch Bishops, Edinburgh, 1755, 4to, p. 67.
94. Compare Balfour's Annales, vol. i. pp. 153–156, with Pinkerton's History, vol. i. pp. 113–115. Between these two authorities there is a slight, but unimportant, discrepancy.
95. Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iii. pp. 95–98; Skene's Highlanders, vol. ii. p. 75; and an imperfect narrative in Gregory's History of the Western Highlands, p. 35.
96. Tytler (History of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 126), under the year 1433, says: ‘In the midst of his labours for the pacification of his northern dominions, and his anxiety for the suppression of heresy, the king never forgot his great plan for the diminution of the exorbitant power of the nobles.’ See also p. 84. ‘It was a principle of this enterprising monarch, in his schemes for the recovery and consolidation of his own power, to cultivate the friendship of the clergy, whom he regarded as a counterpoise to the nobles.’ Lord Somerville (Memorie of the Somervilles, vol. i. p. 173) says, that the superior nobility were ‘never or seldome called to counsell dureing this king's reign.’
97. Compare Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. ii. p. 263, with Buchanan's Rerum Scoticarum Historia, lib. x. p. 286.
98. Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iii. pp. 157, 158.
99. Lindsay of Pitscottie (Chronicles, vol. i. p. 2) says, that directly after the death of James I., ‘Alexander, Earle of Douglas, being uerie potent in kine and friendis, contemned all the kingis officeris, in respect of his great puissance.’ The best account I have seen of the rise of the Douglases is in Chalmers' learned, but ill-digested, work, Caledonia, vol. i. pp. 579–583.
100. In 1440, ‘the chief of that family had revenues perhaps equivalent to those of the Scottish monarch.’ Pinkerton's History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 192.
101. ‘It may give us some idea of the immense power possessed at this period by the Earl of Douglas, when we mention, that on this chivalrous occasion, the military suite by which he was surrounded, and at the head of which he conducted the Scottish champions to the lists, consisted of a force amounting to five thousand men.’ Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 215. The old historian of his family says: ‘He is not easy to be dealt with; they must have mufles that would catch such a cat. Indeed, he behaved himself as one that thought he would not be in danger of them; he entertained a great family; he rode ever well accompanied when he came in publick; 1000 or 2000 horse were his ordinary train.’ Hume's History of the House of Douglas, vol. i. pp. 273, 274, reprinted Edinburgh, 1743.
102. In the seventeenth century, ‘To be without a chief, involved a kind of disrepute; and those who had no distinct personal position of their own, would find it necessary to become a Gordon or a Crichton, as prudence or inclination might point out.’ Burton's Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. i. p. 207. Compare Pitcairn's Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. iii. p. 250, on ‘the protective surname of Douglas;’ and Skene's Highlanders, vol. ii. p. 252, on the extreme importance attached to the name of Macgregor.
103. ‘Men of the greatest puissance and force next the Douglases that were in Scotland in their times.’ Hume's History of the House of Douglas, vol. i. p. 344. The great power of the Earls of Ross in the north, dates from the thirteenth century. See Skene's Highlanders, vol. i. pp. 133, 134, vol. ii. p. 52.
104. In 1445, the Earl of Douglas concluded ‘ane offensiue and defensiue league and combinatione aganist all, none excepted, (not the king himselue), with the Earle of Crawfurd, and Donald, Lord of the Isles; wich was mutually sealled and subscriued by them three, the 7 day of Marche.’ Balfour's Annales, vol. i. p. 173. This comprised the alliance of other noble families. ‘He maid bandis with the Erle of Craufurd, and with Donald lorde of the Ylis, and Erle of Ross, to take part every ane with other, and with dyvers uther noble men also.’ Lesley's History of Scotland, from 1436 to 1561, p. 18.
105. An interesting account of this dastardly crime is given in Hume's History of the House of Douglas, vol. i. pp. 274–288, where great, but natural, indignation is expressed. On the other hand, Lesley, bishop of Ross, narrates it with a cold-blooded indifference, characteristic of the ill-will which existed between the nobles and the clergy, and which prevented him from regarding the murder of two children as an offence. ‘And eftir he was set doun to the burd with the governour, chancellour, and otheris noble men present, the meit was sudantlie removed, and ane bullis heid presented, quhilk in thay daies was ane signe of executione; and incontinent the said erle, David his broder, and Malcolme Fleming of Cummernald, wer heidit before the castell yett of Edenburgh.’ Lesley's History, p. 16.
106. The cousin of the boys who were murdered in 1440. See Hume's History of the House of Douglas, vol. i. pp. 297, 816.
107. ‘With assurance under the broad seal.’ Hume's House of Douglas, vol. i. p. 351. See also Nimmo's History of Stirlingshire, Edinb. 1777, pp. 246, 322, 323.
108. Hume's House of Douglas, vol. i. pp. 351–353. The king ‘stabbed him in the breast with a dagger. At the same instant Patrick Gray struck him on the head with a pole-ax. The rest that were attending at the door, hearing the noise, entred, and fell also upon him; and, to show their affection to the king, gave him every man his blow after he was dead.’ Compare Lindsay of Pitscottie's Chronicles of Scotland, vol. i. p. 103. ‘He strak him throw the bodie thairwith; and thairefter the guard, hearing the tumult within the chamber, rusched in and slew the earle out of hand.’
109. In Nimmo's History of Stirlingshire, pp. 99, 100, the alienation of the nobles from the Church is dated ‘from the middle of the fifteenth century;’ and this is perhaps correct in regard to general dislike, though the movement may be clearly traced fifty years earlier.
110. See Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 33, edit. folio, 1814; respecting the ‘statute of haly kirk quhilk is oppressit and hurt.’
111. In 1449, James II., ‘with that affectionate respect for the clergy, which could not fail to be experienced by a prince who had successfully employed their support and advice to escape from the tyranny of his nobles, granted to them some important privileges.’ Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 226. See also p. 309. Among many similar measures, he conceded to the monks of Paisley some important powers of jurisdiction that belonged to the Crown. Charter, 13th January, 1451–2, in Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. iii. p. 823.
112. Pinkerton's History of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 188, 209, 247, 254. Keith's Catalogue of Scotch Bishops, p. 19. Ridpath's Border History, p. 298. Hollinshead's Scottish Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 101. In Somerville's Memorie of the Somervilles, vol. i. p. 213, it is stated, under the year 1452, that fear of the great nobles ‘had once possest his majestie with some thoughts of going out of the countrey; but that he was perswaded to the contrary by Bishop Kennedie, then Archbishop of Saint Andrewes, whose counsell at that tyme and eftirward, in most things he followed, which at length proved to his majesties great advantage.’ See also Lesley's History, p. 23. ‘The king wes put to sic a sharp point, that he wes determinit to haif left the realme, and to haif passit in Fraunce by sey, were not that bischop James Kennedy of St. Androis causit him to tarrye.’
113. ‘His lands were plundered by the Earl of Crawford and Alexander Ogilvie of Inveraritie, at the instigation of the Earl of Douglas, who had farther instructed them to seize, if possible, the person of the bishop, and to put him in irons.’ Memoir of Kennedy, in Chambers' Lives of Scotchmen, vol. iii. p. 307, Glasgow, 1834. ‘Sed Kennedus et ætate, et consilio, ac proinde auctoritate cæteros anteibat. In eum potissimum ira est versa. Crafordiæ comes et Alexander Ogilvius conflato satis magno exercitu, agros ejus in Fifa latè populati, dum prædam magis, quam causam sequuntur, omni genere cladis in vicina etiam prædia grassati, nemine congredi auso pleni prædarum in Angusiam revertuntar. Kennedus ad sua arma conversus comitem Crafordiæ disceptationem juris fugientem diris ecclesiasticis est prosecutus.’ Buchanan, Rerum Scoticarum Historia, lib. xi. p. 306.
114. ‘This holie bischop schew ane similitud to the king, quhilk might bring him to experience how he might invaid againes the Douglass, and the rest of the conspiratouris. This bischop tuik furth ane great scheife of arrowes knitt togidder werrie fast, and desired him to put thame to his knie, and break thame. The king said it was not possible, becaus they war so many, and so weill fastened togidder. The bischop answeired, it was werrie true, bot yitt he wold latt the king sea how to break thame: and pulled out on be on, and tua be tua, quhill he had brokin thame all; then said to the king, “Yea most doe with the conspiratouris in this manner, and thair complices that are risen againes yow, quho are so many in number, and so hard knit togidder in conspiracie againes yow, that yea cannot gett thame brokin togidder. Butt be sick pratick as I have schowin yow be the similitud of thir arrowes, that is to say, yea must conqueis and break lord by lord be thamselffis, for yea may not deall with thame all at once.”’ Lindsay of Pitscottie's Chronicles of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 172, 173.