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i 


THE   SCOTTISH 
HISTORICAL    REVIEW 


PUBLISHED  BY 

JAMES  MACLEHOSE  AND  SONS,   GLASGOW, 
the  Itnibmtig. 


MACMILLAN  AND    CO.,    LTD.,    LONDON. 

New  York,  •  •  The  Macmillan  Co. 

Toronto  ',  -    -  -  The  Macmillan  Co.  of  Canada. 

London,  •    •  •  Simpkin,  Hatnilton  and  Co. 

Cambridge,  •  -  Bowes  and  Bowes. 

Edinburgh,  •  -  Douglas  and  Foulis. 

Sydney,    -    •  •  Angus  and  Robertson. 

MCMXIII. 


*5 


THE,  $ 

SCOTTISH 
HISTORICAL 
REVIEW 


Volume    Tenth 

:Q 


GLASGOW 
JAMES   MACLEHOSE   AND    SONS 

PUBLISHERS    TO    THE    UNIVERSITY 
1913 


750 


Contents 


TAGS 


Lord  Elgin  in  Canada,   1847-1854.     By  J.  L.  Morison  i 

The  Scottish  Progress  of  James  VI.     By  the  Hon.  G.  A. 

Sinclair  2 1 

The  Origin  of  the  Holy  Loch  in  Cowall,  Argyll.     By 

Niall  D.  Campbell      -  29 

A  Mass  of  St.  Ninian.    With  Introduction  by  F.  C.  Eeles  35 

The  Honorific  cThe.'     By  James  Dallas      -  39 

The  Seafield  Correspondence.     By  the  Earl  of  Cassillis  47 

Jacobite  Papers  at  Avignon.     By  R.  W.  Twigge,  F.S.A.  60 

The  Chronicle  of  Lanercost.    Translated  by  the  Rt.  Hon. 

Sir  Herbert  Maxwell,  Bart.  -                                       76,  174 

Loose  and  Broken  Men.    By  R.  B.  Cunninghame  Graham  113 

A  Forgotten  Scottish  Scholar  of  the  Sixteenth  Century. 

By  P.  Hume  Brown  -  122 

Authorship   of  the    Chronicle  of  Lanercost.     By   Rev. 

James  Wilson    -  138 

Hamilton    of   Kincavil    and    the    General   Assembly    of 

1563.     By  J.  R.  N.  Macphail     -         -         -  156 


vi  Contents 

PACE 

James    Mill  in    Leadenhall  Street,   1819-1836.     By  W. 

Foster  162 

The    Royal    Scottish   Academy.      By   Sir   John    Stirling 

Maxwell,  Bart.     With  Illustration  233 

The  Influence  of  the  Convention  of  the  Royal  Burghs  of 
Scotland  on  the  Economic  Development  of  Scotland 
before  1707.  By  Theodora  Keith  250 

Original  Charters  of  the  Abbey  of  Cupar,   1219-1448. 

By  Rev.  James  Wilson  272 

Arthur  Johnston  in  his  Poems.     By  T.  D.  Robb    -  287 

The  Castle  Campbell  Inventory.     By  Niall  D.  Campbell  -       299 

Some  Seventeenth  Century  Diaries  and   Memoirs.      By 

C.  H.  Firth  329 

Four  Representative  Documents  of  Scottish  History.     By 

Professor  Hume  Brown  347 

The  Trade  of  Orkney  at  the  End  of  the  Eighteenth 

Century.     By  W.  R.  Scott  -  360 

Dr.  Blacklock's  Manuscripts.     By  Frank  Miller     -  369 

A  Sixteenth   Century    Rental   of  Haddington.      By  C. 

Cleland  Harvey  -  377 

The  Origin  of  the  Convention  of  the  Royal  Burghs  of 
Scotland  :  with  a  Note  on  the  Connection  of  the 
Chamberlain  with  the  Burghs.  By  Theodora  Keith  -  384 

Reviews  of  Books  88,  185,  306,  403 


Contents 


Vll 


Notes  and  Replies — 


The    Foundation   of  Nostell   and   Scone.      By   Rev.  James 
Wilson,    with    Notes    by   J.    Maitland    Thomson    and 

Sir  Archibald  C.  Lawrie    -  -<v  -  228 

The  Honorific  'The.'     By  Sir  Herbert  Maxwell,  Bart.      -  230 

«O,  Kenmure's  On  and  Awa,  Willie.'     By  Frank  Miller  -  231 

Scottish    Pilgrims    in    Italy.      By    Rev.    J.    Wood    Brown, 

Florence   -  -  232 

Burgh  of  Dunbar  Charters  -v  232 

The     Early     History     of     Galloway.        By     Sir     Herbert 

Maxwell,  Bart.-  -  325 

A  Scots  Dictionary.     By  A.  M.  Williams  -  326 

The  Word  'Whig.'     By  Sir  James  A.  H.  Murray   -         -  328 

Robertson  of  Cults  (Aberdeenshire).     By  G.  C.  Robertson  -  328 

Sir  Robert  Moray  and   the   Lives   of  the    Hamiltons.      By 

Alexander  Robertson-  -  438 

In  Byways  of  Scottish  History  -  -  440 

Index          -  -  -  441 


Illustrations 


Sir  Henry  Savile 


PAGE 
I92 


The    North-West    View    of    Rose    Castle    in    the    County    of 

Cumberland-         --------       200 


The  Royal  Scottish  Academy  - 
Lanercost  Priory  Church 
Lord  Kames  - 


240 
405 
424 


Contributors  to  this  Volume 


C.  T.  Atkinson 

R.  Blair 

Professor  Hume  Brown 

Rev.  J.  Wood  Brown 

Niall  D.  Campbell 

Earl  of  Cassillis 

James  L.  Caw 

A.  H.  Charteris 

Julian  S.  Corbett 

A.  R.  Cowan 

James  Dallas 

William  Dunbar 

John  Edwards 

F.  C.  Eeles 

C.  H.  Firth 

W.  Foster 

Gilbert  Goudie 

R.  B.  Cunninghame  Graham 

W.  R.  Halliday 

C.  Cleland  Harvey 

T.  F.  Henderson 

J.  C.  Hodgson 


Theodora  Keith 

W.  P.  Ker 

Sir  Archd.  C.  Lawrie 

George  Macdonald 

W.  S.  McKechnie 

W.  M.  Mackenzie 

J.  D.  Mackie 

James  MacLehose 

J.  R.  N.  Macphail 

Andrew  Marshall 

Sir  Herbert  Maxwell,  Bart. 

Sir  John  Stirling  Maxwell 

J.  H.  Millar 

Frank  Miller 

Rev.  Prof.  Milligan 

Henry  W.  Meikle 

Prof.  J.  L.  Morison 

David  Murray 

Sir  James  A.  H.  Murray 

George  Neilson 

David  Ogg 

Sir  J.  Balfour  Paul 


xii  Contributors 

Prof.  F.  M.  Powicke  The  Hon.  George  A.  Sinclair 

Robert  S.  Rait  David  Baird  Smith 

Robt.  Renwick  A.  Francis  Steuart 

T.  D.  Robb  J.  Maitland  Thomson 

Alex.  Robertson  R.  W.  Twigge 

G.  C.  Robertson  A.  M.  Williams 

Rev.  Prof.  Robertson  Rev.  James  Wilson 
W.  R.  Scott 


The  .; 

Scottish   Historical    Review 

VOL.  X.,  No.  37  OCTOBER  1912 

Lord    Elgin    in    Canada.1      1847-1854. 

EARLY  chapters  in  the  history  of  the  British  Empire  have 
as  their  heroes  desperadoes,  soldiers,  men  of  exciting 
personality  and  external  achievement ;  for  in  an  irrational  world 
the  drum  and  trumpet  play  a  very  real  part.  But  when  warfare 
has  died  down  into  administration,  and  administration  has  begun 
to  assume  its  more  democratic  forms,  the  new  leaders,  who  lack 
the  bustle  and  circumstance  of  the  earlier  men,  make  less  impres- 
sion on  the  popular  mind,  and  the  modern  world  enters  into  the 
fruit  of  their  labours  forgetful  of  men  too  civilized  to  be 
impressive. 

Of  such  too  readily  forgotten  statesmen,  the  eighth  earl  of 
Elgin  and  Kincardine  is  one  of  the  foremost.  He  dominated 
Canada  during  seven  critical  years  in  the  most  critical  period  of 
Canadian  history — 1841-1867;  but  since  his  work  was  not  that 
of  war  but  only  of  its  prevention,  and  of  the  creation  of  Canadian 
self-government,  he  has  been  relegated  to  the  background  of 
history,  to  make  room  for  more  romantic  figures.  It  is  time  to 
restore  him  to  his  rightful  place  of  pre-eminence. 

The  Canadian  episode  in  Elgin's  career  furnishes  the  most 
perfect  and  permanently  useful  service  rendered  by  him  to  the 

1 1  desire  to  acknowledge  the  debt  which  this  sketch  owes  to  Dr.  A.  G.  Doughty 
of  the  Dominion  Archives,  Ottawa,  through  whose  courtesy  I  was  permitted  to 
read  all  the  Elgin  Papers  deposited  with  him.  The  volumes  of  Elgin-Grey 
Correspondence,  at  present  being  prepared  at  Ottawa  for  publication  by  Dr. 
Doughty  and  Dr.  Adam  Shortt,  will  be  one  of  the  most  important  contributions  to 
the  history  of  the  Empire  made  in  recent  years. 

S.H.R.  VOL.  X.  A 


2  J.  L.   Morison 

Empire.  Although  he  gathered  laurels  in  China  and  India,  and 
earned  a  notable  place  among  the  diplomatists  of  Britain,  nothing 
that  he  did  is  so  representative  of  the  whole  man,  so  useful 
to  others,  and  so  completely  rounded  and  finished  off  as  are  the 
seven  years  of  hard  work  in  Canada.  Elsewhere  he  did  work 
which  others  had  done,  or  might  have  done,  as  well.  But  in  the 
history  of  the  self-governing  dominions  of  Britain,  his  name  is 
almost  the  first  of  those  who  assisted  in  creating  an  Empire  the 
secret  of  whose  strength  was  to  be  local  autonomy. 

Elgin  belonged  to  the  greatest  group  of  nineteenth  century 
politicians — early  Victorians  their  self-appreciative  critics  now  call 
them.  With  Gladstone,  Canning,  Dalhousie,  Herbert,  and 
others,  he  served  his  apprenticeship  under  Sir  Robert  Peel.  All 
of  that  younger  generation  reflected  the  sobriety,  the  love  of  hard 
fact,  the  sound  but  progressive  conservatism,  and  the  high  adminis- 
trative faculty  of  their  great  master.  It  was  an  epoch  when 
changes  had  to  come  ;  but  the  soundest  minds  tended,  in  spite 
of  a  vehement  English  party  tradition,  to  view  the  work  ahead 
of  them  in  a  non-partizan  spirit.  Gladstone  himself,  for  long, 
seemed  about  to  repeat  the  party-breaking  record  of  Peel ;  and 
three  great  proconsuls  of  the  group,  Dalhousie,  Canning,  and 
Elgin,  found  in  imperial  administration  a  more  congenial  task 
than  Westminster  could  offer  them.  Elgin  occupies  a  mediate 
position  between  the  administrative  careers  of  Dalhousie  and 
Canning,  and  the  Parliamentary  and  constitutional  labours  of 
Gladstone.  He  was  that  strange  being,  a  constitutionalist  pro- 
consul ;  and  his  chief  work  in  administration  lay  in  so  altering 
the  relation  of  his  office  to  Canadian  popular  government,  as  to 
take  from  it  much  of  its  initiative,  and  to  make  a  great  surrender 
to  popular  opinion.  Between  his  arrival  in  Montreal  at  the 
end  of  January,  1 847,  and  the  writing  of  his  last  official  despatch 
on  December  18,  1854,  he  had  established  on  sure  foundations 
the  system  of  democratic  government  in  Canada. 

Following  on  a  succession  of  short-lived  and  troubled  governor- 
ships, Elgin  was  faced,  on  his  accession  to  power  in  1847,  with 
the  three  great  allied  problems  with  which  Canada  then  confronted 
her  English  governors — the  character  of  the  government  to  be 
conceded  to  the  colonists,  the  question  of  the  recognition  to  be 
given  to,  or  withheld  from,  French  nationalist  feeling,  and  the 
nature  of  the  connection  with  her  colonies,  which  surrenders  to 
local  feeling  on  the  first  and  second  points,  would  leave  to  the 
mother  country.  All  three  difficulties  took  additional  significance 


Lord  Elgin  in  Canada  3 

from  the  fact  that  the  example  of  Canada  was  certain,  mutatis 
mutandis,  to  be  followed  by  the  other  greater  colonies  of  the 
British  race. 

On  the  first  issue  Elgin  found  opinion  in  a  highly  aggravated 
condition.  The  rebellion  of  1837  had  made  it  plain  that  the 
former  grant  of  semi-representative  government  was  useless, 
unless  British  statesmen  were  willing  to  let  representative  govern- 
ment be  followed  by  its  necessary  consequence — a  ministry 
representing  the  majority  in  the  popular  assembly,  accepted  and 
consulted  by  the  local  representative  of  the  Crown.  But  neither 
Whigs  nor  Tories  were  prepared  to  make  so  complete  a  surrender 
to  local  autonomy.  A  considerable  section  of  the  colonists  had 
but  lately  made  armed  resistance  to  British  government,  and  many, 
especially  among  the  French  leaders,  had  been  at  least  suspects 
in  1837  and  1838.  The  Canadian  community  was  still  in  its 
immature  youth,  and  its  leaders  had  had  few  opportunities  of 
learning  political  methods — except  perhaps,  which  was  worse  than 
ignorance,  some  democratic  crudities  from  the  United  States. 
The  population  was  composed  of  Frenchmen  who  had  already 
rebelled,  Irishmen  whose  conduct  at  home  and  in  America  under 
the  stimulus  of  famine  and  nationalist  agitation  could  hardly  have 
been  more  threatening,  and  if  there  were  Scotch  and  English  in 
Upper  Canada,  the  majority  had  come  from  the  unenfranchised 
classes  in  Britain,  and  were  of  the  submerged  three-fourths — the 
helots  of  English  politics.  At  best,  government  could  be  entrusted 
only  to  very  carefully  selected  representatives  of  this  sub-political 
mass.  A  popular  assembly  might  state  its  views,  but  how  could 
the  Governor-General  accept  its  dictation  in  the  making  of  his 
Executive  Council  ? 

A  constitutional  subtlety  complicated  the  general  situation, 
arising  from  the  difference  between  the  relations  of  the  ministers 
to  the  Crown  in  Britain,  and  of  the  ministers  to  the  Governor- 
General  in  Canada.  Lord  John  Russell  defined  the  point  in  a 
famous  despatch  to  Poulett  Thomson,  the  first  governor  of  the 
United  Provinces.1  *  The  power  for  which  a  minister  is  respon- 
sible in  England  is  not  his  own  power,  but  the  power  of  the 
Crown,  of  which  he  is  for  the  time  the  organ.  It  is  obvious  that 
the  executive  councillor  of  a  colony  is  in  a  situation  totally 
different.  The  Governor,  under  whom  he  serves,  receives  his 
orders  from  the  Crown  of  England  ;  but  can  the  colonial  council 
be  the  advisers  of  the  Crown  of  England  ?  Evidently  not,  for 

1  Russell  to  Poulett  Thomson  (later,  Lord  Sydenham),  14.  October,  1839. 


4  J.  L.   Morison 

the  Crown  has  other  advisers,  for  the  same  functions,  and  with 
superior  authority/ 

This  constitutional  point,  operating  in  conjunction  with  the 
natural  unwillingness  of  Britain  to  let  colonists  usurp  too  much 
authority  in  what  were,  after  all,  imperial  concerns,  created  a 
curious  dilemma  for  Russell,  fresh  from  democratic  innovations 
in  Britain  itself.  Russell  centred  his  hopes  on  mutual  for- 
bearance— 'The  Governor  must  only  oppose  the  wishes  of  the 
Assembly  when  the  honour  of  the  Crown,  or  the  interest  of  the 
empire  are  deeply  concerned  ;  and  the  Assembly  must  be  ready 
to  modify  some  of  its  measures  for  the  sake  of  harmony,  and 
from  a  reverent  attachment  to  the  authority  of  Great  Britain/ l 

But  opportunism  is  useless  where  a  direct  political  principle  is 
at  stake,  where  the  home  government  has  avowedly  gone  half 
way  towards  concession,  and  where  they  refuse,  on  principle,  to 
complete  their  surrender.  The  very  reason  which  drives  them  to 
resist  further  concession,  must  force  the  colonial  democrats  to 
insist  on  their  rights.  From  1841  to  1846,  a  battle  royal  raged 
over  this  ground.2  Sydenham,  one  of  the  ablest  servants  of  the 
empire  in  his  time,  accepted  Russell's  principle,  and,  combining 
in  his  own  person  the  offices  of  Governor-General  and  Prime 
Minister,  attempted  at  once  to  maintain  the  dignity  of  the 
Governor,  that  is,  the  predominance  of  the  mother  country,  and 
by  management  and  occasionally  by  subtle  corruption,  to  placate 
the  local  Progressive  party.  After  a  brilliant  Parliamentary 
session — that  of  1841 — he  found  his  cabinet  on  the  brink  of 
defeat ;  only  a  premature  death  saved  him  from  confessing  his 
failure.  His  successor,  Bagot,  surrendering  in  the  face  of  orders 
to  the  contrary  from  the  colonial  office,  was  endured  at  home  for 
a  short  year ;  and,  on  his  retirement  through  ill  health,  Sir 
Charles  Metcalfe,  who  followed  him,  came  to  maintain,  and  more 
than  maintain,  Lord  John  Russell's  status  quo,  backed  by  the  entire 
approval  of  Stanley,  who  was  then  administering  the  Colonial 
Office  with  all  his  power  of  brilliant  and  doctrinaire  short- 
sightedness. Unfortunately  for  Metcalfe  and  Stanley,  a  Progres- 
sive party  had  organized  itself  in  the  province  of  Upper  and 
Lower  Canada,  with  the  demand  for  c  responsible  government ' 
as  the  main  plank  in  their  platform — Robert  Baldwin,  a  con- 
scientious, sure-footed  Whig  lawyer,  leading  Upper  Canadian 

1  Russell  to  Poulett  Thomson,  14  October,  1839. 

*  For  the  conflict,  see  Scrope,  Life  of  Lord  Sydenham ;  Kaye,  Life  of  Metcalfe  : 
and  Dent,  Forty  Tears  of  Canada. 


Lord  Elgin  in  Canada  5 

resistance  to  Government,  and  Lower  Canada  finding  in  La 
Fontaine  a  French  leader  who  had  learned,  and  could  teach  his 
followers,  how  to  resist  on  constitutional  lines.  The  personal 
influence  of  Metcalfe,  based  on  his  great  generosity  and  single- 
mindedness,  the  assistance  of  all  the  old  Canadian  Tories,  and  the 
uncomfortable  feeling  that  the  Progressives  were,  somehow  or 
other,  disloyal,  held  Canada  in  a  state  of  unstable  equilibrium. 
But  this  could  hardly  endure. 

When  Elgin  arrived  in  1847  the  alternatives  were  a  grant 
of  really  responsible  government,  or  a  rebellion,  with  annexation 
to  the  United  States  as  its  probable  end.  The  new  Governor 
saw  very  clearly  the  dangers  of  his  predecessor's  policy.  *  The 
distinction,'  he  wrote  at  a  later  date,  *  between  Lord  Metcalfe's 
policy  and  mine  is  twofold.  In  the  first  place  he  profoundly 
distrusted  the  whole  Liberal  party  in  the  province — that  great 
party  which,  excepting  at  extraordinary  conjunctures,  has  always 
carried  with  it  the  mass  of  the  constituencies.  He  believed  its 
designs  to  be  revolutionary,  just  as  the  Tory  party  in  England 
believed  those  of  the  Whigs  and  Reformers  to  be  in  1832.  And 
secondly,  he  imagined  that  when  circumstances  forced  the  party 
upon  him,  he  could  check  these  revolutionary  tendencies  by 
manifesting  his  distrust  of  them,  more  especially  in  the  matter  of 
the  distribution  of  patronage,  thereby  relieving  them  in  a  great 
measure  from  that  responsibility  which  is  in  all  free  countries 
the  most  effectual  security  against  the  abuse  of  power,  and 
tempting  them  to  endeavour  to  combine  the  role  of  popular 
tribunes  with  the  prestige  of  ministers  of  the  crown/  1 

And  Metcalfe's  anti-democratic  policy  had  been  something 
more  than  the  expression  of  a  personal  mood  ;  for  when  Glad- 
stone, then  for  a  few  months  Colonial  Secretary,  wrote  to  instruct 
Cathcart,  who  was  acting  Governor  in  succession  to  Metcalfe,  he 
assured  him  that  *  the  favour  of  his  sovereign  and  the  acknow- 
ledgment of  his  country,  have  marked  (Metcalfe's)  administration 
as  one  which,  under  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  task  he  had 
to  perform,  may  justly  be  regarded  as  a  model  for  his  successors! 2  In 
truth,  the  British  Colonial  Office  was  not  only  wrong  in  its 
working  theory,  but  ignorant  of  the  boiling  tumult  of  Canadian 
opinion  in  these  days,  the  steadily  increasing  vehemence  of  the 
demand  for  true  home  rule,  and  the  enormous  risk  which  existed, 

1  Elgin-Grey  Corr.  :    Elgin  to  Grey  on  Grey's  Colonial  Policy,  8  October, 
1852. 

2  Gladstone  to  Cathcart,  3  February,  1846.     The  italics  are  my  own. 


6  J.  L.  Morison 

that  French  nationalism,  Irish  nationalism,  and  American  aggres- 
sion, would  be  united  in  the  agitation  until  the  political  tragedy 
should  find  its  consummation  in  another  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence. 

Never  was  man  better  fitted  for  his  work  than  Elgin.  He 
came,  a  Scotsman  to  a  colony  one-third  Scottish,  and  the  name  of 
Bruce  was  itself  soporific  to  a  perfervid  section  of  the  reformers. 
His  wife  was  the  daughter  of  Lord  Durham,  whom  Canadians 
regarded  as  the  beginner  of  a  new  age  of  Canadian  constitu- 
tionalism. He  had  been  appointed  by  a  Whig  Government,  and 
Earl  Grey,  the  new  Colonial  Secretary,  was  already  learned  in 
liberal  theory,  both  in  politics  and  economics,  understanding 
that  Britons,  abroad  as  at  home,  must  have  liberty  to  misgovern 
themselves.  c  However  unwise  as  relates  to  the  real  interests  of 
Canada  their  measures  may  be,'  he  wrote  to  Elgin  a  propos  of  an 
early  crisis,  'they  must  be  acquiesced  in,  until  it  shall  pretty 
clearly  appear  that  public  opinion  will  support  a  resistance  to 
them/ l  Besides  all  this,  Elgin's  personal  qualities  were  ^precisely 
those  best  fitted  to  control  a  would-be  self-governing  community. 
He  had  the  Scottish  gifts  of  caution  and  pawky  humour.  He 
had,  to  an  extraordinary  degree,  the  power  of  seeing  both  sides, 
and  more  especially  the  other  side,  of  any  question.  In  Canada, 
too,  as  later  in  China  and  India,  he  exhibited  qualities  of  humanity 
which  some  might  term  quixotic,  and  which  are  certainly  often 
lacking  in  proconsular  minds.2  And,  as  will  be  illustrated  very 
fully  below,  his  gifts  of  tact  and  bonhomie  made  him  one  of  the 
most  notable  diplomatists  of  his  time,  and  gave  Britain  at  least 
one  clear  diplomatic  victory  over  America. 

His  solution  of  the  constitutional  question  was  so  natural  and 
easy  that  the  reader  of  his  despatches  forgets  how  completely 
Elgin's  task  had  baffled  all  his  predecessors,  and  that  several 
generations  of  colonial  secretaries  had  refused  to  admit  what  in 
his  hands  seems  a  self-evident  constitutional  truth.  He  came  to 
Canada  with  a  traditional  suspicion  of  the  French  Canadians  and 
the  British  Canadian  Progressives,  and  within  a  year  he  had 
accepted  a  cabinet  composed  entirely  of  these  two  sections.  On 
his  way  to  the  formation  of  that  cabinet  he  had  not  only  brushed 
aside  old  suspicions,  but  he  had  refused  to  surrender  to  the 
seductions  of  the  eclectic  principle,  whereby  his  predecessors  had 

1  Elgin-Grey  Corr.  :  Grey  to  Elgin,  22  February,  1848. 

2  Walrond,  Letters  and  Journals  of  Lord  Elgin,  p.  424.     *  During  a  public  service 
of  twenty-five  years  I  have  always  sided  with  the  weaker  party.' 


Lord  Elgin  in  Canada  7 

evaded  the  force  of  popular  opinion  by  selecting  representatives 
of  all  shades  of  that  opinion — a  plan  which  in  practice  secured  in- 
dividuals, but  severed  them  in  sympathy  from  the  parties  which 
they  were  supposed  to  represent.  It  was  important,  he  saw,  to 
remove  that  '  most  delicate  and  debatable  subject '  responsible 
government  from  the  region  of  party  politics  ;  and  he  did  this 
by  conceding  the  whole  position.  *  I  never  cease,'  he  wrote  of 
Sydenham's  policy,  c  to  marvel  what  study  of  human  nature,  or 
of  history,  led  him  to  the  conclusion  that  it  would  be  possible  to 
concede  to  a  pushing  and  enterprising  people,  unencumbered  by 
an  aristocracy,  and  dwelling  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the 
United  States,  such  constitutional  privileges  as  were  conferred  on 
Canada  at  the  time  of  the  Union,  and  yet  to  restrict  in  practice 
their  powers  of  self-government  as  he  proposed.' 1 

When  his  first  general  election  proved  beyond  a  doubt  that 
Canadians  desired  a  Progressive  ministry,  he  made  the  change 
in  1848  with  perfect  success.  It  was  the  year  of  revolution, 
and  the  men  whom  he  called  to  advise  him  were  '  persons  denounced 
very  lately  by  the  Secretary  of  State  to  the  Governor-General  as 
impracticable  and  disloyal '  ; 2  but  before  the  year  was  out  he  was 
able  to  boast  *  that  when  so  many  thrones  are  tottering  and  the 
allegiance  of  so  many  people  is  waxing  faint,  there  is  less  political 
disaffection  in  Canada  than  there  ever  was  before.'3  From  1848 
until  the  year  of  his  recall  he  remained  in  complete  accord  with 
this  Liberal  administration,  and  never  was  constitutional  monarch 
more  intimately  and  usefully  connected  with  his  ministers  than 
was  Elgin,  first  with  Baldwin  and  La  Fontaine,  and  then  with 
Hincks  and  Morin. 

Elgin  gave  a  rarer  example  of  what  fidelity  to  colonial 
constitutionalism  meant.  In  these  years  of  Liberalism,  c  Old 
Toryism '  faced  a  new  strain,  and  faced  it  badly.  The  party  had 
supported  the  empire,  when  that  empire  meant  their  supremacy. 
They  had  befriended  the  representative  of  the  Crown,  when  they 
had  all  the  places  and  profits.  When  the  British  connexion  took 
a  liberal  colour  ;  when  the  Governor-General  acted  constitutionally 
towards  the  undoubtedly  progressive  tone  of  popular  opinion,  some 
of  the  Tories  became  annexationists  ;  many  of  them,  as  will  be 
shown  later,  encouraged  a  dastardly  assault  on  the  person  of  their 
official  head  ;  and  all  of  them,  supported  by  gentlemen  of  Her 

1  Elgin-Grey  Corr.  :  Elgin  to  Grey,  26  April,  1847. 

2  Elgin-Grey  Corr. :  Elgin  to  Grey,  5  February,  1848. 

3  Elgin-Grey  Corr. :  Elgin  to  Grey,  29  June,  1848. 


I 
8  J.   L.   Morison 

Majesty's  army,1  treated  the  representative  of  the  Crown  with  the 
most  obvious  lack  of  courtesy.  Nevertheless,  when  opinion 
changed,  and  when  a  coalition  attacked  and  unseated  the  great 
Progressive  ministry  of  1848-1854,  Elgin,  without  a  moment's 
hesitation,  turned  to  the  men  who  had  insulted  and  miscalled 
him.  *  To  the  great  astonishment  of  the  public,  as  well  as  to  his 
own/  wrote  Laurence  Oliphant,  who  was  then  on  Elgin's  staff, 
'  Sir  Allan  McNab,  who  had  been  one  of  his  bitterest  opponents 
ever  since  the  Montreal  events,  was  sent  for  to  form  a  ministry — 
Lord  Elgin  by  this  act  satisfactorily  disproving  the  charges  of 
having  either  personal  or  political  partialities  in  the  selection  of 
his  ministers.' 2 

But  the  first  great  constitutional  Governor  of  Canada  had 
to  interpret  constitutionalism  as  something  more  than  mere 
obedience  to  public  dictates  with  regard  to  his  councillors. 
He  had  to  educate  these  councillors,  and  the  public,  into  the 
niceties  of  British  constitutional  manners,  and  he  had  to  create  a 
new  vocation  for  the  Governor-General — the  exchange  of  dictation 
for  rational  influence.  He  had  to  teach  his  ministers  moderation 
in  their  measures,  and,  indirectly,  to  show  the  opposition  how  to 
avoid  crude  and  extreme  methods  in  their  fight  for  office.  When 
his  high  political  courage,  in  consenting  to  a  bill  very  obnoxious 
to  the  opposition,  forced  them  into  violence,  he  kept  his  temper 
and  his  head,  and  the  opposition  leaders  learned,  not  from 
punishment,  but  from  quiet  contempt,  to  express  dissent  in  modes 
other  than  those  of  arson  and  sticks  and  stones.  For  seven  years, 
in  modes  so  restrained  as  to  be  hardly  perceptible  even  in  his 
private  letters  to  Grey,  he  guided  these  first  experimental  cabinets 
into  smooth  water,  and  when  he  left,  he  left  behind  him  politicians 
trained  by  his  own  efforts  to  govern  Canada  according  to  British 
usage. 

At  the  same  time  his  influence  on  the  British  Cabinet  was 
as  quiet  and  certain.  He  was  still  responsible  to  the  British 
Crown  and  Cabinet,  and  a  weaker  man  would  have  forgotten 
the  problems  which  the  new  Canadian  constitutionalism  was 
bound  to  create  there.  Two  instances  will  illustrate  the 
point,  and  Elgin's  clear  perception  of  his  duty.  They  are 
both  taken  from  the  Rebellion  Losses  Bill  episode,  and  the 
Montreal  riots,  of  1849.  The  Bill  which  caused  the  trouble 

1  He  refers  to  *  military  men  ;  most  of  whom,  I  regret  to  say,  consider  my 
ministers  and  myself  little  better  than  rebels'  (i  i  June,  1849). 
1  Episodes  in  a  Life  of  Adventure,  p.  75. 


Lord  Elgin  in  Canada  9 

had  been  introduced  to  compete  a  scheme  of  compensation 
for  all  those  who  had  suffered  loss  in  the  late  Rebellion, 
whether  French  or  English,  and  had  been  passed  by  majorities 
in  both  houses ;  but  while  there  seemed  no  valid  reason 
for  disallowing  it,  Elgin  suspected  trouble — indeed,  at  first, 
he  viewed  the  measure  with  personal  disapproval.1  He 
might  have  refused  permission  to  bring  in  the  Bill ;  but 
*  only  imagine,'  he  wrote,  '  how  difficult  it  would  have  been  to 
discover  a  justification  for  my  conduct,  if  at  a  moment  when 
America  was  boiling  over  with  bandits  and  desperadoes,  and  when 
the  leaders  of  every  faction  in  the  Union,  with  the  view  of  securing 
the  Irish  vote  for  the  presidential  election,  were  vying  with  each 
other  in  abuse  of  England,  and  subscribing  funds  for  the  Irish 
Republican  Union,  I  had  brought  on  such  a  crisis  in  Canada  by 
refusing  to  allow  my  administration  to  bring  in  a  bill  to  carry  out 
the  recommendation  of  Lord  Metcalfe's  commissioners/2  He 
might  have  dissolved  Parliament,  but  '  it  would  be  rather  a  strong 
measure  to  have  recourse  to  it  (dissolution)  because  a  Parliament 
elected  one  year  ago  under  the  auspices  of  the  present  opposition 
passed  by  a  majority  of  more  than  two  to  one  a  measure  introduced 
by  the  Government/3  He  might  have  reserved  the  bill  for 
rejection  or  approval  at  home  ;  but  '  I  should  only  throw  upon 
Her  Majesty's  Government,  or  (as  it  would  appear  to  the  popular 
eye  here)  on  Her  Majesty  herself,  a  responsibility  which  rests,  and 
ought  I  think  to  rest,  on  my  own  shoulders/ 4  He  gave  his 
assent  to  the  Bill,  suffered  personal  violence  at  the  hands  of  the 
Montreal  crowd  and  the  opposition,  but,  since  he  stood  firm, 
he  triumphed,  and  saved  both  the  dignity  of  the  Crown  and  the 
friendship  of  the  French  for  his  government. 

The  other  instance  of  his  skill  in  dovetailing  Canadian  autonomy 
into  British  supremacy  is  less  important,  but,  in  a  way,  more 
extraordinary  in  its  subtlety.  As  a  servant  of  the  Crown, 
he  had  to  furnish  despatches,  which  were  liable  to  be  published 
as  Parliamentary  papers,  and  so  to  be  perused  by  Canadian 

1  The  obvious  point,  made  by  the  Tories  in  Canada,  and  by  Gladstone  in 
England,  was  that  the  new  scheme  of  compensation  was  certain  to  make  recom- 
pense to  many  who  had  actually  been  in  arms  in  the  Rebellion,  although  their 
guilt  might  not  be  provable  in  a  court  of  law.  See  Gladstone's  speech,  Hansard, 
14  June,  1849. 

2 Elgin  to  Grey,  concerning  Grey's  Colonial  Policy,  8  October,  1852.  Met- 
calfe's policy  on  the  rebellion  losses  had  really  forced  Elgin's  hand. 

3  Elgin-Grey  Corr.,  14  March.  4  Ibid. 


io  J.  L.  Morison 

politicians.  Elgin  had  therefore  to  reckon  with  two  publics — 
the  British  Parliament,  which  desired  information,  and  the 
Canadian  Parliament,  which  desired  to  maintain  its  dignity  and 
freedom.  Before  the  outrage,  and  when  it  was  extremely  desirable 
to  leave  matters  as  fluid  as  possible,  Elgin  simply  refrained  from 
giving  details  to  the  Colonial  Office.  { I  could  not  have  made 
my  official  communication  to  you  in  reference  to  this  Bill,  which 
you  could  have  laid  before  Parliament,  without  stating  or  implying 
an  irrevocable  decision  on  this  point.  To  this  circumstance  you 
must  ascribe  the  fact  that  you  have  not  heard  from  me  officially/  1 
Even  more  shrewdly,  at  a  later  date,  he  made  Grey  cancel,  in  his 
book  on  Colonial  Policy,  details  of  the  outrage  which  followed  the 
passing  of  the  Act ;  for,  said  he,  *  I  am  strongly  of  opinion  that 
nothing  but  evil  can  result  from  the  publication,  at  this  period,  of 
a  detailed  and  circumstantial  statement  of  the  disgraceful  pro- 
ceedings which  took  place  after  the  Bill  passed.  .  .  .  The  surest 
way  to  arrest  a  process  of  conversion  is  to  dwell  on  the  errors  of  the 
pasty  and  to  place  in  a  broad  light  the  contrast  between  present  senti- 
ments and  those  of  an  earlier  date?*  In  constitutional  affairs 
manners  make,  not  merely  the  man,  but  the  possibility  of  govern- 
ment ;  and  Elgin's  highest  quality  as  a  constitutionalist  was,  not 
so  much  his  understanding  of  the  instrument  of  government,  as 
his  knowledge  of  the  constitutional  temper,  and  the  need  within  it 
of  humanity  and  common-sense. 

Great  as  was  Elgin's  achievement  in  rectifying  Canadian  consti- 
tutional practice,  his  solution  of  the  nationalist  difficulty  in  Lower 
Canada  was  possibly  a  greater  triumph  of  statesmanship  ;  for  the 
present  modus  vivendi,  which  still  shows  no  signs  of  breaking  down, 
dates  from  the  years  of  Elgin's  governorship.  The  earlier  nine- 
teenth century  was  pre-eminently  the  epoch  of  nationalism.  Italy, 
Germany,  and  Hungary,  with  Mazzini  as  their  prophet,  were  all 
struggling  for  the  acknowledgment  of  their  national  claims,  and 
within  the  British  Islands  themselves,  the  Irish  nationalists 
furnished,  in  Davis  and  the  writers  to  The  Nation,  disciples  and 
apostles  of  the  new  gospel.  It  is  always  dangerous  to  trace 
European  influences  across  the  Atlantic  ;  but  there  is  little  doubt 
that  the  French  rebellion  of  1837  owed  something  to  Europe; 
and  the  arch-rebel  Papineau's  paper,  L'Avenir,  echoes,  in  an 
empty  blustering  fashion,  the  cries  of  the  nationalistic  revolution 

'Elgin-Grey  Corr.,  12  April,  1849. 

*Elgin  to  Grey  concerning  Grey's  Colonial  Policy,  8  October,  1852.  The 
italics  are  my  own. 


Lord  Elgin  in  Canada  n 

of  I848.1  The  defeats  of  1837  and  1838,  followed  by  the  union 
of  Quebec  with  Upper  Canada,  seemed  to  have  settled  matters  by 
external  force  ;  but  the  French  were  far  from  being  satisfied. 

Durham,  in  his  Report,  had  calculated  on  the  problem  being 
solved  by  the  absorption  of  the  stationary  French  nation  in  a 
rapidly  increasing  British  population.  But  he  had  forgotten  that 
from  the  Quebec  Act  of  1774  England  had  systematically  fostered 
French  and  Catholic  feeling  as  against  American  democracy ; 
and — a  mere  physical  inconvenience,  but  one  hard  to  remedy — 
that  the  French  birth-rate  was  in  excess  of  that  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  colonists.  Sydenham,  the  initiator  of  union,  acted  in 
accordance  with  Durham's  speculations ;  and,  finding  no  readiness 
among  the  French  to  meet  his  wishes,  contrived  to  array  against 
him  the  whole  c  Canadian '  nation.  In  the  words  of  his  successor, 
under  whose  short  regime  there  were  some  signs  of  improvement, 
'he  treated  those  [Frenchmen]  who  approached  him  with  slight 
and  rudeness,  and  thus  he  converted  a  proud  and  courteous 
people — which  even  their  detractors  acknowledge  them  to  be — 
into  personal  and  irreconcilable  enemies/2  More  perhaps  by 
accident  than  by  real  political  affinity,  the  French  under  their 
great  Parliamentary  leader,  La  Fontaine,  made  a  close  alliance 
with  the  British  reformers  under  Robert  Baldwin,  which  not  all 
the  efforts  of  wily  Tory  managers  could  destroy.  Hence,  in  the 
fierce  struggle  for  responsible  government  under  Sir  Charles 
Metcalfe,  the  French  fought  side  by  side  with  their  reforming 
allies,  and  the  temporary  check  to  constitutionalism  was  also  a 
new  reason  for  keener  French  nationalist  feeling. 

Elgin,  then,  found  on  his  arrival  that  British  administration 
(and  it  must  be  remembered  that  Stanley  at  home  had  been  as 
blameworthy  as  Metcalfe  in  Canada)  had  flung  every  element  in 
French-Canadian  politics  into  headlong  opposition  to  itself.  How 
dangerous  the  situation  was,  one  may  gather  from  the  disquieting 
rumours  of  United  States  ambitions,  and  from  the  Irish  troubles 
and  passions  which  floods  of  unkempt  and  wretched  immigrants 
were  bringing  with  them  to  their  new  homes  in  America.  Elgin's 
second  year  of  office,  1848,  was  the  year  of  nationalism  in 
Europe ;  and  he  had  to  face  the  possibility  of  a  '48  rising 
under  the  old  leaders  of  '37.  His  solution  of  the  difficulty 
proceeded  part  passu  with  his  constitutional  work.  In  the 

1  Elgin  kept  very  closely  in  touch  with  the  sentiments  of  the  Canadian  press, 
French  and  English.  See  his  letters,  passim. 

2Bagot  to  Stanley  [confidential],  26  September,  1842. 


12  J.  L.   Morison 

latter,  he  had  seen  that  he  must  remove  the  disquieting  subject 
of  *  responsible  government '  from  the  party  programme  of  the 
Progressives,  and  the  politic  surrender  of  1847  had  gained  his 
end.  Towards  French  nationalism  he  acted  in  the  same  spirit. 
Of  the  French  politicians  he  wrote  :  '  They  seem  incapable  of 
comprehending  that  the  principles  of  constitutional  government 
must  be  applied  against  them  as  well  as  for  them  ;  and  when- 
ever there  appears  to  be  a  chance  of  things  taking  this  turn,  they 
revive  the  ancient  cry  of  nationality,  and  insist  on  their  right  to 
have  a  share  in  the  administration,  not  because  the  party  with 
which  they  have  chosen  to  connect  themselves  is  in  the  ascendant, 
but  because  they  represent  a  people  of  distinct  origin/  l 

But  how  could  this  pathological  phase  of  nationalism  be 
ended  ?  His  first  Tory  advisers  suggested  the  old  trick  of 
making  converts — les  Vendus  their  countrymen  used  to  call  them — 
but  the  practice  had  long  since  been  found  useless.  His  next 
speculation  was  whether  the  French  could,  as  Liberals  or  Tories, 
be  made  to  take  sides,  apart  altogether  from  nationalist  considera- 
tions. But,  after  all,  the  political  solidarity  of  the  French  had 
only  been  a  kind  of  trades-unionism  to  guard  French  interests 
against  an  actual  menace  to  their  very  existence  as  a  nation  within 
the  empire  ;  and  they  were  certain  to  act  only  with  Baldwin  and 
his  friends,  the  one  party  which  had  regarded  them  as  being 
other  than  traitors,  or  suspects,  or  at  best  tools. 

No  complete  solution  of  the  problem  was  possible,  but  when 
Elgin  surrendered  to  the  Progressives,  he  was  conceding  also 
to  the  French — by  admitting  them  to  a  recognised  place  within 
the  constitution,  and  doing  so  without  reservation.  From  that 
moment  he  and  Canada  were  safe.  He  remained  doubtful 
during  part  of  1848,  for  the  notorious  Papineau  had  been  elected 
by  acclamation  to  the  Parliament  which  held  its  first  session  that 
year;  and  he  *  had  searched  in  vain  .  . .  through  the  French  organs 
of  public  opinion  for  a  frank  and  decided  expression  of  hostility 
to  the  anti-British  sentiments  propounded  in  Papineau's  address.' 2 
He  did  not  at  first  understand  that  La  Fontaine,  not  Papineau, 
was  the  French  leader,  and  that  the  latter  represented  only 
himself  and  a  few  Rouges  of  vague  and  unsubstantial  revolutionary 
opinions.  Nevertheless,  he  gave  his  French  ministers  his  con- 
fidence, and  he  applied  his  singular  powers  of  winning  men  to 
appeasing  French  discontent.  As  early  as  May,  1848,  he  saw 

1  Elgin-Grey  Corr.  :  Elgin  to  Grey,  28  June,  1847. 

2  Elgin-Grey  Corr.  :  Elgin  to  Grey,  7  January,  1848. 


Lord  Elgin  in  Canada  13 

how  the  land  lay — that  French  Canada  was  fundamentally  conser- 
vative, and  that  discontent  was  mainly  a  consequence  of  sheer 
stupidity  and  error  on  the  part  of  England.  c  Who  will  venture 
to  say/  he  asked,  '  that  the  last  hand  which  waves  the  British  flag 
on  American  ground  may  not  be  that  of  a  French  Canadian.' l 

But  his  final  settlement  of  the  question  came  with  1849,  and 
the  introduction  of  that  Rebellion  Losses  Bill  which  has  been 
already  mentioned.  The  measure  was,  in  the  main,  an  act  of 
justice  to  French  sufferers,  for  they  had  naturally  shared  but 
slightly  in  earlier  and  partial  schemes  of  compensation  ;  and  the 
opposition  was  directed  quite  frankly  against  the  French  inhabi- 
tants of  Canada  as  traitors,  who  deserved,  not  recompense,  but 
punishment.  Now  there  were  many  cases  like  that  of  the  village 
of  St.  Benoit,  the  safety  of  which  Sir  John  Colborne  had 
guaranteed  when  he  occupied  it  for  military  purposes,  but  which, 
in  his  absence,  the  loyalist  volunteers  had  set  on  fire  and  destroyed. 
The  inhabitants  might  be  disloyal,  but  in  the  eyes  of  an  equal 
justice  a  wrong  had  been  done,  and  must  be  righted.  The  idea 
of  the  bill  was  not  new — it  was  not  Elgin's  bill ;  and  if  his 
predecessors  had  been  right,  then  the  French  politicians  were 
justified  in  claiming  that  its  system  of  compensation  must  be 
followed  till  all  legitimate  claims  had  been  met. 

It  would  be  disingenuous  to  deny  that  Elgin  knew  what  an 
effect  his  support  of  the  bill  would  have  in  Lower  Canada.  '  I 
was  aware  of  two  facts/  he  told  Grey  in  1852  :  'Firstly,  that 
M.  La  Fontaine  would  be  unable  to  retain  the  support  of  his 
countrymen  if  he  failed  to  introduce  a  measure  of  this  description ; 
and  secondly,  that  my  refusal  would  be  taken  by  him  and  his 
friends  as  a  proof  that  they  had  not  my  confidence.'  But  it  seems 
to  me  that  his  chief  concern  was  to  hold  the  balance  level,  to 
redress  an  actual  grievance,  and  to  repress  the  fury  of  British- 
Canadian  Tories  whose  unrestrained  action  would  have  flung 
Canada  into  a  new  and  complicated  struggle  of  races  and  parties. 
*  I  am  firmly  convinced/  he  told  Grey  in  June,  speaking  of 
American  election  movements  at  this  time,  '  that  the  only  thing 
which  prevented  an  invasion  of  Canada  was  the  political  content- 
ment prevailing  among  the  French  Canadians  and  Irish  Catholics ' ; 
and  that  political  contentment  was  the  result  of  Elgin's  action  in 
supporting  his  ministers.  Judicial  restraint  raised  to  a  heroic 
degree  had  enabled  Elgin  to  do  the  French  what  they  counted  a 
great  service  ;  and  the  rage  and  disorder  of  the  opposition  only 
1  Elgin-Grey  Corr.  :  Elgin  to  Grey,  4  May,  1848. 


I4.  J.  L.   Morison 

played  the  more  surely  into  the  Governor's  hands,  and  established, 
beyond  chance  of  alteration,  French  loyalty  to  Elgin.1 

From  that  day  to  this,  although  there  have  been  incidents,  party 
moves,  and  imprudences,  French  and  British  in  Canada  have 
played  the  political  game  together.  It  was  in  the  great  Baldwin- 
La  Fontaine  ministry  that  the  joint  action,  within  the  Canadian 
parties,  of  French  and  British,  had  its  substantial  beginning  ;  and 
while  the  traditions  and  idiosyncrasies  of  Quebec  were  too 
ingrained  and  notable  to  suffer  change  beyond  a  certain  point, 
the  constitutional  system  was  henceforth  based  on  the  mutual 
support,  whether  among  Tories  or  Liberals,  of  French  and 
English.  It  was  from  this  point  too  that  Elgin  was  able  to 
discern  the  conservative  genius  of  the  French  people,  and  to 
prophesy — when  once  Baldwin's  Whig  influence  had  withdrawn — 
the  union  between  the  French  and  the  moderate  Conservatives, 
on  which  John  A.  Macdonald  based  his  long  and  imperial  control 
of  power  in  Canada. 

The  nationalist  question  is  so  intermingled  with  the  constitu- 
tional, that  it  is  not  always  easy  to  separate  the  two  issues  ;  but  a 
careful  study  of  the  Elgin-Grey  correspondence  proves  that  the 
same  qualities  which  settled  the  latter  difficulty  ended  also  French 
grievances — saving  common-sense  which  did  not  refuse  to  do  the 
obvious  thing ;  bonhomie  which  understood  that  a  well-mannered 
people  may  be  wooed  from  its  isolation  by  a  little  humouring  ;  a 
mind  resolute  to  administer  to  every  British  subject  equal  rights  ; 
and  an  austere  refusal  to  let  arrogant  and  self-appreciative  Toryism 
claim  to  itself  a  kind  of  oligarchic  glory  at  the  expense  of  citizens 
less  Anglo-Saxon  than  itself. 

There  is  a  third  aspect  of  Elgin's  work  in  Canada,  of  wider 
scope  than  either  of  those  already  mentioned,  and  one  in  which  his 
claims  to  distinction  have  been  almost  forgotten.  That  is,  his 
services  to  the  working  theory  of  the  British  Empire.  He  was 
one  of  those  earlier  sane  imperialists,  whose  claims  some  recent 
noisy  demonstrators  have  found  it  easy  to  disregard.  It  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that,  when  Elgin  came  to  Canada,  the  future  of 
the  British  colonial  empire  was  a  very  open  question.  Politicians 
at  home  had  placed  in  front  of  themselves  an  awkward  dilemma. 
According  to  the  stiffer  Tories,  the  colonies  must  be  held  in  with 
a  firm  hand — how  firm,  Stanley  had  illustrated  in  his  administra- 
tion of  Canada.  Yet  Tory  stiffness  naturally  produced  colonial 

1  See  an  interesting  reference  in  a  letter  from  India  to  Sir  Charles  Wood  ; 
Walrond,  op.  at.  pp.  419-20. 


Lord  Elgin  in  Canada  15 

discontent,  and  a  very  natural  doubt  at  home  as  to  the  possibility 
of  holding  the  colonies  by  such  methods.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  were  those,  like  Cobden,  who  while  they  believed  with  the 
Tories  that  colonial  home-rule  was  certain  to  result  in  colonial 
independence,  were  nevertheless  too  loyally  laissez  faire  men  to 
resist  colonial  claims.  They  looked  to  an  immediate  but  peaceful 
dissolution  of  the  empire. 

It  is  curious  (the  more  so  because  of  the  great  names  connected 
with  this  view)  to  find  Grey  writing  in  1 849  to  Elgin  :  '  Unfor- 
tunately there  begins  to  prevail  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and, 
I  am  sorry  to  say,  in  the  highest  quarters,  an  opinion  (which  I 
believe  to  be  utterly  erroneous)  that  we  have  no  interest  in  pre- 
serving our  colonies,  and  ought  therefore  to  make  no  sacrifice  for 
that  purpose.  Peel,  Graham,  and  Gladstone,  if  they  do  not  avow 
this  opinion  as  openly  as  Cobden  and  his  friends,  yet  betray  very 
clearly  that  they  entertain  it,  nor  do  I  find  some  members  of  the 
Cabinet  free  from  it.' *  It  never  seemed  to  strike  anyone  but  a 
few  Radicals  like  Durham  and  Buller,  that  Britons  still  retained 
British  sentiments,  even  across  the  seas,  and  that  they  desired  both 
to  c  live  under  the  flag,'  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  retain  those 
popular  rights  in  government  which  they  possessed  at  home.  A 
Canadian  Governor-General,  then,  had  to  deal  with  British 
Cabinets,  which  alternated  between  foolish  rigour  and  foolish 
slackness,  and  with  politicians  who  never  reflected  on  the  responsi- 
bilities of  empire  when  they  flung  before  careless  British  audiences 
irresponsible  discussions  on  colonial  independence — as  if  it  were 
an  academic  subject  and  not  a  critical  issue. 

Elgin  had  imperial  difficulties,  all  his  own,  to  make  his 
task  more  complicated.  Not  only  were  there  French  and  Irish 
nationalists  ready  for  agitation  ;  but  the  United  States  lay  across 
the  southern  border ;  and  annexation  to  that  mighty  and  flourishing 
republic  seemed  to  many  the  natural  euthanasia  of  British  North 
American  rule.  Peel's  great  reforms  in  the  tariff  had  rekindled 
annexationist  talk;  for  while  Lord  Stanley's  bill  of  1843  nac^ 
4  attracted  all  the  produce  of  the  west  to  the  St.  Lawrence '  by  its 
colonial  preference,  *  Peel's  bill  of  1 846  drives  the  whole  of  the 
produce  down  the  New  York  channels  of  communication  .  .  . 
ruining  at  once  mill-owners,  forwarders,  and  merchants/ 2  And 
every  petty  and  personal  disappointment,  every  error  in  Colonial 
Office  administration,  sent  a  new  group  to  cry  down  the  British 

1  Elgin-Grey  Corr.  :  Grey  to  Elgin,  1 8  May,  1 849. 

2  Elgin-Grey  Corr.  :  Elgin,  16  November,  1848. 


!6  J.   L.   Morison 

system,  and  to  call  for   a   peaceful  junction   with    the    United 
States. 

Elgin  had  not  been  long  in  Canada  before  he  saw  one  important 
fact — that  the  real  annexationist  feeling  had  commercial,  not  politi- 
cal roots.  Without  diminishing  the  seriousness  of  the  situation, 
the  discovery  made  it  more  susceptible  of  rational  treatment.  A 
colony  suffering  a  severe  set-back  in  trade  found  the  precise 
remedy  it  looked  for  in  transference  of  its  allegiance.  *  The 
remedy  offered  them/  wrote  Elgin,  { is  perfectly  definite  and 
intelligible.  They  are  united  to  form  part  of  a  community  which 
is  neither  suffering  nor  free-trading  ...  a  community,  the  members 
of  which  have  been  within  the  last  few  weeks  pouring  into  their 
multifarious  places  of  worship,  to  thank  God  that  they  are  exempt 
from  the  ills  which  affect  other  men,  from  those  more  especially 
which  affect  their  despised  neighbours,  the  inhabitants  of  North 
America,  who  have  remained  faithful  to  the  country  which  planted 
them.'1  With  free-trade  in  the  ascendant,  and  possibly  correct, 
Elgin  had  to  dismiss  schemes  of  British  preference  from  his  mind ; 
and,  towards  the  end  of  his  rule,  when  American  economics  and 
politics  were  irritating  the  Canadian  mind,  he  had  even  to  restrict 
the  scope  within  which  Canadian  retaliation  might  be  practised.2 
There  could  be  no  imperial  Zollverein.  But  he  said  that  a  measure 
of  Reciprocity  might  give  the  Canadians  all  the  economic  benefits 
they  sought,  and  yet  leave  them  the  allegiance  and  the  govern- 
ment which,  in  their  hearts,  they  preferred.  The  annexationist 
clamour  fell  and  rose,  mounting  highest  in  Montreal,  and  in  the 
dire  year  of  the  Rebellion  Losses  disturbance ;  but  Elgin,  while 
sometimes  he  grew  despondent,  always  kept  his  head,  and  never 
ceased  to  hope  for  the  Reciprocity  which  would  at  once  bring  back 
prosperity,  and  still  the  disloyal  murmurs.  Once  or  twice,  when 
the  annexationists  were  at  their  worst,  and  when  his  Tory  oppon- 
ents chose  support  of  that  disloyal  movement  as  the  means  of 
insulting  their  Governor,  he  took  very  justifiable  means  of 
repressing  an  unnatural  evil.  '  We  intend,'  he  wrote  in  November, 
1849,  after  an  annexation  meeting  in  which  servants  of  the  State 
had  taken  part,  '  to  dismiss  the  militia  officers  and  magistrates 
who  have  taken  part  in  these  affairs,  and  to  deprive  the  two 
Queen's  Counsels  of  their  silk  gowns.'  But  he  held  to  the  positive 

1  Walrond,  op.  cit.  p.  105. 

2  Nothing  is  clearer  in  Grey's  letters  to  Elgin  than  his  refusal  to  countenance 
retaliation  in  any  shape,  except  perhaps  as  restricting  American  use  of  Canadian 


waters. 


Lord  Elgin  in  Canada  17 

side  of  his  policy,  and  few  statesmen  ever  gave  Canada  a  more 
substantial  boon  than  did  Elgin  when,  just  before  his  recall,  he 
came  to  Washington  on  that  mission  which  Laurence  Oliphant 
has  made  classic  by  his  description,  and  concluded  by  far  the  most 
favourable  commercial  treaty  with  the  United  States  ever  negotiated 
by  Britain. 

There  is  perhaps  a  tendency  to  underestimate  the  work  of  his 
predecessors  and  assistants,  but  no  one  can  doubt  that  it  was 
Elgin's  persistence  in  urging  the  treaty  on  the  home  Cabinet,  and 
his  wonderful  diplomatic  gifts,  which  ultimately  won  the  day. 
Oliphant,  certainly,  had  no  doubt  as  to  his  chief's  share  in  the 
matter.  c  He  is  the  most  thorough  diplomat  possible — never 
loses  sight  for  a  moment  of  his  object,  and  while  he  is  chaffing 
Yankees,  and  slapping  them  on  the  back,  he  is  systematically 
pursuing  that  object ' ; 1  and  again,  *  There  was  concluded  in 
exactly  a  fortnight  a  treaty  to  negotiate  which  had  taxed  the 
inventive  genius  of  the  Foreign  Office,  and  all  the  conventional 
methods  of  diplomacy,  for  the  previous  seven  years/ 2 

It  was  a  long,  slow  process  by  which  Elgin  restored  the  tone  of 
Canadian  loyalty.  Frenchmen  who  had  dreamed  of  renouncing 
allegiance  he  won  by  his  obviously  fair  mind,  and  the  place 
accorded  by  him  to  their  leaders.  He  took  the  heart  out  of  Irish 
disaffection  by  his  popular  methods  and  love  of  liberty.  Tory 
dissentients  fell  slowly  in  to  heel,  as  they  found  their  Governor  no 
lath  painted  to  look  like  iron,  but  very  steel ;  to  desponding 
Montreal  merchants  his  Reciprocity  treaty  yielded  naturally  all 
they  had  expected  from  the  more  drastic  change.  It  is  true  that, 
owing  to  untoward  circumstances,  the  treaty  lasted  only  for  the 
limited  period  prescribed  by  Elgin  ;  but  it  tided  over  an  awkward 
period  of  disaffection  and  disappointment. 

He  did  more,  however,  than  cure  definite  phases  of  Canadian 
disaffection;  his  influence  through  Earl  Grey  told  vehemently 
for  a  fuller  and  more  optimistic  conception  of  empire.  With 
all  its  virtues  the  bureaucracy  of  the  Colonial  Office  did  not 
understand  the  government  of  colonies  such  as  Canada ;  and 
where  colonial  secretaries  had  the  ability  to  will,  they  had  not 
knowledge  sufficient  to  lead  them  into  paths  at  once  democratic 
and  imperial.  Even  Grey  had  his  moments  of  falling  from  the 
optimism  which  empire  demands  of  its  statesmen.  It  was  not 
simply  that  he  emphasized  the  wrong  points — military  and 

1  Mrs.  Oliphant,  Life  of  Laurence  Oliphant,  p.  1 20. 

2  Laurence  Oliphant,  Episodes  in  a  Life  of  Adventure,  p.  56. 

B 


1 8  J.  L.   Morison 

diplomatic  issues,  which  in  Canada  were  minor  and  even  negligible 
matters  ;  but  at  times  he  seemed  prepared  to  let  things  go. 

In  1 848  he  had  impaled  himself  on  the  horns  of  one  of  those 
dilemmas  which  present  themselves  so  frequently  to  absentee 
governors  and  governments — no  reciprocity  with  America  and 
Canadian  rebellion,  or,  reciprocity,  and  in  consequence  American- 
ization I1  In  1849,  'looking  at  these  indications  of  the  state  of 
feeling  in  Canada,  but  the  equally  significant  indications  as  to  the 
feeling  of  the  House  of  Commons  respecting  the  value  of  our 
colonies/  he  had  begun  to  despair  of  their  retention.2  But  there 
were  greater  sinners  than  those  of  the  Colonial  Office.  While 
Elgin  was  painfully  removing  all  the  causes  of  trouble  in  Canada, 
and  proving  without  argument,  but  in  deeds,  that  the  British 
connexion  represented  normal  conditions  for  both  England  and 
Canada,  politicians  insisted  on  making  foolish  speeches  ;  until  an 
offence  by  the  Prime  Minister  himself  drove  Elgin  into  a  passion 
unusual  in  so  equable  a  mind,  and  which,  happily,  he  expressed  in 
the  best  of  all  his  letters.  '  I  have  never  been  able  to  comprehend 
why,  elastic  as  our  constitutional  system  is,  we  should  not  be  able, 
now  more  especially  when  we  have  ceased  to  control  the  trade  of 
our  colonies,  to  render  the  links  which  bind  them  to  the  British 
Crown  at  least  as  lasting  as  those  which  unite  the  component  parts 
of  the  Union. .  .  .  You  must  renounce  the  habit  of  telling  the 
colonies  that  the  colonial  is  a  provisional  existence.  ...  Is  the 
Queen  of  England  to  be  the  sovereign  of  an  empire,  growing, 
expanding,  strengthening  itself  from  age  to  age,  striking  its  roots 
deep  into  fresh  earth  and  drawing  new  supplies  of  vitality  from 
virgin  soils  ?  Or  is  she  to  be  for  all  essential  purposes  of  might 
and  power  monarch  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  merely,  her 
place  and  that  of  her  land  in  the  world's  history  determined  by 
the  productiveness  of  12,000  square  miles  of  a  coal  formation 
which  is  being  rapidly  exhausted,  and  the  duration  of  the  social 
and  political  organization  over  which  she  presides  dependent  on 
the  annual  expatriation,  with  a  view  to  its  eventual  alienization,  of 
the  surplus  swarm  of  her  born  subjects  ? ' 3  That  is  the  final 
question  of  imperialism  ;  and  an  age  which  prides  itself  on  its 
imperial  creations,  may  well  ask  whether  the  man  who  first 
wrought  out  in  hard  labour  an  optimistic  answer  to  the  question 

1  Elgin-Grey  Corr. :  Grey  to  Elgin,  27  July,  1848. 

2  Elgin-Grey  Corr.  :  Grey  to  Elgin,  20  July,  1849. 

8  Elgin-Grey  Corr.  :   23  March,  1850.     The  letter,  which  may  be  found  in 
Walrond's  volume,  pp.  115-120,  ought  to  be  read  from  its  first  word  to  its  last. 


Lord  Elgin  in  Canada  19 

before  he  asked  it,  and  who  then  put  it  with  vehemence  to  the 
Colonial  Office  and  the  Prime  Minister,  when  they  offended, 
does  not  merit  some  remembrance. 

Space  forbids  any  mention  of  the  more  human  chapters  of 
Elgin's  Canadian  adventure  ;  his  whimsical  capacity  for  getting 
on  with  men,  French,  British,  and  American  ;  the  sly  humour  of 
his  correspondence  with  his  official  chief;  the  searching  comments 
made  by  him  on  men  and  manners  in  America  ;  the  charm  of 
such  social  and  diplomatic  episodes  as  Laurence  Oliphant  has 
sketched  in  his  letters  and  his  Episodes  in  a  Life  of  Adventure.  It 
only  remains  to  sum  up  such  impressions  as  may  be  gathered  from 
his  opera  majora  recorded  above. 

I  began  by  calling  him  Victorian,  and  the  phrase  seems  fitting. 
He  was  too  human,  easy,  unclassical,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  too 
little  touched  with  Byronic  or  revolutionary  feeling,  even  to 
suggest  the  age  of  Pitt,  Napoleon,  Canning  ;  he  was  too  sensible, 
too  orthodox,  too  firmly  based  on  fact  and  on  the  past,  to  have 
any  affinity  with  our  own  transitionary  politics.  Like  Peel, 
although  to  a  less  degree,  he  had  at  once  a  firm  body  of  opinions, 
a  keen  eye  for  new  facts,  and  a  sure,  slow  capacity  for  bringing 
new  fact  to  bear  on  old  opinion. 

He  was  able,  as  few  have  been,  to  set  the  personal  equation 
aside  in  his  political  plans,  administering  to  friends  and  foes  with 
almost  uncanny  fairness,  and  astonishing  his  petty  enemies  by  his 
moderation.  His  mind  could  regard  not  merely  Canada  but  also 
Britain,  as  it  reflected  on  future  policy ;  and  he  sometimes  seems, 
in  his  letters,  the  one  man  in  the  empire  at  the  time  who  under- 
stood the  true  relation  of  colonial  autonomy  to  British  supremacy. 
Not  even  his  foolishest  eulogist  will  attribute  anything  romantic 
to  his  character.  There  was  nothing  of  Disraeli's  c  glitter  of 
dubious  gems '  about  the  honest  phrases  in  which  he  bade  Russell 
think  imperially.  Unlike  Mazzini,  it  was  his  business  to  destroy 
false  nationalism,  not  to  exalt  that  which  was  true,  and  for  that 
cool  business  the  glow  and  fervour  of  prophecy  was  not  required. 
We  like  to  see  our  leaders  standing  rampant,  and  with  sulphurous, 
or  at  least  thundery,  backgrounds.  But  Elgin's  ironic  Scottish 
humour  forbade  the  pose,  and  it  was  his  business  to  keep  the 
cannon  quiet,  and  to  draw  the  lightning  harmless  to  the  ground. 
The  most  heroic  thing  he  did  in  Canada  was  to  refrain  from 
entering  Montreal  at  a  time  when  his  entrance  must  have  meant 
insult,  resistance,  and  bloodshed,  and  he  bore  quietly  the  taunts  of 
cowardice  which  his  enemies  flung  at  his  head. 


20  Lord  Elgin  in  Canada 

He  was  far  too  clear-sighted  to  think  that  statesmanship  con- 
sists in  decisions  between  very  definitely  stated  alternatives  of 
right  and  wrong.  c  My  choice/  he  wrote  in  characteristic  words, 
'was  not  between  a  clearly  right  and  clearly  wrong  course 
— how  easy  is  it  to  deal  with  such  cases,  and  how  rare  are  they  in 
life — but  between  several  difficulties.  I  think  I  chose  the  least.' x 
His  kindly,  shrewd,  and  honest  countenance  looks  at  us  from  his 
portraits  with  no  appeal  of  sentiment  or  pathos.  He  had  given 
the  greatest  of  British  dependencies  the  government  fittest  to  its 
needs ;  he  had  saved  a  little  people  from  the  disasters  of  false 
nationalism  ;  he  had  corrected  the  imperial  practice  of  a  great 
Government.  He  asked  of  men  that  which  they  find  it  most 
difficult  to  give — moderation,  common-sense,  a  willingness  to 
look  at  both  sides,  and  to  subordinate  their  egoisms  to  a  wider 
good ;  and  was  content  to  do  without  their  worship.  Such  as  he 
was,  he  seems  to  me  the  greatest  in  the  long  line  of  Canadian 
viceroys;  for  at  a  crisis  in  Canadian  history,  he  did,  without  a 
single  slip,  exactly  that  which  was  necessary,  and  he  refused  to 
stain  the  national  triumph  with  any  personal  vainglory. 

J.  L.  MORISON. 

1  Elgin-Grey  Corr.  :  Elgin  to  Grey,  7  October,  1849. 


The    Scottish    Progress    of  James    VI 

AFTER  his  accession  to  the  English  throne  James  VI.  paid 
but  one  visit  to  Scotland,:in  1617.  His  journey  towards 
London  fourteen  years  earlier  aroused  Carlyle  to  enthusiasm 
not  for  its  own  sake,  but  on  account  of  certain  notable  doings 
at  Hinchinbrook  in  Huntingdonshire.1  He  did  not  consider  the 
Scottish  progress  so  memorable,  although  it  created  much  com- 
motion north  of  the  Tweed.  The  reason  is  not  far  to  seek.  In 
the  hero-worshipper's  eyes  the  bare  possibility  that  little  Oliver, 
who  had  in  1603  just  completed  his  fourth  year,  may  have  waved 
a  welcome  to  the  shambling  monarch  appears  to  be  of  greater 
significance  than  the  fact  that  Laud  accompanied  James  to  Scot- 
land in  1617  with  the  express  purpose  of  enforcing  Episcopacy 
on  its  unwilling  inhabitants. 

As  at  the  present  day  a  royal  progress  entailed  considerable 
labour  and  forethought  on  the  authorities,  although  different 
considerations,  of  course,  arose  in  the  seventeenth  century.  The 
preparations  for  his  Majesty's  reception  occupied  more  than  a 
year,  and  the  Privy  Council  of  Scotland  and  their  subordinates 
were  hard  at  work  during  this  trying  period  supervising  the 
repair  of  the  roads  and  royal  palaces,  issuing  proclamations  for 
the  suppression  of  vagabonds  and  the  preservation  of  game,  and 
making  elaborate  arrangements  for  the  transport  of  the  king's 
luggage  from  place  to  place.  Road  mending  was  not  apparently 
a  congenial  task  to  the  local  magnates,  and  we  find  that  just 
before  James  arrived  in  Scotland  certain  border  lairds  were 
severely  reprimanded  for  neglecting  to  obey  the  Council's  orders, 
and  directed  to  repair  the  highway  within  ten  days  under  pain 
of  rebellion.2  In  May,  1616,  an  Act  was  passed  empowering  the 
Master  of  the  Works  to  rebuild  certain  portions  of  the  Palaces 

1  Historical  Sketches  of  Notable  Persons  and  Events  in  the  Reigns  of  James  I.  and 
Charles  L  1898,  pp.  9  and  134. 

2  Register  of Privy  Council  of  Scotland,  xi.  1616-1619,  1894,  p.  92. 


22  G.  A.   Sinclair 

of  Holyrood,  Stirling  and  Falkland,3  while  the  statutes  relating 
to  mendicity  are  especially  interesting.  The  vagabonds,  who 
resorted  to  the  capital,  had  become  an  intolerable  nuisance,  and 
it  was  feared  that  they  might  be  a  source  of  annoyance  to  the 
haughty  English  visitors  in  the  king's  train.  The  first  act  for 
their  suppression  had  no  effect ;  and  two  further  proclamations 
were  issued  against  these  '  stronge  idle  and  maisterfull  beggaris, 
counterfute  bairdis  and  foollis,'  who  were  to  be  found  everywhere 
begging  and  extorting  alms.  They  were  ordered  to  address 
themselves  to  their  own  parishes  on  pain  of  scourging  and  other 
refined  tortures  on  their  first  conviction,  and  of  death  for  the 
next  offence.  All  noblemen  and  gentlemen  were  directed  to  have 
a  pair  of  '  fast  lokket  stokkis '  for  punishing  the  offenders,  and 
each  parish  had  to  provide  c  one  or  tua  strong  able  men '  to  walk 
*  athorte '  the  town  and  apprehend  them. 

While  the  beggars  were  being  hunted,  a  close  time  was  ordered 
for  game.  The  king  himself,  writing  from  Newmarket  on 
February  19,  1616,  gave  strict  directions  that  the  laws  against 
the  shooting  of  deer,  hares  and  wildfowl  should  be  rigorously 
enforced,  as  he  and  his  retinue  wished  to  enjoy  good  sport.  The 
Privy  Council  seem  to  have  had  some  difficulty  in  carrying  out 
these  commands.  The  Earl  of  Linlithgow  and  his  son,  Lord 
Livingston,  were  summoned  to  appear  before  them  at  the 
instance  of  the  Earl  of  Perth  for  encroaching  on  the  Royal  Forest 
of  Glenarnay,4  and  a  commission  was  granted  to  the  Earl  of 
Tullibardine  to  try  poachers  in  Perthshire.6  In  January,  1617, 
a  proclamation  was  made  against  the  killing  of  bucks  which  might 
stray  from  the  park  of  Falkland  Palace,6  and  heavy  penalties  were 
exacted  in  proportion  to  the  rank  of  the  offenders. 

The  exact  numbers  of  the  retinue  and  transport  accompanying 
the  king  are  uncertain,  but  they  fell  far  short  of  5000,  for  whom 
the  townspeople  of  Edinburgh  were  told  to  prepare.  We  may 
picture  the  consternation  of  the  unhappy  Provost  and  Bailies 
when  they  were  directed  'to  mak  a  perfyte  survey  of  the  haill 
ludgeingis  and  stabellis  within  the  burgh  of  Edinburgh,  the  Canno- 
gait,  Leythe  Wynd,  Pleasance,  Potterraw  and  Weste  Porte,  and 
to  foirsee  and  provide  that  thair  be  good  ludgeingis  within  the 
said  boundis  for  fyve  thousand  men  and  stablis  for  fyve  thousand 
horse/ 7  Moreover,  the  lodgings  were  to  be  furnished  with  good 
clean  bedding  and  linen,  and  the  stables  provided  with  abundance 

3 'Register  of  Privy  Council  of  Scotland,  x.  1613-1616,  1891,  p.  517. 

4  Ibid.  x.  p.  570.       5  2^  x  p   597> 


The  Scottish  Progress  of  James  VI        23 

of  corn,  hay  and  straw.  As  the  late  Professor  Masson  said, 
'About  the  Christmas  time  of  1616,  it  was  evident  Auld  Reekie 
must  have  been  driven  nearly  to  the  end  of  its  wits/ 8  and  the 
municipal  authorities  must  have  blessed  the  day  when  they  saw 
the  last  of  James  and  his  courtiers.  The  Scottish  nobility  and 
gentry,  who  had  already  secured  rooms  in  the  Canongate,  were 
curtly  told  by  the  Council  to  find  accommodation  elsewhere. 

Having  so  large  a  train  the  transport  of  his  Majesty's  baggage 
was  no  easy  matter.  It  involved  an  enormous  amount  of  labour, 
for  James  retraced  his  steps  several  times.  In  the  various  shires 
the  Justices  of  the  Peace  were  instructed  to  arrange  for  relays 
of  horses  and  carts  to  be  ready  at  prescribed  times,  and  the  rates 
of  hire  were  fixed  in  each  case.  Two  general  constables  were 
appointed  for  every  shire,  and  their  subordinates  were  required 
to  see  that  the  necessary  conveyances  were  forthcoming.9  The 
onerous  duties  cast  upon  the  authorities  were  not  eagerly  per- 
formed. The  Justices  of  Stirlingshire  refused  to  act,  and  were 
summoned  before  the  Council  to  answer  for  their  conduct  under 
pain  of  death  ;  whilst  the  Constabulary  of  Haddington,  being 
rather  dilatory,  were  threatened  with  horning,  unless  they  accepted 
their  offices  by  a  certain  day.  The  royal  route  was  mapped  out 
stage  by  stage,  and  the  exact  distances  between  each  stopping 
place  were  carefully  tabulated. 

Much  attention  was  also  paid  to  the  furbishing  and  renewal 
of  the  king's  wardrobe.  Various  portions  of  tapestry  were  said 
to  be  in  the  possession  of  several  Scottish  noblemen,  and  these 
relics  of  ancient  days  were  hunted  up.  But  Mr.  John  Auch- 
mutie,  Master  of  the  Wardrobe,  had  very  bad  luck,  and  there  is 
a  touch  of  comedy  in  the  pleas  urged  by  the  peers  in  excuse. 
The  Lord  Chancellor  Dunfermline  produced  ten  pieces,  much 
worn,  embroidered  with  *  the  storie  of  Aeneas,  the  storie  of  Troy 
and  the  storie  of  Mankynd ' ;  the  Earl  of  Linlithgow  alleged 
that  the  tapestry  which  he  held  had  been  ccuttit  through  be 
umquhile  Andro  Cokburne,  foole '  ;  the  Earl  of  Home  said  that 
his  four  pieces  had  been  given  him  by  the  king  for  *  tua  hunting 
horsis '  ;  and  the  Lords  of  Loudoun  and  Balmerino  denied 
having  any  of  his  Majesty's  belongings  at  all.10  Auchmutie, 
however,  found  four  beds,  probably  at  Holyrood,  one  depicting 
the  labours  of  Hercules  ;  another  of  crimson  velvet  and  gold  ; 
another  of  gold,  silver  and  silk  ;  and  another,  incomplete,  *  sewit 
*  Ibid,  x.  Intro,  p.  cxiv.  9 Ibid.  xi.  Intro,  p.  xii. 

™lbid.  x.  p.  521. 


24  G.   A.   Sinclair 

be  his  Majestie's  mother,'  of  the  same  material,  which  were  sent 
to  England  to  be  repaired.11 

Early  in  1617,  Captain  David  Murray  was  instructed  to  sail 
for  London  *  at  the  first  occasioun  of  wynd  and  wedder '  with  the 
royal  pinnace,  The  Charles,  for  the  purpose  of  collecting  tapestry, 
silverplate,  household  stuff,  furniture,  and  other  provisions  for 
the  king's  use  ;  and  by  his  directions  a  special  messenger  was 
sent  to  James  in  all  haste  with  his  Scottish  c  robe  royal '  in  order 
that  his  Majesty  might  ascertain  whether  the  precious  garment 
was  fit  to  be  worn  *  in  ony  grite  solempnitie '  or  whether  he 
should  provide  himself  with  a  new  one  '  efter  the  fassioun  of 
the  auld.'12  It  is  noteworthy  that  James  did  not  leave  this 
momentous  question  to  Sir  Gideon  Murray,  the  Treasurer 
Depute,  who  was  authorised  to  search  the  royal  wardrobe,  but 
preferred  to  see  the  robe  himself. 

The  works  at  Holyrood  seem  to  have  proceeded  in  a  rather 
leisurely  fashion  ;  the  Privy  Council  began  to  get  anxious  as  the 
time  for  the  king's  arrival  approached,  and  charged  the  magis- 
trates of  Dundee,  St.  Andrews,  Dysart,  and  Pittenweem  to 
appear  before  them  with  twenty-six  craftsmen,  whose  names 
appear  on  the  Register,  to  assist  in  completing  the  repairs.1* 
From  time  to  time  similar  urgent  messages  were  sent  to  different 
bodies  for  more  skilled  labour. 

In  March,  1617,  James  left  Whitehall,  but  his  progress  through 
England  was  slow.  He  stayed  at  various  places  on  the  way, 
including  Newcastle,  Bothall  Castle,  the  seat  of  Sir  Charles 
Cavendish,  and  Alnwick  Abbey,  and  he  did  not  cross  the  border 
till  May  13.  The  king  was  accompanied  by  Ludovick,  second 
Duke  of  Lennox,  his  kinsman  and  principal  attendant  at  Cowrie 
House  in  1600  ;  Thomas  Howard,  Earl  of  Arundel,  the  friend 
whom  Raleigh  shortly  afterwards  besought  on  the  scaffold  to 
justify  his  memory  before  James  ;  Henry  Wriothesley,  Earl  of 
Southampton,  the  brilliant  patron  to  whom  Shakespeare  dedi- 
cated Venus  and  Adonis and  Lucrece;  two  brothers,  William  Herbert, 
Earl  of  Pembroke,  and  Philip  Herbert,  Earl  of  Montgomery  ;  the 
notorious  George  Villiers,  then  Earl  of  Buckingham ;  and  Edward 
la  Zouch,  Lord  Zouch.  Besides  these  peers  there  were 
three  High  Church  Prelates,  Dr.  Lancelot  Andrews,  Bishop  of 
Ely,  Dr.  Richard  Neile,  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  and  Dr.  James 

11  Register  of  Privy  Council  of  Scotland,  x.  p.  624.  12/&V.  xi.  p.  66. 

13  See  further  as  to  the  repairs  at  Holyrood,  Royal  Palaces  of  Scotland,  edited 
by  R.  S.  Rait  ;  London,  1911,  p.  113. 


The  Scottish  Progress  of  James  VI        25 

Montague,  Bishop  of  Winchester,  with  a  number  of  knights  and 
other  gentlemen.  Inferior  in  rank,  but  certainly  not  in  impor- 
tance, was  Dr.  William  Laud,  '  a  small  chaplain,  lean  little  tadpole 
of  a  man,  with  red  face  betokening  hot  blood/  as  Carlyle  limns 
him. 

From  Berwick  James  went  to  Dunglas  in  Haddingtonshire, 
the  seat  of  the  Earl  of  Home,  and  at  his  first  stopping-place 
he  had  to  listen  to  a  long  Latin  speech  by  Mr.  Alexander  Hume. 
By  May  15  he  was  at  Seton  House,  where  he  was  received  by 
the  Earl  of  Winton,  and  was  presented  with  a  poem  by  William 
Drummond  of  Hawthornden  entitled  Forth  Feasting^  a  Panegyric 
to  the  Kings  Most  Excellent  Majesty.  It  is  a  delightful  example 
of  this  loyal  author's  playful  fancy.  The  Forth  is  awakened 
from  slumber  by  the  sounds  of  joy  and  sport  which  herald  the 
royal  progress,  and  by  the  glittering  throngs  which  crowd  its 
banks.  Earth  and  sky,  mountain  and  stream,  river-naiad  and  sea- 
god  are  bidden  to  join  in  welcoming  the  returning  monarch. 

And  you  my  Nymphs,  rise  from  your  moist  Repair ; 
Strow  all  your  Springs  and  Grots  with  Lillies  fair  ; 
Some  swiftest-footed,  get  them  hence,  and  pray 
Our  Floods  and  Lakes  come  keep  this  Holy-day. 


To  Virgins,  Flow'rs ;  to  Sun-burnt  Earth,  the  Rain  ; 
To  Mariners  fair  Winds  amidst  the  Main  ; 
Cool  Shades  to  Pilgrims,  which  hot  glances  burn, 
Are  not  so  pleasing  as  thy  blest  Return. 


Ah  why  should  Isis  only  see  Thee  shine  ? 
Is  not  thy  Forth,  as  well  as  Isis  thine  ? 
Though  Isis  vaunt  she  hath  more  Wealth  in  store, 
Let  it  suffice  thy  Forth  doth  love  thee  more. 

These  lines,  taken  at  random  from  a  long  poem,  are  obviously 
the  outcome  of  genuine  admiration,  lavish  as  is  Drummond's 
praise  of  James.  There  is  nothing  artificial  about  his  verse,  for 
he  has  gone  direct  to  nature  for  inspiration,  and  has  avoided  those 
fulsome  and  servile  phrases  of  which  the  authors  of  the  various 
addresses  were  guilty.  Moreover  there  is  a  graceful  allusion  to 
the  Union  of  the  Crowns,  which  could  only  have  been  written  by 
an  adept  in  the  art  of  diplomacy — 

The  Christal-streaming  Nid,  loud  bellowing  Clyde, 
Tweed  which  no  more  our  Kingdoms  shall  divide. 


26  G.   A.   Sinclair 

and  it  is  unfortunate  that  the  local  magnates  did   not  take 

Drummond  for  their  model  in  framing  their  speeches.  *  Mag- 
niloquent loyal  Addresses  more  than  one,  on  this  occasion,  full  of 
drowsy  Bombast,  like  tales  told  by  an  idiot,  I  have  read  and  will 
not  remember/  groans  Carlyle,  and  two  extracts  may  suffice  to 
prove  that  his  scorn  was  amply  justified.  'This  is  that  happy 
day  of  our  new  birth,  ever  to  be  retained  in  fresh  memory  . .  . 
wherein  our  eyes  behold  the  greatest  human  felicity  our  hearts 
could  wish,  which  is  to  feed  upon  the  royal  countenance  of  our 
true  Phoenix,  the  bright  star  of  our  northern  firmament,  the 
ornament  of  our  age,  wherein  we  are  refreshed,  yea  revived  with 
the  heat  and  beams  of  our  sun/  exclaims  Mr.  John  Hay,  Town 
Clerk  Depute  of  Edinburgh.  c  What  heart  would  not  break  ? 
what  eye  would  not  drown  itself  in  tears  for  the  so  long  absence 
of  so  well  beloved  and  so  much  loving  a  Prince,  a  King  second 
unto  no  other,  and  far  from  any  second,  matchless  in  birth  and 
royal  descent  but  more  in  heroical  and  amazing  virtues  ? '  gushes 
Mr.  Robert  Murray  of  Stirling.  Such  crude  and  childish  senti- 
ments James  doubtless  swallowed  with  a  solemn  countenance  as 
befitting  a  Scottish  Solomon. 

Passing  through  Leith,  he  entered  Edinburgh  on  May  16, 
where  he  was  greeted  by  the  Provost,  Magistrates  and  Town 
Council,  attired,  according  to  the  Chronicler  of  Perth,  in  black 
gowns.14  It  seems  strange  that  they  should  have  donned  this 
funereal  garb  ;  and  in  a  letter  dated  a  week  later  from  Mr.  John 
Chamberlain,  in  London,  to  his  friend  Sir  Dudley  Carleton, 
British  Ambassador  at  the  Hague,  a  different  and  more  graphic 
account  of  the  ceremony  is  given.  '  We  have  little  out  of 
Scotland  since  the  king's  being  there.  . . .  Some  speech  there  is 
how  the  burghers  of  Edinburgh  received  him  in  scarlet  gowns 
and  more  than  100  in  velvet  coats  and  chains  of  gold  and  300 
musketeers  in  white  satin  doublets  and  velvet  hose  and  that  they 
presented  him  with  10,000  marks  in  gold/  15 

The  populace  were  horrified  by  the  ritual  at  Holyrood. 
Organs  pealed,  choristers  sang,  and  surplices  were  worn.  Then 
the  king  went  to  his  Palace  of  Falkland  to  hunt,  afterwards  stay- 
ing at  Kinnaird  in  Perthshire,  and  receiving  poems  and  addresses 
of  welcome  at  Dundee.  Between  June  n  and  14  he  visited  the 
Earl  of  Morton  at  Dalkeith,  his  transport  consisting  of  80  carts 

14  The    Chronicle    of  Perth,    1210    to   1668,    Maitland    Club,    Edin. 
p.  19. 

15  The  Court  and  Times  of  James  the  First,  vol.  ii.  1848,  p.  13. 


The  Scottish  Progress  of  James  VI        27 

and  240  horses.16  Back  in  Edinburgh  again  he  lectured  his 
countrymen  at  the  opening  of  Parliament,  frankly  telling  them 
that  they  were  a  barbarous  people.17  He  only  hoped  that  they 
would  be  as  ready  to  adopt  the  good  customs  of  their  Southern 
neighbours  as  they  had  been  eager  to  become  their  pupils  in  the 
arts  of  smoking  tobacco  and  of  wearing  gay  clothes.  The  speech 
is  the  reverse  of  conciliatory,  and  the  authors  of  the  addresses 
must  have  wished  that  they  had  modified  their  language.  It 
was  on  this  occasion  that  David  Calderwood,  minister  of 
Crailing,  was  banished  for  protesting  against  James's  policy  in 
ecclesiastical  affairs.  Continuing  his  progress  by  Stirling  and 
Perth  he  convened  a  meeting  at  St.  Andrews  on  July  13,  at 
which  the  bishops  and  ministers  were  present. 

During  a  second  visit  to  Stirling  he  received  a  deputation  from 
Edinburgh  University  headed  by  the  Principal,  Henry  Charteris. 
For  three  hours  he  listened  to  a  disputation  in  Latin  by  six 
learned  professors,  Adamson,  Fairly,  Sands,  Young,  Reid  and 
King,  and  wound  up  the  debate  by  complimenting  the  com- 
batants and  indulging  in  bad  puns  on  their  names,  as  for  example 
that  Mr.  Young  was  very  old  in  Aristotle.  By  the  end  of  July 
his  Majesty  had  reached  Glasgow  and  Paisley,  and  he  stayed  for 
two  days  at  Hamilton  Palace  with  the  Marquis  of  Hamilton, 
being  also  entertained  at  Sanquhar  Castle  by  Lord  Crichton  of 
Sanquhar.  Doubtless  it  was  a  convenient  stopping-place,  but  the 
royal  visit  must  have  awakened  unpleasant  memories  in  the 
family,  since  only  five  years  earlier  James  had  condemned  his 
host's  predecessor  in  the  title  to  an  ignominious  death  by  hanging 
before  the  gates  of  Westminster  Hall  on  the  charge  of  having 
instigated  a  murder,  for  which  the  unfortunate  sufferer  had  at 
least  some  provocation,  seeing  that  the  victim,  one  Turner,  had, 
whether  intentionally  or  not  is  uncertain,  put  out  one  of  his 
lordship's  eyes  in  a  fencing  bout.  Carlyle,  grimly  humorous, 
cites  this  as  an  example  of  James's  rough  justice.  At  Drumlanrig 
he  was  welcomed  by  Sir  William  Douglas  with  the  usual  poetical 
effusions. 

The  king  arrived  at  Dumfries  on  August  4,  where  he  pre- 
sented the  inhabitants  with  a  miniature  piece  of  ordnance  in 
silver,  which  is  still  preserved  in  the  Town  Hall,  and  ordained 
an  annual  wapinshaw,  in  which  the  Incorporated  Trades  took 
part.  The  competition  was  continued  till  1831,  and  it  forms 

16  The  Scots  Peerage,  edited  by  Sir  J.  Balfour  Paul,  vol.  vi.  1909,  p.  376. 

17  S.  R.  Gardiner's  History  of  England,  vol.  iii.  1883,  p.  224. 


28      The  Scottish  Progress  of  James  VI 

the  theme  of  John  Mayne's  spirited  poem  in  five  cantos,  <  The 
Siller  Gun/  which  deals  with  the  gathering  of  the  corporations, 
the  march  to  the  field,  the  spectators  and  marksmen  and  the 
general  festivities.  Leaving  Annan,  accompanied  by  a  large 
number  of  Scottish  Councillors,  James  then  crossed  the  border 
to  Carlisle  and  bade  farewell  for  ever  to  his  ancient  kingdom  of 
Scotland.  G.  A.  SINCLAIR. 


The  Origin  of  the  Holy  Loch  in 
Cowall,  Argyll 

A  WELL-KNOWN  feature  of  the  Firth  of  Clyde  is  that 
branch  of  it  known  for  ages  as  the  '  Holy  Loch/  The 
old  Statistical  Account  gives  its  Gaelic  equivalent  as  Loch  Shiant. 
On  its  shores  stands  the  remains  of  the  old  Church  of  Kilmun, 
where  for  500  years  the  Campbells  of  Argyll  have  buried  their 
dead. 

There  are  several  traditions  in  regard  to  the  origin  of  the 
term  Holy  Loch,  some  of  which  have  been  printed  or  briefly 
referred  to  in  print  at  different  times,  and  others  have  survived 
in  oral  tradition,  viz.  : 

1.  That  a  Lord  of  Lochow,  returning  from  the  Holy  Land 
with  a  ship  loaded  with    earth   and    sand    from    that   country, 
destined   for   the   foundations   of   S.   Kentigern's   Cathedral  at 
Glasgow,  lost  his  ship  or  ran  her  ashore. 

2.  That  the  Lord  of  Lochow   brought  the  sand   from    the 
Holy  Land  for  a  burying  place  at  Kilmun,  or  for  building  the 
Church  of  Kilmun. 

3.  That  it  was  the  Chief  of  Clan  Lament  who  came  back  from 
Palestine  with  sand  destined  for  the  founding  of  a  burial  place 
at  Kilmun. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  one  feature  common  to  the  various 
accounts  is  the  story  about  sand  from  the  Holy  Land  or  some 
sacred  spot  having  originated  the  epithet. 

In  the  following  passage  dealing  with  a  far  more  remote  age  and 
period,  we  have  a  more  certain  and  interesting  solution  of  the 
origin  of  the  name  *  Holy  Loch,'  and  it  goes  far  to  show  how  a 
story  is  often  brought  down  to  a  time  nearer  to  the  memories  of 
such  as  tell  it  when  it  has  really  occurred  long  before — it  is  in 
fact  the  unconscious  modernisation  of  an  incident  actually 
recorded  in  the  ancient  life  of  that  very  saint  who  was  the 
primitive  founder  of  the  original  Celtic  Church  of  Kilmun,  viz. 
Saint  Fintan  Munnu  or  Mund  (meaning  Fintan,  my  beloved 


3o  Niall  D.  Campbell 

one),  and  whom  from  other  evidence  the  writer  has  been  able  to 
identify  as  the  original  patron  saint  of  the  Campbell  Lords  of 
Lochow. 

There  is  in  the  lives  of  those  saints,  who,  though  Irish  by 
birth,  spent  much  of  their  lives  in  Alba  (Scotland),  seldom  an 
indication  as  to  which  of  the  two  countries  was  the  scene  of  the 
specific  incidents,  miraculous  or  otherwise,  narrated  in  the 
different  chapters.  In  S.  Adamnan's  Life  of  S.  Columba,  and 
in  that  by  S.  Cuimine  the  Fair,  one  of  his  renowned  successors, 
we  find  reference  to  a  considerable  number  of  both  miracles  and 
ordinary  events  which  took  place  in  lona  and  other  parts  of 
Argyll  (Dalriada).  That  the  same  thing  must  be  understood  in 
the  Life  of  S.  Fintan  Munnu  is  obvious,  and  we  need  have  no 
reasonable  doubt  but  that  the  following  incident,  forming  the 
twenty-eighth  chapter  of  this  saint's  life,  took  place  by  the  shores 
of  the  Holy  Loch  in  Scotland,  and  not  at  the  scene  of  any  of  his 
Irish  Foundations,  for  the  reference  to  a  brother,  who  was  a 
Briton,  is  just  what  would  be  natural  in  a  place  like  Kilmun,  so 
near  to  Dunbarton,  the  Capital  of  the  Kingdom  of  the  Strath- 
clyde  Britons.  The  incident  is  thus  narrated,  of  which  the 
following  is  a  translation  : 

Chapter  28.  c  A  certain  monk  of  the  race  of  the  Britons  was 
at  S.  Munnu's,1  and  had  his  cell  hard  by,  and  dwelt  as  a  hermit. 
And  he  was  skilled  in  carpentering,  and  used  to  do  woodwork  and 
other  work  for  the  Brethren.  One  day  Saint  Munnu  came  in 
the  morning  to  that  man's  cell,  and  there  was  at  the  time  a  fire 
in  the  house  for  drying  the  wooden  planks.  And  the  monk 
knelt  before  the  holy  man  and  said,  *  Father,  sit  down  for  a 
short  while  in  the  seat  by  the  fire  that  thy  feet  may  be  warmed/ 
To  which  the  man  of  God  consents,  and  as  he  sat  by  the  fire  the 
monk  took  his  brogues  (ficones)  and  found  wet  sand  in  them. 
And  lifting  it  up  he  wrapped  it  up  in  his  towel  (sudarium),  and 

1  Munnu  is  of  course  a  hypocoristic  name,  being  contracted  from  Mo-fhinnu. 
Taghmon  in  Leinster  is  his  chief  foundation  in  Ireland.  The  principal  Saints 
mentioned  in  his  life  are  SS.  Brendan  of  Clonfert,  Columba,  Cainnech,  Baithine 
of  lona,  Comgall,  Molua,  Molaisse  of  Leighlin,  and  Mochoemog,  who  survived 
Munnu,  dying  in  656,  and  Mr.  Plummer  has  pointed  out  that  in  the  historical 
letting  of  his  life  there  are  no  inconsistencies. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  Strachur,  anciently  Kilmaglass,  was  evidently  founded  by 
or  dedicated  to  S.  Molaisse,  as  an  old  charter  speaks  of  the  Ecclesia  Sancti 
Malaci,  and  its  parish  touches  Kilmun  to  the  north.  Within  its  bounds  lies 
Wenbranter,  which  in  all  old  writs  is  written  Glenbrandanane  and  Glenbrandane, 
clearly  indicating  a  connection  with  S.  Brandan. 


The  Origin  of  the  Holy  Loch  31 

he  said  to  the  man  of  God,  1 1  ask  thee,  Father,  in  the  name  of 
God,  that  thou  wilt  tell  me  what  that  sand  is  ? '  To  whom  the 
holy  man  replied,  '  Promise  me  on  thy  faith  that  thou  wilt  not 
tell  it  to  anyone  during  my  life ' ;  and  on  his  giving  the  promise 
the  saint  saith  to  him,  '  I  have  in  sooth  of  late  arrived  from  the 
Land  of  Promise.  With  me  were  Saint  Columba  and  Saint 
Brendan  and  Saint  Cannich  (Kenneth)  ;  and  God's  power  led  us 
thither  and  led  us  back  thence.  And  from  thence  brought  I  this 
sand  for  my  burial  place.'  Now  that  monk,  after  the  death  of 
the  man  of  God,  narrated  this  story,  and  showed  the  sand  which 
was  placed  in  the  Church  Yard,  as  the  Holy  man  commanded  in 
his  lifetime.' 

Now  the  Salmanticensian  Codex  of  this  saint's  life,  preserved  at 
Brussels,  gives  his  words  on  this  occasion  in  a  fuller  and  more 
curious  manner  : 

*  I  have  now  come  from  the  Land  of  Promise  in  which  we 
four  gathered  together  are  constituting  our  places,  viz.  Columba, 
Kille  and  I,  our  two  places  are  together  about  the  Ford  (duo  loca 
nostra  simul  circa  vadum  consistent).  But  Kannech  and  Brandin 
Macu  Althe  have  set  up  their  places  around  the  other  ford. 
The  name  of  the  place  of  Columbe  Kylle  is  called  Ath  Cain  (i.e. 
the  Fair  Ford),  and  the  name  of  my  place  Port  Subi  (viz.  Port 
Joy).  The  name  of  Kannech's  place  is  called  Set  Bethatch  (Path 
of  Life),  and  the  name  of  Brandan's  place  Aur  Phurdus  (Brink  of 
Paradise).1 

'  If  therefore  a  temptation  come  to  ye  which  ye  are  not  able  to 
bear,  ye  shall  set  forth  to  that  Holy  Land  ;  and  it  shall  be  lawful 
for  ye  if  there  are  to  ye  always  twelve  new  beams  with  ye  and 
twelve  brazen  caldrons  (cacabi  enei)  for  your  journey.  Ye  shall 
therefore  go  to  the  Hill  of  Stones  (Sliabh  Liacc)  in  the  region  of 
the  race  of  Bogen2  to  the  promontory  which  extends  into  the 
sea,  and  there  ye  shall  begin  to  sail.  Killing  your  oxen  and  it  is 
lawful  for  you  to  eat  the  flesh  of  the  oxen.  For  it  might  chance 
owing  to  the  hurry  of  your  setting  out  that  ye  could  not  prepare 
food  for  your  journey,  and  in  the  skins  of  your  oxen  shall  ye 
prosperously  sail  to  the  Holy  Land  of  Promise.' 

There  is  obscurity  in  this  curious  passage,  but  it  would  seem 

1  The  writer  has  not  attempted  to  identify  these  four  place  names  with  their 
beautiful  meanings,  which,  whether  in  Ireland  or  Scotland,  evidently  lie  close  to 
one  another,  and  would  be  glad  to  hear  where  they  are. 

2  Tir  Bogaine,  the  barony  of  Banagh,  Co.  Donegal.     Slieve  League  is  in  that 
Barony  (Plummer,  Vltae  Sanctorum  Hiberniae). 


32  Niall  D.  Campbell 

that  the  oxen  were  not  meant  to  be  shipped  on  to  the  boat,  as 
their  hides  were  evidently  to  be  themselves  employed  in  making 
the  boat  with  the  twelve  new  beams,  as  it  is  distinctly  said  that 
'  in  the  skins  of  your  oxen  ye  shall,'  etc. 

Many  a  new  monastic  foundation  was  symbolically  commenced 
by  twelve  brethren,  and  the  number  of  the  caldrons  ordered 
seems  to  point  to  this  practice  having  been  followed  by  S.  Mun's 
own  community. 

Among  the  Argyll  Charters  dealing  with  the  *  Progress '  of  the 
lands  of  Kilmun,  is  one  under  the  great  seal  of  King  James  IV., 
by  which  that  monarch  (for  the  services  rendered  to  James  II. 
and  James  III.  by  Colin,  first  Earl  of  Argyll,  as  well  as  for  the 
services  rendered  to  himself  and  for  the  love  he  bore  the  Earl) 
erected  the  town  of  Kilmund  into  a  free  burgh  of  barony  for 
ever.  The  inhabitants  were  to  be  burgesses,  and  to  erect  a  cross 
(of  which  no  trace  now  appears  to  remain),  and  hold  weekly 
markets  every  Monday,  and  to  have  two  yearly  fairs,  one  on 
S.  Mund's  own  festival,  the  2ist  October,  the  other  on  the  Feast 
of  the  Invention  of  the  Holy  Cross,  commonly  called  Beltane 
(3rd  May),  and  during  the  octaves  of  those  feasts. 

On  the  2ist  October,  the  Aberdeen  Breviary  duly  enters  the 
Saint's  festival  with  six  lessons  briefly  recording  his  life,  in  which 
his  father's  name,  Tulchain,  and  his  mother's,  Fechele,  are  accu- 
rately given,  and  they  mention  his  burial  at  Kilmun.  All  the  Irish 
Annals  record  his  death,  or  '  quies,'  as  they  touchingly  call  it,  at 
this  date,  in  the  year  635  or  636.  Here  for  many  ages  his  now 
lost  *  bachuil '  was  carefully  preserved. 

When  compiling  for  topographical  reference  the  varying  forms 
of  the  spellings  of  the  original  merklands  *  of  old  extent '  in  the 
ancient  Barony  of  Lochow,  the  writer  had  noticed  that  wherever 
the  early  Campbells  held  lands  connected  with  one  of  their  castles 
or  manors,  a  Chapel  or  *  Cil '  dedicated  to  S.  Mun  lay  in  close 
proximity.  Suspecting  that  these  coincidences  were  unlikely  to 
be  entirely  due  to  chance,  he  thought  it  more  than  likely  that 
just  as  S.  Morich  was  adopted  as  the  patron  saint  of  the  ancient 
Clan  MacNachtan,  possibly  because  he  was  the  first  apostle  of 
the  faith  through  whom  the  conversion  of  that  clan  (or  their 
remoter  progenitors)  had  taken  place,  so  S.  Mund  might  quite 
possibly  be  the  primitive  patron  of  the  Campbells  or  O'Duibhnes. 

For  instance,  close  to  Innischonnel,  the  oldest  known  fortress 
of  the  Campbells,  Lords  of  Lochow,  we  have  a  Kilmun.  Three 


The  Origin  of  the  Holy  Loch  33 

miles  off,  and  close  to  another  of  their  old  castles  on  Locharich,  in 
Lome,  lies  another  Kilmun.  Again,  close  to  the  first  land  which 
tradition  says  they  acquired  in  Glenaray  (viz.  the  Field  of  the 
Petticoat)  lies  another  Kilmun,  where  foundations  can  be  dis- 
tinctly seen  to  this  day,  whilst  on  the  Holy  Loch  in  Cowall, 
close  to  the  Manor  Place  of  Stratheachie,  where  Duncan,  first 
Lord  Campbell,  used  so  often  to  dwell  when  on  his  '  solempne 
hontynges '  in  the  neighbouring  forest  of  Beinmor,  and  from 
which  some  of  his  charters  are  dated,  lies  the  best  known  and 
most  famous  Kilmun  of  all.  It  had  long  existed  as  a  Parish 
Church,  but  he,  for  the  repose  of  the  soul  of  his  loved  first-born 
son,  Celestine  or  Gillespick  Cambell,  and  others  of  his  kindred 
and  ancestors,  on  4th  August,  1442,  erected  it  into  a  Collegiate 
Church  for  Secular  Canons,  and  for  whose  becoming  maintenance 
he  granted  certain  lands  in  Mortmain  or  *  Frankalmoigne.'  This 
then  was  the  aggrandisement  of  a  pre-existing  foundation  upon 
a  venerated  site.1 

The  above  supposition  as  to  the  early  connection  between 
S.  Fintan  or  Mund  with  the  Campbells  was  strengthened  seven 
years  ago  by  the  writer  finding  at  the  end  of  a  transcript  of  the 
1442  charter  some  notes  made  in  1819  by  the  industrious 
senachie,  James  Campbell  of  Craignure,  on  behalf  of  Lady  Char- 
lotte Campbell,  in  which  Craignure  plainly  and  definitely  asserts 
that  S.  Mund  was  the  accepted  patron  saint  of  the  early  Lords  of 
Lochow. 

Constant  tradition  has  affirmed  that  Celestine  Cambell  died  on 
his  way  back  to  Lochow  from  studying  in  Glasgow,  and  that  a 
great  snowstorm  prevented  the  vassals  from  bearing  his  body  to 
Inishail  on  Lochow,  where  till  this  event  the  Campbells  had  been 
laid  for  centuries,  as  well  as  their  kinsmen  the  MacArthurs. 
Further,  that  it  was  the  great  Lament  of  all  Cowall  c  who  granted 
a  grave  to  the  Lord  of  Lochow  in  his  distress.'  A  Gaelic  saying 
to  this  day  preserves  this  tradition.  Against  its  truth  (unless  it 
was  a  much  earlier  Lord  of  Lochow  to  whom  it  happened)  must 
be  set  the  following  incontestable  fact,  viz.  that  there  is  absolute 
proof  from  an  undated  charter  of  circa  1360^  that  Kilmun  and 

1  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  much  of  the  time  which  this  Duncan  spent  as  a 
hostage  in  England  in  the  reign  of  Henry  IV.  was  at  Fotheringhay  Castle, 
and  the  neighbouring  Parish  Church  had  recently  been  erected  into  a  similar 
collegiate  establishment,  and  it  is  possible  that  this  gave  him  the  idea  for  Kilmun. 

2 This  charter  was  confirmed  by  King  David  on  the  nth  October,  in  the 
thirty-fourth  year  of  his  reign  and  the  Countess  having  given  another  charter, 

C 


34  The  Origin  of  the   Holy  Loch 

many  adjoining  lands  came  into  the  hands  of  Guilleaspos  (sic) 
Cambell,  son  of  Sir  Colin  Cambell  of  Lochow,  by  a  grant  from 
Mary,  Countess  of  Menteith.  Now  this  Guilleaspos  was  the 
grandfather  of  Duncan,  who  founded  the  Collegiate  Church  and 
establishment.  The  grant  included  the  Advowson,  etc.,  and  as 
the  Countess  terms  the  grantee  '  her  beloved  and  special  cousin/ 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  there  was  a  close  blood  relationship 
between  the  parties.  There  is  charter  proof  that  Guilleaspos 
married  Mariota,  daughter  of  Sir  Iain  Laumond  of  that  Ilk,  and  it 
is  significant  that  the  old  clan  pedigrees  assert  that  his  second 
marriage  was  to  a  daughter  of  Sir  John  Menteth,  second  son  of 
Walter  Stewart,  fifth  Earl  of  Menteith,  which  is  doubtless 
perfectly  correct. 

As  the  Lamonts  undoubtedly  had  held  Kilmun  in  the  thir- 
teenth century,1  the  problem  remains  unsolved  as  to  how  the 
Menteiths  acquired  it,  unless  they  married  a  Lament  at  some 
previous  date,  of  which  no  record  appears  to  remain. 

If  the  tradition  about  the  grant  of  the  grave  for  Celestine's 
body  be  indeed  true,  it  would  seem  to  show  that  the  Lamonts 
had  retained  certain  burial  rights  in  the  chancel,  or  in  some 
special  portion  of  the  pre-Collegiate  Church  of  Kilmun. 

NIALL  D.  CAMPBELL. 

also  undated,  of  some  further  lands  at  Kilmun,  which  were  to  be  held  in  feu  ot 
her  for  payment  of  a  silver  penny  at  Glasgow  fair,  King  David  confirmed  it 
upon  25th  May  in  the  thirty-third  year  of  his  reign. 

The  reddendo  of  the  other  charter  was  a  pair  of  Parisian  gloves  at  Glasgow 
fair  if  asked  for,  which  shows  that  both  were  blench  tenures,  and  in  both  charters 
the  King's  service  in  war  as  far  as  may  concern  the  lands  granted  is  reserved. 
(Originals  in  the  Argyll  Charter  Chest.) 

Further,  the  Countess  states  that  she  holds  Keanloch  Kilmun,  Correikmore, 
Stronlonag,  Correntie  Bernicemore  and  Stronnahunseon  of  the  Stewart  of  Scot- 
land. These  are  the  lands  named  in  the  second  charter  to  Guilleaspos  Cambell. 

1  Between  1230  and  1246  Duncan,  the  son  of  Fercher,  and  his  nephew, 
Lauman,  the  son  of  Malcolm,  granted  to  the  monks  of  Paisley  those  three  half- 
penny lands  which  they  and  their  ancestors  had  at  Kilmun  with  the  fishing  and 
all  other  just  pertinents  and  bounds  and  the  whole  right  of  patronage  competent 
to  them  in  the  Church  of  Kilmun.  In  1270  Engus,  the  son  of  Duncan,  the  son 
of  Ferkard,  confirmed  the  grant,  (Register  of  Paisley  Abbey,  pp.  132-133.) 


A  Mass  of  St.  Ninian 

THE  following  proper  for  a  mass  of  St.  Ninian  is  written  in 
a  sixteenth  century  hand  on  the  verso  of  the  last  leaf  of  a 
Roman  missal.1  The  missal  is  a  folio  printed  at  Paris  by  Petit  in 
1546,  and  the  title  page  begins  Missale  ad  sacrosancte  Romane 
ecclesie  mum?  There  are  no  Scottish  saints'  names  added  in  the 
kalendar,  nor  are  there  any  other  manuscript  additions.  We 
have  no  evidence  that  the  Roman  use  was  ever  introduced  in  the 
parish  churches  of  Scotland.  All  surviving  books  and  fragments 
of  Scottish  secular  use  are  of  the  English  use  of  Sarum,  and  all 
other  evidence  goes  to  show  that  that  use  must  have  been  practi- 
cally universal  on  the  mainland  of  Scotland.  But  the  Greyfriars 
generally  seem  to  have  used  the  Roman  books  whatever  country 
they  were  in,  and  it  is  not  impossible  that  we  have  here  a  missal 
that  was  used  by  them.  The  addition  in  manuscript  of  a  mass  of 
St.  Ninian  is  not  absolute  proof  that  the  book  containing  it  was 
used  in  Scotland,  though  it  is  exceedingly  likely. 

The  Office  or  Introit  is  not  given.  The  Collect  is  the  same  as 
that  in  the  Arbuthnott  Missal,3  except  for  a  few  unimportant 
verbal  variations.  The  Collect  in  the  Aberdeen  Breviary4  has  the 
same  ending  but  a  different  beginning.  This  is  unusual  :  it  is 
not  uncommon  to  find  liturgical  forms  with  the  same  beginnings 
but  different  endings.5  The  Gospel  is  the  same  as  in  Arbuthnott, 

1  In  the  possession  of  the  Very  Rev.  F.  Llewellyn  Deane,  D.D.,  Provost  of  St. 
Mary's  Cathedral,  Glasgow,  to  whose  kindness  I  am  indebted  for  permission  to 
transcribe  the  manuscript  matter. 

2  This  edition  is  not  in  Bibliographia  Liturgica,  by  W.  H.  J.  Weale,  a  book 
which  is  far  from  complete. 

3  Liber  ecclesie  B.  Terrenani  de  Arbuthnott,  Burntisland,  1864,  369. 

4 Breviarium  Aberdonense,  1509-10,  repr.  1854,  Pan  estiva,  fo.  cvij?. 

5  For  example,  many  of  the  collects  in  the  Aberdeen  breviary  have  the  same 
beginnings  as  those  in  the  earlier  Fowlis-Easter  breviary  (Breviarium  Bothanum, 
London  1901),  and  it  may  be  that  Elphinstone  retained  the  old  familiar  openings, 
altering  the  rest  in  accordance  with  the  taste  of  the  day,  just  as  Dr.  Bancroft  did 


36  F.  C.  Eeles 

but  all  the  rest  is  different  There  is  no  Sequence  as  there  is  in 
Arbuthnott.1  The  Secret  appears  to  be  slightly  altered  from  that 
of  St.  Praxedes  in  the  Sarum  missal.2  The  Post-communion  is 
that  of  the  mass  De  non  virgine  in  the  Sarum  missal,3  and  is  the 
same  as  that  of  St.  Anastasia  at  the  second  mass  of  Christmas- 
Day  in  all,  or  at  any  rate  nearly  all,  Latin  rites,  and  is  also 
found  in  the  Rheinau  and  St.  Gall  MSS.  of  the  Gelasian  Sacra- 
mentary,  and  in  most  Latin  uses  though  not  in  Sarum  for  St. 
Marcellus(i6th  Jan.).4 

The  rest  of  the  mass  is  taken  from  the  Common  of  a  Confessor 
and  Bishop,  and  might  be  either  from  the  Roman  or  Sarum  uses, 
except  that  the  Alleluia  X/.  E/egit  is  not  in  the  unreformed  Roman 
for  this  purpose,  and  the  Communion  Seme/  iuraui  is  not  in  the 
Sarum.  It  is  probable  that  the  mass  was  copied  out  of  a  manu- 
script book  of  some  Scottish  diocese  other  than  St.  Andrews  or 
Aberdeen,  that  is  to  say  if  we  are  to  take  the  proper  in  the 
Arbuthnott  missal  and  the  Aberdeen  breviary  as  representing 
anything  like  a  consistent  use  in  those  dioceses. 

Both  forms  of  the  Collect  are  very  similar  to  one  of  St.  Ethel- 
wold  in  the  Leofric  missal,5  the  missal  of  Robert  of  Jumieges,6 
and  in  an  eleventh  century  English  missal  in  the  British  Museum 
(MS.  Vitell.  A.  xviii),5  which  have  for  the  Secret  and  Post- 
communion  of  St.  Ethelwold,  forms  practically  the  same  as  those 
in  the  Arbuthnott  mass  of  St.  Ninian.  The  same  Secret,  with 
different  Collect  and  Post-communion,  occurs  in  the  Westminster 
missal.7  Possibly  the  Arbuthnott  forms  are  not  direct  adaptations 
from  this  mass  of  St.  Ethelwold  :  it  is  perhaps  more  likely  that 
both  are  from  a  common  source.  The  Arbuthnott  Post-com- 

with  certain  prayers  in  the  English  Coronation  Service  in  1685.  But  in  the  case 
of  the  collect  of  St.  Ninian,  the  Aberdeen  form  is  nearer  to  that  from  which  both 
seem  to  be  derived. 

1  The  Arbuthnott  sequence  is  also  to  be  found,  with  verbal  variations,  among 
the  manuscript  additions  in  the  printed  Sarum  missal  formerly  used  in  St. 
Nicholas,  Aberdeen.  See  Proc.  Soc.  Antiquaries  of  Scot,  xxxiii.  440. 

*Missalead  usum  .  . .  Sarum,  ed.  F.  H.  Dickinson,  Burntisland  1861-83,  col.  817  ; 
also  for  St.  Praxedes  in  missals  of  York,  Westminster,  St.  Albans,  Abingdon, 
Rouen,  and  missal  of  Robert  of  Jumieges. 

8  Ib.  col.  734*. 

4  The  Gelasian  Sacramentary,  ed.  H.  A.  Wilson,  1894,  321. 

*The  Leofric  Missal,  ed.  F.  E.  Warren,  Oxford,  1883,  286,  306. 

c  The  Missal  of  Robert  of  Jumieges,  ed.  H.  A.  Wilson  (H.  Bradshaw  Soc.),  1896, 194. 

1  Missale  Westmonasteriense,  ed.  J.  W.  Legg  (H.  Bradshaw  Soc.),  1893,  ii.  col.  891. 


A   Mass  of  St.  Ninian  37 

munion  I  have  been  unable  to  trace  any  further.  The  rest  of 
the  Arbuthnott  mass  is  from  the  Sarum  Common  of  a  Confessor 
and  Bishop. 

Little  or  nothing  has  been  done  towards  tracing  the  sources  of 
the  collects  of  the  Scottish  saints'  days,  or  indeed  of  their  lessons 
in  the  Aberdeen  Breviary.  This  is  a  field  which  would  repay 
investigation. 

I  have  extended  all  contractions,  retaining  spelling,  punctua- 
tion, and  use  of  capitals  as  in  the  original,  which  is  in  an  ordinary 
cursive  hand,  and  not  very  carefully  written.  I  have  used  square 
brackets  for  all  extensions  not  definitely  signified  in  the  original. 
For  the  convenience  of  the  student  I  have  given  the  shorter 
Scripture  passages  in  full,  but  not  the  full  collect  endings,  nor 
have  I  written  out  the  Epistle  and  Gospel.  References  to  the 
Scripture  text  will  be  found  in  the  footnotes.  I  have  not  ex- 
tended the  Scripture  passages  from  the  Arbuthnott  Missal  in 
the  Appendix. 

I  must  express  my  indebtedness  to  Dr.  Wickham  Legg's 
invaluable  index  to  the  third  volume  of  the  Henry  Bradshaw 
Society's  edition  of  the  Westminster  Missal. 

F.  C.  EELES. 

De  Sancto  niniano 

[Oracio] 

DEUS  qui  populos  pictorum  *et  britonum1  per  doctrinam  sancti  niniani 
episcopi 2  ad  noticiam  tue  fidei 3  conuertisti  concede  propicius  ut  cuius 
erudicione  veritatis  tue  luce  perfundimur  ;  4  ipsius  interuentu 4  celestis  vite 
gaudia  consequamur  ;  P[er].  D[ominum] 

Eptstola     Dilectus  deo.5 

Graduate  Ecce  sacerdos  [magnus  :  qui  in  diebus  suis  placuit  deo.  ft/ 
Non  est  inventus  similis  illi  :  qui  conservaret  legem  excels!.]  6 ;  Alleluia  Jy7 
Elegit  te  dominus  sibi  in  sacerdotem  magnum  in  populo  suo 

Euangelium  In  illo  tempore  d[ixit].  I[hesus].  d[iscipulis].  sfuis]  para- 
bolam  hanc  homo  quidam  peregre  7 

Offertorium  Inueni  dauid  [seruum  meum :  et  in  oleo  sancto  meo  unxi 
eum ;  manus  enim  mea  auxiliabitur  ei  et  brachium  meum  confortabit 
eum.8] 

1-1  In  margin.  2  +  et  confessoris  tui,  Arb. 

3  /./  noticiam,  Arb.  4~4  ejus  intercession,  Arb. 

5Ecclus.  xlv.  1-6.  6Ecclus.  xliv.  16,  19,  20. 

7  Mat.  xxv.  14-23.  8Ps.  Ixxxix.  (Vul.  Ixxxviii.)  20,  21. 


38  A  Mass  of  St.  Ninian 

Secreta 

Svscipe  domine  quesumus  ob  honorem  sancti  niniani  confessoris  tui  atque 
pontificis  munus  oblatum  ;  et  quod  nostris  assequi  meritis  non  valemus  ; 
leius  suffrages  impetremus  l  P[er].  D[ominum] 

Commumo  Semel  iuraui  [in  sancto  meo  :  semen  eius  in  eternum  manebit  : 
et  sedes  eius  sicut  sol  in  conspectu  meo  :  et  sicut  luna  perfecta  in  eternum  : 
et  testis  in  celo  fidelis.]2 

Postcommunio 

Saciasti  domine  familiam  tuam.  muneribus  sacris  eius  quesumus  semper3 
interuencionem  t  nos  refoue  cuius  4memoriam  pia  deuotione4  celebramus  ; 
P[er].  Dominum 

APPENDIX 

COLLECT  FROM  ABERDEEN  BREVIARY 

Deus  qui  hodiernam  diem  beati  niniani  confessoris  tui  atque  pontificis 
festiuitate  honorabilem  nobis  dedicasti  :  concede  propicius  vt  cuius  erudi- 
cione  veritatis  tue  luce  perfundimur  eius  intercessione  celestis  vite  gaudia 
consequamur.  Per  dominum 

MASS  FROM  ARBUTHNOTT  MISSAL 

Officmm.     Statuit  ei. 

[Epistold]     Ecce  sacerdos  magnus  .  .  . 

Gradate.     Domine,  praevenisti.     Alleluya.     V.  Inveni  David. 

Sequentia.     Ave,  pater  et  patrone  .  .  . 

Qffertorium.     Veritas 

Secreta. 

Oblata  servitutis  nostrae  munera,  Domine,  quesumus,  annua  sancti  patris 
nostri  Niniani  episcopi  solennitas  commendet  accepta  ;  ut,  ejus  pia  suppli- 
catione  muniti,  cunctorum  nostrorum  delictorum  veniam,  et  beatitudinis 
sempiternae  mereamur  obtinere  consortium.  Per. 

Communio.     Beatus  servus. 

Postcommunio. 

Refectos,  Domine,  vitalis  alimoniae  sacramentis,  sancti  confessoris  tui 
Niniani  episcopi  gloriosa  nos  intercessione  protege,  et  ad  aeternum  coelestis 
mensae  convivium  concede  pervenire.  Per. 


m  suffragantibus  meritis  nobis  la  rgire  propitius,  Sar. 
2  Ps.  Imix.  (Vul.  Imviii.).  3  m%  Sar>  4-4  jojemaia,  Sar. 


The    Honorific    'The' 

* '  I  \HE '  as  a  distinctive  epithet  before  a  surname  has  long  been 
A  regarded  as  essentially  Celtic.  A  story  is  told  of  a  late 
Irish  politician,  who  claimed  that  it  was  a  distinction  to  which 
but  three  persons  were  entitled — The  Pope,  The  Devil  and  The 
O'Gorman.  But  mutatis  mutandis  this  story  was  current  at  a 
much  earlier  period. 

Neither  philologists  nor  archaeologists  have  given  much  con- 
sideration to  the  origin  of  this  use  of  the  word  '  the/  and  it  has 
been  generally  accepted  as  a  fact  that  the  heads  of  certain  Highland 
and  Irish  clans  or  septs  are  customarily  entitled  to  it,  or  even  that 
anyone  who  can  establish  a  claim  to  chieftainship,  and  who  bears 
a  Celtic  patronymic,  is  justified  in  using  it. 

The  use  of  '  the '  as  the  prefix  of  a  surname  in  combination 
with  a  Christian  name  is  of  course  sufficiently  common,  and  may 
be  found  in  quite  early  documents  written  in  the  vernacular. 
Some  philologists  unhesitatingly  assert  that  it  is  in  fact  employed 
as  the  English  or  Scots  equivalent  of  the  Anglo-Norman  or  law- 
Latin  c  de,'  and  as  some  stress  is  placed  upon  this  opinion,  it  is, 
perhaps,  worthy  of  special  remark  that  in  Scots,  though  not 
apparently  in  English,  this  '  de '  is  often  rendered  by  c  of,'  as  in 
'  Huchoun  of  Rosse  barowne  of  Kilravach,  Robert  of  Rosse, 
Alexander  of  Rosse,  Huchoun  of  Sutherland/  in  a  Kilravock 
deed  of  the  year  1458  ;  and  in  'James  of  Ogillwy  of  Deskfurde, 
knycht,  Waltyr  of  Ogillwy  his  bruther,  and  Mastyr  Thomas  of 
Grantt,  officialle  off  Murreff/  in  another  deed  of  the  year  1475. 
A  late  survival  of  this  cof'  as  a  translation  of  the  law-Latin  cde ' 
occurs  in  c  Johnn  of  Doles/  in  a  '  letter  of  assithment '  of  the  year 
1513.  From  these  few  instances  it  is  clear  that  whether  the 
Scottish  scribes  of  the  fifteenth  century  did  or  did  not  at  times 
write  *  the '  when  they  intended  to  express  c  de/  they  were  under 
no  misapprehension  as  to  its  real  meaning.  In  English  writings, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  Norman  '  de '  was  generally  either 
altogether  eliminated  or  retained  without  translation,  as  in  De 


4o  James  Dallas 

Lisle,  Darcy,  Devereux,  Daubeny,  Damarell,  etc.,  though 
occasionally  it  was  Englished  into  '  at/  as  in  Atwood,  Atwell,  etc. 

There  are,  however,  certain  surnames,  reasonably  regarded  as 
Scottish,  which  regularly  take  the  prefix  '  the '  instead  of  the 
more  usual  preposition.  In  many  early  documents  such  names 
as  Reginald  the  Cheyne,  Hugh  the  Rose,  William  the  Hay, 
William  the  Graeme  may  constantly  be  met  with,  the  '  the '  in 
these  cases  being  unquestionably  a  translation  of  the  French 
or  law-Latin  4  le.'  Occasionally,  it  is  true,  one  or  another  of 
them  will  be  found  with  c  of  *  or  '  de/  and  particularly  is  this 
the  case  with  Rose,  which  was  sometimes  taken  for  the  English 
(Norman)  Rois  or  Roos,  and  sometimes  for  the  Scottish  Ross. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  would  probably  be  very  difficult  to  find  an 
instance  of  Cheyne  with  any  other  prefix  than  '  the '  or  '  le.'  So 
far  as  these  facts  go  they  are  opposed  to  the  sweeping  assertion 
that  'the'  in  connection  with  Scottish  surnames  is  the  habitual 
rendering  of  the  law-Latin  '  de/  though  they  are  by  no  means 
sufficient  to  refute  such  a  theory  in  toto. 

In  Barbour's  Scottish  poem,  now  conveniently  known  by 
Blind  Harry's  descriptive  title  c  The  Bruce/  composed  about  the 
year  1375,  and  transcribed  in  a  still  existing  copy  in  1487,  there 
are  innumerable  instances  of  *  the '  employed  as  a  possible 
translation  or  equivalent  of  '  de/  Thus  : 

Be  this  resoun  that  part  thocht  hale, 
That  the  lord  of  Anandyrdale, 
Robert  the  Brwyss,  Erie  of  Carryk 
Aucht  to  succeid  to  the  kynryk  (i.  65-8). 

And  again  of  Bruce's  brother  : 

Quhar  Nele  the  Bruyss  come,  and  the  queyn  (ii.  513). 
Baliol  occurs  in  the  poem  in  similar  form  : 

Bot  schir  Jhon  the  Balleoll,  perfay, 
Assentyt  till  him,  in  all  his  will  (i.   168-9); 

and  there  are  also  <  Schir  Jhone  the  Cumyn/  <  Schir  Dauid  the 
Breklay/  *  Schir  Philip  the  Mowbray/  and  many  more.  Most 
of  these  names  would  in  Latin  be  written  usually  with  *  de/ 
though  with  Cumyn  any  article  is  as  a  general  rule  omitted.  But 
it  is  ^fairly  obvious  that  this  c  the '  bears  no  real  analogy  to  the 
4  the'  in,  for  example,  <the  Macnab'  or  'the  Macgillicuddy/ 
whether  or  not  it  be  a  corrupt  rendering  of  the  Latin  '  de/ 


The  Honorific  'The'  41 

There  are,  however,  in  Barbour' s  poem  not  only  these  quasi- 
translations  of  the  Latin  *  de,'  but  also  innumerable  examples  of 
the  use  of  c  the '  as  what  can  only  be  regarded  as  a  distinctive 
epithet  applied  to  the  '  head '  or  '  chief  of  one  and  another  of  the 
better-known  Lowland  or  Border  families.  Thus  : 

The  Bruss  lap  on,  and  thiddir  raid  (ii.  28) 

is  clearly  intended  to  specify  Robert  Bruce,  as  distinct  from  his 
brother  Neil.  And  again  : 

Our  all  the  land  the  word  gan  spryng, 

That  the  Bruce  the  Cumyn  had  slayn  (ii.  79) 

refers  to  Robert  Bruce,  afterwards  King  of  Scots,  and  to  the  Red 
Corny n,  the  acknowledged  head  of  the  once  potent  family  of 
Comyn,  who  was  murdered  by  Bruce  in  1306. 

The  Dowglas  his  way  has  tane 
Rycht  to  the  horss  (ii.   134) 

applies  to  the  chief  of  the  Douglases,  and  were  it  necessary 
instances  could  be  multiplied  indefinitely. 

Did  this  use  of  *  the  '  in  Barbour's  poem  stand  alone  it  might 
be  regarded  as  an  eccentricity  or  mannerism  of  the  poet,  but  other 
early  instances  can  be  cited.  It  must  be  remembered,  however, 
that  it  is  not  a  form  which  readily  lends  itself  to  exact  and 
definitive  compositions.  It  is  essentially  colloquial  and  familiar, 
and  could  never  be  employed  in  strictly  legal  instruments  in 
consequence  of  its  lack  of  precise  personal  application.  It  con- 
veys the  idea  of  the  chief  of  a  family  or  clan  in  general,  without 
identifying  a  particular  chief — in  fact,  it  identifies  the  status  but 
not  the  individuality  of  the  person  mentioned,  and  it  conse- 
quently appears  only  now  and  again  in  poetical  or  in  informal 
writings.  No  very  exhaustive  search  has  been  made  for  illus- 
trative examples,  but  the  instances  presently  to  be  cited  are 
amply  sufficient  to  prove  that  the  practice  of  designating  a 
*  chief  by  the  distinctive  epithet  c  the  '  was  thoroughly  established 
in  Scotland  at  least  since  the  time  of  Barbour. 

Just  a  century  later  than  Barbour,  *  Blind  Harry '  is  supposed 
to  have  composed  his  poem  '  Schir  William  Wallace/  and  though 
in  this  no  constant  use  is  to  be  found  of  '  the  as  in  '  The  Bruce/ 
it  yet  occurs  here  and  there  with  apparently  the  intention  of 
designating  a  person  pre-eminent  amongst  his  kin. 

To  fend  the  rycht  all  that  he  tuk  on  hand, 

And  thocht  to  bryng  the  Bruce  fre  till  his  land  (viii.   145-6) 


42  James  Dallas 

is  of  course  a  reference  to  the  future  king,  as  is  : 

The  Bruce  tharfor  gaiff  him  full  gret  gardoun  (ix.  1150)  ; 

and  there  are  several  similar  references  to  Bruce. 

In  like  manner  an  English  Border  knight  is  more  than  once 
referred  to  as  *  the  Butler,'  apparently  to  distinguish  him  from  his 
son,  who  is  also  represented  as  performing  feats  of  arms  in  the 
Border  wars.  And  it  is  narrated  how 

The  Ramsais  spy  has  seyn  thaim  get  entre 

The  buschement  brak,  bathe  bryg  and  post  has  won  (ix.  732-3), 

but  in  this  case  it  is  just  possible  that  '  Ramsais '  may  be  intended 
for  a  plural.  Of  c  the  Bruce/  however,  there  is  no  doubt. 

Philologists  will  doubtless  say  this  is  but  an  echo  of  the  language 
employed  by  Barbour.  But  after  all  a  custom  is  at  best  but  an 
echo  of  that  which  has  gone  before  ;  and,  moreover,  '  Blind 
Harry'  goes  so  small  a  way  in  copying  Barbour's  forms  that  it 
might  with  some  confidence  be  assumed  that  he  did  not  copy 
them  at  all,  but  used  '  the  Bruce '  simply  because  that  appeared  to 
him  to  be  the  natural  way  of  describing  the  chief  of  the  Bruces. 

However  this  may  be,  the  fact  remains  that  Barbour  about  the 
year  1375,  and  'Blind  Harry*  about  the  year  1470,  employed 
the  word  '  the '  before  a  surname  to  emphasize  the  pre-eminence 
of  certain  notable  persons  amongst  their  kin,  and  that  the  epithet 
continued  thus  to  be  used  during  succeeding  centuries,  though 
examples,  either  in  print  or  in  manuscript,  are  few  and  far 
between. 

Subsequently  to  Blind  Harry's  epic  the  earliest  use  of  the  form 
which  has  hitherto  been  noticed  occurs  in  some  sixteenth-century 
Sheriff  Court  Records  of  the  shire  of  Inverness,  preserved  in  the 
Register  House,  Edinburgh.  These  records  appear  to  be  the 
rough  minutes  of  the  proceedings,  and  were  doubtless  intended 
to  be  subsequently  extended  into  more  orderly  and  legal  form. 
In  1561,  in  a  list  of  those  present  at  the  Court  Session,  is 
included  '  the  Dollace  of  Cantray ' ;  and  in  the  following  year,  in 
the  report  of  a  case,  it  is  recorded  that  '  the  jugis  hes  consignit 
hir  [Ellyne  Ross]  ...  to  wairne  the  Dollace  upon  ane  xv  dayis 
warning.'  It  seems  impossible  to  differentiate  between  these 
Highland  examples  and  those  already  cited  from  the  Lowlands, 
particularly  when  it  is  remembered  that  the  lesser  barons  of  the 
province  of  Moray  were  almost  without  exception  the  descendants 
of  English-speaking  immigrants  from  the  South. 


The  Honorific  c  The  '  43 

Chronologically,  the  next  authority  to  be  noticed  is  an  English- 
man. Shakespeare  more  than  once  adopted  the  Scottish  distinctive 
epithet  when  speaking  of  c  the  Douglas/  Thus  Hotspur,  in 
enumerating  those  upon  whose  support  he  could  rely,  exclaims, 
c  Is  there  not  besides  the  Douglas  ? '  and,  in  addressing  Douglas, 
he  says  : 

if  speaking  truth 

In  this  fine  age  were  not  thought  flattery, 
Such  attribution  should  the  Douglas  have 
As  not  a  soldier  of  this  season's  stamp 
Should  go  so  general  current  through  the  world  (H.  IV.,  iv.  i.). 

And  Douglas  himself  exclaims  : 

I  am  the  Douglas,  fatal  to  all  those 
That  wear  those  colours  on  them  (v.  iv.). 

The  play  of  '  Henry  IV.'  was  written  in  1597  ;  where  Shake- 
speare obtained  his  knowledge  of  this  Scottish  form  of  speech  it 
may  be  difficult  to  determine,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
he  did  not  use  it  without  authority,  and  it  may  be  presumed  that 
he  regarded  it  as  specially  appropriate  to  a  Scottish  chieftain. 

Turning  again  to  Scottish  authorities;  Hugh  Rose  in  1683 
wrote  a  notable  work  on  the  history  of  his  family,  '  A  Genealogicall 
Deduction  of  the  Family  of  Rose  of  Kilravock,'  in  the  course  of 
which  he  frequently  makes  use  of  this  defining  'the/  as  applied 
to  the  surnames  of  the  heads  of  families.  He  speaks  of  Godefridus 
Ross,  'who  did  good  and  faithfull  service  to  the  Bruce'  (15),  and 
says  that  Hugh,  Earl  of  Ross, '  was  father  also  to  another  daughter, 
by  marrying  of  whom  The  Fraser  gott  Philorth  and  Pitsligo'  (23). 
Again  he  says,  'the  said  Marie  did  marrie  the  Fraser'  (27),  and, 
CA  third  daughter  of  the  Bisset,  was  this  Elizabeth  Bisset'  (27). 
He  mentions  ctwo  sisters,  heirs  portioners  of  the  Bisset'  (31), 
and  records  that  c  the  Historic  of  The  Douglas  mentions  Hugo 
de  Cadella'  (61).  Finally  he  mentions  'William  Sinclar,  a  great 
friend  to  the  Douglas'  (94).  It  is  impossible  to  ignore  the 
significance  of  these  numerous  instances.  Evidently  the  use  of 
'  the '  in  combination  with  the  name  of  the  head  of  an  ancient 
family  was  so  familiar  to  Mr.  Hugh  Rose  that  he  employed  it 
habitually  and  without  any  suggestion  that  it  was  other  than 
natural  and  customary. 

Four  years  earlier  than  the  '  Genealogical  Deduction  '  there  is  a 
letter  dated  26  November,  1679,  addressed  by  an  Inverness 
lawyer  to  Sir  Hugh  Campbell  of  Cawdor,  which  concludes  : — 


44  James  Dallas 

'Ye  may  likewise  acquaint  me  what  ye  have  done  with  the 
Chissolme.'  According  to  tradition  the  head  of  the  Chisholms 
had,  at  least  from  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century,  been 
styled  'The  Chisholm,'  and  Miss  Catherine  Sinclair,  in  her 
Sketches  and  Stories  of  Scotland,  first  published  in  1840,  gives  the 
prototype  of  the  story  which  was  later  fathered  upon  the  Erse 
chieftain,  when  she  describes  Erchless  Castle  as  still  c  belonging  to 
the  descendants  of  that  old  chief  who  said  there  were  but  three 
persons  in  the  world  entitled  to  be  called  <  The ' — the  King,  the 
Pope,  and  the  Chisholm/  c  The  Chisholm '  is  a  designation  of 
old  standing  ;  it  has  persisted  from  generation  to  generation,  and 
is  still  recognized  and  employed  by  persons  conversant  with  the 
niceties  of  Scottish  phraseology. 

The  few  instances  here  given  of  the  distinctive  use  of  c  the  ' 
with  a  surname  might  easily  be  multiplied.  They  are,  however, 
sufficient  to  substantiate  the  actuality  of  the  use  of  c  the '  as  a 
distinctive  epithet  implying  chieftainship,  and  to  prove  that  this 
usage  is  no  mere  modern  affectation. 

But  not  one  of  these  examples  gives  ground  for  the  belief  that 
the  practice  arose  or  obtained  amongst  the  Celtic  chieftains  of 
Scotland  and  Ireland.  On  the  contrary,  all  the  names  mentioned, 
associated  with  '  the/  would  appear  to  be  of  territorial  origin,  and 
certainly  not  one  amongst  them  bears  any  resemblance  to  a  Celtic 
patronymic. 

The  combinations  of  the  Gaelic  am,  an,  the,  with  Highland 
patronymics,  such  as  Mac  Mhic  Alasdair  (Macdonald  of  Glen- 
garry), MacLe6id  (M'Leod),  MacCoinnich  (M'Kenzie),  is  in 
fact  impossible,  and  the  only  parallel  combination  known  to 
Celtic  scholars  appears  to  be  an  t-Siosalach>  the  Chisholm,  which  of 
course  is  not  a  patronymic,  and  so  has  no  bearing  on  the  question. 

In  Gaelic  the  chief  of  a  clan  is  known  simply  by  his  patro- 
nymic, as  Mac-an-Toisich  (Mackintosh),  MacMhuirich  (M'Pher- 
son),  MacDhomhnuill  Dhuibh  (Cameron  of  Lochiel),  without  the 
addition  of  Christian  name  or  other  qualification,  and  when  the 
name  occurred  in  English  it  followed  the  same  rule,  though  in 
many  cases,  as  Lochiel,  Glengarry,  the  chief  was  often  colloquially 
spoken  of  by  the  name  of  his  property  or  estate. 

Written  instances  of  Gaelic  patronymics  thus  employed  to 
denote  chieftainship  are  not,  however,  of  frequent  occurrence,  for, 
as  with  the  epithet  *  the/  the  usage  was  colloquial  or  vulgar  rather 
than  formal.  It  is  not  difficult,  however,  to  quote  a  few  examples. 

In  the  year  1490  the  Thane  of  Cawdor  of  that  time  docketed  a 


The  Honorific  c  The  '  45 

deed  as  *  The  Bande  betuix  Me  and  M'Kyntossych  anent  the 
Mereage  of  Huchon  Allanson,'  while  in  the  deed  itself  Mackintosh 
is  described  in  formal  terms  as  *  Doncane  Mackintosche  capitane 
of  the  clancattane'  ;  and  in  1527  another  deed  is  docketed  in  a 
contemporary  hand,  c  Ane  Band  betwix  the  Knicht  of  Calder  and 
Mcintosche  Fowlis  Kilraookis  and  utheris,'  the  first  being  '  Hector 
Mcintosych  Capitan  of  the  clanchattan,'  the  second  Hector  Munro 
of  Foulis,  and  the  third  Hugh  Rose  of  Kilravock.  Again,  in  1581 
there  is  a  '  contract  of  appoyntment  betwix  the  Laird  of  Calder 
and  Mcintosche,'  and  as  late  as  the  year  1698  occurs  an  'Act 
renewing  M'Kintoshes  Commission.'  Many  more  examples  could 
readily  be  found. 

But  nowhere  in  early  writings  can  examples  be  found  of  the 
use  of  '  the '  as  an  epithet  preceding  a  Gaelic  patronymic,  nor  is 
there  any  justification  for  supposing  that  it  could  originate  in  a 
similar  form  in  Gaelic,  which  did  not  and  could  not  exist. 

Whether  in  sober  earnest  or  in  works  of  fiction,  the  now 
familiar  combinations  '  The  Mac — '  and  '  The  O — '  are  not 
to  be  found  earlier  than  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
The  earliest  instance  that  has  been  noticed  occurs  in  Sir  Walter 
Scott's  Rob  Roy,  written,  or  at  least  published,  in  the  year  1817. 

'What  fellow  are  you,'  demanded  Rob's  wife  of  the  douce 
Glasgow  Bailie — '  What  fellow  are  you,  that  dare  to  claim  kindred 
with  the  MacGregor  ? '  The  collocation  occurs  repeatedly,  parti- 
cularly in  the  thirty-first  chapter  of  the  story,  where  Francis 
Osbaklistone  has  his  stormy  interview  with  the  freebooter's  dour 
spouse. 

Contemporary,  or  nearly  contemporary  with  Rob  Roy,  i.e.  be- 
tween the  years  1813  and  1823,  there  was  painted  by  Sir  Henry 
Raeburn  a  well-known  picture  which  is  now  always  described  as 
a  portrait  of  *  The  Macnab  of  Macnab.'  If  at  the  time  it  was 
painted  it  was  entitled,  as  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt,  a  portrait  of 
'  The  Macnab  of  Macnab,'  it  is  highly  probable  that  this  was  the 
first  authentic  use  of  '  the '  applied  as  an  epithet  to  the  Gaelic 
patronymic  of  a  living  person,  and  it  may  have  been  adopted  by 
Raeburn  or  by  Macnab,  possibly  even  by  way  of  a  jest,  in  direct 
imitation  of  '  the  MacGregor,'  presumably  invented  by  Scott. 

From  this  time  'The  Mac — s'  and  'The  O' — s'  rapidly 
increased  in  numbers,  both  in  fiction  and  in  real  life,  and  there  can 
now  be  enumerated  The  Macdermott  Roe,  The  Macgillicuddy, 
The  Mackintosh,  The  Macnab,  The  O'Clery,  The  O'Donoghue, 
The  O'Donovan,  The  O'Gorman,  The  O'Kelly,  The  O'Morchoe, 


46  The  Honorific  'The' 

The  O'Reilly,  and  many  more.  It  is,  however,  noteworthy  that 
the  Irish  have  taken  much  more  kindly  than  the  Scots  to  this 
form  of  hereditary  distinction,  if  such  it  may  be  called. 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  any  of  these  appellations  were  at 
first  in  any  way  authorized,  though  the  use  of  c  The  Mackintosh  ' 
has  been  justified,  so  far  at  least  as  the  present  chief  is  concerned, 
by  the  Royal  Sign  Manual,  and  it  is  probable  that  others  have 
received  a  similar  informal  authorization.  They  may  be  compared 
(though  the  analogy  is  by  no  means  close)  with  *  The  Knight  of 
Kerry '  and  '  The  Knight  of  Glyn,'  and  with  the  ancient  and  now 
familiar  'The  Master  of  conceded  to  the  eldest  sons  of  Scottish 
Barons. 

It  may  then  be  concluded  that  in  early  times,  and  down  to  the 
close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  the  heads  of  Scottish  families 
bearing  Lowland  or  at  least  territorial  surnames  were  occasionally, 
if  not  frequently,  distinguished  from  others  of  their  kindred  by 
the  distinctive  epithet  c  the,'  of  which  practice  the  only  c  living ' 
example  is  to  be  found  in  '  The  Chisholm.'  In  the  nineteenth 
century  the  form  was  imitated  by  the  Highland  Chiefs,  not  at  all 
improbably  misled  by  Scott's  use  of  '  the  MacGregor '  in  Rob  Roy, 
and  in  the  present  day  '  the '  has  come  to  be  regarded,  popularly 
at  least,  as  the  normal  epithet  to  apply  to  the  surname  of  a 
Scottish  or  Irish  chieftain  which  happens  to  be  a  patronymic 
beginning  with  Mac  or  O'. 

JAMES  DALLAS. 


The  Seafield  Correspondence1 

THIS  interesting  publication  of  the  Scottish  History  Society 
is  of  great  importance.  As  may  be  gathered  from  the  title 
its  principal  contents  are  the  correspondence  of  the  Chancellor, 
Sir  James  Ogilvie,  Earl  of  Seafield.  This  correspondence  has 
not  been  published  before,  and  the  editor,  Mr.  James  Grant, 
in  his  well-written  preface  and  in  his  numerous  annotations  to 
the  letters  published  in  this  volume,  has  given  evidence  of  the 
most  careful  and  thorough  research. 

James  Ogilvie,  who  was  the  second  son  of  James,  third  Earl  of 
Findlater,  and  of  Lady  Anna  Montgomerie,  eldest  daughter  of 
Hugh,  seventh  Earl  of  Eglinton,  was  born  on  nth  June,  1663. 
In  1673,  he  and  his  elder  brother  Walter,  Lord  Deskford,  were 
in  their  parents'  absence  in  the  south  left  to  the  care  and  teaching 
of  Mr.  Patrick  Innes,  who  continued  for  some  years  to  be  their 
tutor.  Accompanied  by  him  in  May,  1675,  they  were  sent  to  the 
University  in  Aberdeen.  After  a  short  sojourn  in  Holland,  James 
Ogilvie  returned  and  pursued  his  legal  studies  in  Edinburgh. 
He  was  admitted  a  member  of  the  Faculty  of  Advocates,  i6th 
January,  i685.2  On  ist  March,  1689,  he  was  returned  to  the 
Convention  Parliament  as  Commissioner  for  Cullen.  Later  that 
year  he  was  knighted.  In  March,  1693,  aided  by  his  relative, 
William,  third  Duke  of  Hamilton,  William's  chief  minister  in 
Scotland,  he  entered  the  Government  of  Scotland  as  Solicitor- 
General.  In  the  same  year  he  was  made  Sheriff  of  Banffshire. 
In  January,  1696,  he  was  made  conjunct  Secretary  of  Scotland 
along  with  the  Earl  of  Tullibardine,  on  the  dismissal  of  James 
Johnston,  son  of  Sir  Archibald  Johnston  of  Warriston.  By 

1 Scafield  Correspondence  from  1685  to  1708.  Edited,  with  Introduction  and 
Annotations,  by  James  Grant,  LL.B.,  County  Clerk  of  Banffshire.  Pp.  xxvi,  497. 
Frontispiece  Portrait  of  James,  First  Earl  of  Seafield,  K.T.,  Lord  High  Chancellor 
of  Scotland.  With  Index.  8vo.  Edinburgh  :  Printed  at  the  University  Press  by 
T.  &  A.  Constable  for  the  Scottish  History  Society,  1912. 

2  He  married  probably  early  in  June,  1688,  Anne,  a  daughter  of  Sir  William 
Dunbar  of  Durn. 


48  The  Earl  of  Cassillis 

letters  patent,  dated  24th  June,  1698,  he  was  created  Viscount 
Seafield  and  Lord  Ogilvie  of  Cullen,  and  was  appointed  President 
of  the  Parliament  which  met  at  Edinburgh  on  i6th  July,  1698. 
He  was  Lord  High  Commissioner  to  the  General  Assembly  of 
the  Church  of  Scotland  in  1 700. 

On  24th  June,  1701,  he  was  created  Earl  of  Seafield,  Viscount 
of  Reidhaven,  and  Lord  Ogilvie  of  Deskford  and  Cullen.  By 
a  new  commission  under  the  Great  Seal,  I2th  May,  1702,  the 
Duke  of  Queensberry  was  conjoined  with  Seafield  in  the  Secre- 
taryship of  Scotland,  who  in  the  same  year  was  appointed  one  of 
the  commissioners  to  treat  for  a  proposed  union  between  the 
kingdoms,  which  came  to  nothing.  On  2ist  November,  1702, 
he  was  appointed  Lord  High  Chancellor  of  Scotland,  and  on  5th 
February,  1 703,  Lord  High  Commissioner  of  the  General  Assembly 
which  met  at  Edinburgh,  loth  March,  1703. 

In  1704  he  was  ousted  from  the  Chancellorship  by  the 
Marquis  of  Tweeddale,  but  on  I7th  October  in  that  year  he  was 
made  Joint  Secretary  of  State  with  the  Earl  of  Roxburgh.  On 
9th  or  loth  March,  1705,  he  recaptured  the  Chancellorship  from 
Tweeddale.  In  March,  1 706,  he  was  appointed  one  of  the  Com- 
missioners to  treat  with  England  for  a  union,  and  when  the  Lords 
Commissioners  of  both  nations  appointed  to  negotiate  the  treaty 
of  union  met  in  London  from  i6th  April  to  22nd  July,  1706, 
and  agreed  on  articles  which  were  thereafter  referred  to  the 
Parliaments  of  England  and  Scotland,  Lord  Seafield,  as  Chancellor 
of  Scotland,  presided  over  the  Scots  Commissioners.  On  2Oth 
June,  1707,  Seafield  received  a  new  warrant  for  a  commission  as 
Lord  High  Chancellor  of  Scotland,  and  on  I3th  May,  1708,  he 
received  a  warrant  for  a  commission  as  Lord  Chief  Baron  of  the 
Court  of  the  Exchequer.  He  was  chosen  in  1 707  as  one  of  the 
sixteen  Representative  Peers  of  Scotland,  and  was  continuously 
re-elected  until  IJ2J.1 

The  above  short  sketch  of  his  career,  the  fact  that  he  was 
responsible  for  carrying  out  in  Scotland  William  III.'s  hostile 
attitude  with  regard  to  the  Darien  scheme,  as  well  as  the  original 
contemporary  and  partly  official  account  of  the  French  invasion  of 
Scotland  in  1708,  at  the  end  of  this  Correspondence,  show  the 
great  historical  importance  and  interest  of  this  work.2 

^ee  Scots  Peerage,  iv.  pp.  37  and  38  (article  Findlater). 

2  The  letters  contained  in  it  should  be  read  along  with  Seafield's  and  other 
letters  in  Carstares  State  Papers  and  Letters,  the  Marchmont  Papers,  vol.  iii.,  and 
the  letters  published  in  the  Historical  MSB,  Commission,  Fourteenth  Report, 


The  Seafield  Correspondence  49 

On  both  sides  Seafield  was  connected  with  many  of  the 
principal  families  of  Scotland.1 

He  had  the  faithful  service  of  several  assistants,  for  whom  in 
turn  he  secured  promotion.  Among  these  were  Nicolas  Dunbar, 
Sheriff-Depute  of  Banffshire  ;  John  Anderson,  Depute-Clerk  to 
the  Privy  Council  of  Scotland  ;  James  Baird,  Writer  to  the 
Signet  ;  Alexander  Ogilvie,  Depute-Keeper  of  the  Signet,  after- 
wards Lord  Forglen  ;  and  John  Philp,  his  private  secretary. 
James  Baird  became  associated  with  Lord  Seafield  as  his  servitor 
and  secretary.  On  26th  November,  1696,  he  was  appointed 
Clerk  to  his  Majesty's  Wardrobe  in  Scotland.  He  was  the 
founder  of  the  family  of  the  Bairds  of  Chesterhall,  Midlothian. 
He  was  a  distant  kinsman  of  the  Bairds  of  Auchmedden, 
Newbyth,  and  Sauchton  Hall.2 

Lord  Seafield's  father  was,  like  most  of  the  Scots  nobility  of 
these  days,  in  considerable  money  difficulties.  Lord  Seafield, 
however,  was  not  only  able  to  clear  these  off,  but  the  fortune 
he  acquired  enabled  him  to  buy  such  places  as  Boyne,  Kemp- 
cairne,  Burdsbank,  and  considerably  to  extend  his  inheritance. 

Appendix,  part  iii.,  from  the  Marchmont  MSS.  and  the  MSS.  of  the  Countess 
Dowager  of  Seafield. 

1  His  mother,  Lady  Anna  Montgomerie,  was  a  daughter  of  Lady  Anna  Hamilton, 
daughter  of  James,  second  Marquis  of  Hamilton.     Lady  Anna  Hamilton's  two 
eldest  brothers  were  the  first  and  second  Dukes  of  Hamilton.      James  the  first 
Duke,  for  his  adherence  to  Charles  I.,  was  beheaded  in  Palace  Yard,  Westminster, 
1649.     William,  the  second  Duke,  fought  for  King  Charles  II.  at  Worcester,  where 
he  was  wounded,  and  died  nine  days  after  the  battle.     Anna,  eldest  daughter  of 
the  first  duke,  and  first  cousin  of  Lady  Anna  Montgomerie,  succeeded  William, 
the  second  duke,  as  Duchess  of  Hamilton  in  her  own  right.     Her  younger  sister 
Susan    or    Susanna    married   John   Kennedy,   seventh    Earl    of  Cassillis.     Their 
daughter.  Lady  Anne  Kennedy,  married  in  1694  her  first  cousin,  John  Hamilton, 
Earl  of  Ruglen,  fourth  son  of  Anne,  Duchess  of  Hamilton,  afterwards  Earl  of 
Selkirk  and   Ruglen.      After   her   death   he   married,    1701,    her   sister-in-law, 
Elizabeth  Hutchinson,  widow  of  John  Lord  Kennedy. 

The  Countess  of  Findlater,  Lady  Anna  Montgomerie,  had  a  half-sister,  also 
Lady  Anna  Montgomerie,  who  married  Sir  Patrick  Ogilvie,  Lord  Boyne. 

2  On   p.   vii   of  the    Introduction,    the   statement    that  Alexander  Ogilvie   of 
Deskford  and  Findlater  married  as  his  second  wife  Elizabeth,  natural  daughter 
of  Adam  Gordon,  Dean  of  Caithness,  founder  of  the  Earldom  of  Sutherland,  demands 
some  qualification.     The   Earldom  of  Sutherland   is   understood  to  have   been 
founded  in  the  thirteenth  century  by  William,  the  great-grandson  of  Freskin,  a 
person  of  unknown  descent  but  presumed  to  be  of  Flemish  origin,  who  flourished 
in  the  time  of  King  David  I.     It  was  Adam  Gordon,  nephew  of  the  Dean  of 
Caithness  and  second  son  of  the  second  Earl  of  Huntly,  who  married  Elizabeth, 
sister  of  the  ninth  Earl  of  Sutherland,  and  through  her  acquired  the  earldom. 
(See  Scots  Peerage,  iv.,  pp.  525,  530,  and  viii.,  pp.  334,  337.) 

D 


5o  The  Earl  of  Cassillis 

On  the  24th  of  December,  1685,  the  Chancellor  Perth  re- 
turned from  London  a  convert  to  Roman  Catholicism,  and  at 
once  established  and  attended  the  public  celebration  of  Mass  in 
Edinburgh.  On  the  3ist  of  January  and  on  the  ist  of  February, 
1686,  the  Puritan  populace  rose  in  riot,  threatened  to  pull  down 
the  Mass-House,  and  threw  mud  on  the  Chancellor  as  he  came 

out  of  it. 

A  copy  of  the  king's  letter  to  the  Council  dealing  with  the 
incident,  was  sent  north  by  James  Ogilvie  to  his  father,  the  Earl  of 
Findlater.  After  commencing  with  the  usual  formula,  it  goes  on  : 

*  Having  bein  extreamly  sur(pry)sed  to  hear  of  the  insolencies 
comitted  by  a  tumultuous  rable  in  or  city  of  Edinburgh,  whilst 
yow  and  our  uther  judicators  wer  in  ye  place,  and  y*  ther  insolency 
should  have  gon  the  lenth  of  affronting  or  cheif  minister,  and  yet 
so  much  lenity  showin  in  punishing  a  cryme  so  imediatly  touching 
or  Royall  Person  and  authority,  wee  have  now  thought  fitt  to  let 
yow  know  that  wee  have  not  only  ye  character  but  lykwayes  the 
person  of  or  Chanclour  so  much  in  or  particular  care,  as  wee  will 
suport  him  in  despyt  of  all  ye  attemps  or  insolencies  of  his  enimies, 
and  therfor  doe  require  you  to  take  y*  care  of  his  persone  and 
have  yl  respect  for  his  character,  as  may  convince  us  of  your 
affectione  to  us  and  obedience  to  or  commands.  In  the  nixt  place 
wee  heirby  requir  you  to  go  about  the  punishing  of  all  yl  wer 
guilty  of  this  tumult  wt  ye  outmost  rigour  of  our  lawes.  Nor 
can  wee  imagin  any  either  remiss  hes  bein  or  will  be  in  ys,  except 
those  who  have  bein  favorers  of  yr  re(bellious)  designe.  But 
above  all  is  or  express  pleasur  yl  yee  try  into  ye  bottom  of  this 
matter,  to  try  out  those  who  have  eyr  by  worde  insinuatione  or 
utherwayes  sett  on  ys  rable  to  ys  villanus  attemp,  or  incouradged 
ym  in  it,  and  yl  ffor  ye  finding  of  ys  out  ye  spare  no  legall  tryell 
by  tortur  or  uyrwayes,  this  being  of  so  great  importance  yl  nothing 
more  displeasing  to  us  or  mor  dangerous  to  our  Government  cd 
posibly  have  bein  contryved,  and  wee  shall  spar  no  expence  to 
know  ye  rise  of  it.  Wee  again  comand  yow  again  to  be  diligent 
in  ffinding  out  ye  whole  matter  and  punishing  the  guilty,  as 
lykwayes  to  use  your  utmost  endeavours  for  preventing  ye  lyk 
vilanies  for  ye  futur.  Efter  wee  shall  hear  what  ye  nixt  post 
shall  bring,  yow  shall  know  or  ffurther  pleasure  in  ys  matter.' 

This  document  is  dated  at  Whitehall,  9th  February,  1686. 
No  wonder  people  began  to  see  that  the  continuance  of  the 
Stuarts  on  the  throne  was  quite  incompatible  with  Protestantism 
and  religious  and  civil  liberty. 


The  Seafield  Correspondence  51 

Some  years  later  we  have  a  reference  to  Coubin,  i.e.  Alexander 
Kinnaird,  whose  estate  of  Culbin,  in  Moray  shire,  was  devastated 
by  sand  in  1695,  and  was  the  cause  of  special  legislation  by 
Parliament,  which  the  Act  narrates  c  was  occasioned  by  the  forsaid 
bad  practice  of  pulling  the  Bent  and  Juniper/  The  Act  forbids 
such  practices  in  future,  and  the  Treasury  was  subsequently 
recommended  by  Parliament  to  let  the  laird  of  Culbin  off  paying 
any  Cess  for  his  vanished  property.1 

The  statement  that  William,  Lord  Inverurie,  eldest  son  of  Sir 
John  Keith,  first  Earl  of  Kintore,  after  the  remission  he  got  on 
27th  November,  1690,  for  being  out  with  the  Jacobites,  'seems 
therafter  to  have  lived  at  peace/  ought  to  be  qualified  somewhat ; 
as  in  this  case  'thereafter'  only  means  till  1715,  when  he  fought 
on  the  Jacobite  side  at  Sheriffmuir,  and  was  deprived  of  his  office 
of  Knight  Marischal.  After  that  he  is  said  never  to  have  shaved 
his  beard.2 

Sir  James  Ogilvie,  on  I9th  October,  1693,  writes  to  his  father 
about  the  death  and  funeral  of  his  youngest  brother,  Robert 
Ogilvie,  a  cornet  of  Dragoons  :  <  My  Lord, — I  knowe  befor  this 
tyme  you  have  hade  ane  accompt  of  the  death  of  your  sone,  and 
which  no  doubt  is  ane  great  afflictione  to  yow.  Bot,  since  the 
Lord  who  gave  him  to  yow  hes  taken  him  from  yow,  it  is  yor 
Lops,  deuty  to  submitt  to  providence.  It  may  be  your  satisfac- 
tione  that  he  died  sencible  and  penetent,  and  was  weill  caired  for 
the  tyme  of  his  sickness.  I  was  fullie  resolved  to  have  wittnesed 
his  interment,  but  the  multiplicity  of  my  affaires,  and  being  some- 
what undisposed  by  reasone  of  the  surpryseing  account  I  hade  of 
his  death,  necessitats  me  to  stay  heir.' 

Lady  Marie  Graham,  mother  of  George  Allardes  of  Allardes 
(Allardyce  of  Allardyce),  who  married  Lady  Anna  Ogilvie,  Lord 
Findlater's  daughter,  also  writes  on  8th  November  on  the  same 
subject  to  Sir  James  Ogilvie  :  '  Your  brother  died  werie  happily 
and  his  last  words  was  to  me,  after  some  eladgiations,  he  had 
good  neues  to  tell  me,  the  great  God  was  comes  for  him.  And 
he  was  cairfully  atended  by  his  fititions.' 

Lady  Marie  Graham  was  the  eldest  daughter  of  John  Graham, 
Lord  Kinpont,  and  sister  of  William  Graham,  second  Earl  of 
Airth  and  Menteith.  It  is  through  her  that  the  Allardyces  claim 
the  earldoms  of  Strathearn,  Menteith,  and  Airth.3 

1  The  Acts  of  the  Parliament  of  Scotland,  vol.  ix.,  pp.  452,  453,  479. 

2  Scots  Peerage,  vol.  v.,  p.  241  (article  Kintore). 
8  Scots  Peerage,  vol.  i.,  p.  142  (article  Airth). 


52  The  Earl  of  Cassillis 

In  a  letter  to  Sir  James  Ogilvie,  apparently  from  Mr.  John 
Anderson,  dated  Edinburgh,  4th  April,  1694,  we  read: 

<  M'Lauchlan,  the  teacher  of  ane  Inglish  schooll  at  Glasgowe, 
wes  tryed,  and  appoynted  to  be  scourged  throwe  Edr  this  day,  and 
banished  to  the  planta°ns ;  but  the  Councill  have  this  day  chainged 
the  scourging  to  the  standing  on  the  pillorie  here  this  day,  and  at 
Glasgowe  this  day  eight  dayes.  His  cryme  wes  the  seduceing  and 
persuading  sojors  to  desert  ther  chairge. 

*  Troyilous  Balyie  ane  ensigne  recomendit  to  the  Thesaurie  for 
apprehending  one  Wm  Gledstons  (Gladstone),  a  Bass  rebell,  to 
receave  20  lib,  st. 

'The  E.  Hume,  Oxfurd,  Drumcarnie,  Ednam,  Gledstons, 
Gairltoun  (Sir  George  Seaton),  and  other  prisoners  of  the  govern- 
ment are  liberat  upon  caution  to  answer  when  called,  and  tuo 
myles  confinement  to  ther  houses.' 

In  a  letter  addressed  to  Sir  James  Ogilvie  of  that  ilk  from  Mr. 
John  Anderson,  dated  Edinburgh,  27th  April,  1694,  we  read 
that  *  The  poor  sojors  lye  still  in  the  road,  be  reason  of  the  con- 
trary winds,  and  some  of  them  have  dyed  of  vermine.'  Another 
letter  to  him  from  Mr.  Anderson,  dated  4th  May,  1694,  says  : 
*  My  Lord  Advocat  speaks  of  the  strength  of  your  vsquebea 
(whisky)  and  gives  you  his  service,  as  lykwayes  doth  my  Lord- 
Justice  Clerk.' 

On  yth  January,  1695,  Sir  James  Ogilvie  writes  from  Edin- 
burgh to  his  father  :  *  Excuise  my  not  wreitting  with  my  oun 
hand,  because  of  a  deffluction  hes  fallen  doune  in  my  face  with 
the  toothaick  ;  naither  dare  I  wreit  to  my  wyffe  with  one  other 
hand,  bot  I  hope  your  Lope  will  remember  me  keindly  to  hir, 
and  I  will  be  impatient  till  I  hear  of  hir  recoverie.  My  present 
distemper  does  not  discouradge  me,  because  I  ame  so  freaquently 
accustomed  with  it ' ;  and  in  another  letter  to  Lord  Findlater  on 
the  28th  of  the  same  month  Alexander  Ogilvie,  afterwards  Lord 
Forglen,  writes  :  '  Sr  James  hade  ane  great  defluction  in  his  cheek, 
and  it  brock  within  three  dayes  befor  he  took  journey,  so  that 
at  his  waygoeing  he  was  wery  well  in  health.' 

Sir  James  Ogilvie  writes  to  his  father  from  London  on  I2th 
Feb.,  1695:  'You  can  order  my  brother  Deskfoord  and  his 
servants  as  you  please.  I  will  not  medle  with  him,  bot  leave 
that  to  your  Lo.  He  is  your  son.'  On  the  i8th  June,  1688,  his 
father,  soon  after  Sir  James'  marriage,  had  written  him  about  his 
elder  brother,  Walter,  Lord  Deskford,  in  the  following  terms  : 
c  I  heave  at  this  time  little  to  wreat  to  you,  butt  heaving  so  sure 


The  Seafield  Correspondence 


53 


ane  occasion  I  cannot  butt  desier  you  to  remember  to  consult 
your  bussines  of  the  convayence  of  my  esteat  in  your  person  ; 
for  although  Walter  be  nou  in  my  house,  yett  be  his  still  fre- 
quenting the  Popish  chappell  and  continouing  in  odd  and  most 
unacountable  actions,  ther  can  be  no  good  expected  of  him,  so 
ye  need  to  be  the  mor  circumspect  in  garding  your  selfe  against 
his  evell.'  This  purpose  of  the  Earl  of  conveying  his  estate  past 
Lord  Deskford,  as  he  had  became  a  Roman  Catholic,  to  his 
second  son  James,  was  afterwards  carried  out. 

On  the  i  ith  May,  1699,  James,  now  Lord  Seafield,  writes  from 
Whitehall  to  Mr.  William  Lorimer,  Lord  Seafield's  Chamberlain  : 
The  account  you  gave  me  in  yor  last  of  my  brother  my  Lord 
Deskfords  death  did  much  surprise  both  me  and  my  wife,  we 
haveing  heard  nothing  of  his  sickness.  We  were  bred  at  schools 
and  colleges  togither,  and  our  mother  nurst  us  both,  and  therfor 
you  may  believe  that  I  am  much  troubled.  However  it  is  a 
satisfaction  to  us  that  he  was  calm  in  his  sickness,  and  that  he  had 
apprehensions  of  death.  I  shall  be  glad  to  hear  that  he  has  been 
honourably  burried,  and  what  is  expended  that  way  I  do  very 
chearfully  allow.' 

Lord  Deskford  died  unmarried.  There  had  been  a  proposed 
marriage  between  him  and  Anne,  eldest  daughter  of  Arthur  Ross, 
the  last  Archbishop  of  St.  Andrews  in  1686,  but  in  the  end  it 
came  to  nothing,  and  on  the  7th  June,  1687,  s^e  married,  as  his 
second  wife,  John,  fourth  Lord  Balmerino. 

The  date  of  Viscount  Stair's  death,1  25th  November,  1695,  and 
the  editor's  annotation  (p.  170),  quoted  from  the  article  on  Stair 
in  the  Scots  Peerage,  does  not  tally  with  the  following  letter  to 
Lord  Findlater,  dated  26th  November,  1695,  from  Andrew  Craik, 
writer  in  Edinburgh,  who  in  the  absence  of  James  Baird  in  London, 
appears  to  have  acted  as  agent  or  secretary  for  Sir  James  Ogilvie 
in  Edinburgh :  '  President  Stair  dyed  three  dayes  agoe,  and  this 
night  betuixt  fyve  and  sex  at  night  his  corps  was  transported 
from  his  loodges  to  the  Abey  of  Holyruidhous  under  a  pale,  the 
murners  nobilitie  and  gentrie  beng  surroundit  on  each  syd  of  the 
strat  with  numerous  torches.' 

In  a  letter  to  Sir  James  Ogilvie  from  Charles  Ritchie,  dated 
Edinburgh,  February  5,  1696,  we  read  :  *  Wpon  the  30  past  the 
Royall  Soveraigne,  one  of  the  greatest  and  stoutest  best  ships  that 
ever  ploued  the  ocean,  and  who  never  failled  to  bafle  her  greatest 
ffoe  that  ever  she  mett  with,  and  who  so  often  contended  with 
1  Scots  Peerage,  vol.  viii.,  p.  119  (article  Stair). 


54  The  Earl  of  Cassillis 

ye  elements  of  fire  and  watter,  was  by  the  carelessness  of  a  tar- 
palian  about  5  in  the  morning  set  on  ffire  and  burnt  doune  to  the 
water,  and  in  her  some  men  consumed.  All  hands  was  at  work, 
but  not  any  releife,  but  to  hinder  her  to  communciat  her  flames 
to  the  rest.  Ther  was  non  of  her  officers  aboard,  but  they  are  all 
seized,  and  to  be  tryed  for  life  for  being  absent,  and  the  fellow  that 
sett  her  on  fire/ 

A  letter  from  Mr.  John  Anderson,  dated  at  Edinburgh, 
ist  April,  1696,  is  inscribed  *  To  THE  RIGHT  HONOURABLE  THE 
EARLE  OF  FFINDLATER  Banff  with  haste  9d  Keepe  the  postage  till 
the  nixt  occasion/ 

Mr.  Patrick  Innes,  writing  from  Banff  on  September  14,  1696, 
designated  the  Jacobites  as  c  The  Crankies/  In  some  of  the 
letters  they  are  called  Killiecrankies  or  Gillicrankies. 

Lord  Seafield's  sister  Mary  seems  to  have  married  a  son  of 
George  Leslye  of  Burdsbank,  and  in  a  letter  of  Nov.  18,  1698, 
Lady  Seafield  writes  to  her  father-in-law  from  Whitehall  that  she 
is  *  sory  that  you  shoud  have  so  mortifieing  a  sight  in  the  church 
as  Burgbanks  famaly.  I  am  shour  the  seeing  of  them  will  be 
mor  unesy  nou,  when  your  daghter  is  in  shuch  a  famaly.  I  think 
she  is  as  un[ha]ppy  being  maried  to  so  debas  [a  m]an  as  in  hir 
formar  misfortun,  save  the  ofens  it  gave  to  Almighty  God.  I  dou 
not  love  to  wret  much  on  this  subgek,  sins  the  thoghts  of  it  will 
be  so  unplesant  to  your  Lo.' 

In  a  postscript  to  a  letter  to  Lord  Findlater  from  Nicolas 
Dunbar,  dated  'Castlfield  28th  Oct  1704,'  we  read  :  '  I  am  sorie 
to  tell  your  Lop.  that  Lady  Marie  wes  maried  25  yber  to  George 
Barkley  in  BamfF,  sone  to  Alexr,  the  certainty  qroff  is  just  now 
come  to  my  hands/ 

John  Philp,  writing  from  Whitehall  on  22nd  December,  1698, 
says  :  *  Lord  Eglintone  is  married  on  a  woman  about  84  years  of 
age.  She  has  500  lib.  st.  of  joynture.  They  are  gone  to  the 
countrey  to  live.  Her  last  husbands  name  was  Kea  ane  English 
squeir.'  An  annotation  explains  that  Lord  Eglinton  (Alexander, 
eighth  earl)  married  on  8th  December,  1698,  as  his  third  wife 
Catherine  Lady  Kaye,  daughter  of  Sir  William  St.  Quintin  of 
Harpham,  Yorkshire.  He  was  her  fourth  husband.  She  died  on 
6th  August,  1700. 

On  i  yth  January,  169!,  Lord  Eglinton  writes  from  London  to 
Lord  Findlater  :  *  My  Dear  Lord, — I  do  return  yow  my  most 
hearty  thanks  for  yor  keynd  letter  in  wishing  me  joy  in  my 
manage.  I  thank  God  I  find  my  self  very  happie  by  a  most 


The  Seafield  Correspondence  55 

kynd  wife,  and  am  placed  w*  her  in  one  of  the  pleasantest  places 
in  England  ;  and  in  makeing  of  it  I  did  every  thing  by  the  advice 
and  consent  of  my  dear  and  keynd  nephew  yor  sone.  Therefore 
ye  may  conclud  it  is  good/ 

James  Baird  writes  on  the  28th  June,  1699,  from  Edinburgh 
to  Lord  Findlater  :  c  Bracco  and  Birkenboge  have  ordered  the 
payment  of  the  bill  draven  upon  them  and  accepted  by  them,  bot 
I  have  not  as  yet  receaved  the  money,  his  sone  in  law  being  at 
Tulleibodie  keepping  phisitians  from  the  old  man  who  is  dyeing 
a  verie  miserable  death.  I  went  ther  upon  Satturday  last,  and 
was  sorie  to  find  him  in  such  a  lamentable  condition.  His  left  leg  is 
swelled  als  big  as  a  post,  and  it  with  his  foote  and  all  is  als  black 
as  pitch,  and  all  putrified  to  that  degrie  that,  if  a  knife  wer  put 
in  his  leg  from  the  on  side  to  the  other,  he  would  not  at  all  find 
it  naither  in  leg  nor  foote,  and  it  hes  a  very  nautious  smell.  His 
other  leg  is  beginning  the  same  way,  and  a  few  dayes  will  carie 
him  off.'  Mr.  Baird  remonstrated,  but  ineffectually,  about  no 
doctor  being  called  in.  He  goes  on  to  say,  '  I  truely  beleive,  if 
the  old  laird  dye  not  soone,  the  young  man  will  dye  of  melancholy.' 
Old  Tullibody,  George  Abercrombie  of  Smirth,  died  on  the  26th 
June,  1699,  two  days  before  the  date  of  this  letter.  Duff  of 
Braco's  son-in-law,  Alexander  Abercrombie,  second  son  of  Sir 
Alexander  Abercrombie  of  Birkenbog,  married  Mary  Duff,  one 
of  his  daughters,  and  succeeded  Tullibody,  his  cousin.  Alexander 
was  ancestor  of  General  Sir  Ralph  Abercromby  and  the  Lords 
Abercromby. 

In  a  letter  of  Alexander  Ogilvie,  afterwards  Lord  Forglen,  to 
Lord  Findlater,  dated  23rd  Febry.,  1700,  we  read  :  'I  parted  with 
the  Secretarie  in  wery  good  health  at  Coper  Smith  yeasterday  about 
twalve  acloack.'  Till  recently  Cockburnspath  in  Berwickshire  was 
pronounced  Copper  Smith  locally. 

Lord  Seafield's  eldest  son,  James  Ogilvie,  writing  to  his  grand- 
father, Lord  Findlater,  from  Aberdeen,  on  March  i,  1701,  says  : 
*  My  Lord, — I  am  sensible  of  your  Lo.  kindness  towards  me,  and 
return  you  hearty  thanks  for  the  watch  which  I  have  received. 
It  will  be  very  useful  to  me,  and  as  your  Lo.  ordered,  I  shal  caus 
dress  it  and  take  care  to  keep  it  well  as  a  token  of  your  Lo. 
kindness' ;  and  his  tutor,  William  Blake,  writes  on  7th  March  : 
4  The  master  continues  well,  blissed  be  God.  He  is  very  fond  of 
the  watch  your  Lo.  has  sent  him,  and  would  be  glade  of  an 
opportunity  to  shew  how  much  he  reckons  himself  obleidged  to 
your  Lo.  As  to  that  rupture  betuixt  the  colledges,  it  was  truely 


5  6  The  Earl  of  Cassillis 

very  dreadfull,  for  gentlemens  sons  in  both  were  in  hazard  of  their 
lives  evry  hour  for  8  or  ten  dayes  together,  but  now,  blessed  be 
God,  all  differences  amongst  the  students  are  composed,  and  they 
converse  together  in  great  friendship  and  amity.  The  master 
judged  them  both  fools,  and  never  thought  of  sydeing  with  either 
of  them/ 

John  Donaldson,  a  writer  in  Banff,  writes  to  Lord  Findlater  on 
23rd  July,  1701  :  'The  postage  of  all  single  letters  from  Cullen 
to  any  place  betwixt  and  Kinghorne  is  2s.,  and  double  letters 
accordingly.' 

The  '  famous  robber '  and  '  great  villean  Alestar  More/  men- 
tioned in  a  letter  by  the  Earl  of  Kintore  to  the  Earl  of  Findlater, 
dated  8th  December,  1701,  may  be  Alistair  Mor,  champion  of 
the  Clan  Grant,  whose  portrait  is  at  Castle  Grant. 

On  March  8th,  1702,  Lady  Seafield  wrote  to  Lord  Findlater 
from  Whitehall  of  the  death  of  that  great  and  noble  man 
William  III.  :  c  My  Lord, — I  wret  this  leeter  with  the  sadst  hart 
I  everer  wrot  one.  This  day  about  eght  aclok  in  the  mornen  the 
King  dayed  without  any  disese  bot  perfit  wekness.  I  dou  belive 
his  fall  from  his  horse  did  dou  him  ill,  bot  the  colar  bon  which 
was  brok  at  that  thym  was  qut  holl.  On  Tusday  last  the  third  of 
March  he  lost  his  stomak,  did  eat  no  dinor,  had  a  litell  fit  of  the 
eago.  On  Wadsenday  he  had  another  fit,  and  on  Thoursday  a 
third.  Thy  war  not  violint,  and  that  night  had  a  litell  lousness, 
and  the  nixt  day  vomoted  whatever  he  eat  or  drunk.  His 
wometing  stayed  at  four  aclok,  and  his  phisions  thoght  that  he 
might  requer,  for  thay  all  concluded  he  had  no  fever  or  any  disese 
bot  weakness.  At  about  four  oclok  on  Seterday  he  turen  so  weak 
that  his  phisions  began  to  loos  ther  hops,  and  he  took  death  to 
him  seleff,  told  them  thy  nid  not  trubell  them  selives  or  him  with 
many  cordiells,  for  he  douted  not  bot  he  wold  day  very  soon. 
The  Bishops  of  Canterrebery  and  Sallasbeary  atended  him  as 
chaplens,  and  prayed  severall  tyms  to  him  on  Saterday,  and  this 
day  about  four  or  five  aclok  in  the  mornen  he  took  the  sacrament 
with  much  confort,affterwards  spok  to  soom  about  him,recomended 
the  cear  of  soom  of  his  privat  pepirs  to  Albemarell,  and  gave  his 
hand  to  all  his  frinds  about  him,  and  bid  them  adeu,  and  imedetly 
closed  his  eys  and  expayred  without  any  thrack  or  vielent  moshon. 
He  had  all  his  seneses  and  intelectuales  intir  till  the  last  minit  of 
his  hff.  My  Lord  had  a  short  adiens  of  him  on  Wadsenday, 
when  he  spok  very  kyndlie  to  him  and  of  the  Scots  nashion  and 
mighty  fordvard  for  the  uneion.  I  am  shour  ther  is  no  honast 


The  Seafield  Correspondence  57 

or  Cristien  Scotsman  hot  will  be  senseabell  of  this  ireparabell 
loss.  God  preserive  the  Protastant  church  and  the  libarty  of 
Europ.' 

On  May  25,  1702,  we  have  an  interesting  reference  to  a  ride 
with  the  harriers  in  a  letter  to  Lord  Findlater  from  Alexander 
Abercrombie  of  Glassaigh :  *  My  Lord, — I  beg  pardon  for 
pairting  with  your  Lo.  so  abruptly,  but  I  was  ill  mounted  and 
my  horse  having  flung  a  shoe,  it  was  not  in  my  pouer  to  come 
up  again;  besides  some  have  a  frett  that  the  hare  should  be 
killed,  so  that  I  followed  her,  killed  her,  and  gave  her  to  the 
parson  to  eat/ 

In  reprisal  for  the  seizure  in  England  and  condemnation  of  the 
Annan  dale ^  the  officers  of  the  African  Company  seized  in  Leith 
roads  the  Worcester^  an  English  ship  in  the  East  Indian  trade. 
On  the  confession  of  two  of  her  crew,  Haynes  and  Lin  steed, 
Captain  Green  of  the  Worcester  and  others  of  the  crew  were  on 
5th  March,  1705,  condemned  to  death  by  the  Scots  Court  of 
Admiralty  on  charges  of  piracy  and  of  murdering  Captain  Drum- 
mond  of  the  Speedy  Return^  belonging  to  the  African  Company, 
and  his  crew,  in  Madagascar  waters.  On  27th  March  Queen 
Anne  wrote  to  the  Scots  Privy  Council  ordering  a  reprieve  until 
the  court  proceedings  were  looked  into.  Writing  again  on  7th 
April,  with  an  affidavit  that  Captain  Drummond  was  alive,  the 
Queen  left  the  Privy  Council  a  free  hand  in  the  matter  of  a 
reprieve.  Feeling  was  very  bitter  at  the  time  against  England, 
and  Captain  Green,  Captain  Madder,  and  Gunner  Simpson  of  the 
crew  were  executed  on  nth  April.  Several  letters  dealing  with 
this  affair  show  the  reluctance  of  many  of  the  Scots  nobles  to 
attend  the  Privy  Council  to  support  a  course  of  clemency,  and  the 
strained  relations  between  England  and  Scotland. 

On  the  24th  May,  1705,  James,  fourth  Duke  of  Hamilton, 
writes  to  the  Earl  of  Seafield,  now  Lord  High  Chancellor  of 
Scotland  :  c  My  Lord, — You  neaded  have  laid  noe  restriction 
upon  me  not  to  comunicat  what  you  wrott  to  me,  for  I  protest 
I  cant  yett  find  out  the  secritt.  You  great  men  gett  a  way  of 
wrytting  soe  mistically  that  plain  countrie  gentilmen  like  myself 
will  need  plainer  langwag  befor  I  can  understand  you.  If  the 
Comissioner  has  great  poures  allowed  him,  I  supos  the  publick 
will  soon  see  itt,  and  when  your  Lop.  will  be  pleased  to  honor 
me  with  the  knowledge  of  any  thing,  I  begg  it  may  not  be  in 
soe  reserved  a  strain.  All  I  desire  to  know  is  when  the  Parlea- 
ment  will  sertainly  meet,  which  I  hope  will  not  be  made  a  great 


5  8  The  Earl  of  Cassillis 

mistery  of  to  your  Lop.  most  affectionat  cussine  and  humble 
servant.  HAMILTON. 

Kenull,  May  24,  1705.' 

Colonel  John  Buchan  of  Cairnbulg,  brother  of  the  Jacobite 
general  who  was  defeated  at  the  Haughs  of  Cromdale,  writes  to 
the  Earl  of  Seafield,  25th  June,  1705  :  'The  means  of  export 
from  this  countrey,  and  whereof  for  one  I  resolve  to  be  ane 
undertaker,  are  barrelled  herings  such  as  the  Dutch,  barrelled 
cod  for  the  east  countries,  dry  cod  for  the  coasts  of  Portugall 
Spain  and  the  Streights,  and  distilled  spirits  of  corns  to  Hol- 
land, where  is  a  very  great  consumption  off  trash  Genever,  farr 
inferior  both  in  taste  and  strength  to  the  spirits  shall  be  made 
here.' 

Mr.  William  Blake,  Lord  Deskford's  tutor,  writes  from 
Utrecht,  I9th  June,  1705  :  'My  Lord  Deskfoord  lives  in  good 
friendship  and  correspondance  with  the  English  and  Germans 
here.  He  walks  in  the  fields  with  them,  converses  in  coffee 
housses,  receives  and  returns  their  visits,  but  never  goes  allong  to 
the  tavern,  nor  ever  makes  a  pairt  in  their  night  caballs.  They 
doe  not  generally  apply  themsevles  to  any  study,  but  for  most 
pairt  spend  their  time  and  their  money  in  the  prosecution  of 
their  pleasures,  which  seemes  to  be  their  prinll  bussieness 
here/ 

The  Earl  of  Gallaway,  whose  defeat  at  Almanza  is  mentioned 
in  the  postscript  of  a  letter  from  Alexander  Abercrombie  of 
Glassaugh,  dated  London,  May  29,  1707,  is  Henri  Massue  de 
Ruvigny,  second  Marquis  de  Ruvigny,  a  famous  Huguenot 
general,  created  Earl  of  Galway,  I2th  May,  I697.1 

Sir  William  Baird  of  Newbyth  (eldest  son  of  Sir  John  Baird, 
Lord  Newbyth,  a  Lord  of  Session),  writes  from  Edinburgh,  I9th 
February,  1708,  to  Lord  Seafield  as  follows:  '  Ther  are  a 
greatt  deall  of  pains  takeing  hear,  for  secureing  the  ensueing 
elections  thowrow  the  shyres  of  North  Brittain,  and  I  thowght  it 
my  dewtie  to  lett  yowr  Lo.  know  that  I  have  designed  to  stand 
for  the  electione  heer  in  MidLothian,  and  for  that  end  I  begg  yowr 
Los  protectione  and  approba°n,  and  I  can  assur  yowr  Lo.  that  I 
stand  addictted  to  no  partie,  but  shall  be  verie  readie  to  goe  in  to 
yowr  Los  measures/ 

Two  days  afterwards  James  Baird,  W.S.,  Findlater's  former 
Secretary,  and  now  Depute  Clerk  of  Justiciary,  who  had  acquired 

*See  pp.  432  and  433,  and  Dictionary  of  National  Biography  under  Massue  de 
Ruvigny. 


The  Seafield  Correspondence 


59 


an  interest  in  Midlothian,  writes  to  Lord  Seafield  asking  if  he 
shall  give  his  vote  to  Sir  William  Baird.1 

The  volume  concludes  with  interesting  letters  dealing  with  the 
French  Invasion  of  1708. 

The  few  extracts  that  have  been  here  given  will  serve  to  indicate 
what  sidelights  are  thrown  by  this  volume  on  the  social  and 
political  history  of  the  time.  It  deserves  careful  perusal  by  all 
who  are  interested  in  Scottish  history  and  genealogy,  and  we  hope 
that  Mr.  Grant  will  continue  to  explore  and  make  public  the 
many  letters  and  documents  still  remaining  in  the  archives  of 
Cullen  House.  CASSILLIS. 

1  On  p.  102  an  account  is  given,  in  an  annotation,  of  Colonel  Patrick  Ogilvie's 
(a  brother  of  Seafield),  of  Lenmay  and  Inchmartin,  first  marriage  to  Elizabeth  Baird, 
daughter  of  Sir  James  Baird  of  Auchmedden,  Sheriff  of  Banff,  and  widow  of  Sir 
Alexander  Abercrombie  of  Birkenbog.  This  marriage  has  escaped  the  notice  of 
the  writer  of  the  Findlater  article  in  the  Scots  Peerage,  though  given  in  the  Genea- 
logical Collections  concerning  the  surname  of  Baird,  1870  edition. 


Jacobite    Papers    at    Avignon 

AMONG  the  manuscripts  in  the  '  Biblioth&que  de  Ville '  at 
Avignon  are  several  documents  relating  to  the  affairs  of 
James  III.  of  England  and  VIII.  of  Scotland  during  the  years 
1716-1717.  The  most  important  of  these  papers  is  the  Journal 
kept  by  Dr.  Brun,  a  physician  residing  in  that  city  in  the  early 
part  of  the  eighteenth  century.  This  MS.  (3188)  was  acquired 
by  the  library  in  1896. 

From  1715  to  31  Dec.,  1717,  Dr.  Brun  has  transcribed  in  this 
volume  a  record  of  the  principal  events  occurring  in  the  various 
states  of  Europe,  gleaned  from  the  gazettes,  particulars  derived 
from  official  documents  concerning  the  Legation  at  Avignon  and 
Roman  affairs,  and  his  own  observations  of  the  actions  of  James 
during  his  stay  in  that  city.  His  statements  concerning  the  king's 
visit  have  all  the  authority  of  an  eye-witness  of  the  events 
recorded.  Other  MSS.  containing  papers  relating  to  the  Stuarts 
are  : 

MS.  1725.  Letters  from  Queen  Mary,  the  minister  Nairne, 
and  others. 

MS.  3437.  ff.  305-309.  Two  letters  to  the  Comtesse  Perussis, 
signed  James  R.,  and  dated  respectively  29  Oct.,  1727, 
and  1 8  Jan.,  1728. 

MS.  2818.  f.  28.  Instructions  from  the  Sacred  Congregation 
of  the  Holy  Office  of  the  Roman  Inquisition  sent  to  the 
Vice-Legate  at  Avignon  in  1716,  concerning  the  attitude 
to  be  observed  by  the  authorities  towards  the  king's  Pro- 
testant adherents. 

MS.  2827.  A  volume  of  municipal  records — contains  on  fo. 
611  an  official  list  of  the  Scottish,  English  and  Irish  exiles 
who  arrived  in  Avignon  on  2  April,  1716;  probably 
compiled  for  the  use  of  the  Vice-Legate  Salviati,  governor 
of  the  city. 


Jacobite  Papers  at  Avignon  61 

ISTE     DES     ANGLOIS     DE     LA    SUITE     DE    JAQUES    III    RoY 
D'ANGLETERRE  ARRIVE  A  AUIGNON  EN   1716   LE  2  AURIL. 

Mr  le  due  d'Ormond,  generalissime  par  terre  et  par  mer. 

Mr  le  due  de  Marr,  premier  gentilhomme  de  sa  chambre. 

Milords.  Maresshal,  Soulhark  [Southesk],  Panmure,  Linlith- 
ow,  Tullibardin,  Kilsyth,  Kingston,  Ogilvie,  George  Murray, 
eith  frere  de  M.  Maresshal,  et  Askein  frere  (sic)  de  M. 

ulhark. 

Lieut,  generaux.  Kclin  (sic),  irlandois,  Hamilton,  Gordon, 
haster  [Foster]. 

Brigadiers.  Corbes  [Corbet],  Macintosh,  Hay  ecuyer  du  roi,  a 
resent  Milord  Hiuerness  [Inverness]. 

Colonels.     Clephant,  Cameron,   Stewart   de   Appin,   Campbell, 
amerones,  Campbell  de  Glenlion,  lusus  (sic\  Livingston,  Truin 
de  Banut. 

Lieut.  Colonels.  Ones  (fie),  anglois,  Waleincha  [Walkinshaw], 
Elphinston,  Maxton,  Forbes. 

Maiors  d'Inf.  et  Caualerie.  Fleming,  Hepburne,  Makincha 
_Mackenzie],  Smith,  Arthur,  Lesly,  Lauder,  Macpherson,  Mac- 
intosh, Coelzbuine  [Cockburn  ?]. 

Capitaines.  Stalket  (sic),  irlandois,  Preston,  Sfc  Clair,  Frazier, 
Falconer,  Douglas,  Collier,  Sharp,  Nairne,  Lesly,  Mazuel 
[Maxwell],  Butler,  Gordon,  Crichton,  Dalmahoie,  Mackinsie, 
Charlton,  Littleton,  Accuol  (sic),  anglois,  Macdonald,  Bourke, 
Lestrange,  Obrien,  Askin,  irlandois. 

Lieutenants.  Ker,  Fergusson,  Boswell,  Lindsay,  Maclean, 
Lindsay. 

Docteurs.     Lesly,  Hamilton,  Lesly,  Barclay,  Worrol,  Patterson. 

Secretaires.     Kennedy,  Paterson. 

Soub secretaires.     Egigar  [Edgar],  et  Keir. 

Medecins  du  roy.     Blair,  Vignar  (sic). 

Chirurgiens.     Arnaud  (sic)  ecossois,  Hay. 

Gentilshommes.  Ellis,  tresorier,  Askhein  [Erskine],  Kesch 
[Keith  ?],  Ogilvie,  Alexander,  Fuzier  [Fraser],  Forsingan  de  puree 
[Fotheringham  of  Powrie],  Forsingan  fils,  Brisbane  de  Brisbane, 
Fuberne  (sic),  Wood,  Tailor,  Ker,  Fulastron  [Fullarton],  Murray, 
Menzies,  Hairstanes,  Askin,  Sharp,  Green,  Evingston  [Elphin- 
stone],  Cameron,  Hazel,  Smith,  Beanton  [Balfour  of  Beaton  ?], 
Potts,  Meiklewight,  Stilwort,  Hobson,  Forman. 

Liste  des  Seigneurs  Catholiques.     Le  due  de  Perth,  Milord  Gal-  [verso] 
moye,  Nierdal  [Nithsdale]  sauve  par  sa  femme  de  la  prison  de 


62  R.  W.  Twigge 

Londres,  Mr  Wington  [Witherington  ?]  sauve  de  Londres,  Cler- 
mont,  Seaforth,  Sheldon,  Macdonel  de  Clanranald,  Fleming, 
Macdonald,  Buude  (sic\  le  Chevalier  Ekins,  Trauagnon  [Tre- 
vanion  ?],  Moreland,  Strickland,  Butler,  MacMahon,  Wogan, 
Macdonald,  Wigby  [Rigby?],  Wood,  Albergomby  [Abercromby  ?] 
medicin,  Machua  [McGhie?],  Trauagnen  [Trevanion],  Akers,  Sic- 
cleworth  (sic),  Nairne,  de  Lassire,  Brouner,  MacCarthy,  Sl  Paul, 
Boubler  (sic),  Rhodes,  Siulir  (sic),  Fitzgerald,  Cuog  (sic\  irlandois, 
Mathew,  Linch,  apoticaire,  Mr  Drumond. 

[endorsed]  Noms  des  anglois  venus  auec  le  roy  d'angleterre  en  .  1 7 1 6  a 
auignon. 

To  return  to  Dr.  Brun's  diary1  (MS.  3188.  ff.  170-431)  : 

f.  170.  He  mentions  that  King  James  landed  in  Scotland  on  2  January, 

1716. 

f.  172.  Ce  29  Mars   1716  le  Vice-legat  Salviati  a  rec^u  une  lettre  de 

Lion  qui  1'advertit  que  le  roy  d'Angleterre  etoit  arriv6  dans  cette 
ville  la,  et  qu'il  seroit  demain  icy.  Le  Vice-legat  lui  a  envoye  au 
devant  Mr  d'Autana,  capitaine  de  la  cavalerie  avec  son  fils,  an 
heures  du  matin  dimanche  de  la  Passion,  et  il  est  alle  le  tantot 
aux  Celestins  pour  disposer  des  appartements  pour  loger  ce  Roi 
qui  mene  les  Milords  qui  se  sont  sauves  avec  luy  d'Ecosse. 

verso  Le  3 1   Mars  le  Lieutenant  des  Gardes  du  roi  Jacques  3  est 

arrive  icy.  II  visita  les  maisons  qui  pouvoit  convenir  au  Roy,  il 
choisit  celle  de  Mr  le  cadet  de  Serre  ou  est  le  commandant  qui 
en  sortira. 

i  Avril  1716.  le  roy  doit  arriver  icy  ce  soir  .  .  .  Mr  d'Autana, 
capitaine  de  la  cavalerie  du  Pape  icy,  arriva  hier  premier  de  ce 
mois.  II  trouva  le  roi  a  Vienne,  ou  il  lui  rendit  la  lettre  du  Vice- 
legat.  II  a  raporte  la  lettre  du  roi :  et  qu'il  couchoit  au  Sl  Esprit 
et  arriveroit  le  second  de  ce  mois.  Le  Vice-legat  lui  a  envoye 
des  chevaux  du  cote  du  Languedoc,  ne  jugent  pas  a  propos  qu'il 
passa  par  Orange  a  cause  du  Prince  d'Orange  qui  dethrona  son 
pere  le  roy  Jacques  2. 

fo.  173.  Le  2  Avril,  le  Roi  d'Angleterre  arriva  icy  par  Villeneuve  ou 
Mr  d'Autana  1'attendit  avec  quatre  chaises  et  deux  cavaliers  sans 
la  juste-au-corps  uniforme.  II  voulut  marcher  sur  la  chaussee. 
II  etoit  au  milieu  du  Comte  de  Marr  et  Mr  d'Autane.  II  se  mit 
en  chaise  et  entra  par  la  porte  du  Maille  sans  ceremonie  comme  il 
a  souhaite  ...  II  alia  droit  chez  Mr  de  Sarre  proche  Sl  Didier 

1  The  entries  from  the  Diary  are  transcribed  in  French.  When  a  synopsis  of 
the  less  important  entries  is  given,  the  synopsis  is  in  English. 


Jacobite  Papers  at  Avignon  63 

ou  il  doit  loger.  II  arreta  le  Vice-legat  pour  souper  avec  luy,  qui 
fut  surpris  de  Thonneur  qu'il  lui  fit.  Mr  d'Autane  y  soupa,  le 
Vice-Legat  s'excusa  sur  la  eolation  du  Car£me,  mais  il  se  trouva 
chez  Mr  de  Sarre  quand  le  Roy  arriva. 

4  Avril .  .  .  le  due  d'Ormond  est  arrive  sur  les  quatre  heures  verso 
du  soir.     Le  Roy  est  alle  rendre  visite  au  Vice-legat  et  a  FArch- 
eveque  apres  diner,  et  ensuite  est  alle  promener  aux  Celestins  avec 
quelques  gentilshommes  de  cette  ville. 

Le  5  Avril.  II  est  arrive  des  equipages  du  Roy  avec  une 
berline  et  une  chaise  roullante — les  ecussons  sans  armes. 

Brun  then  narrates  the  deception  practised  by  the  Regent,  who, 
after  permitting  King  James  to  purchase  arms  and  equipment  for 
20,000  men,  refused  to  allow  the  shipment  from  France.  Men 
were  ready  to  support  his  cause  in  Scotland,  but  arms  and 
ammunition  were  lacking  owing  to  the  Regent's  action.  In  order 
to  conceal  his  expedition  James  set  out  from  Lorraine  accom- 
panied only  by  his  surgeon  St.  Pol,  who  was  disguised  as  a  lackey 
in  a  shabby  green  livery,  while  his  master  called  himself  Mr  du 
Plessis.  They  made  their  way  to  Brittany,  following  by-ways, 
sometimes  on  mules,  sometimes  on  foot,  lodging  in  pot-houses, 
and  thus  avoided  detection. 

Milords  Panmure  et  Drummond  logent  chez  M.  de  Ville- fo.  174. 
franche  ...     Le  roi  avoit  le  Comte  de  Marr  a  sa  droite  dans  le 
carosse  en  se  promenant  a  raison  de  1'incognito. 

Le  Comte  d'Arran,  frere  du  due  d'Ormond,  a  et6  elu  Grand- fo.  174  v, 
Steward  du  Chapitre  de  Westminster  :    Feveque  de  Rochester, 
violent  Tori,  conclut  en  faveur  du  susdit  comte. 

Le  8  Avril.  Le  roi  entend  tous  les  jours  la  messe  a  Sl  Didier 
un  peu  apres  9  heures.  II  y  a  ete  aux  Ten&bres  mercredi  ou  Ton 
a  fort  mal  chant£  la  musique  ...  II  fait  gros  froid  depuis  6  mois 
et  gele  encore  .  .  . 

Le  roi  a  entendu  la  grande  messe  a  Notre  Dame  des  Doms,  fo.  175. 
l'archev£que  Gontieri  officiant.    Le  roi  voulut  voir  faire  les  Saintes 
huiles  ce  jeudi  saint  9  Avril  1716. 

II  fut  ensuite  a  1'office  des  T£n&bres  aux  Penitents  Gris.     Lafo.  175  v. 
musique  y  fut  bonne,  Villefranche  etant  recteur. 

II  crea  hier  le  Due  d'Ormond  et  le  Due  de  Perth  chevaliers  de 
la  Jarretiere,  et  Milords  Panmure  et  Dromond  chevaliers  du 
Chardon,ancien  ordre  d'Ecosse  que  Jacques  2  son  pere  avoit  retabli. 

Le  Roy  portoit  aujourdhuy  1'ordre  du  Chardon  avec  un  ruban 
verd.  II  est  grand,  le  taille  deli£e,  age  de  28  ans,  le  visage  ovale 
et  creuse  de  petite  verole,  le  nez  aquilin  et  avantageux,  le  teint 


64  R.  W.  Twigge 

brun  clair,  1'air  gracieux,  un  peu  melancolique,  la  demarche  ferme 
et  degage'e,  il  n'est  ny  gras  ny  maigre,  et  a  1'air  fort  gracieux.  Le 
Vendredi  Saint  il  entendit  la  messe  a  Sl  Didier,  et  il  fut  le  premier 
a  1'adoration  de  la  croix  apres  les  pretres,  et  il  assista  a  la  procession 
du  S*  Sacrement  avec  un  flambeau  a  la  main.  II  entendit  le  soir 
1'office  des  T£nebres  aux  Celestins.  .  .  . 

Le  Samedi  Saint — ce  matin  le  Vice-legat  luy  a  envoy6  un  present 
qui  consistoit  en  un  grand  bassin  de  becassines  et  de  pluviers,  un 
autre  de  perdrix  et  de  becasses,  un  autre  bassin  de  leuraux  et  de 
lapins,  une  grande  corbeille  de  poulardes,  une  grande  cage  doree 
et  peinte  de  dindons,  un  autre  de  poulets,  et  la  troisieme  de 
fb.  176.  pigeons,  un  veaux,  trois  agneaux  de  camp,  deux  gros  moutons, 
tout  cela  en  vie  excepte"  le  gibier,  et  quantite  de  toute  sorte  de 
vins  de  Champagne,  de  Bourgogne,  de  Vienne,  et  ailleurs  .  .  . 

Dimanche  de  Paques  (apres  1'etre  confess^  hier  a  Sl  Didier  du 
pere  de  Viganeques  recteur  du  College  des  Savoyards  qu'il  [le  roi] 
envoya  chercher)  1'Archeveque  Gontieri  se  rendit  a  Sl  Didier  a  7 
heure  et  dit  la  messe  dans  laquelle  il  communia  le  Roy  d'Angleterre, 
qui  ensuite  entendit  une  messe  basse  dans  la  meme  chapelle  du 
Bon  Ange,  apres  laquelle  il  dona  aux  chanoines  un  louis  d'or 
pour  distribuer  aux  pauvres  .  .  .  Ses  carrosses  arriveront  bientot 
avec  un  cinquantaine  de  chevaux. 

fo.  176  v.  Le  1 6  Avril  le  roy  fut  a  1'assemblee  de  Madame  de  Villefranche. 
.  . .  le  Due  d'Ormond  doit  partir  demain  pour  Bourdeaux.  Le 
Roi  a  pris  pour  medicin  Mr  Parreli. 

Le  19.  Dimanche  in  albis,  auquel  jour  1'Archeveque  faisoit  la 
Communion  paschale  aux  ieunes  filles  a  Sl  Didier,  le  Roy  y  etant 
al!6  a  la  messe,  dona  16  louis  d'or  au  Prevot  Garein  pour  les 
pauvres. 

Le  Roy  va  promener  tres  souvent  au  cours  de  S*  Michel  les 
heures  entieres  en  carrosse  avec  le  due  d'Ormond,  le  Comte  de 
Marr,  et  milords  Panmure  et  Drumond. 

News  arrives  at  Avignon  from  Ratisbon,  dated  2  April,  that 
King  George  has  presented  a  memorial  to  the  Diet  praying  the 
princes  of  the  German  empire  to  refrain  from  allowing  King 
James  to  find  a  refuge  in  their  States.  Twelve  Scottish  gentle- 
men have  landed  at  Dunkirk.  Bolingbroke  is  in  Paris.  An 
fo.  177.  extraordinary  stir  in  England  between  the  Tories  and  Whigs 
regarding  the  next  election  of  members  for  Parliament  which  is 
summoned  to  meet  soon.  Queen  Mary  is  suffering  from  cancer, 
and  Mr.  Fagon,  the  late  king's  physician,  thinks  she  will  live 
barely  two  months. 


Jacobite  Papers  at  Avignon  65 

From  Edinburgh  (3 1  March) — the  Earl  of  Breadalbane  is  still 
in  prison.  Lord  Glenarghoni  [Glengarry  ?]  is  captured. 

From  the  Gazette  d'Hollande — The  trial  of  the  Earl  of  Oxford 
still  proceeds.  King  George  has  instructed  his  ambassador  Stair 
to  request  the  Regent  not  to  give  asylum  to  the  fugitives  from 
England,  and  to  banish  them  from  France.  The  Regent  has 
replied  that  the  right  of  asylum  is  inviolable  in  all  civilized  states, 
and  that  he  will  observe  the  clauses  in  the  Peace  of  Utrecht 
touching  the  person  of  King  James. 

Le  24  Avril — Le  due  d'Ormond  est  alle  ce  matin  [prendre]  lefo.  177  v. 
chocolat  et  le  cafe  chez  le  pere  Inquisiteur. 

Le  26  Avril — Le  roi  a  ete  diner  aux  Chant ilins  avec  le  due 
d'Ormond  le  Comte  de  Marr,  milords  Drumond  et  Panmure, 
messieurs  des  Yssars,  Villefranche,  Madame  des  Yssars,  Madame 
Chigi,  et  les  deux  Doni  filles.  La  Yssars  et  la  cadete  Doni 
antrerent  (sic)  dans  le  carrosse  du  Roy  auxquelles  il  dona  le  main 
pour  les  faire  entrer  les  premieres  ...  II  fut  de  retour  le  soir  a 
sept  heures  et  demi.  Le  roy  fit  porter  tous  les  preparatifs  du 
repas  et  obligea  les  religeux  de  prendre  10  louis  pour  les  petits 
frais  qu'ils  avoint  fait. 

le  27  Avril — Le  thresorier  du  Roy  arriva  et  luy  enmena 
[amena  ?]  80,000  ecus  en  or.  [Later  the  name  of  the  king's 
*  grand  thresorier '  is  given  as  *  Chiardon.'] 

On  ecrit  d'Edimbourg  du  7  Avril —  fo.  178. 

1  Cadogan  avoit  bruler  les  terres  de  Stenau  [Struan]  Robertson, 
et  avoit  surpris  le  capitaine  Scot  dans  la  maison  de  Robertson.  On 
1'amene  icy  en  prison  avec  8  autres  gentilshommes  qui  sont  le 
Lord  de  Bonimnon  [Carnegie  of  Balnamoon  ?],  Methuen,  Bam- 
blen,  la  Firish  [Lafferys]  pere  et  fils,  le  colonel  Urghort 
[Urquhart],  le  capitaine  Auchmoory  [Achmouty],  et  Mr  Ramsey. 
On  dit  le  Marquis  de  Huntley  et  le  Lord  Rollo  seront  mener  icy 
demain.' 

Le  Milord  Nithsdale  arriva  icy  hier  au  soir — 4  May  1716 — fo.  178  v. 
c'est  celuy  que  sa  femme  sauva  de  prison  de  Londres  en  le  revetant 
de  ses  habits  de  femme. 

Milord  Stair  a  fait  des  plaints  au  Regent  que  le  Roy  Jacques  fo.  179. 
rescoit  trop  a  Avignon.     On  ne  scait  pas  encore  ce  que  le  Regent 
lui  a  repondu  du  i  May. 

On  ecrit  d'Edimbourg  le  9  Avril : — 

'  Frazer  de  Beaufort  par  ordre  du  General  Wightman  avoit 
arrete  le  Comte  de  Cromarty  et  le  Lord  d'Inchcoulte,  et  les  avoit 
conduits  en  prison  . .  .  Major  Clephane  s'embarqua  a  Montrose 


66  R.   W.  Twigge 

pour  retourner  en  France  avec  le  colonel  Hay  .  .  .  On  ne  scait 
pas  si  le  Comte  de  Seaforth  est  encore  dans  les  montagnes,  ou 
s'il  a  pass6  en  France.' 

fo.  1 80.  De  Londres,  17  Avril : — *  On  assure  que  le  comte  de  Carrnuat 
[Carnwath]  aura  la  grace,  que  le  comte  de  Widdrington  et  le 
Lord  Nairn  seront  transporter  dans  les  colonies  de  I'Amerique,  et 
que  le  comte  de  Wintoun  restera  dans  la  Tour  de  Londres  pendant 
sa  vie.' 

Le  Pape  a  ecrit  au  Roy  Jacques  pour  luy  temoigner  le  joie 
qu'il  a  de  son  arrived  a  Avignon.  II  luy  offre  le  palais,  Rome,  et 
toutes  les  villes  de  ses  Etats.  II  a  ordonne  au  Vice-legat  de  luy 
fournir  mille  ecus  romaines  par  mois  :  mais  le  Roy  n'a  point  voulu 
re^evoir  cette  pension,  et  en  a  remerci£  le  Pape  . . . 

fo.  182.  le  13  May.  Milord  Drumond  est  parti  d'ici  pour  aller  a  Sc 
Germain  voir  le  Due  de  Perth  son  pere  qui  est  a  Textremit6. 

Le  14  jeudi  —  il  est  arriv6  par  le  Rhone  un  grand  bateau  rempli 
de  seigneurs  Anglois.  Demain  les  36  chevaux  du  Roi  doivent 
arriver.  II  a  re$u  toute  sa  vaisselle,  et  il  a  renvoye  au  Vice-legat 
Salviati  toute  la  sienne  et  tout  le  lainge  qu'il  luy  avoit  prete. 
Milord  Melford  est  arrive  pour  voir  le  Roy :  il  a  epouse  Made- 
moiselle de  Lussan  veuve  du  prince  d'Albemarle  frere  du  Mareschal 
de  Berwick. 

fo.  183.  Le  1 8  May  —  On  a  en  ouis  que  le  sieur  Forster  s'est  sauve  a 
Calais  sur  un  petit  battiment  apartenant  a  un  nomm6  Coucy. 

fo.  185.  King  James  refuses  invitations  to  dinners  and  balls — *  pendant 
que  ses  amis  etoint  si  cruelement  traites  en  Angleterre ' — news  of 
the  cruel  repression  of  the  Jacobite  rising  having  been  received 
from  London  and  Edinburgh. 

fo.  1 88.  Forster,  qui  s'est  sauve  des  prisons  arriva  icy  hier  26  May,  II 
alia  rendre  visite  au  Vice-legat. 

Les  lettres  de  Londres  au  Roy  disent  que  40  prisoniers  d'Etat, 
qui  etoint  dans  Newgate,  s'etoint  sauves  apres  avoir  poignarde  le 
capitaine  et  le  lieutenant  qui  venoint  pour  les  enfermer  sur  le  soir. 
Us  furent  decouvert  par  le  corps  de  garde  qui  tira  sur  eux  et  tua 
plusiers  et  contraignit  une  partie  de  reantrer.  Neuf  se  sont 
sauves  absolument.  [Including  Brigadier  Mackintosh,  vide  fo. 
190  v.] 

fo.  188  v.  Le  Docteur  Wood  medecin  du  Roy,  qui  est  prisonier  a  Edim- 
bourg,  a  etc  examine. 

fo.  189.  May  29.  An  account  is  given  of  the  arrest  of  Macdonel  and 
his  valet,  on  suspicion  of  coming  to  Avignon  to  assassinate  the 


Jacobite  Papers  at  Avignon  67 

King.    They  were  banished  on  June  12,  under  the  threat  of  being 
hanged  if  found  again  on  the  Pope's  territory. 

News  from  Paris  of  16  May — Forster  while  in  Paris  was  not  fb.  190. 
allowed  to  enter  any  cafe,  and  the  Regent  ordered  him  to  leave 
the  city. 

Juin  7.  dimanche  de  la  Trinite.  Le  Roy  soupa  chez  Doni  fo.  190  v. 
avec  le  due  d'Ormond  et  la  Quinton,  la  Perrucy  veuve,  Isautier 
et  Quinton.  Us  etoint  14  a  tables,  Doni,  le  chevalier  Doni  et 
Villefranche  etoint  a  une  petite  table  apart.  Ce  repas  coute  150 
livres.  Le  Roy  fit  porter  de  son  vin  de  Champagne  30  bouteilles 
et  une  grande  caisse  de  vin  de  Florence.  Le  Roy  dansa  avec  les 
dames.  II  va  souvent  a  la  promenade  a  cheval  avec  15  ou  1 6  de 
ses  gentilshommes  a  cheval .  . . 

Le  1 1  Juin.     II  arriva  hier  vingt  mulcts  charges  de  vin  de  fo.  196. 
Champagne  au  Roy. 

Le  Roy  a  vu  passer  la  procession  de  la  Fete  Dieu  chez  Mr  de 
Brante,  avec  tous  les  Anglois  Catholiques  .  . . 

Le    12.     il  est  arrive  au   Roy  six  charretes  chargees  de  ses 
equipages,  avec  six  seigneurs  Anglois. 

14  juin.  Dimanche  —  le  Roy  a  assiste  a  la  procession  de  sa  fb.  200. 
paroisse  Sl  Didier  ayant  un  cierge  de  demi-livre  a  la  main, 
accompagne  d'une  grande  quantite  de  Noblesse  et  la  Soldatesque 
du  Pape  melee  dans  les  rangs  des  chanoines  et  a  la  Croix.  Derriere 
le  Roy  il  y  avoit  douze  fusiliers,  les  valets  de  pied  du  Roy  au 
nombre  de  huit  personnes  .  . . 

Dimanche  2 1  juin  on  celebra  dans  Teglise  S'  Didier  le  jour  de  fo.  203. 
la  naissance  du  Roy,  qui  entra  dans  sa  27  annee.     II  assista  a  la 
grande  messe  a  10  heures  .  . .  toute  la  musique  de  la  ville  et  grande 
illumination  . . . 

Le  22  juin  —  le  Roy  a  soupe  chez  Milord  Southesk  ...  fo.  203  v. 

Le  25  juin  —  le  Vice-legat  fixa  le  loyer  de  la  maison  que  le  Roy  fo.  204. 
tient  de  Mr  de  la  Marine  toute  meublee  avec  40  linceuls  et  10 
douzain  services  pour  le  prix  de  800  ecus  de  rente  annuelle  :  et 
pour  ce  que  Mr  d'Antraignes  donne  de  sa  maison  on  Fa  fixe 
a  700. 

Milord  Drumond  est  arrive  icy  le  I  juillet,  revenant  de  Paris  fo.  205. 
ou  il  assista  a  la  mort  du  Due  de  Perth  son  pere. 

Le    2  juillet  —  II   est   arrive   icy  ce  matin  Milord  Edouard  fa,  206. 
Drummond  que  le  Roy  avoit  cru  perdu  ...     II  a  ete  attendre 
le  Roy  au  sortir  de  la  messe  de  S  Didier,  qui  l'a  embrasse  et 
baise  fort  tendrement  plusiers  fois,  et  le  milord  de  la  baise  et 
embrasse  de  meme  devant  tout  le  monde  qui  etoit  fort  attendri. 


68  R.  W.  Twigge 

fo.  207  v.      le  9  juillet  — le  marechal  de  Vilars  est  arrive  ce  spir  .  .  .  et  il 

'  alia  incontinent  rendre  visite  au   Roy  ...     le   10  il  dina  chez 

le  Roy,  qui  avec  le  due  d'Ormond  eurent  une  conference  secrete 

avec   le   marechal   pendant   une   heure   et   demi.     II  monta  en 

carrosse  de  chez  le  Roy  et  parti  a  3  heures  pour  Paris. 

fo  208  le  13  juillet  —  le  Roy  est  alle  voir  la  Fontaine  de  Vaucluse  avec 
tous  ses  courtisans  excepte  le  due  d'Ormond.  Les  officiers  de 
bouche  etoint  partis  le  matin  a  2  heures  pour  y  appreter  un  grand 
diner  .  .  . 

fo.  213.  Milord  Clairmont  fils  du  Comte  de  Middleton  loge  chez 
Lucarelli. 

LISTE  DES  ANGLOIS  QUI  SE  TROUVENT  PRESENTEMENT  A  AVIGNON 

IUILLET  1716. 

Milord  Due  d'Ormond.  Mr  Butler  et  Mr  Bagnel  ses  parents, 
Mr  Kennedy  son  secretaire,  Mr  Stoken,  capitaine,  son  ecuyer. 

Milord  Due  de  Marr,  ministre  et  secretaire  d'Etat  et  premier 
gentilhomme  de  la  Chambre,  Mr  de  chevalier  Ariskin  [Erskine] 
son  parent,  Mr  Paterson,  p.1  et  Mr  Creagh,  c.1  ses  secretaires. 

Milord  Due  de  Perth,  c.  Milord  Panmure,  p.  et  son  medicin 
Mr  Blair,  a  present  medicin  du  Roy,  p. 

Milord  Nithsdale,  c.  Milord  Galmais  [Galmoye]  lieutenant- 
general,  gentilhomme  de  la  Chambre. 

Mr  Sheldon,  vice-chambellan,  et  lieutenant-general  des  arm6es 
du  roi  de  France,  c. 

Mr  Trauangon  [Trevanion  ?]  chef  d'Escadre,  gentilhomme 
servant  de  la  chambre  —  Anglois,  p. 

fo.  213  v.  Mr  Strickland,  capitaine  de  Cavalerie,  gentilhomme  servant  de  la 
chambre  —  Anglois,  c. 

Mr  Nairne,  secretaire  du  Cabinet  et  du  Conseil  prive,  c. 

Mr  le  Chevalier  Ellis,  controleur  de  la  maison  et  tresorier  ou 
payeur,  p. 

Mr  Evlascre  [  ?]  ecuyer,   c.     Mr   Hay  colonel  et 

ecuyer  du  Roy,  p. 

Mr  Bromer,  controleur  de  la  bouche,  c.  anglois. 

Mr  Macreary,  chef  des  gobelets,  c.  irlandois. 

Mr  Mastice,  chef  de  cuisine,  c.  irlandois  (sic). 

Messieurs  S'  Pol  et  Boubleds,  valets  de  chambre,  c. 

Messieurs  Rhodes  et  Stile,  valets  de  chambre  et  de  garderobe,  c. 

Mr  Carill,  gentilhomme  de  la  Reine,  anglois. 

1  [Note.     c.  is  for  Catholique,  p.  for  Protestant.] 


Jacobite  Papers  at  Avignon  69 

Mr  Corbette,  brigadier  d'armee,  p.  Mr  MacMahon,  capitaine 
de  cavalerie,  c.  Mr  Ord,  gentilhomme,  anglois,  c. 

Mr  Obrien,  capitaine  d'infanterie,  c.  Mr  Bureshe,  capitaine 
d'infant.  p.  Mr  Magdanel  [MacDonnell]  capitaine  d'lnfanterie,  p. 

Mr  Sulwort,  gentilhomme,  anglois.  Mr  Leslie,  ministre 
protestant. 

Mr  Hamilton,  ministre  protestant.     Mr  Rigby,   capitaine  defo.  214. 
vaisseau,   anglois.     Le   general  Hamilton,  p.     Mr  Forster,  qui 
etoit  general  5  Preston,  anglois,  p.    Le  colonel  Ocrent  [Clephane  ?], 
anglois,  p. 

Mr  Nairne,  capitaine,  frere  de  Mr  Nairne  qui  fut  pris  a 
Preston  et  condamne  a  mort,  et  qui  se  distingua  par  son  intrepi- 
dite  en  mourant,  c.  Mr  Eclens,  lieutenant-general,  p.  Mr 
Abercromby,  docteur  en  medicine,  c. 

Wogan  officier  pris  a  Preston  et  sauve"  des  prisons  avec 
Mackintosh. 

Milord  Tullibardine  fils  du  Due  d'Athol,  p.  Milords  George  et 
son  frere,  p.  Milord  Mareschal,  p.  Mr  Linlithgow,  p.  Milord 
Southesk,  p.  Mr  Areskin  [Erskine]  frere  du  Comte  de 
Buchan,  p. 

Mr  Flammeng  [Fleming]  frere  du  Comte  de  Wigton,  c. 

Milord  Clermont  fils  du  Comte  de  Middelton,  c. 

Le  Vicomte  de  Kilsyth,  p.  attendu  ici.  Milord  Edouard 
Drumond,  c. 

Le  Due  de  Melford  avec  PAbb6  son  frere,  c.     II  est  Comte  de  fo.  214  v. 
Lusan  en  France  par  sa  femme.     II  est  a  sa  terre. 

In  a  later  hand  is  added — Lussan  veuve  du  Prince  d'Albemarle 
frere  du  Marechal  Berwick.1 

Selon  les  lettres  du  vice-legat  revues  le  26  juillet,  le  roi  George 
n'ira  plus  a  Hanover  parcequ'il  voit  des  grosses  dispositions  a  une 
revolution  en  Angleterre  .  .  .  On  a  ot£  au  Due  d'Argyle  toutes 
ses  charges  .  .  .  et  il  s'est  retire  en  Ecosse. 

On  assure  que  le  Pape  a  fait  compter  12,000  ecus  romains  ce 
mois  icy  au  Roi  Jacques. 

Le  Due  d'Ormond  a  recu  aujourdhuy  29  [juillet]  une  lettre  de  fo.  216. 
Londres  dans  laquelle  on  lui  marque  que  le  roi  George  est  parti 
le  17  juillet,  et  que  quand  il  fut  parti  les  troupes  ecririrent  sur 
leurs  casernes  cMaisons  a  louer  a  present.'     On  mit  le  meme 
placard  sur  le  palais  du  roy. 

Le  28  aout  —  le  Due  d'Ormond  a  men£  coucher  a  L'isle  les  fo.  226  v. 

1  Marie-Gabrielle  d.  and  h.  of  Jean  d'Audebert,  Comte  de  Lussan,  marr.  ist,  in 
1700,  Henry,  Duke  of  Albemarle. 


7o  R.  W.  Twigge 

trois  Doni  avec  leur  pere.     Ils  verront  demain  la  fontaine  de 
Vaucluse.     Les  Anglois  sont  nuit  et  jour  dans  leur  maison. 
fo.  239.         Le  19  Sept.     le  roy  n'est  pas  alle  a  la  messe.     II  est  incomode 
des  hemorroides  ou  fistule. 

Le  general  Gordon  arriva  d'Ecosse  avec   17  seigneurs  de  ce 
pays  la. 

From  this  date  till  Nov.  24  are  numerous  entries  regarding  the 
king's  health, 
fo.  245.         Sept  28.     Mr  Wood  le  medecin  du  Roy  est  arriv£  d'Ecosse. 

II  fit  saigner  le  roy  .  .  . 

fo.  253.  Oct.  15.  II  y  a  icy  de  grands  mouvements  parmi  les  Anglais, 
il  en  est  parti  plus  de  30,  tous  gens  distingues  .  .  .  et  il  en  est 
arrive  plus  de  40. 

fo.  254.  Oct.  20.  Le  public  a  sc^u  auiourdhui  que  la  maladie  du  Roy 
etoit  un  fistule  et  non  pas  les  hemorroides.  La  reine  sa  mere  luy 
a  envoy 6  le  plus  habile  chirurgien  de  Paris  nomme  Mr  Guerin, 
qui  a  fait  1'operation  ce  matin  fort  heureusement  .  .  . 

Le  Due  d'Ormond  mene  quelquefois  les  Doni  a  1'Opera. 
Milord  Clermont,  Macdonal,  et  Mareschal,  et  trois  autres  ont 
donne  souper  a  la  Denoyers  et  trois  ou  quatre  actrices  de  1'Opera 
au  jardin  de  Castelet. 

fo.  255  v.  23  Oct. . . .  ce  soir  le  roy  avoit  la  fi&vre.  Le  Vice-legat  a  envoye 
ordre  a  toutes  les  eglises  et  couvents  qui  sont  a  portee  de  la 
maison  de  Roy  de  ne  point  sonner  leur  cloches  a  branle  pendant 
huit  jours  apres  la  Toussaints  a  compter  d'aujourdhui. 
fo.  257  v.  Oct.  28.  jeudi,  le  Due  d'Ormond  a  regale  a  Chantili  une 
vingtaine  de  persones  parmi  lesquelles  etoint  les  trois  Doni  dans 
le  carrosse  du  Roy  avec  le  due. 

fo.  262.         7  Nov.     La  playe  du  roy  poussoit  trop  vite  les  chairs,  on  luy 

a  applique  le  camphre  pour  bruler  ce  trop  d'excresence.     De  400 

a  500  Anglais  qu'il  y  avoit  icy  il  n'en  reste  pas  presentement  150. 

Les  cloches  sont  encore  dans  le  silence  jusques  a  Lundy  au  soir. 

fo.  277.         Le  Roi  va  de  mieux  en  mieux.     Les  cloches  qui  n'ont  pas  sonne 

a  branle  depuis  un  mois  recommenceront  le  2 1  de  Nov.  de  sonner. 

11  doit  sortir  dans  quelques  jours  .  .  . 

fo.  279.         24  Nov.     le  roy  a  commenc£  avoir  ce  soir  quelques  messieurs 

de  cette  ville. 

fo.  284.  ^  30  Nov.  les  Ecossois  de  deux  religions  ont  celebre  la  fete  de 
S1  Andre.  Ils  portoint  tous  a  leur  chapeaux  une  croix  de  Sl 
Andre,  1'ecusson  de  taffetas  de  la  grandeur  d'un  ecu  blanc  avec  la 
croix  de  fil  d'argent.  Le  roi  ne  paroit  pas  encore.  Les  cloches 
commencent  a  sonner  excepte  a  Matines. 


I 


Jacobite  Papers  at  Avignon  71 

Le  roi  se  montre  depuis  quelques  jours  avant  diner  a  tous  les  fb.  285. 
Messieurs   de  sa  Cour.     Demain   8   Dec.    1716,  il  entendra  la 
messe  a  S*  Didier  ...     II  n'etoit  point  sorti  depuis  le  15  Sept. . . . 
On  assure  toujours  qu'il  partira  bientot,  les  uns  disent  que  c'est 
pour  Bologna,  les  autres  assurent  que  c'est  pour  Bruxelles  .  .  . 

le  1 6  Dec.     le  Roy  est  al!6  visiter  les  Doni.  fb.  287. 

le  20  Dec.   4  dimanche.     le  Roy  entendit  la  predication  de  fo.  288  v. 
1'abbe  Brunet,  incognito,  dans  S'  Didier.     Rude  terns,  pluye  et 
verglas.  .  .  . 

22  Dec.     le  due  d'Ormond  doit  partir  dans  15  jours,  ainsi  quefo.  289, 
le  general  Gordon  et   quelques   autres.     On    croit  .  .  .  quelque 
mouvement  cet  hyver  en  Ecosse.     Guerin  le  chirurgien  est  parti 

ce  matin  pour  Paris. 

2   Janvier   1717.     Le  roi  est  al!6  entendre  la  messe  dans  lafb.  291  v. 
chapelle  de  Notre  Dame  du  Chapelet  a  la  cathedrale  pour  remercier 
la  Sainte  Vierge  touchant  sa  guerison. 

Le  Comte  de  Winton,  qui  etait  prisonier  a  la  Tour  de  Londres,  fo.  293. 
condamne  a  la  mort,  et  contrefit  le  fol,  est  arriv£  icy  s'etant  sauv6. 

14  Janvier  —  il  est  arriv£  40  tonneaux  de  vin  de  Champagne  fo.  295. 
au  Roy,   et  4  barrails   pieces  qu'on  a  mis  dans   les   caves   de 
Doni. 

23  Janv.     Mr  Dillon  lieutenant-general  en  France  arriva  icy  ce  fo.  296  v. 
soir.     C'est  un  homme  d'environ  60  ans,  bien  fait. 

2  Fevrier.     Tous  les  Anglais  sont  fort  affliges  d'etre  forces  par  fo.  298. 
le  Regent  de  quitter  Avignon  pour  aller  demeurer  en  Italic.     Le 
Roy  meme  et  le  Due  d'Ormond  en  sont  accab!6s.     En  general 
ils  se  louent  tous  des  habitants  de  cette  ville. 

4  fev.  jeudi  gras.  II  y  cut  encore  grande  f£te  au  Palais  ou 
le  Roy  se  rendit  apres  6  heures  accompagne  du  Due  d'Ormond, 
Due  de  Marr,  Due  de  Perth,  de  milord  Penmure,  milord 
Edouard,  milord  Clairemont,  milord  Mareschal,  le  comte  de 
Tullibardine  et  son  frere,  et  le  frere  du  due  de  Perth,  en  chaises 
avec  20  grands  flambeaux  de  cire  blanche,  et  plus  de  100  Anglois  fo.  298.  v. 
a  pied,  tous  officiers  et  pages  du  Roy,  tous  les  mois.  II  a  et6  ce 
matin  a  la  messe,  et  en  sortant  il  a  fait  donner  100  livres  pour  les 
pauvres,  et  24  livres  pour  les  deux  clercs  qui  ont  servi  la  messe 
pendant  les  dix  mois  qu'il  a  rest£  icy  ...  ** 

L'archeveque  Gontieri  a  ecrit  a  son  frere  qu'il  vint  au  devant 
du  Roy  au  Mont  Cenis  avec  les  gens  necessaires  pour  le  descendre 
«n  chaise  de  la  montagne  .  .  . 

Samedi  6  fevrier  1717  —  le  jour  etoit  de  plus  beau,  le  Roy 
vint  entendre  la  messe  a  S*  Didier  a  9  heures — et  comme  le  fo.  299. 


72  R.  W.  Twigge 

pardon  etoit  en  cette  eglise  il  demanda  qu'on  donna  la  benediction 
du  tres  S.  Sacrement  ou  il  alloit  tous  les  soirs  la  prendre.  Apres 
quoy  toute  la  Noblesse  de  cette  ville  1'accompagnant  il  vint 
monter  dans  son  carosse  a  la  porte  de  1'eglise.  II  recut  tres 
gracieusement  tous  les  saluts,  et  etant  entre  dans  le  carosse  il  mit 
la  tete  dehors  et  salua  par  trois  fois  tout  le  monde.  Le  Vice-legat 
monta  et  se  mit  a  cote  du  Roy,  le  due  d'Ormond  monta  apres  et 
ensuite  le  due  de  Marr.  11  y  avoit  une  litiere  pour  le  Roy, 
et  une  chaise  de  poste,  et  plusieurs  fourgons  charges  d'hardes 
couvert  de  toile  cir£e.  II  est  all£  diner  aux  Chantilins  et  cou- 
chera  a  Orange.  II  reste  encore  icy  beaucoup  d'Anglois  pour 

fo.  299  v.  quelques  jours  ...  Le  Roy  ne  prendra  point  des  domestiques 
a  Bologna  ...  II  mene  a  sa  suite  70  persones,  le  reste  ira  par 
mer  et  1'embarquera  icy  sur  le  Rhone. 

Le  Vice-legat  fut  de  retour  de  Chantilins  pres  de  5  heures  avec 
le  cortege.  La  famille  Doni,  pere,  mere,  et  les  3  filles,  1'ont 
accompagn£  a  Orange  ou  elles  couchent  avec  la  comtesse  de 
Perrucy.  Les  Doni  sont  arrivees  le  7,  Dimanche  a  4  heures 
de  soir,  d'Orange.  Le  Roi  logea  au  Griphon.  L'eveque  fut  le 
complimenter  et  ofrrir  son  palais.  Les  Consuls  demanderent 
Thonneur  de  le  saluer  .  .  .  Les  Doni  et  le  Comte  de  Rochefort 
souperent  le  soir  au  Griphon  avec  le  dues  d'Ormond  et  de  Marr. 
Le  Roy,  qui  ne  soupe  pas  le  soir,  vint  les  voir  souper  en  robe  de 
chambre  et  se  retira  un  quart  d'heure  apres.  II  partit  [d'Orange] 
a  9  heures  et  alia  coucher  a  Pierrelate  .  .  . 

fo.  300  v.  Le  14  Fevrier  le  Roi  devoit  arriver  a  Chambari.  II  a  forc£  ses 
marches  pour  sortir  de  France,  il  y  sejournera  iusques  que  la 
grande  rigeur  de  la  gel£e  soit  moderee.  .  .  . 

Le  15  fev.  le  Roy  a  fait  ecrire  au  Vice-legat  qu'il  est  arriv£  a 
Oresse,  chateau  de  Mr  le  Marquis  de  Roucet  qui  demeure  icy. 
Les  grands  neiges  et  le  grand  froid  1'ont  arret£  la.  II  n'a  pas 
voulu  passer  a  Grenoble  ...  Mr  Dillon  Taccompagne  iusques 
hors  du  royaume.  .  .  . 

fo.  302.  19  fevrier.  Notre  Archeveque  a  receu  une  lettre  de  son 
frere  le  Marquis  de  Cavaillac  qui  lui  marque  com  me  le  roi  de 
Sardaigne  son  maitre  1'avoit  charge  d'aller  au  devant  du  roi 
d'Angleterre  pour  luy  ofrrir  tout  ce  que  depend  sa  majeste.  II  a 
ordre  de  le  deffrayer  et  toute  sa  suite,  de  luy  faire  rendre  tous 
les  honneurs,  et  de  1'accompagner  iusques  a  la  sortie  de  ses  Etats 

fo.  302  v. ...  mais  encor  d'aller  en  avant  dans  le  Dauphine  pour  le  prier 
de  venir  a  Turin  embrasser  la  reine  de  Sicile  sa  cousine.  II  y  a 
1000  hommes  pour  netoyer  les  chemins  remplis  de  neige  et 


Jacobite  Papers  at  Avignon  73 

500  chevaux  pour  1'accompagner  ...     Le  Due  d'Ormond  [aussi] 
a  ecrit  au  Vice-legat  ces  nouvelles  .  .  . 

1 8  mars  —  Le  grand  ecuyer  du  Roi,  Macdonel,  est  parti  cefo.  311. 
matin  ...  II  passe  icy  des  Anglois  qui  vont  joindre  le  Roy. 
Mr  Drumond  neveu  du  Due  de  Perth  passa  icy  le  18.  II  avoit 
ete  envoye  par  le  Roy.  le  le  vis  chez  la  Cairane,  il  dit  qu'il 
avoit  fait  yoo1,  il  s'acquita  de  sa  commission  aupres  du  Czar  qui 
est  en  Hollande  .  .  . 

le  24  mars  —  Le  Vice-legat  Salviati  a  receu  un  courrier  expresf.  313  v. 
du  Pape  pour  partir  incessement  et  aller  joindre  le  Roy  Jacques  3 
a  Urbino  ou  a  Pesaro,  ou  il  residera  en  qualit6  de  Prelat-President 
aupres  du  Roy.    Notre  Archeveque  le  sera  a  sa  place,  il  a  receu  sa 
patente. 

On  a  imprime  a  Paris  plus  que  20.000  portraits  du  roy  Jacques  fo.  315  v. 
qu'on  a  envoye  en  Ecosse  et  Angleterre  ou  son  partie  se  multiplie 
tous  les  jours.     La  Cour  de  Londres  est  fort  troublee. 

3 1  mars  —  Le  roy  est  presentement  a  Pesaro  .  .  .  et  comme 
1'este  y  est  tres  chaud,  il  habitera  a  Urbino  ...  II  sera  comme 
souverain  dans  ces  deux  villes.  Le  Vice-legat  part  le  8  avril 
pour  aller  le  joindre.  II  sera  president  dans  ces  deux  villes  pour 
la  justice  du  Pape,  et  aura  2000  ecus  romaines  d'appointement. 

Le  Roy  arriva  a  Monmelian  le  14  fevrier,  le  16  il  partit 
pour  Aiguebelle,  le  17  il  arriva  a  Maurienne  et  logea  a  1'Eveche, 
le  19  il  arriva  a  Modane  et  le  20  a  Lanebourg,  et  le  21  a  Suze. 
II  a  et£  servi  par  les  officiers  du  Roy  de  Sicile  sur  ses  terres.  II 
embrassa  ce  Roy  et  la  reine  sa  cousine.  Le  Pape  a  nomme  le 
marquis  Bufalini  pour  aller  au  devant  du  Roy  et  le  servir  dans 
sa  route  .  .  .  Don  Carlo  Albani  se  rendra  sur  les  confins  pour 
le  recevoir  et  le  conduire  a  Pesaro. 

le  5  Avril.     le  Vice-legat  Salviati,  florentin,  qui  a  reside  icy  £0.317. 
pres  de  5  ans,  est  parti  a  2  heures  pour  aller  ioindre  James  3  a 
Pesaro  ou  le  roy  arriva  le  16  mars.     Notre  archeveque  Gontieri, 
nomme  a  sa  place,  a  pris  possession  ce  soir  a  5  heures  .  .  . 

De  Genes  6  Mars  —  il  arrive  tous  les  jours  des  Anglais  de  la 
Suite  du  Roy  duquel  ils  se  sont  separes  au  pas  de  Suse.  II 
passa  le  24  du  mois  dernier  a  Turin,  et  il  a  ete  deffraye  sur 
les  terres  du  Roi  de  Sicile,  continuant  sa  route  par  Plaisance, 
Modene,  et  Bologne,  d'ou  il  se  rendra  a  Pesaro. 

Mr  le  chevalier  Strinclam  [Strickland]  gentilhomme  ordinaire  fo.  319. 
du  Roy  ecrit  de  Pesaro,  au  chevalier  Doni  icy  le  20  avril,  que 
quoyque  le  sejour  de  Pesaro  pour  la  ville  et  la  compagne  fut 
asses  beau,  neanmoins  que  les  habitants  etoint  sauvages  et  barbares, 


74  .         R.  W.  Twigge 

que  le  vin  ny  vaut  rien  non  plus  que  le  pain,  et  qu'il  y  a  deui 
mauvais  carrosses  dans  cette  ville.  S.  ne  croit  pas  qu'on  y  puisse 
demeurer  longtems  sans  perir  de  maladie. 

1 6  May  1717.  A  letter  received  from  Salviati  by  Mr  d'Autane 
captain  of  cavalry  at  Avignon,  says  that  the  Dukes  of  Ormond 
and  Perth  and  many  other  seigneurs  have  left  Pesaro  .  .  . 

21  May,  Milord  Mareschal  a  ecrit  a  Madame  de  Soissan  une 
lettre  sans  date  .  .  .  qu'il  etoit  parti  fort  content  de  Pesaro. 

le  6  juin  —  Milord  George,  frere  de  Tullibardine,  passa  icy.  II 
alia  voir  les  Doni  ou  il  soupa.  II  les  assura  que  le  Roy  etoit  a 
Rome  depuis  le  26.  qu'il  se  porta  bien  et  ses  affaires  de  meme. 
Quant  a  lui  il  va  a  Nimes  prendre  une  remise  d'argent  et  va 
attendre  des  ordres  a  Tolose. 

Le  roy  Jacques  a  envoye  son  portrait  a  Mr  d'Antraignes  [et] 
une  belle  montre  d'Angleterre  avec  le  boite  d'or,  un  autre  au 
pere  Viganeque  son  confesseur,  et  un  autre  au  chanoine  Curnier 
de  S*  Didier  son  aumonier  quand  il  etoit  icy. 

De  Rome  29  may —  Mercredi  au  soir  le  roy  Jacques  arriva  icy 
incognito.  II  fut  complimente  de  tous  les  Cardinaux  dans  la 
suite,  et  traite  de  Roy  par  Accioli  cardinal  doyen.  II  vit  passer 
la  procession  de  Corpus  Domini  sur  un  balcon  qu'on  luy  avoit 
prepar^  dans  la  place  Sl  Jacques.  Le  Pape  etant  arrive  au  devant 
de  luy  le  regarda  et  ensuite  le  S.  Sacrement,  et  pleura  de 
compassion. 

De  Rome  juin.  leudi  le  Pape  se  rendit  a  1'eglise  des  Ecossois 
ou  Ton  celebrait  la  fe"te  de  Ste  Marguerite  reine  d'Ecosse  :  le  roy 
d'Angleterre  le  receut  a  la  porte,  et  il  communia  par  les  mains  du 
pontife  .  .  . 

De  Rome  —  Le  Roy  partira  de  Rome  apres  la  fete  de  S1  Pierre 
pour  aller  passer  1'este  a  Urbino. 

De  Rome  10  juillet  —  le  Roy  fut  au  Palais  prendre  cong6  du 
Pape  qui  luy  a  fait  present  d'un  Corps  Saint  de  ceux  qui  sont 
dans  la  Sacristie  de  la  chapelle  pontificate  du  Quirinal,  avec  les 
sceaux  d'or  massifs  d'une  Croix  de  cristal  avec  du  Bois  de  la 
Ste  Croix. 

le  22  Sept.  Le  frere  de  Mr  Strinclan  [Strickland]  a  ete 
envoy£  en  poste  par  la  reine  d'Angleterre  a  son  fils  Jacques  3  a 
Urbino  ou  il  reside.  II  reste  2  heures  enferme  avec  le  Roy, 
apres  quoy  on  doubla  toutes  les  gardes,  on  mit  des  sentinels  dans 
tous  les  apartements,  on  ferma  quatre  portes  de  la  ville,  on  en 
laissa  deux  ouvertes  seulement,  on  fait  la  patrouille  iour  et  nuit, 
on  visite  les  maisons,  et  le  Roy  ne  sorte  plus  de  son  palais.  Le 


Jacobite  Papers  at  Avignon  75 

due  d'Ormond  y  est  arrive  et  le  comte  de  Marr  y  est  attendu. 
La  lettre  des  Doni  marque  tout  ce  detail. 

Sept.  1717.     Milord  Peterborough  qui  alloit  a  Naples  a  etc  fo.  389. 
arrete    par   ordre    du    Pape    a    Albano    ou   il    passoit.      On    a 
saisi   tous  ses  papiers,  et  les  Sbirres  Ton  mene  en  prison.     On 
croit  qu'il  avoit  quelque  dessein,  par  ordre  du  roy  George,  sur  la 
persone  du  Roy  Jacques. 

Lettres  de   Rome  disent  qu'on  a  decouvert  1 8  Anglois  qui  fo.  396  v. 
s'etoient  gliser  a  Urbino  .  .  .  qui  avoient  resolu  d'assassiner  le 
Roi  lacques,  ou  de  1'enlever  quand  il  seroit  a  la  promenade.     Us 
ont  tous  ete  pris  et  traduits  avec  leur  papiers  et  hardes  en  lieu  de 
surete. 

De  Modena  1 6  sept.     c  le  1 1  de  ce  mois  le  comte  de  Peter-  fo.  408  v. 
borough  fut  arrete  a  Bologna  par  ordre  de  la  Cour  de  Rome,' 
etc.,  etc. 

De  Bologna  21  Sept. — Peterborough,  his  secretary,  and  valets  fo.  416  v. 
were  set  at  liberty,  no  proof  of  their  connivance  in  the  alleged 
plot  against  King  James  having  been  discovered  among  their 
papers. 

De  Paris  1 8  Oct.     la  reine  d'Angleterre  a  quitte  Chailliot  et  fo.  423. 
est  revenue  demeurer  au  chateau  de  S*  Germain.     On  apprend 
de  Rome  que  le  Pape  a  envoye  au  Chevalier  de  S*  George  une 
companie  de  Cuirassiers  pour  le  garder  a  Urbino. 

le  1 1  Nov.     la  lettre  d 'Urbino  de  milord  Clermont  a  Mr  de  fo.  430. 
Caumont    [a  Avignon]   dit   que   le    Cardinal   Gualterio  y   etoit 
arrive,  qu'ils  se  portoient  tous  bien,  que  le  Comte  de  Marr  y 
etoit  de  retour  d'Aix  la  Chapelle  ou  il  prenoit  les  eaux  et  que  le 
Due  d'Ormond  y  devoit  arriver  .  .  . 

Here  ends  the  pith  of  the  entries  relating  to  King  James 
written  by  Dr.  Brun.  The  items  of  news,  extracted  from  the 
various  gazettes  of  the  period  relating  to  the  affairs  of  Scotland 
and  England,  copied  by  him  into  his  Journal,  are  of  great 
interest,  and  add  much  information  to  his  own  narrative,  but 
are  too  extensive  for  insertion  in  this  article.  In  the  Bibliotheque 
de  Ville  I  found  no  papers  connected  with  the  visit  of  Prince 
Charles  Edward  to  Avignon  in  1749. 

R.  W.  TWIGGE. 


Chronicle  of  Lanercost1 

CLOSE  siege,  therefore,  was  laid  to  the  castle  :  those  inside  were 
surrounded  by  a  deep  trench,  so  that  they  could  not  get  out ; 
wooden  houses  were  constructed  before  the  gate,  and  pavilions  or 
tents  were  set  up  for  the  lodging  of  the  chief  persons  in  the  army. 
Meanwhile  it  happened  that  Sir  John  de  Stirling,  warden  of 
Edinburgh  Castle,  going  forth  with  the  intention  of  lifting  some 
booty,  was  captured  by  craft  by  Sir  William  de  Douglas  and  a 
large  party  which  he  had  brought  with  him  ;  [Stirling]  himself 
and  two  or  three  knights  and  about  twenty  men  at  arms  [being 
captured],  of  whom  some  were  killed  and  some  were  taken  alive 
and  brought  to  Edinburgh  Castle  by  William  de  Douglas  and  his 
people.  When  they  arrived  there,  William  summoned  the  castle 
to  surrender,  promising  faithfully  if  those  within  would  do  so 
that  both  Sir  John  whom  they  had  captured  and  all  those  who 
were  outside  the  castle  with  him,  as  well  as  all  those  within  the 
castle,  should  preserve  life  and  limb  and  all  their  goods,  and  a 
safe-conduct  to  go  whither  they  would ;  but  that  if  they  refused 
to  do  so,  he  declared  that  he  would  cause  Sir  John  to  be  drawn 
there  at  the  tails  of  horses,  and  afterwards  to  be  hanged  on  gallows 
before  the  gate,  and  all  those  who  were  prisoners  there  with  him 
to  be  beheaded  before  their  eyes.  But  those  who  were  within 
made  reasonable  and  conciliatory  reply,  saying  that  that  castle  was 
a  fortress  of  the  King  of  England,  and  that,  let  what  might  befal 
Sir  John  and  the  others  with  him,  they  would  not  surrender  it  to 
Douglas  or  any  other  living  man  unless  at  the  king's  command. 
When  William  heard  this,  he  did  not  carry  his  threat  into  effect, 
but  sent  all  those  prisoners  to  Dunbarton  Castle,  because  there 
MS.  was  no  other  good  castle  in  possession  of  the  Scots  at  that  time 
-  230  except  that  and  Carlaverock  Castle,  belonging  to  the  traitor  Sir 
Eustace  de  Maxwell,  who  afterwards  killed  the  knight  Sir  Robert 
de  Lauder,  the  most  intelligent  man  among  the  Scots. 

*See  Scottish  Historical  Review,  vi.  13,  174,  281,  383;  vii.  56,  160,  271,  377  ; 
vm.  22,  159,  276,  377;  i*.  69,  159,  278,  390. 


Chronicle  of  Lanercost  77 

When  my  lord  William  de  Montagu  who  was  besieging 
Dunbar  Castle,  heard  of  these  events,  he  took  a  strong  force  and 
came  to  Edinburgh,  appointed  another  warden  of  the  castle  with 
a  sufficient  garrison  to  hold  and  defend  it,  and  then  he  returned 
with  his  men  to  the  siege  of  [Dunbar]  Castle. 

In  the  following  Lent1  Sir  Andrew  de  Moray,  Guardian  of 
Scotland,  died  in  his  bed  of  dysentery,  as  some  say  ;  others, 
however,  declared  that  he  mounted  an  unbroken  colt  which 
threw  him  from  the  saddle,  that  one  of  his  feet  caught  in  the 
stirrup,  and  thus  he  was  dragged  by  his  foot  and  leg  to  death. 
The  Steward  of  Scotland  was  chosen  Guardian  in  his  place. 

Dunbar  Castle  held  out  stoutly  and  made  a  gallant  defence, 
in  despite  of  the  close  siege  ;  and  whereas  the  Countess  of 
Dunbar,2  who  was  in  chief  command  of  the  castle,  was  sister 
of  the  Earl  of  Moray,  he  had  been  taken  in  Scotland,  carried 
off  to  Nottingham  Castle  in  England,  and  there  placed  in 
ward,  as  mentioned  above,  [to  await]  the  King  of  England's 
pleasure. 

In  the  same  year  my  lord  Pope  Benedictus  XII.  commanded 
that  twelve  wise  and  discreet  friars  of  the  Order  of  Minorites, 
should  be  chosen  to  regulate  discipline,  together  with  the 
cardinals,  certain  bishops  and  masters  of  theology;3  which  was 
done  accordingly.  The  constitution  having  been  considered 
approved,  my  lord  the  Pope  placed  them  in  a  bull,  and  sent 
them  in  the  bull  to  the  Captain  General  that  they  should  be 
scrupulously  observed  throughout  the  whole  Order  ;  howbeit  he 
willed  not  that  the  rule  of  the  Friars  nor  their  other  constitutions 
should  be  modified  in  any  respect.  Now  the  said  bull  contained 
nine-and-twenty  minor  chapters,  wherein,  among  other  things,  it 
is  provided  that  the  custodians  and  wardens  of  the  said  Order 
shall  be  canonically  elected. 

After  Easter4  the  said  Earl  [of  Moray]  was  taken  back  to 
Scotland,  on  the  chance  that  his  sister  would  surrender  her  castle 
in  order  to  save  his  life  ;  but  she  replied  that  the  castle 
belonged  to  her  lord  and  had  been  committed  to  her 
custody,  nor  would  she  surrender  it  except  at  his  command  ;  and 
when  the  besiegers  told  her  that  then  her  brother  should  die,  she 
answered  them — c  If  ye  do  that,   then  shall   I   be  heir  to   the 
earldom  of  Moray,'  for  her  brother  had  no  children.     Howbeit 
the  English  would  not  do  what  they  had  threatened,  but  [decided] 

1  25th  Feb.- 1 2th  April,  1338.  2  "  Black  Agnes." 

3 The  true  date  was  in  November,  1336.  4  I2th  April. 


78  Sir  Herbert  Maxwell,  Bart. 

rather  to  take  him  back  to  England  and  keep  him  in  ward,  as 
before. 

Forasmuch  as  the  King  of  France  refused  to  agree  to  any  good 
and  reasonable  terms  of  peace,  the  King  of  England  directed  his 
journey  to  France,  and  undertook  himself  a  campaign  with  the 
aforesaid  nobles  in  his  pay.  He  took  with  him  from  England  a 
great  army  of  helmed  men,  archers  and  spearmen,  in  addition  to 
those  whom  he  had  sent  already  with  my  lord  William  Earl  of 
Northampton,  which,  as  was  commonly  said,  amounted  in  all  to 
30,000  men. 

When  the  Scots  perceived  that  the  King  of  England  was 
preparing  himself  to  make  war  against  the  King  of  France,  they 
besought  a  truce  from  him,  and  truce  was  granted  them  by  the 
king  to  last  a  year  from  the  next  feast  of  S.  Michael,  provided, 
however,  that  if  the  King  of  England  at  any  time  within  that 
term  should  feel  dissatisfied  with  the  truce  granted,  he  might 
break  it  at  his  pleasure.  But  whereas  the  king,  as  aforesaid, 
determined  to  cross  the  sea,  my  lord  William  de  Montagu  and 
the  other  earls  engaged  with  him  in  besieging  the  said  castle 
of  Dunbar,  being  unwilling  that  he  should  incur  any  danger 
without  them,  whom  he  had  promoted  to  such  high  rank,  granted 
truce  to  those  within  the  castle,  on  condition  that  during  the  truce 
no  change  should  be  effected  either  around  the  castle,  within  the 
castle,  nor  in  the  buildings  built  by  the  English  outside  (albeit 
this  condition  was  not  afterwards  observed) ;  and  so  they  returned 
to  the  king  in  England. 

The  king  embarked  with  the  aforesaid  army  at  Portsmouth, 
about  the  middle  of  the  month  of  July,  a  little  before  the  feast 
of  S.  Mary  Magdalene x  in  the  year  of  the  Lord  aforesaid.  Also 
the  lady  Queen  of  England  went  with  him,  in  order  that  she 
might  have  intercourse  with  her  kindred  and  friends  beyond  the 
sea.  After  the  king  had  crossed,  the  Flemings  left  the  King  of 
France  and  adhered  to  him. 

Shortly  after  the  departure  of  the  King  of  England  across 
the  sea,  the  King  of  Scotland2  entered  Scotland  with  a  small 
following,  the  truce  granted  to  the  Scots  notwithstanding,  and 
there  remained  for  some  time  at  Perth. 

[Here  follows  Edward  Ill's  letter  to  the  Court  of  Rome,  the  people 
of  France,  etc.,  setting  forth  his  complaint  against  King  Philip  ^  etc. 

1  22nd  July.     The  actual  date  was  i6th  July,  and  the  port  of  embarkation 
was  Orwell,  not  Portsmouth  (fcedera). 

2  Edward  Balliol. 


Chronicle  of  Lanercost  79 

//  is  printed  in  Fcedera  as  if  issued  on  jth  or  8th  February,  1340^  but 
Father  Stevenson  observes  that  the  Lanercost  chronicler  is  probably  right 
in  assigning  it  to  a  date  (not  mentioned  in  the  chronicle)  soon  after  King 
Edward's  arrival  in  Flanders.  The  original  draft  was  destroyed  by 
fire  among  some  of  the  Cottonian  MSS.~\ 

In  the  year  of  the  Lord  one  thousand  three  hundred  and  thirty 
[  ],1  Edward  the  third  after  the  Conquest,  King  of  England, 

crossed  the  sea  against  the  King  of  France,  [having]  with  him 
Queen  Philippa,  the  Earls  of  Derby,  Northampton  and  Salisbury, 
and  a  large  army.  He  landed  at  Antwerp,  where  he  did  not 
meet  such  good  faith  among  his  German  allies  as  the  Germans 
had  promised  to  his  envoys  ;  but  he  remained  there  a  year  and 
more,  exposed,  with  his  people,  to  great  dangers  and  at  excessive 
cost,  accomplishing  nothing  of  importance  except  that  he  travelled 
to  [visit]  the  Duke  of  Bavaria,2  by  whom  he  was  received  with 
honour.  After  a  conference  had  been  held,  he  was  appointed 
Vicar  of  the  Empire.3 

When  Pope  Benedictus  XII.  heard  thereof  he  wrote  to  him  a 
letter  of  rebuke  for  having  made  a  treaty  with  the  enemies  of  the 
Church,  in  the  following  terms. 

[Here  follow  the  Pope's  letters  dated  from  Avignon,  according  to  the 
chronicler,  ist  November,  2jrd  December,  1338,  I2th  October,  1339 ; 
but  there  is  considerable  confusion  in  the  chronology  of  this  part  of  the 
Annals,  and  the  dates  do  not  correspond  with  those  given  in  Fadera, 
where  these  letters  may  be  found.  However,  the  exact  sequence  of  the 
correspondence  is  not  of  much  moment.  The  Pope  remonstrates  with 
King  Edward  for  entering  into  alliance  with  the  ILmperor,  who  is 
excommunicated,  for  his  proceedings  against  the  Bishop  of  Cambrai,  for 
assuming  the  title  of  Vicar  of  the  Empire.  He  denies  that  he  granted 
the  tenths  to  the  King  of  France  to  aid  him  against  the  King  of  England, 
and  offers  to  mediate  in  person  between  the  two  kings .] 

The  King  of  England  sent  to  the  said  Pope  by  his  ambassadors 
a  letter  justifying  his  alliance  and  declaring  his  just  dealing  with 
the  realm  of  France.  During  the  king's  absence  two  cardinals, 
accompanied  by  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  the  Bishop  of 
Durham,  crossed  the  sea  to  promote  the  peace  of  the  kings  and 
their  kingdoms.  Having  endured  many  hardships  and  perils, 

1  Blank  in  original.     This  passage  seems  to  be  taken  from  another  chronicle. 

2  The  Emperor  Louis. 

3Walsingham  (i.  223)  states  that  Louis  desired  that  Edward  should  kiss  his 
foot  on  appointment,  but  that  Edward  refused,  on  the  ground  that  he  was  an 
anointed  king. 


80  Sir  Herbert  Maxwell,  Bart. 

even  under  protection  of  the  aforesaid  cardinals,  and  having 
suffered  from  famine  while  remaining  in  Paris  and  Arras  until 
the  month  of  November,  without  effecting  anything  towards  the 
peace  of  the  kings  and  their  kingdoms,  they  returned  to  the  King 
of  England  in  Brabant. 

In  the  year  of  the  Lord  one  thousand  three  hundred  and  thirty 
[  j,1  while  the  king  was  in  Brabant,  the  Scottish  leaders 

broke  the  truce  they  had  accepted,  inflicting  much  injury 
A.D.  1339-  both  by  sea  ancj  janci  Up0n  the  English  and  their  con- 
federates in  Scotland. 

Early  in  July,  Cupar  Castle  and  the  county  of  Fife  were 
surrendered  to  William  de  Douglas,  who  had  returned  from 
France  to  Scotland  with  a  strong  armed  force.  Thence  the 
aforesaid  William  marched  to  Perth  with  Earl  Patrick  and  French 
mercenaries,  laid  siege  thereto,  and  within  five  weeks,  without 
much  fighting,  received  the  surrender  of  that  town  from  its 
governor,  to  wit,  Sir  Thomas  de  Houghteryth.  After  the 
surrender,  taking  with  them  the  booty  obtained  there,  they 
embarked  on  the  sea  with  a  company  of  both  French  and  Scots, 
and  perished  in  a  sudden  storm  which  arose  at  sea. 

In  the  same  year,  on  the  third  day  before  the  feast  of 
the  Assumption  of  the  Glorious  Virgin,2  a  marvellous  flood 
came  down  by  night  upon  Newcastle-on-Tyne,  which 
broke  down  the  town-wall  at  Walkenow  for  a  distance  of  six 
perches,  where  160  men,  with  seven  priests  and  others,  were 
drowned. 

At  the  same  time  the  King  of  England  (the  Duke  of  Brabant3 
having  left  him),  invaded  the  realm  of  France  at  the  end  of 
September  with  a  large  army,  and  carrying  his  arms  against  the 
district  of  Cambrai,  he  caused  it  to  be  burnt.  On  the  feast  of 
S.  Michael4  he  entered  Vermandois,  where  he  had  been  informed 
the  King  of  France  was  lying  with  his  army,  intending  to  give 
him  battle.  And  on  the  appointed  day  of  battle,  to  wit  the 
morrow  of  S.  Luke  the  Evangelist,5  the  King  of  England,  having 
been  assured  that  the  King  of  France  was  willing  to  fight,  took 
up  his  appointed  position,  distant  about  two  leagues  from  the 
King  of  France,  and  waited  there  a  whole  day.  But  as  the 

1  Blank  in  original.  2  I^  August. 

3  The  chronicler  names  the  Duke  of  Bavaria,  but  that  is  evidently  wrong. 
The  Emperor  Louis  was  Duke  of  Bavaria.  Brabant,  however,  did  not  desert 
Edward. 

429'hSept.  5 1 9th  October. 


Chronicle  of  Lanercost  81 

King  of  France  and  his  army  did  not  come  to  battle,  as  he  had 
promised,  the  King  of  England,  after  mature  deliberation,  marched 
back  into  the  duchy  of  Brabant.  Howbeit  he  traversed  parts 
of  France  with  his  army,  killing,  plundering,  and  burning  over 
a  space  eight-and-twenty  miles  broad  and  sixty  miles  long,  to 
wit,  in  the  counties  of  Cambrai,  Vermandois,  Meuse,  Tierache, 
Blois,  Artois  and  La  Flamengria.1 

After  the  King  of  England  returned  from  his  expedition, 
many  of  his  troops,  English  as  well  as  German,  returned  to  their 
homes  ;  but  the  Earls  of  Derby,  Northampton,  Salisbury  and 
Suffolk  remained  with  him.  At  this  time  my  lord  Pope  Bene- 
dictus  XII.  sent  two  cardinals  to  the  King  of  England  to  convey 
his  paternal  exhortation  that  peace  or  truce  should  be  concluded 
with  the  King  of  France.  The  King  of  England  wrote  to  him 
in  reply  setting  forth  the  grievances,  injuries  and  annoyances  he 
had  endured  from  Philip,  who  was  in  occupation  of  the  realm  of 
France,  and  who  had  declined  to  negotiate  reasonably  with  him 
either  about  a  truce  or  a  peace,  which  if  he  would  do,  he  [King 
Edward]  would  be  ready  to  come  to  reasonable  agreement  with  him. 

[Here  follows  a  long  letter  from  King  Edward  to  the  Pope,  setting 
forth  his  grievances  against  King  Philip,  the  advances  he  had  made  to 
him  from  time  to  time,  Philip's  refusal  of  his  offers  and  the  many 
injuries  he  had  received  from  him.  Printed  in  Fcedera,  8th  February. 
Also  a  declaration  to  the  people  of  France  as  to  the  King  of  England's 
title  to  the  crown  of  France  and  his  intentions  in  regard  to  the  same. 
Printed  in  Fcederal\ 

Meanwhile,  the  King  of  England,  having  prepared  to  sail  back 
to  England,  being  entreated  by  the  community  of  Flanders, 
remained  several  weeks  at  Ghent,  where  the  Flemings  acknow- 
ledged him  as  rightful  heir,  King  and  Lord  of  France,  and  swore 
fealty  and  homage  to  him  as  to  the  rightful  King  of  France. 
In  compliance  with  their  suggestion  and  advice  the  King  of 
England  assumed  the  title  of  King  of  France  and  the  arms  of 
each  realm,  to  wit,  of  England  and  France,  whereof  he  claimed 
dominion,  and  entitled  himself  King  of  England  and  France,2  in 

1  Father   Stevenson   observes   that    the    general    narrative   of  King   Edward's 
operations  in  this  campaign  is  confirmed  by  an  eye-witness,  Johannes  Hocsemius, 
a  canon  of  Lie"ge,  whose  history  covers  the  period  1251-1348,  and  was  printed  at 
Liege  in  1630. 

2  The  title  of  King  of  France  was  retained  by  the  Kings  of  England  and  Great 
Britain  until  A.D.  1801,  when  it  was  discontinued  and  the  lilies  of  France  were 
removed  from  the  royal  arms. 

F 


8 2  Sir  Herbert  Maxwell,  Bart. 

consequence  of  which  he  caused  public  letters  given  at  Ghent  to 
be  displayed  and  published  throughout  England  and  France,  and 
he  besought  the  Supreme  Pontiff  for  letters  of  absolution  for  the 
invasion  of  the  realm  of  France.  After  which,  with  the  consent 
and  advice  of  the  Flemings  and  the  Duke  of  Brabant,  he  sailed  for 
England  with  the  Earls  of  Salisbury  and  Suffolk,  leaving  Queen 
Philippa  in  Flanders.  After  his  departure  William  de  Montagu 
was  captured  on  the  frontier  of  Flanders  by  some  of  the  King  of 
France's  army  and  placed  in  prison. 

In  the  same  year  on  the  sixth  of  the  Ides  of  March,1  my  lord 
Henry  de  Beaumont  died  at  Luthburg  and  was  buried  in  the 
Abbey  of  Valle  Dei  on  the  morrow  of  S.  Gregory  the  Martyr.2 

In  the  year  of  the  Lord  MCCCXXX  [  ] 3  died  William  de 

Meltoun,  Archbishop  of  York,  and  was  committed  to  the  tomb 
on  the  morrow  of  S.  Gregory.4  My  lord  William  de  la  Zouche 
succeeded  him. 

King  Edward,  the  third  of  England  after  the  conquest  and  first  of 
France,  held  his  parliament  in  London,  demanding  and  obtaining 
a  large  subsidy  from  clergy  and  people  in  aid  of  [the  wars]  against 
France  and  Scotland,  taking  a  ninth  of  all  produce  from 
A.D.  1340.  t^e  pe0ple  and  a  triennial  tenth  from  the  clergy,  in 
recognition  of  which  welcome  concessions  my  lord  the  King  of 
England  and  France  granted  and  published  a  new  charter,  ratified 
the  liberties  of  the  Church  in  England  and  also  renewed  many,  as 
is  contained  at  length  in  his  charter.  In  the  same  parliament  he 
decreed  and  specially  confirmed  by  his  charter  that,  in  regard  of 
the  claim  which  he  made  to  the  realm  of  France  as  rightful  heir, 
MS.  king  and  lord,  devolving  upon  him  by  the  death  of  his  uncle  my 
fo.  238b  lord  Charles  King  of  France,  the  realm  of  England  should  in  no 
respect  be  subject  to  the  realm  of  France,  neither  through  him 
nor  any  his  successor  whatsoever,  but  that  as  regardeth  divine 
things  the  succession  and  liberties  should  remain  freely  and  totally 
separate.  Parliament  having  ended  he  assembled  a  fleet  and  sailed 
for  Flanders  from  the  port  of  Orwell  on  the  day  before  the  eve  of 
S.  John  the  Baptist 5  (which  in  that  year  was  a  Thursday),  with  a 
few  nobles,  to  wit,  the  Earls  of  Derby,  Gloucester,  Northampton 
and  Huntingdon,  and  only  a  few  other  nobles.  Arriving  off  the 
coast  he  was  informed  that  the  fleet  of  Philip  de  Valois,  at  that 
time  occupying  the  realm  of  France,  was  in  hostile  array  with  a 
great  force  of  Normans  and  French  to  attack  him  and  his  people. 

1  loth  March,  1340.  2  i3th  March.  8  Blank  in  original. 

4  1 3th  March,  1340.  5  2 2nd  June. 


Chronicle  of  Lanercost  83 

He  sent  forward  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln  and  Sir  Reginald  de 
Cobham  to  Sluys  to  stir  up  the  Flemings  (as  they  themselves  had 
proposed)  to  fight  the  King  of  France's  fleet  on  the  morrow.  On 
the  morrow,  therefore,  to  wit  the  vigil  of  S.  John  the  Baptist, 
about  the  ninth  hour,  he  prepared  for  battle,  and,  albeit  he  had  no 
more  than  147  ships  against  the  immense  fleet  of  the  French,  by 
God's  grace  he  obtained  the  victory  he  hoped  for,  killing,  drown- 
ing or  capturing  30,000  of  the  French.  But  on  the  English  side 
they  killed  but  some  four  hundred  men,  with  four  noble  knights, 
to  wit,  Sir  Thomas  de  Mouhermere,  Thomas  de  Latimer,  John 
Butler  and  Thomas  de  Poynings.1 

After  this  victory  the  King  of  England  and  France  remained  at 
sea  for  three  days,  and  then  landed  in  Flanders,  all  men  shouting, 
*  Long  live  the  King  of  the  French  and  of  England  !  Blessed  is 
he  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  ! '  And  although  they 
had  been  some  little  incensed  with  him  by  reason  of  his  long  stay 
in  England  (the  queen  remaining  in  Ghent  exposed  to  many  risks, 
together  with  her  English  there  who  were  in  Flanders  supporting 
the  King  of  England  and  France)  yet  all  those  afflicted  with  king's 
evil  who  came  near  him  were  immediately  made  whole  by  his 
touch. 

After  this,  the  King  of  England  and  France,  having  rested  in 
Ghent  and  held  counsel  with  his  people,  marched  with  a  strong 
force  to  Tournay  and  laid  close  siege  to  that  city,  to  relieve  which, 
Philip  de  Valois,  occupying  the  kingdom  of  France,  assembled  a 
large  army.  To  him  the  King  of  England  and  France  wrote  from 
the  siege  works,  sending  [the  letters]  by  his  ambassadors,  giving 
him  a  triple  alternative — to  wit,  that,  as  a  means  of  deciding  the 
dispute  between  himself  and  the  aforesaid  Philip,  they  two  them- 
selves should  fight  a  duel  for  the  settlement  of  their  rights ;  or 
that  Philip  [should  choose]  one  hundred  of  the  most  valiant 
knights  of  France,  Philip  himself  being  one  of  their  number,  and 
Edward  [should  choose]  as  many  English  knights,  Edward  him- 
self being  one  of  their  number,  and  thus  the  slaughter  of  Christian 
people  might  be  avoided.  Or  again,  should  neither  of  these 
[proposals]  be  agreeable  to  the  aforesaid  Philip,  then,  after  receiv- 
ing the  aforesaid  letters  of  the  King  of  England  and  France,  let 
him  appoint  a  certain  day  for  battle  between  power  and  power 
before  the  city  of  Tournay  to  which  he  [Edward]  had  laid  siege  ; 
so  that  God  who  removeth  kingdoms  and  established!  them  should 

Confirmed  by  an  entry  in  the  Close  Rolls,  but  the  date  was  24th  June 
(Fctdera). 


84  Sir  Herbert  Maxwell,   Bart. 

make  justice  manifest  through  whichever  of  the  three  plans  might 
be  chosen,  and  bring  the  conflict  to  an  end. 

When  Philip  received  this  letter  and  understood  the  alter- 
natives, he  would  not  reply  to  King  Edward  about  his 
proposals  because  the  letter  had  not  been  addressed  to  him 
as  King  of  France  ;  but  he  wrote  back  to  the  King  of  England 
and  France  to  effect  that  whereas  he  had  unreasonably  and 
injuriously  invaded  the  realm  of  France  and  had  rebelled  against 
him  to  whom  he  had  done  homage,  he  [Philip]  proposed  to 
expel  him  from  his  kingdom  for  the  honour  of  the  realm  and 
welfare  of  the  people.1 

Meanwhile,  during  these  transactions,  seeing  that  the  aforesaid 
Philip  dared  not  encounter  the  King  of  England  and  France  in 
any  manner,  and  that  the  funds  required  by  the  King  of  England 
for  maintaining  the  siege  were  far  short  of  what  was  necessary,  a 
truce  between  him  and  the  aforesaid  Philip  was  agreed  to  through 
the  mediation  of  the  cardinals  ;  whereupon  the  king  suddenly 
came  to  England  and  [imprisoned]  the  warden  of  the  Tower  of 
London,  to  wit,  Sir  Nicholas  de  Beche  (who  was  also  guardian  of 
the  king's  son),  Sir  John  de  Pulteney,  William  del  Pole,  and 
several  other  knights  and  justiciaries,  as  well  as  some  clerks  of  the 
Treasury.2  A  serious  dispute  had  arisen  between  him  [King 
Edward]  and  John  de  Stratford,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  ;  all 
of  which  was  caused  by  their  not  having  supported  him  with 
proper  funds  when  he  was  going  to  war,  but  frustrated  his  just 
right  and  purpose. 

While  these  things  were  going  on,  David  de  Brus,  returning 
from  France  to  Scotland,  and  collecting  an  army,  wasted 
Northumberland  with  sword  and  fire  as  far  as  the  river  Tyne, 
returning  home  without  any  opposition.  After  this  he  3  marched 
to  Scotland  and  kept  Christmas  at  the  Abbey  of  Melrose  in 
Scotland,  where  he  was  exposed  to  much  danger  by  cunning 
assaults  of  the  Scots,  losing  several  of  his  men,  and  he  retreated 
to  England  without  [performing]  any  notable  exploit. 
MS.  Preceded  by  certain  nobles,  the  King  of  England  invaded 

.  239  Brittany,  where  he  took  several  castles  and  fortresses  by  storm, 
closely  besieging  the  city  of  Vannes,  which  he  would  have  taken 
within  a  few  days,  had  not  a  truce  for  three  years  and  more  been 

1  Edward's  challenge  and  Philip's  refusal  are  printed  in  Fcedera. 

2  Sir  Nicholas  de  la  Beche  must  have  cleared  himself,  for  he  was  appointed 
Seneschal  of  Gascony,  2oth  July,  1343  (Fcedera). 

3  King  Edward. 


Chronicle  of  Lanercost  85 

struck  at  the  earnest  mediation  of  my  lord  the  Supreme  Pontiff 
and  by  the  intervention  of  the  two  cardinals,  which  truce  proved 
to  be  rather  a  betrayal  than  a  settlement. 

[Here  follow  the  terms  of  truce  at  great  length.  They  are  not  in 
Fee  dera^\ 

In  the  same  year  the  King  of  England  incurred  many  dangers 
in  returning  from  Brittany  to  England,  especially  from  flashes  of 
lightning  and  unprecedented  storms,  whereby  nearly  all  his  ships 
were  scattered  from  him  and  several  were  sunk  in  the  sea.  How- 
beit  it  is  said  that  not  one  of  the  sailors  or  soldiers  was  so  cheerful 
amid  these  storms  and  dangers  as  himself,  who  ever  remained 
fearless  and  unperturbed  through  them  all ;  whence  he  was 
delivered  by  God's  grace  and  the  Blessed  Virgin's  intercession 
(whom  he  always  had  invoked  and  chosen  as  his  peculiar  patron 
in  all  dangers),  and  so  was  happily  carried  to  that  part  of  the 
kingdom  of  England  which  he  desired. 

The  truce  in  Brittany  having  been  concluded,  several  nobles 
of  England  assembled  at  Carlisle  under  my  lord  Bohun1  Earl  of 
Northampton,  in  order  to  fortify  Lochmaben  ;  but  they 
went  no  further,  as  the  Scots  gave  leave  that  the  afore- 
said castle  should  be  peacefully  fortified. 

In  the  same  year  the  King  of  England  held  a  round  table  of 
three  hundred  knights  and  as  many  ladies  at  Windsor,  for  which 
immense  expense  was  incurred  as  befitting  the  royal  dignity. 

The  King  of  England  on  the  eve  of  the  kalends  of  July2  went 
to  sea  at  Sandwich  with  a  large  army  for  the  protection  of  his 
people,  and  kept  at  sea  with  the  aforesaid  army  until 
the  ninth  of  the  kalends  of  August,3  and  then  returned 
to  the  kingdom  of  England  at  Sandwich,  without  performing  any 
notable  exploit. 

In  the  same  year,  while  [the  king]  was  at  sea,  the  Flemings, 
who  were  then  believed  to  be  faithful  to  the  King  of  England, 
attacked  [  ]4  at  Ghent  and  cruelly  put  him  [?]  to  death. 

In  the  same  year  the  Scots  with  a  large  force  invaded  England 
by  way  of  Carlisle  on  the  eighth  of  the  kalends  of  November,5  and 
also  burnt  Gillesland  and  Penrith  in  Cumberland,  with  the  adjoining 
villages  ;  but  as  they  suffered  from  hunger,  they  returned  without 
any  gain  to  themselves  or  much  loss  to  us. 

Afterwards,  on  the  eighteenth    of  the  kalends   of  January,6 
certain  nobles  invaded  Scotland  in  revenge  for  the  deeds  they  had 
1  Women  in  MS.  2  3oth  June.  3  24th  July. 

4  Blank  in  original.  5  25th  Oct.  6  I5th  Dec. 


86  Sir  Herbert  Maxwell,  Bart. 

endured,  and,  having  burnt  Dumfries  with  many  adjacent  villages, 
returned  to  England  without  much  gain  or  loss  on  their  part  on 
the  fifteenth  of  the  kalends  of  the  same  month.1 

In  the  month  of  July,  David  King  of  Scots  entered  England 

under  the  banner  of  the  Earl  of  Moray,  harrying  Cumberland, 

the  hills  of  Derwent  and  the  moor  of  Aldstone,2  with 

slaughter  and  fire,  and  returning  to  Scotland  with  great 

droves  of  cattle  without  [sustaining]  any  loss  to  his  army. 

In  the  same  month  of  that  year  Edward,  renowned  and  illus- 
trious King  of  England,  sailed  from  Portsmouth  with  fifteen 
hundred  ships  and  a  great  force  of  soldiers  upon  an  expedition 
against  the  King  of  France  to  vindicate  the  inheritance  which  was 
his,  due  to  himself  ancestrally  and  through  his  maternal  uncle. 
On  the  twelfth  of  the  same  month  he  landed  at  la  Houge  in 
Normandy,  whence  he  marched  to  Caen,  sacking  the  city  to  the 
bare  walls  thereof,  killing  and  capturing  many  knights  and  an 
immense  number  of  soldiers. 

*  Edward,  by  the  grace  of  God  King  of  England  and  France  and  Lord 
of  Ireland,  to  the  honourable  Father  in  God  William,  by  the  same  grace 
Bishop  of  York,  Primate  of  England, — Greeting. 

*  Forasmuch  as  we  know  well  that  you  would  wish  good  news  from  us, 
we  make  known  to  you  that  we  arrived  at  la  Hougue  near  Barfleur  on 
the  1 2th  July  last,  with  all  our  people  safe  and  sound,  praise  be  to  God, 
and  remained  there  while  our  troops  and  horses  disembarked  and  our  troops 
were  being  victualled,  until  the  following  Tuesday  ;    on  which  day  we 
marched  with  our  army  to  Valognes,  where  we  took  the  castle  and  the 
town  ;  and  then  on  our  march  we  caused  the  bridge  of  Oue9  which  our 
enemy  had  destroyed,  to  be  rebuilt,  and  we  passed  over  it  and  took  the 
castle  and  town  of  Carentan,  whence  we  held  the  straight  road  to  the  town 
of  Saint-L6.     We  found  Herbert  bridge  near  that  town  broken  down,  in 
order  to  prevent  our  crossing,  so  we  caused  it  to  be  repaired,  and  next  day 
we  took  the  town.     Then  we  pressed  forward  to  Caen  without  halting  for 

MS.  a  single  day  from  the  hour  that  we  left  la  Hougue  until  we  arrived  there, 
fo.  240b  '  And  so  soon  as  we  had  gone  into  quarters  at  Caen,  our  people  began  to 
deliver  assault  upon  the  town,  which  was  very  strongly  fortified  and  garri- 
soned with  about  1600  soldiers,  besides  about  30,000  common  people  armed 
for  its  defence,  who  fought  very  well  and  boldly,  so  that  the  mellay  was 
very  hot  and  lasted  a  long  time.  But,  praise  be  to  God,  the  town  was 
taken  by  storm  in  the  end  without  loss  to  our  people. 

*  There  were  taken  there  the  Comte  d'Eu,  Constable  of  France,  the 
Chamberlain  Tankerville  (who  on  that  day  had  been  proclaimed  a  Marshal 
of  France),  of  other  bannerets  and  chevaliers  about  one  hundred  and  forty, 
and  a  great  crowd  of  esquires  of  the  wealthy  burghers.  Also  there  perished 

1 1 8th  Dec.  2  Not  to  be  confused  with  Alston  in  Lancashire. 


Chronicle  of  Lanercost  87 

many  noble  chevaliers  and  gentlemen  and  a  great  number  of  the  com- 
monalty. 

4  And  our  fleet,  which  kept  in  touch  with  us,  has  burnt  and  laid  waste 
the  whole  seacoast  from  Barfleur  as  far  as  the  Fosse  de  Colleville  near 
Caen,  and  likewise  has  burnt  the  town  of  Cherbourg  and  the  ships  of  la 
Havre,  so  that  either  by  us  or  our  people  there  have  been  burnt  one  hundred 
or  more  great  ships  and  other  vessels  of  the  enemy. 

'  Wherefore  we  beg  that  you  will  devoutly  return  thanks  to  God  for  the 
exploit  which  he  has  enabled  us  to  perform,  and  continually  beseech  him 
that  he  will  grant  us  further  success ;  also  [we  desire]  that  you  write  to 
the  prelates  and  clergy  of  your  province  that  they  act  in  like  manner,  and 
that  you  ratify  these  events  to  our  people  in  your  district,  for  their  comfort, 
and  that  you  apply  yourself  diligently  to  resist  our  enemies  of  Scotland  by 
all  the  means  in  your  power  for  the  safety  of  our  people  in  your  parts,  for 
which  we  rely  confidently  upon  you. 

*  Forasmuch  as  we  have  already  obtained  the  assent  of  all  our  principal 
officers,  who  show  themselves  to  be  of  excellent  spirit  and  willingness 
we  have  firmly  resolved  to  press  forward  with  all  our  might  against  our 
adversary,  wheresoever  he  may  be  from  day  to  day,  and  our  firm  hope  is  in 
God  that  he  will  assure  us  good  and  honourable  [results1]  of  our  enterprise, 
and  that  you  will  shortly  receive  good  and  agreeable  news  of  us. 

*  Given  under  our  privy  seal  at  Caen,  the  3<Dth   day  of  July,  in  the 
twentieth  year  of  our  reign  in  England.' 

Hereafter  the  province  of  Bayeux  surrendered  voluntarily, 
fearing  lest  it  should  suffer  in  the  same  manner,  whence  he 
[King  Edward]  pursued  his  march  as  far  as  Rouen,  wasting  all 
around  with  fire  and  sword.  He  took  possession  without  any 
resistance  of  all  the  great  villages  through  which  he  passed  ;  he 
captured  castles  and  fortifications,  even  the  strongest,  without 
difficulty  and  with  very  small  attacking  columns.  At  that  time 
the  enemy  was  in  Rouen  with  a  very  strong  armed  force,  and, 
notwithstanding  his  superiority  in  numbers,  he  caused  the  bridge 
over  the  Seine  to  be  broken  lest  the  King  of  England  should  reach 
him.  And  so  it  was  all  the  way  to  Paris — on  one  side  of  the 
Seine  the  King  of  England  plying  fire  and  sword,  and  on  the 
other  side  the  King  of  France  breaking  down  and  fortifying  all 
the  bridges  of  the  Seine,  to  prevent  the  King  of  England  crossing 
over  to  him  ;  nor  would  he  dare  anything  for  the  defence  of  his 
people  and  realm,  although  he  could  have  crossed  the  Seine,  but 
fled  towards  Paris, 

1  Blank  in  original. 

(To  be  continued.) 


Reviews  of  Books 

SCOTTISH  PROSE  OF  THE  SEVENTEENTH  AND  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURIES. 
Being  a  course  of  Lectures  delivered  in  the  University  of  Glasgow, 
1912.  By  John  Hepburn  Millar,  M.A.,  Professor  of  Constitutional 
Law  and  Constitutional  History  in  the  University  of  Edinburgh. 
Pp.  vii,  273.  With  Four  Portraits.  Demy  8vo.  Glasgow  :  James 
MacLehose  &  Sons.  1912.  ics.  net. 

MR.  HEPBURN  MILLAR  has  written  a  cheerful  and  delightful  book, 
travelling  freely  over  part  of  the  ground  which  he  surveyed  before  in 
his  Literary  History.  All  lecturers  ought  to  thank  him  for  the  proof  he 
has  given  here,  that  their  trade  is  not  essentially  a  dull  one ;  while  at  the 
same  time  they  may  envy  his  skill,  and  do  their  best  to  find  the  secret  of  it. 
He  has  chosen  his  ingredients  well,  and  his  treatment  of  them  is  most 
dexterous. 

Naturally  in  such  a  subject,  beginning  in  the  medieval  seventeenth 
century  and  ending  in  the  modern  Athens,  it  is  impossible  to  keep  things 
altogether  in  the  harmony  of  a  period.  It  is  a  history  of  different 
generations ;  not  an  epic  with  a  single  plot,  but  a  large  portion  of  a  long 
story — waled  with  judicious  care,  but  not  all  of  the  same  purport.  Or  so 
one  is  inclined  to  think,  looking  merely  at  the  characters  and  incidents. 
But  the  single  aim  is  there,  all  the  time ;  the  lectures  are  a  demonstration 
of  the  change  from  the  old-fashioned  prose — English  with  a  Scotch  colour 
in  it — to  the  fine  English  written  by  Scotsmen  in  the  eighteenth  century. 

The  lecturer  might  have  said  something  about  that  remarkable  Wood- 
houselee  MS.  of  1745  in  which  the  Edinburgh  citizen  struggles  with  the 
difficulties  of  language ;  writing  as  pure  English  as  he  can,  and  dropping 
intentionally  into  the  vernacular,  just  as  Scott  or  Gait  do,  when  he  has  to 
report  conversation  :  c  The  vilagers  in  tawnting  way  asked  them,  "  What 
gars  the  Castle  fyer  ? "  But  in  narrative,  apart  from  a  few  good  native 
words  like  *  gulravished,'  there  is  not  much  more  than  the  spelling  to  show 
the  Northern  :  *  A  popish  Italian  prince  with  the  oddest  crue  Britain 
cowld  produce  came  all  with  plaids,  bagpips  and  bair  buttocks,  from  the 
Prince  to  the  bagage  man  :  the  consternation  incressed,'  etc.  etc. 

The  change  from  Scots  to  English  began  among  the  poets ;  it  is 
curiously  illustrated  by  the  poems  of  King  James  the  VI.  and  I.,  lately 
published  from  a  British  Museum  manuscript,  where  the  older  Scottish 
version  of  the  king's  poetry  is  doctored  into  a  pretence  of  English. 

And  the  revival  of  Scottish  poetry  in  the  eighteenth  century  made  it  all 
the  more  impossible  for  Scotsmen  to  write  Scottish  prose.  Allan  Ramsay 


Scottish  Prose  of  iyth  and  i8th  Centuries    89 

('  the  mungerall  burluesque  poet,'  as  he  is  called  by  *  Edinburgh  Citizen ' 
in  1745)  would  have  made  an  end  of  Scottish  prose  if  it  had  not  been 
given  up  long  before.  From  his  time  the  Scottish  language  was  language 
only  for  intentional  comic  effects ;  the  Scottish  verse  of  Allan  Ramsay, 
Fergusson,  Burns,  and  so  on  to  Stevenson,  the  shepherd  of  the  Ochils,  and 
the  author  of  Hamewithy  is  not  in  the  language  that  those  authors  naturally 
write.  It  is  all  a  game  ;  those  minstrels  are  guisards ;  Beattie  among 
them — condescending  from  the  heights  of  Truth  to  follow  'Standart 
Habbie'  in  praise  of  Helenore. 

But,  indeed,  the  Scottish  language  had  been  given  up  long  before 
*  Habbie  Simpson J  found  a  new  '  burluesque '  use  for  it,  and  the  earliest 
writers  quoted  by  Mr.  Hepburn  Millar  are  writers  of  English  prose  with 
more  or  less  of  Scottish  idiom.  The  change  which  he  observes  and  records 
is  not  from  one  dialect  to  another,  but  from  one  type  of  syntax  and 
vocabulary  to  another,  all  in  the  English  language.  It  is  a  change  of 
ambition  also.  The  earlier  writers  deal  in  memoirs  chiefly,  and  the  graces 
of  their  style  came  naturally  without  pressing  :  <  Yet  there  he  continued 
till  he  was  relegate  to  Shetland,  and  there  he  lay  many  a  year.  I  heard 
him  say  he  was  in  one  island  four  years,  where  he  hade  neither  food  nor 
fire,  but  to  keep  in  a  miserable  life,  his  bread  being  only  barley,  his  feuel 
sea-tangle.'  That  is  the  way  Kirkton  tells  a  story,  and  those  may  better 
it  that  can.  It  is  far  from  that  to  the  ambitions  of  the  eighteenth  century ; 
and  to  compare  authors  like  Law,  Kirkton  or  Wodrow  with  Hume  and 
Adam  Smith,  weight  for  weight,  would  be  highly  unreasonable. 

But  the  change  in  ambition  is  not  limited  to  the  greatest  men.  It  is  a 
good  subject  for  literary  conversation,  and  it  cannot  be  treated  more 
effectively  than  in  this  book.  W.  P.  KER. 

ENACTMENTS  IN  PARLIAMENT  SPECIALLY  CONCERNING  THE  UNIVERSITIES 
OF  OXFORD  AND  CAMBRIDGE,  THE  COLLEGES  AND  HALLS  THEREIN, 
AND  THE  COLLEGES  OF  WINCHESTER,  ETON,  AND  WESTMINSTER. 
Edited  by  Lionel  Lancelot  Shadwell,  M.A.,  of  New  College,  Oxford, 
Barrister  at  Law.  In  four  volumes.  Oxford :  Clarendon  Press. 
1912. 

THE  title  of  these  handsome  volumes  explains  itself.  The  work  is,  in  a 
sense,  the  second  edition  of  a  collection  of  statutes  applicable  to  the  Univer- 
sities and  to  Winchester  and  Eton  prepared  by  Dr.  Griffiths,  the  keeper  of 
the  archives  at  Oxford,  and  published  in  1869.  But  it  is  an  edition  greatly 
enlarged,  for  it  embraces  all  Acts  of  Parliament,  or  portions  of  Acts,  bearing 
on  the  subject,  whether  still  in  force  or  not.  The  reader  is  thus  enabled 
to  trace  the  history  of  these  institutions,  in  so  far  as  disclosed  by  the  statute- 
book,  from  the  sumptuary  law  of  37  Edw.  III.,  with  which  the  first  volume 
opens,  down  to  the  Copyright  Act  of  1911  (i  &  2  Geo.  V.  cap.  46), 
with  which  the  fourth  volume  closes. 

Things  great  and  small  are  to  be  found  mingled  in  agreeable  confusion, 
for  the  chronological  order  is  very  properly  followed.  Here,  on  the  one 
hand,  is  the  statute,  13  Eliz.  cap.  29,  which  incorporates  the  Universities, 
and  which  is  their  Magna  Carta.  Here,  too,  is  the  very  sensible  statute, 


90       University  Enactments  in  Parliament 

33  Henry  VIII.  cap.  27,  which  enacts  that  all  local  rules  made  by  founders, 
whereby  the  unanimous  assent  of  the  members  of  a  corporation  is  required 
to  any  corporate  act,  shall  be  null,  and  that  the  common  law  rule,  that  the 
consent  of  a  majority  is  sufficient,  shall  prevail.  And  here  are  the  pertinent 
sections  of  that  most  salutary  enactment,  the  Act  of  Uniformity  (14  Car.  II. 
cap.  4),  about  which  there  has  recently  been  such  an  outpouring  of  ignorant 
sentiment  in  the  newspaper  press. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  have  statutes  to  enable  a  married  person  to 
hold  and  enjoy  the  office  of  Warden  of  Wadham  College  (46  Geo.  III. 
cap.  cxcvii.);  for  more  effectually  repairing,  improving,  and  keeping  in 
repair  the  road  <  leading  from  the  guide-post  in  the  village  of  Adderbury  in 
the  county  of  Oxford,  through  Kidlington,  to  the  end  of  Mileway  in  the 
city  of  Oxford '  (37  Geo.  III.  cap.  clxx.) ;  for  improving  the  navigation  of 
the  Thames  and  of  the  river  Cam  or  Cham  alias  Grant  (e.g.  I  Anne,  st.  2, 
cap.  n);  and  for  putting  matters  right  in  the  ancient  borough  of  Cam- 
bridge, which  is  '  very  sore  decayed  in  paving,'  and  whose  high  streets  and 
lanes  are  'excedyngly  noyed  wyth  fylth  and  myre  lying  therein,  great 
heapes  and  brode  plasshes  not  onely  noysom  and  cumberouse  to  the  inhaby- 
tauntes  of  the  sayd  boroughe  and  such  other  the  Kynge's  subjects  as  dayly 
dothe  pass  by  and  through  the  same  on  fote,  but  allso  very  perillous  and 
tedious  to  all  suche  persones  as  shall  on  horseback  convey  or  carry  anything 
with  cartes  by  and  throughe  the  same.'  It  would  be  difficult  to  enumerate 
all  the  points  at  which  this  anthology  touches  the  constitutional,  economic, 
and  social  history  of  the  nation. 

Such  abundant  wealth  of  material  makes  it  difficult  to  make  up  one's 
mind  on  which  side  the  treasure-house  is  best  approached.  But  it  would 
not  be  far  wrong  to  assert  that  the  predominant  note  of  these  statutes  is 
the  solicitude  of  the  Legislature  for  the  privileges  and  the  wellbeing  of  the 
foundations  concerned.  Not  without  good  reason  did  the  Parliament  which 
passed  the  Act  of  incorporation  boast  in  the  preamble  of  c  the  greate  zeal 
and  care  that  the  Lords  and  Commons  have  for  the  mauntenaunce  of  good 
and  godly  literature  and  the  vertuouse  education  of  youth  within  either  of 
the  Universities.  The  jurisdiction  of  the  Chancellor's  Court  was  for  cen- 
turies jealously  safeguarded.  It  extended,  as  Blackstone  tells  us  (bk.  iii. 
c.  6,  p.  84),  to  all  matters,  'excepting  in  such  cases  where  the  right  of 
freehold  is  concerned';  and  it  was  in  that  Court  that  the  civil  law  had  its 
home.  The  necessity  for  academic  discipline  was  early  recognised,  and 
likewise  the  necessity  for  taking  order  that  evil-doers  should  not  avail 
themselves  of  residence  within  the  precincts  of  the  University  as  a  cloak 
for  their  misdeeds. 

Early  in  the  fifteenth  century,  it  seems,  sundry  scholars  and  clerks  of 
Oxford,  armed  and  arrayed  as  if  for  war,  had  not  only  disseised  persons 
of  their  lands  and  tenements  in  Oxfordshire  and  the  adjacent  counties,  but 
*auxint  ont  chacez  ove  chiens  et  liverers  en  diverses  gareines  parks  et 
forests  en  mesmes  les  counties  sibien  par  jour  come  par  noet  et  pris  desmes 
et  dairies^  levers  et  conyns,  menaceantz  outre  ceo  les  gardeins  dicelles  de 
lour  vies.'  The  Act  of  9  Henry  V.  consequently  enacts  '  que  due  proces 
vers  tielx  escolers  maffesours  pur  lour  offenses  soit  fait  comme  la  commune  leie 


University  Enactments  in  Parliament       91 

et  auxi  les  estatutz  de  la  terre  requirent  solonc  le  cas.'  If  they  are 
outlawed  for  failing  to  appear,  they  are  to  be  certified  by  the  justices  to  the 
Chancellor,  who  is  to  banish  them  out  of  the  University. 

It  also  appears  from  a  statute  of  the  following  year  (i  Hen.  VI.)  that 
murders,  rapes,  felonies,  riots,  conventicles,  and  misdeeds  had  been  com- 
mitted by  Irishmen  '  reparantz  a  le  ville  de  Oxenford  et  illoeqes  demur- 
rantz  desoutz  la  jurisdiccion  del  Universite  Doxenford.'  Ireland  for  the 
Irish,  or,  at  all  events,  England  for  the  English,  was  a  sound  maxim  of 
Lancastrian  policy,  and  all  Irishmen  are  bidden  to  depart  out  of  the  realm 
within  a  month  after  proclamation  made  of  this  ordinance,  certain  classes 
excepted,  including  graduates  in  the  schools,  beneficed  clergy,  etc. 

In  the  nineteenth  century,  when  railways  were  spreading  over  the 
country,  the  authorities  became  alarmed  at  the  facilities  which  they  would 
afford  to  members  of  the  University  in  statu  pupillari  for  participating  in 
the  delights  of  the  metropolis,  such,  no  doubt,  as  reading  in  the  British 
Museum.  Accordingly,  when  the  Great  Western  Railway,  came  to 
Oxford,  its  Act  (6  &  7  Viet.  cap.  x.)  provided  to  the  V  ice-Chancellor 
and  proctors  and  heads  of  colleges  and  halls  free  access  to  every  depot  or 
station  for  the  reception  of  passengers,  '  at  or  about  the  times  of  trains  of 
carriages  upon  the  said  railway  starting  or  arriving.'  The  company's 
officers  or  servants  are  to  supply  information  when  desired,  and  the  com- 
pany are  bound  not  to  convey  such  passengers  as  they  may  be  requested  by 
the  University  officials  not  to  convey,  and  not  to  pick  up  passengers  except 
at  'regularly  appointed  stations  of  the  line.'  Similar  provisions  will  be 
found  in  the  Act  for  enabling  the  Eastern  Counties  Railway  Company  to 
make  a  railway  from  the  Northern  and  Eastern  Railway  at  Newport  by 
Cambridge  to  Ely.  When  were  they  last  effectively  enforced  ? 

The  following  instances  of  exemption  from  the  operation  of  general 
legislative  enactments  will  illustrate  the  favour  with  which  the  Universities 
and  the  kindred  foundations  of  Winchester  and  Eton  were  regarded.  They 
were  systematically  exempted  from  fifteenths  and  tenths  and  from  sub- 
sidies. They  were  exempted  from  the  payment  of  first-fruits  and  tenths 
(26  Henry  VIII.  cap.  42).  They  were  exempted  from  the  Acts  of  resump- 
tion passed  on  the  coming  of  age  of  Henry  VI.  They  were  relieved, 
together  with  all  lands  within  a  radius  of  five  miles,  of  the  burden  of 
purveyance.  They  were  exempted  from  the  'Land  Tax'  of  1692,  and 
from  the  '  Land  Tax'  during  the  following  century.  They  were  exempted 
from  the  obligation  to  sell  beer  in  stamped  and  marked  vessels  only  (12  & 
13  W.  III.  cap.  n).  They  were  exempted  from  the  excise  if  they  brewed 
their  own  beer  within  their  own  precincts  (15  Car.  II.  cap.  n). 

The  Act  which  establishes  the  Post  Office  with  a  royal  monopoly  con- 
tains a  proviso  that  *  all  letters  and  other  things  may  be  sent  or  conveyed 
to  or  from  the  two  Universities  in  manner  as  heretofore  hath  been  used, 
anything  herein  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding'  (12  Car.  II.  cap.  35). 
An  Act  for  repressing  *  the  odious  and  loathsome  synne  of  drunckennes ' 
provides  that  it  *  shall  not  be  prejudiciall  to  either  of  the  two  Universities  of 
this  lande '  (4  Jac.  I.  cap.  5) ;  but  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  interpret  this  as 
an  encouragement  to  academic  conviviality.  It  was  the  Chancellor's 


92       University  Enactments  in  Parliament 

power  to  grant  licenses  which  the  Legislature  had  in  view.  The  property 
qualification  imposed  upon  members  of  Parliament  by  9  Anne,  cap.  5,  is 
not  to  apply  to  the  Universities.  They  are  to  be  allowed  a  drawback  of  the 
paper  duty  on  books  printed  at  their  respective  presses  in  the  Latin,  Greek, 
Oriental,  or  Northern  languages  (10  Anne,  cap.  18).  Tobacco  may  be 
planted  in  their  phisicke  gardens,  but  nowhere  else  (12  Car.  II.  cap.  34). 
Finally,  fellows  and  scholars  of  colleges  and  halls  who  are  prohibited  by 
their  statutes  from  marrying  are  exempted  from  the  duty  of  one  shilling 
yearly  imposed  upon  bachelors  by  6  &  7  W.  &  M.  cap.  6.  That 
statute  is  worth  the  attention  of  fiscal  reformers  of  all  shades  of  thought. 
It  imposes  a  tax  on  burials,  births,  and  marriages,  and  a  tax  on  bachelors 
and  childless  widowers,  the  rate  of  duty  being  higher  in  the  case  of  eccle- 
siastical dignitaries  and  doctors  of  divinity,  law,  or  physic.  Inasmuch  as 
it  necessarily  strikes  at  everybody,  such  an  imposition  appears  to  have  the. 
merit  of  simplicity.  But,  as  simplicity  is  the  last  thing  which  the  modern 
taxmaster  is  apparently  disposed  to  study,  it  is  not  likely  to  reappear  in  any 
future  budget 

Mr.  Shadwell  is  to  be  sincerely  congratulated  upon  his  performance  of 
an  arduous  and  protracted  task.  Great  pains  have  been  taken  with  the 
text,  and  the  annotation,  though  sparing,  is  sufficient.  There  are  three  or 
four  excellent  appendices  dealing  inter  alia  with  a  number  of  estate  Acts, 
and  containing  the  ordinances  of  the  Long  Parliament  and  the  Acts  of 
Parliament  of  the  Commonwealth  and  Protectorate.  There  is  a  most 
valuable  note  in  Appendix  IV.  on  Subsidy  and  Land  Tax  Acts,  which 
does  a  great  deal  to  elucidate  an  abstruse  and  complicated  topic.  Much 
interesting  and  recondite  information  is  also  yielded  by  the  preface  as  to 
the  classification  of  Acts  of  Parliament.  The  volumes  are  admirably 
arranged  and  printed.  We  have  noted  only  one  trifling  slip,  if  slip  it  be. 
In  dealing  with  the  force  and  effect  of  the  marginal  notes  to  statutes, 
Willes,  J.  is  reported  to  have  said  that  these  are  merely  'temporanea 
expositio,'  not  '^wtemporanea  expositio,'  as  Mr.  Shadwell  has  it  (Claydon  v. 
Green,  L.R.  3  C.P.  521). 

In  conclusion,  the  reviewer  would  express  his  fervent  hope  that  Mr. 
Shadwell's  labours  may  prove  to  be  *  final '  for  many  years  to  come,  and 
that  no  measures  for  the  so-called  *  reform '  of  the  Universities  or  public 
schools  will  be  passed  into  law  in  response  to  ignorant  and  interested  clamour. 

J.  H.  MILLAR. 

PROBLEMS  OF  THE  ROMAN  CRIMINAL  LAW.  By  James  Leigh  Strachan- 
Davidson,  Master  of  Balliol  College,  Oxford,  and  Jowett  Fellow.  In 
two  volumes.  8vo.  Pp.  xxi,  532.  Oxford :  at  the  Clarendon  Press. 
1912.  i8s.net. 

THE  Master  of  Balliol's  learned  volumes  will  be  welcomed  by  scholars  as 
filling  a  gap  in  our  juristic  literature.  As  he  himself  deplores,  the  great 
results  of  the  labour  which  Mommsen  embodied  in  his  R'dmisches  Strafrecht 
have  been  strangely  neglected,  except  by  two  or  three  Continental  writers, 
notably  Girard.  Mr.  Strachan-Davidson  wrote  an  appreciation  of  it  ten 
years  ago  in  the  English  Historical  Review,  and  the  present  two  volumes 
have  grown  out  of  that  article.  He  would  have  us  regard  them  as  a  supple- 


Problems  of  the  Roman  Criminal  Law      93 


. 

ment  to  the  Strafrecht,  but  that  desire  must  be  attributed  to  his  own 
modesty :  for  although  he  is  content  to  follow  Mommsen  in  the  main, 
justly  holding  that  his  views  are  entitled  to  veneration,  the  conclusions 
reached  in  these  pages  are  the  result  of  independent  inquiry,  based  on  a 
wide  knowledge  of  authorities  ancient  and  modern,  and  not  always  coinci- 
dent with  those  of  his  leader. 

The  book  deals  principally  with  Criminal  Procedure.  Substantive  law 
is  referred  to  rarely,  and  only  as  a  necessary  incident  to  the  elucidation  of 
some  Procedure  question.  Moreover,  except  for  two  chapters  out  of 
twenty,  the  author  is  concerned  entirely  with  the  Republic.  This  is 
natural  for  two  reasons :  first,  that  our  authorities  in  the  matter  of  Criminal 
Procedure  are  more  copious  and  more  conflicting  for  the  Republic  than  for 
the  Empire  ;  and  second,  that  the  author's  unrivalled  knowledge  of  Cicero 
turns  his  thoughts  inevitably  to  the  last  century  before  Christ.  His  aim  is 
not  to  present  a  systematic  history,  but  to  attack  certain  difficult  problems, 
reviewing  the  doctrines  already  put  forward  by  Mommsen,  Girard, 
Greenidge,  Huschke,  Zumpt,  Maine,  and  others,  reconsidering  them  in 
the  light  of  the  original  authorities,  and  either  homologating  one  of  them 
or  offering  a  fresh  theory  of  his  own.  He  does  not  lightly  discard  those 
of  the  three  first-named  writers,  but  where  he  differs  from  them  his  own 
view  is  always  valuable  and  usually  convincing. 

After  discussing  Religion,  the  Family,  and  Self-help  in  their  relation  to 
the  punishment  of  crime,  the  author  devotes  three  chapters  to  certain 
matters  of  civil  law,  somewhat  loosely  connected  with  the  rest  of  the  work. 
The  remainder  of  the  first  volume  deals  with  the  jurisdiction  of  the  magis- 
trate, appeals  to  the  people,  the  origin  of  the  jury  system,  the  Lex  Acilia^ 
and  procedure  in  capital  trials  before  the  Comitia.  The  topics  in  the  second 
volume  are  the  constitution  and  procedure  of  the  Quaestiones  Perpetuae  for 
extortion  and  on  capital  charges,  the  controversy  as  to  the  Album  Judicum^ 
the  nature  of  Inter  dlctlo  under  the  laws  of  Sulla,  and  Criminal  Courts  and 
Appeals  under  the  Principate. 

It  is  impossible  to  discuss  in  a  review  all  the  thorny  problems  which 
arise  in  connection  with  these  subjects.  The  most  that  can  be  done  is  to 
refer  to  one  or  two.  We  are  indebted  to  the  Master  of  Balliol  for  his 
lucid  treatment  of  the  difficulties  presented  by  the  frequency  of  death  sen- 
tences and  the  rarity  of  actual  executions.  The  Romans,  he  points  out, 
unlike  the  Greeks,  never  struck  directly  at  an  offender :  a  criminal  sentence 
was  not  a  legislative  act,  but  always  the  pronouncement  of  an  individual 
magistrate.  Thus  its  evasion  was  not  regarded  as  a  derogation  from  the 
dignity  of  the  sovereign  people,  but  on  the  contrary  was  freely  allowed. 
Provided  the  accused  had  not  been  arrested — and  as  a  rule  he  was  not — he 
was  free  to  escape  death  by  voluntary  exile  and  the  acquisition  of  a  new 
citizenship:  with  the  result  that,  while  in  theory  the  Roman  Criminal 
Law  was  severe,  in  practice  it  was  the  mildest  known  to  civilisation.  But 
exile,  it  is  contended,  was  never  recognised  as  a  punishment  during  the 
Republic :  it  was  only  the  practical  effect  of  a  death  sentence.  The  same 
idea  furnishes  a  solution  of  the  disproportion  between  the  prescribed  money 
penalty  for  extortion  and  the  resulting  exile  of  the  convicted  governor. 


94      Problems  of  the  Roman  Criminal  Law 

The  author  suggests  that  the  exile  was  voluntary,  to  avoid  a  future  trial  for 
perduellio  on  the  proved  facts. 

Occasionally,  as  I  have  said,  Mr.  Strachan-Davidson  finds  himself  con- 
strained to  differ  from  Mommsen.  The  latter  held  that  interdictio  under 
Sulla's  laws  was  the  same  as  reltgatioy  and  that  between  Sulla  and  Tiberius 
the  exul  did  not  lose  citizenship.  This  view  was  supported  on  evidence 
which  on  analysis  is  found  unreliable,  and  it  is  faced  with  many  difficulties. 
In  particular  the  words  '  de  eius  capite  quaerlto '  in  Sulla's  law  have  to  be 
explained  away,  and  the  taunt  hurled  at  Cicero  by  Clodius  after  the 
former's  return  from  exile — ( cuius  civitatis  es?9 — loses  its  meaning.  The 
difficulty  is  resolved  by  holding  that  interdictio  was  a  death  sentence,  but 
evaded  by  exile ;  a  solution  which  has  the  advantage  of  allowing  a  con- 
tinuous history  of  exilium  down  to  the  time  of  Tiberius.  As  to  the  extent 
of  the  use  of  recuperatores  and  their  importance  in  the  development  of  trial 
by  jury,  the  author  thinks  Mommsen's  conclusion  too  wide.  On  the 
difficult  questions  arising  out  of  instances  where  the  magistrate  inflicted  the 
death  penalty  on  a  citizen  within  the  walls,  he  agrees  more  with  the  earlier 
doctrine  of  the  Staatsrecht  than  with  that  of  the  Strafrecht :  while  on  the 
qualification  of  the  Tribuni  Aerarii  he  strikes  a  mean  between  Mommsen's 
earlier  and  later  views,  concluding  that  they  must  have  had  more  than  a 
mere  property  qualification,  and  were  in  fact  connected  with  the  obsolete 
military  paymasters. 

On  some  points  one  might  be  inclined  to  join  issue  with  Mr.  Strachan- 
Davidson,  but  his  reasoning  nearly  always  carries  conviction,  backed 
as  it  is  by  an  intimate  first-hand  knowledge  of  the  period :  and  readers  of 
his  Life  of  Cicero  need  not  be  informed  that  it  is  enhanced  by  a  lucid  and 
graceful  style.  \yM>  DUNBAR. 

THE  TOBERMORY  ARGOSY,  A  PROBLEM  OF  THE  SPANISH  ARMADA.     By 
R.  P.  Hardie.     Pp.  vi,  68.     8vo.     Oliver  &  Boy d.     1912.     is.net. 

IT  is  difficult  to  believe  that  this  particular  problem  of  the  Armada  can 
survive  Mr.  Hardie's  exhaustive  and  well-reasoned  solution.  By  a  process 
of  elimination,  as  well  as  by  positive  argument  on  two  or  three  distinct 
lines  he  endorses  the  view  recently  put  forward  by  the  late  Mr.  Lang.1  His 
investigation,  however,  is  independent ;  it  is  more  penetrating,  and  covers 
the  ground  more  thoroughly.  New  evidence  is  adduced,  and  some  of  Mr. 
Lang's  technical  errors  are  corrected — notably,  for  instance,  the  error  of 
calling  the  ship  a  galleon.  Still,  on  the  main  points,  the  conclusion  is  the 
same.  The  Tobermory  Argosy  is  definitely  identified  as  the  'Ragusan' 
nao  named  Santa  Maria  de  Garcia  y  San  Juan  Bautista  of  the  Levantine 
squadron. 

Mr.  Hardie  shows  conclusively  that  when  Marolin  de  Juan,  the  Pilot 
Major,  said  that  the  ship  in  question  was  the  Ragusan  San  Juan  Bautista,  he 
must  have  meant  this  ship  and  not  the  Ragusan  of  the  same  name  in  the 
Andalusian  squadron,  as  was  suggested  by  the  present  writer  in  a  previous 

14  The  Mystery  of  the  Tobermory  Galleon  revealed,'  BlackwootTs  Magazine, 
cxci.  422. 


Hardie  :    The  Tobermory  Argosy         95 

number  of  this  Review  (S.H.R.  viii.  400).  In  that  article  the  difficulties  of 
the  identification  were  pointed  out,  and  an  effort  was  made  to  remove 
them.  Mr.  Hardie  shows  on  indisputable  evidence  that  they  are  irremov- 
able, and  that  in  spite  of  its  plausibility  the  suggestion  must  be  abandoned 
as  untenable. 

Both  investigators  deserve  the  thanks  of  scholars  who  resent  the  profana- 
tion of  history  in  the  interests  of  company  promotion,  whatever  its  object. 
In  expressing  our  gratitude  it  is  hoped  it  will  not  seem  ungracious  to  sound 
a  warning  that  a  new  myth  may  possibly  spring  up  out  of  the  ruins  of  the 
old  one.  Both  gentlemen  assume  that  the  ship  was  destroyed  by 
Walsyngham's  orders,  and  by  one  of  his  secret  service  agents.  The 
evidence  on  which  this  assumption  is  founded  appears  to  consist  of  two 
letters  :  one  is  from  Roger  Aston  to  his  brother,  sent  from  Edinburgh, 
Nov.  1 8,  1588,  in  which  he  says  the  ship  was  blown  up  by  the  device  of 
John  Smollet,  '  a  man  that  has  grett  trust  among  the  Spagniardes.'  The 
other  is  from  W.  Asheby  to  Walsyngham,  in  which  he  speaks  of  the  hero 
of  the  exploit  as  'the  man  known  to  your  honour  and  called  Smollet.' 
Surely  it  is  a  long  step  from  these  two  statements  to  assert  that  Smollet  was 
the  English  Secretary's  agent. 

As  it  happens  we  know  fairly  well  what  was  the  nature  of  Walsyngham's 
acquaintance  with  this  Smollet.  The  man  had  been  a  servant  of  Esm6 
Stuart,  Earl  of  Lennox,1  and  when  the  Earl  was  in  Paris  and  about  to  enter 
his  unfathomable  intrigue  with  Elizabeth,  Smollet  came  to  the  English 
ambassador  and  offered  to  secure  the  Earl  to  the  English  cause  if  it  were 
made  worth  his  while,  and  a  few  days  later  the  man  brought  a  distinct  offer 
from  his  master.2 

In  the  midst  of  this  intrigue,  on  May  26,  1583,  Lennox  died.  Three 
days  later  Walsyngham's  spy  Fouler,  who  was  engaged  in  trying  to  gauge 
the  Earl's  sincerity,  reported  that  Smollet  had  departed.3  On  June  10  some 
one  writes  to  Bowes  to  tell  him  of  a  plot  intended  by  the  Master  of 
Glamys  against  Angus,  Mar,  Gowry  and  others,  which  Smollet  has  com- 
municated. A  month  later  apparently  he  was  in  Scotland  ;  for  on  July  10 
Walsyngham  gives  Bowes  the  Queen's  orders  to  contradict  certain  false 
reports  which  Smollet  and  others  have  been  spreading  concerning  her 
Majesty's  indifference  to  certain  well  affected  Scottish  lords.4 

This  scarcely  looks  as  if  Smollet  were  at  that  time  an  agent  of  the 
English  Secretary,  nor  does  the  next  notice  we  have  of  the  man  connect  him 
any  more  closely  with  the  English  secret  service.  On  July  28,  1586, 
when  the  Babington  plot  had  been  revealed  Walsyngham  wrote  to  Randolph 
that  Elizabeth  wished  the  Master  of  Gray  to  stay  in  Scotland  instead  of 
going  abroad,  and  endeavour,  in  concert  with  Archibald  Douglas,  to  find 
out  the  practices  of  Lord  Claude  Hamilton  and  his  party.5  He  was  already 
active  in  seeking  to  trace  the  ramifications  of  the  great  plot  in  Scotland,  for 

1  Anon,  to  Bowes,  10  June,  1583,  S.P.  Cal.  Scotland. 

2Cobham  to  Walsyngham,  n  and  21  March,  1583;  S.P.  France,  cited  by 
Froude,  Hist,  of  England,  xi.  304. 

3Wm.  Fouler  to  Walsyngham,  May  29,  S.P.  Cal.  Scotland. 


96         Hardie  :    The  Tobermory  Argosy 

on  August  i  he  wrote  to  Archibald  Douglas,  who  was  then  in  London,  to 
report  progress  and  ask  for  instructions.  He  had  been  seeing  the  Laird  of 
Fentry,  who  seemed  to  know  a  great  deal  more  than  he  cared  to  say.  '  I 
was  diligent,'  he  writes,  '  to  have  learned  the  matter,  but  I  could  not,  of 
him.  But  I  think  it  shall  not  be  unmeet  I  enter  in  a  dealing  with  him  to 
try,  as  I  did  with  Smollet.  But  this  I  commit  in  what  fashion  and  how  far 
to  Mr.  Secretary's  advice  and  yours.' J 

Here  is  at  least  presumptive  evidence  that  the  Master  of  Gray  to 
Walsyngham's  knowledge  had  been  treating  with  Smollet  as  an  agent  of 
Mary  Stuart's  party.  It  further  affords  an  explanation  of  why  it  was  that 
in  1588  the  Spaniards  trusted  him,  for  he  must  have  known  enough  to  be 
able  to  convince  them  he  was  in  the  confidence  of  the  party  from  whom 
they  expected  assistance. 

Seeing  how  dark  and  tortuous  were  the  ways  of  secret  service  in  Eliza- 
bethan times,  it  would  be  going  too  far  to  assert  that  these  glimpses  of 
Smollet  show  that  he  was  not  an  agent  of  Walsyngham  in  1588.  But  they 
are  enough  to  bar  us  from  assuming  that  he  was,  from  the  mere  fact  that 
Walsyngham  knew  of  his  existence.  If  he  really  blew  up  the  ship — and 
we  have  only  his  own  word  for  it,  apparently — it  is  quite  as  likely  as  not  it 
was  on  his  own  initiative.  His  object  may  well  have  been  that  he  saw  the 
time  had  come  to  change  sides,  and  that  he  regarded  the  atrocious  act  of 
treachery,  of  which  he  claimed  the  credit,  as  the  best  possible  credential  for 
employment  in  the  English  Secretary's  service.  Whether  he  obtained  his 
desire  is  uncertain.  In  1592  he  was  under  sentence  of  death,  apparently 
in  connection  with  Bothwell's  attack  on  Holyrood,  but  was  reprieved, 
possibly  at  Bowes'  intercession.2  He  at  least  continued  to  be  in  touch 
with  Bowes,  for  at  the  end  of  the  year  Bowes  wrote  to  Burghley,  who  was 
'wanting'  the  Bishops  of  Ross  and  Dunblane,  to  say  that  Smollet  had 
given  information  about  them,  and  was  prepared  to  effect  the  arrest  of  both 
for  £1000.  After  that  he  seems  to  disappear  for  good. 

It  is  possible  that  further  research  might  reveal  other  tracks  of  this  shame- 
less intriguer  so  typical  of  his  time.  Conceivably  they  might  actually  be 
traced  from  Walsyngham's  office  to  Tobermory  Bay,  but  until  this  is  done 
more  [clearly  it  would  be  well  to  rest  content  with  the  clever  identification 
of  the  wreck,  and  to  leave  Walsyngham  out  of  the  story.  The  evidence 
as  it  stands  is  not  sufficient  to  accuse  the  Secretary  of  State  of  concealing 
Smollet's  information  from  his  colleagues  in  the  Government.  The  accusa- 
tion rests  solely  on  the  new  fact  which  Mr.  Hardie's  keen  scent  has  discovered 
that  cruisers  on  the  Irish  station  were  sent  to  Tobermory  long  after  the 
information  about  Smollet  had  reached  the  Secretary,  in  order  to  find  out 
whether  the  ship  was  still  there.  But  this  was  only  a  natural  precaution, 
for  seeing  what  was  known  of  Smollet's  character  and  career  nobody  could 
believe  a  word  he  said  without  corroboration.  The  natural  deduction  from 
the  naval  orders  is  that  Walsyngham  did  not  credit  Smollet's  story,  and 
possibly  we  should  do  well  to  imitate  his  attitude  of  reserve. 

JULIAN  S.  CORBETT. 
lHist.  MSS.  Com.-,  HatfieldMSS.  iii.  157. 
2  Roger  Aston  to  Bowes,  24  Feb.,  1592,  S.P.  Cat.  Scotland. 


Burrage  :    The  Early  English  Dissenters      97 

THE  EARLY  ENGLISH  DISSENTERS  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  RECENT  RESEARCH, 
1550-1641.  By  Champlin  Burrage,  M.A.,  B.Litt.  In  two  volumes, 
illustrated.  Vol.  I.  History  and  Criticism,  xx,  379.  Vol.  II.  Illustra- 
tive Documents,  xvi,  353.  Demy  8vo.  Cambridge  University  Press. 
1912.  2OS.  net. 

THIS  work  furnishes  a  fine  example  of  careful  historical  research.  The  field 
is  one  which  the  author  has  assiduously  cultivated  ;  and,  by  going  direct  to 
original  authorities,  he  has  been  able  not  only  to  verify  details  and  correct 
misapprehensions,  but  also,  in  not  a  few  instances,  to  bring  to  light  new 
facts  bearing  on  important  phases  of  history.  Mr.  Burrage's  impartiality 
and  detachment  are  highly  to  be  commended.  Whereas  historians  of  the 
Church  of  England  have  been  inclined  to  pass  too  lightly  over  the  earlier 
and  obscure  manifestations  of  dissent,  and  Nonconformist  writers  have  been 
prone  to  read  the  results  of  later  development  into  incipient  stages  of  the 
process,  he  takes  infinite  pains  to  trace  movements  to  their  source,  and 
presents  the  facts  and  weighs  the  evidence  in  so  judicious  a  temper  that  the 
ordinary  reader  of  the  book  will  have  difficulty  in  divining  the  author's 
personal  ecclesiastical  standing.  This  scrupulous  investigation  into  details 
and  disentangling  of  intricate  complications,  admirable  as  they  are  in  a  work 
of  scientific  research,  may  detract  somewhat  from  the  interest  of  the  book 
in  the  estimation  of  the  general  reader,  the  more  so  that  the  author  takes 
for  granted  on  the  part  of  his  readers  an  acquaintance  with  the  more  out- 
standing facts,  and  is  content  with  brief  references  in  cases  where  other 
writers  have,  in  his  estimation,  given  a  sufficient  statement  of  the  facts. 

In  a  useful  '  Foreword '  the  reader  is  reminded  that  certain  words  em- 
ployed at  the  present  day  to  denote  separatists  from  the  Church  of  England 
were  not  originally  so  applied.  The  earliest  Nonconformists  were  often 
learned  clergymen  of  the  Church  of  England  who  objected  to  such  things 
as  vestments ;  and  the  name  Puritan,  which  first  appears  about  1 566, 
denoted  Nonconformists  of  that  type.  The  name  Dissenter,  which  seems 
to  have  first  come  into  use  in  1641,  was  similarly  understood.  So  the 
designations  of  Independent  and  Congregationalist  were  first  given  to  those 
non-separatist  Puritans  who  miantained  that  each  congregation  had  the 
right  of  self-government,  without  interference  from  bishops  or  synods.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  names  Anabaptist  (later  Baptist),  Brownist  and  Barrowist, 
have  always  been  properly  applied  to  separatists. 

It  is  not  always  easy,  amidst  the  contendings  of  parties  and  the  formation 
of  congregations,  to  draw  the  line  between  separatists  and  non-separatists, 
and  opinions  of  authorities  differ  at  some  points ;  but  Mr.  Burrage  makes  it 
clear  that,  towards  the  close  of  the  period  covered  by  the  book,  even  the 
New  England  Puritan  Congregationalists  looked  upon  themselves  as  true 
congregations  of  the  Church  of  England. 

Praise  is  due  to  the  author,  not  only  for  the  presentation  of  original 
documents  in  their  original  spelling,  but  also  for  his  indication  of  the 
libraries  or  collections  in  which  the  documents  are  to  be  found.  The  second 
volume  is  entirely  devoted  to  these,  and  contains  some  that  are  published 
for  the  first  time.  The  reproductions  in  fac-simile  which  illustrate  both 
volumes  add  to  the  interest  of  the  book.  The  serious  student  of  church 


98      Burrage  :    The  Early  English  Dissenters 

history,  to  whom  such  a  work  specially  appeals,  will  find  it  indispensable  for 
research,  and  even  the  <  general  reader '  will  receive  much  light  upon  the 
influences  that  brought  about  the  perplexing  ecclesiastical  complications 
that  bulk  so  largely  at  the  present  day.  Although  Scotland  scarcely  comes 
into  the  field  of  observation  in  the  period  covered  by  the  two  volumes,  one 
can  see  already  the  trend  of  movements  which,  in  the  continuation  which 
the  author  promises,  will  become  very  pronounced  in  the  times  of  the 
Commonwealth.  JAMES  ROBERTSON. 

A  HISTORY  OF  THE  BRITISH  ARMY.  By  the  Hon.  J.  W.  Fortescue. 
Vol.  VII.  1809-1810,  and  Volume  containing  eighteen  Maps  and  Plans. 
Pp.  xxii,  66 1.  Med.  8vo.  London  :  Macmillan  &  Co.  1912. 
jCl  is.  net  for  the  two  volumes. 

THE  last  instalment  of  Mr.  Fortescue's  great  work l  brought  the  story  of 
our  Army  and  its  campaigns  down  to  Moore's  retreat  to  and  death  at 
Corunna,  a  moment  at  which  it  may  well  have  looked  as  though  the 
British  intervention  in  the  Peninsula  was  to  be  no  more  effective  than  any 
of  our  previous  efforts  to  face  Napoleon  on  the  Continent.  The  present 
volume,  which  has  appeared  with  really  remarkable  promptitude,  carries 
the  story  over  another  stage,  and  leaves  the  advance  which  Massena  and 
his  master  had  fondly  hoped  would  end  in  the  final  expulsion  of  the  British 
from  the  Peninsula  brought  to  a  complete  standstill  outside  the  lines 
of  Torres  Vedras.  The  story  of  Wellington's  return  to  Portugal,  of 
his  passage  of  the  Duoro  and  expulsion  of  Soult  from  Northern  Portugal, 
of  his  advance  to  Talavera  and  his  costly  victory  there,  of  the  collapse  of 
his  offensive  schemes  through  the  failure  of  the  Spaniards  to  co-operate,  of 
his  retreat  to  Badajoz,  his  preparations  for  the  defence  of  Portugal  and  his 
defensive  campaign  of  1810,  with  Craufurd's  splendid  work  at  the  outposts 
and  the  rude  check  to  Massena's  advance  administered  at  Bussaco,  the 
retreat  to  the  Lines  and  Massena's  discomfiture  on  arriving  before  them, 
affords  Mr.  Fortescue  a  splendid  opportunity  for  his  powers  of  narrative 
and  elucidation. 

It  is  almost  inevitable  that  one  should  compare  his  account  with  that 
given  by  Professor  Oman,  the  second  and  third  volumes  of  whose  Peninsular 
War  cover  exactly  the  same  ground.  In  the  main  Mr.  Fortescue  gives 
very  much  the  same  account  and  comes  to  much  the  same  conclusions  ; 
he  does  not  differ  from  Professor  Oman  as  the  latter  differs  from  Napier, 
and  one  may  perhaps  feel  that  the  general  agreement  of  the  two  leading 
British  military  historians  permits  us  to  believe  that  there  is  not  much  more 
to  be  added  to  the  story  of  the  campaigns  of  1809-1810.  On  many  points 
Mr.  Fortescue  differs  from  Professor  Oman.  He  corrects,  for  example, 
the  latter's  account  of  Talavera  in  several  particulars  (cf.  pp.  230  fF.),  show- 
ing, for  example,  that  it  was  the  2/3  ist  who  saved  Mackenzie's  division  at 
Casa  de  Salinas  on  July  2Jth  (p.  227) ;  he  is  much  more  unfavourable  to 
Robert  Craufurd  (cf.  pp.  474,  484,  and  540),  whom  he  regards  as  generally 
losing  his  head  in  action  :  his  account  of  Bussaco  disagrees  as  to  some  of  the 
details  of  the  rather  complicated  movements  of  Picton  and  Leith  (pp. 

lCf.  S.H.R.  vol.  ix.  pp.  84-88. 


Fortescue  :   A  History  of  the  British  Army    99 

515  ff.) ;  and  he  does  not  give  quite  the  same  version  of  Lord  Blayney's 
fiasco  at  Fuengirola  (pp.  398-402).  Again,  he  is  even  more  favourable  to 
the  Ministry  at  home,  whom  he  defends  with  great  vigour  and  much 
success  against  the  misrepresentation  of  Napier  and  other  political  oppo- 
nents (cf.  pp.  434  ff.  and  559  ff.).  Indeed,  he  is  a  little  inclined  to  find 
Wellington's  attitude  to  them  a  trifle  unreasonable  (p.  560) :  Liverpool 
had  made  up  his  mind  to  continue  the  struggle  in  the  Peninsula,  but  he 
preferred  <a  steady  and  continual  exertion  upon  a  moderate  scale'  to  'a 
great  and  extraordinary  effort  for  a  limited  time,'  since  neither  the  financial 
nor  the  military  resources  of  Great  Britain  would  be  able  to  support  the 
latter  permanently.  Mr.  Fortescue  very  rightly  lays  great  stress  on  the 
financial  problem.  The  extreme  difficulty  of  providing  specie  was  the  main 
obstacle  to  a  considerable  increase  in  the  force  under  Wellington  (pp.  289 
and  435-437),  though  of  course  all  through  1810  the  fevers  which  were 
the  legacy  of  Walcheren  made  a  very  large  proportion  of  our  troops  unavail- 
able for  active  service.  And  Mr.  Fortescue  seems  to  regard  the  comparatively 
modest  scale  of  our  operations  as  not  without  its  advantages :  had  Welling- 
ton fallen  on  Mass£na  in  November,  1810,  and  crushed  him,  as  he  might 
well  have  done,  the  success  might,  apart  from  its  inevitable  cost,  have 
proved  double-edged  if  it  had  led  to  Soult's  raising  the  siege  of  Cadiz  and 
transferring  his  army  to  Portugal.  By  attempting  to  invade  Portugal 
and  conquer  Andalusia  at  one  and  the  same  time  the  French  were 
committed  to  an  undertaking  really  beyond  their  strength,  large  as  their 
armies  were,  and  Wellington's  best  chance  of  success  lay  in  *  encouraging 
his  enemy  to  persist  in  his  mistakes '  (p.  547),  not  on  exposing  them  and  so 
causing  the  enemy  to  correct  them.  At  the  same  time,  seeing  what  the 
relations  of  Soult  and  Mass£na  were,  one  may  feel  a  little  sceptical  whether 
the  defeat  of  Mass£na  would  have  caused  Soult  to  abandon  Andalusia. 

It  may  be  rather  a  surprise  to  some  people  to  find  that  where  Mr. 
Fortescue  does  find  occasion  to  criticise  Wellington  it  is  for  the  very  opposite 
fault  to  that  which  the  ill-informed  *  received  version '  of  the  text-books 
usually  credits  him.  Mr.  Fortescue  regards  the  move  up  the  Tagus  which 
led  to  the  battle  of  Talavera  as  decidedly  rash  and  over-confident,  and 
quotes  a  really  remarkable  letter  from  Sir  William  Gomm,  which  speaks  of 
Wellesley  as  impetuous,  and  says  that  'his  ardent  spirit  has  blinded  him 
for  the  moment'  (p.  286).  The  move  to  Talavera  certainly  placed  the 
British  army  in  a  most  dangerous  situation  when  Soult's  descent  on  Plasencia 
cut  Wellington's  communications  with  Lisbon  via  Abrantes  (cf.  p.  269),  and 
it  must  be  admitted  that  in  planning  his  movements  Wellington  had  based 
them  on  a  belief  in  the  ability  of  the  Spaniards  to  carry  out  their  promises, 
which  neither  Venegas  nor  Cuesta  did  anything  to  justify.  Wellington 
learnt  his  lesson,  and  for  the  rest  of  the  war  he  never  exposed  himself  to 
the  dangers  of  depending  on  Spanish  co-operation,  but  it  is  hard  to  blame  him 
for  having  made  the  experiment  in  this  instance.  He  could  not  have  remained 
inactive,  and  until  he  had  had  personal  experience  of  Spanish  co-operation 
it  would  have  been  hardly  fair  to  condemn  his  allies  in  advance,  merely  on 
Moore's  experience.  Moreover,  he  was  well  aware  of  the  danger  of  losing 
communication  with  Abrantes,  and  always  had  the  alternative  line  of 


ioo  Fortescue  :  A  History  of  the  British  Army 

Badajoz  and  Elvas  on  which  to  fall  back.  And,  as  Mr.  Fortescue  points 
out,  the  delay  of  Soult  on  reaching  Plasencia,  which  caused  the  failure  of 
the'French  effort  to  intercept  the  British,  was  due  to  the  campaign  on  the 
Duoro,  which  had  left  Soult's  corps  incapable  of  moving  till  re-equipped 
with  artillery  from  Madrid  (p.  288),  while  if  a  miracle  came  in  anywhere 
it  was  in  the  events  which  had  brought  Ney  to  Astorga  at  the  beginning  of 
July  instead  of  committing  his  whole  corps  to  the  subjugation  of  Galicia. 

On  1810  Mr.  Fortescue  is  equally  interesting  :  he  suggests  that  Bussaco 
was  not  merely  fought  for  moral  and  political  purposes,  but  that  Wellington 
had  some  hopes  of  really  stopping  Masse"na  there,  and  might  have  done  so 
had  not  the  Portuguese  general  Bacellar  prevented  Trant's  militia  from 
blocking  a  defile  on  the  road  by  which  the  French  turned  the  Bussaco 
position  (p.  535).  One  may  draw  attention  to  the  excellent  work  done 
by  the  British  cavalry  in  covering  the  retreat  from  Bussaco  to  the  Lines, 
work  which  should  not  be  overlooked  when  the  British  cavalry  in  the 
Peninsula  are  being  criticised.  One  may  also  mention  a  most  interesting 
account  of  Wellington's  staff  and  subordinates  and  his  whole  system  of 
command  (pp.  411-421),  which  brings  one  to  what  is  perhaps  the  chief 
criticism  one  has  to  make  on  the  volume.  For  a  work  which  is  a  History 
of  the  British  Army  and  not  a  History  of  the  Campaigns  of  the  British  Army 
one  hardly  gets  as  much  about  the  organisation,  composition,  and  administra- 
tion of  the  army  in  proportion  to  the  campaigns  as  one  would  like  to  have. 
Once  again  one  finds  one's  self  a  little  inclined  to  feel  that  the  narrative  of 
the  operations  in  which  the  British  were  not  engaged — a  narrative  which 
is  certainly  very  well  and  clearly  told — might  have  been  even  further 
reduced,  and  the  space  devoted  to  more  about  the  British  army  in  the 
Peninsula  as  an  army.  Mr.  Fortescue  does  not  give  a  detailed  casualty 
list  by  units  for  either  Talavera  or  Bussaco  ;  he  gives  the  organisation  of 
the  divisions  for  June,  1809,  but  never  again.  He  even  speaks  of  the 
Sixth  Division  (p.  542)  without  explaining  how  and  when  it  had  come  into 
existence ;  and  though  he  does  give  one  a  good  many  details  as  to  the  arrival 
of  reinforcements  and  so  forth,  one  feels  that  it  is  in  just  the  things  which 
a  History  of  the  Army  should  give,  though  one  might  expect  them  not 
to  be  given  in  a  narrative  of  the  Peninsular  War,  that  one  is  a  little 
disappointed. 

But  the  Peninsular  War  is  by  no  means  the  only  theme  of  this  volume. 
Of  its  600  odd  pages  quite  one-third  are  devoted  to  operations  elsewhere, 
a  proportion  which  may  surprise  a  good  many  of  Mr.  Fortescue's  readers, 
for  the  number  of  people  who  have  heard  of  Auchmuty's  brilliant  conquest 
of  Java  and  Gillespie's  wonderful  feats  at  Weltevreeden  and  Cornelis,  or 
of  Oswald's  dashing  capture  of  Sta.  Maura  in  the  Ionian  Islands  (March, 
1810),  is  small  indeed.  But  Mr.  Fortescue  takes  one  all  over  the  globe  :  to 
the  West  Indies  for  Beckwith's  reduction  of  Martinique  (1809)  anc*  Guade- 
loupe (1810),  no  mean  achievements  either  of  them,  to  the  Scheldt  for  the 
ill-fated  Walcheren  venture,  to  Sicily  for  Stuart's  futile  expedition  to  the 
Bay  of  Naples  (June-July,  1809),  to  the  Indian  Ocean  for  the  capture  of 
Rodriguez,  Bourbon  and  Mauritius,  to  India  itself  for  the  story  of  the  mutiny 
in  the  Madras  Army,  caused  mainly  by  the  criminal  folly  and  obstinacy  of 


Fortescue  :   A  History  of  the  British  Army  101 

Sir  George  Barlow  and  aggravated  by  Lord  Minto's  pedantry  and  tactless- 
ness, finally  to  the  Eastern  Archipelago  for  the  expedition  to  Java  (1811). 
Indeed,  by  no  means  the  least  valuable  or  interesting  portions  of  Mr. 
Fortescue's  work  are  those  in  which  he  departs  from  the  beaten  track  to 
rescue  from  an  undeserved  oblivion  well-managed  operations  like  those  of 
Beckwith,  Abercromby  (at  Mauritius),  and  Auchmuty,  or  unflinchingly  sets 
forth  the  story  of  some  failure  like  that  at  Walcheren.  This  story  is  very 
well  and  fully  told,  and  this  is  all  the  more  satisfactory  because  hitherto  there 
has  been  no  adequate  account  of  the  expedition  readily  accessible.  It  is 
usual  to  speak  of  the  Walcheren  expedition  as  though  it  could  never  have 
succeeded  and  would  have  been  useless  even  if  successful,  as  unsound  in  con- 
ception as  well  as  indifferently  executed,  and  to  lay  the  blame  at  the  doors 
of  the  Secretary  of  State  for  War,  Castlereagh.  But  though  Castlereagh 
cannot  escape  criticism  for  having  sent  off  the  expedition  with  rather 
inadequate  information  as  to  the  possibility  of  the  task  before  it,  a  fact  which 
the  shrewd  old  King  was  not  slow  to  point  out  (p.  59),  there  was  a  good 
deal  to  be  said  in  its  favour.  Mr.  Fortescue  shows  that  a  blow  at  Antwerp 
was  much  to  be  preferred  to  another  expedition  to  the  Weser,  which  must 
have  depended,  as  that  on  1805  had  done,  on  the  fickle  and  unstable 
Frederick  William  III.  of  Prussia,  and  would  therefore  have  been  fore- 
doomed to  failure  (cf.  pp.  48-51).  The  destruction  of  the  French  fleet  in 
the  Scheldt  would  have  been  a  useful  achievement  in  itself,  as  well  as  a 
blow  to  Napoleon's  prestige  and  an  appreciable  diversion  in  favour  of 
Austria.  The  choice  of  the  leaders  was  perhaps  unfortunate,  for  though 
Chatham  was  a  man  of  real  capacity  (p.  55),  his  chief  defects,  indolence 
and  lack  of  driving  power  and  energy,  were  just  those  which  were  most 
likely  to  be  fatal  to  an  enterprise  which  above  all  things  required  rapidity 
in  execution.  Strachan,  a  competent  officer  enough  for  an  ordinary  task, 
was  not  equal  to  a  situation  which  needed  a  really  exceptional  man  (p.  59). 
When  one  comes  to  read  the  story  in  detail  one  is  inclined  to  agree  with 
Mr.  Fortescue  that  the  undertaking  was  one  which  needed  a  good  deal  of 
luck  if  it  was  to  be  successful,  and  had  just  the  opposite.  The  delays, 
due  originally  to  the  fact  that  the  regiments  which  had  taken  part  in 
Moore's  retreat  needed  rest  and  refitting  and  were  not  ready  for  service 
when  the  descent  was  first  contemplated,  meant  that  when  the  expedition 
sailed  the  season  was  too  far  advanced,  and  autumn  gales  and  rains  increased 
the  difficulties  and  contributed  in  large  measure  to  the  sickness  which  was 
really  the  feature  which  has  made  the  expedition  rank  as  a  disaster.  Four 
thousand  deaths  were  due  to  it,  and  it  left  the  army  crippled  for  other 
work  for  over  a  year.  This  sickness,  Mr.  Fortescue  thinks,  was  more  than 
one  could  have  expected  (p.  92),  a  misfortune  for  which  no  one  can  be 
held  responsible.  The  actual  capture  of  Flushing  was  quite  a  well-managed 
piece  of  work,  but  it  was  wasted  because  of  the  failure  to  seize  the  island  of 
Kadzand  at  the  very  outset ;  and  once  reinforcements  had  secured  Kadzand 
to  the  French  the  fleet  could  not  get  up  the  Scheldt  till  Flushing  fell,  and 
this  meant  so  long  a  delay  before  Antwerp  could  be  attacked  that  success 
was  out  of  the  question.  Chatham  at  least  deserves  credit  for  having  seen 
that  to  persevere  with  the  effort  could  only  lead  to  disaster. 


102  Fortescue  :  A  History  of  the  British  Army 

It  is  pleasant  to  turn  from  the  story  of  Walcheren  to  that  of  the  really 
admirably  conducted  operation  with  which  the  volume  ends,  the  expedition 
to  Java  in  1811,  no  easy  one  to  organise  and  carry  through  (p.  629). 
Auchmuty,  who  commanded  it,  showed  real  strategical  and  tactical  skill, 
and  the  capture  of  the  island  was  a  far  more  useful  measure  than  many 
much  better  known  enterprises.  The  fact  that  Java  was  restored  to 
Holland  at  the  Peace  of  Vienna  probably  accounts  in  part  for  the  general 
ignorance  as  to  its  capture,  but  it  is  an  example  of  'amphibious  war'  which 
is  well  worth  study.  And  one  may  point  out  that  here  and  at  Mauritius, 
Martinique,  and  all  the  other  bases  from  which  French  privateers  preyed 
on  British  commerce,  capture  was  a  task  quite  beyond  the  power  of  the 
Navy  when  unaided  ;  *  command  of  the  sea '  did  not  automatically  involve 
the  destruction  of  the  enemy's  powers  for  harm  ;  in  short,  the  Navy  could 
not  afford  to  British  commerce  the  protection  needed  without  the  Army's 
assistance. 

One  last  word  must  be  added  in  praise  of  the  maps,  which  are  very 
conveniently  bound  up  in  a  separate  volume  ;  they  are  excellent  and 
copious,  and  though  the  plan  of  the  Coa  does  not  assist  the  reader  quite 
as  much  as  Professor  Oman's  does,  the  fact  that  Mr.  Fortescue's  battle- 
plans  are  accurately  contoured  gives  them  a  distinct  advantage. 

C.  T.  ATKINSON. 

HISTORY  OF  THE  OLD  GREYFRIARS'  CHURCH,  EDINBURGH.  By  William 
Moir  Bryce.  With  Chapter  on  the  Subscribing  of  the  National 
Covenant  by  D.  Hay  Fleming,  LL.D.  Pp.  vii,  160.  With  Plan 
and  Illustrations.  4to.  Edinburgh  and  London  :  William  Green  & 
Sons.  1912.  75.  6d.  net. 

OLD  GREYFRIARS',  Edinburgh,  is  a  church  of  which  the  history  extends 
back  to  pre-Reformation  days.  The  original  buildings  upon  the  site 
formed  the  friary  of  the  Observant  branch  of  the  Franciscan  Order,  who 
settled  in  Edinburgh  in  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century.  They  came 
here  under  the  leadership  of  Father  Cornelius  of  Zierikzee  from  the  Low 
Countries,  and  being  both  pious  and  popular  rapidly  made  their  influence 
felt  in  Scotland,  where  religion  at  the  time  was  at  a  low  ebb. 

Mr.  Bryce  opens  with  a  sketch  of  the  history  of  the  Franciscans  in 
Scotland,  dealing  shortly  with  the  Conventuals  first.  A  list  of  six  friaries 
belonging  to  this  branch  is  given,  namely,  Roxburgh,  Haddington,  Dundee, 
Lanark,  Dumfries,  and  Kirkcudbright.  But  why  leave  out  Inverkeithing  ? 
It  is  mentioned  in  the  list  of  houses  of  Greyfriars  non  de  observantia 
appended  to  the  Book  of  Pluscarden,  and  the  chronicler  of  Lanercost 
had  his  eye  on  Inverkeithing  under  date  1282.  Probably  Mr.  Bryce 
considers  that  it,  being  founded  after  the  battle  of  Halidon  Hill,  was  not 
an  offshoot  from  Berwick,  and  thus  omits  it ;  but  Kirkcudbright,  which  is 
in  Mr.  Bryce's  list,  is  of  later  date  still,  and  thus  the  omission  without 
remark  is  misleading:. 

TU       .  o 

1  ne  later  and  stricter  branch,  the  Observantines,1  obtain  sympathetic 

1  We  prefer  the  more  ordinary  form  of  this  word.  Mr.  Bryce  uses  *  as  more 
euphonious'  the  much  less  common  Observatines. 


History  of  the  Old  Greyfriars5  Church    103 

treatment.  It  was  in  1560,  on  the  emigration  of  the  majority  of  these 
friars  following  the  Reformation,  that  the  friary  buildings  and  yard  came 
into  full  possession  of  the  city,  and  up  till  about  1612  part  was  used  as  a 
burying-ground.  Here  the  Regent  Morton  and  George  Buchanan  were 
interred  in  1581  and  1582. 

Mr.  Bryce  tells  of  the  gradual  disappearance  of  the  old  friary  buildings. 
It  was  not  until  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century  that  the  need 
for  a  new  fabric  to  accommodate  what  was  known  as  the  south-west  con- 
gregation became  clamant. 

During  the  Covenanting  period  and  that  of  the  Restoration  the  church 
building  passed  through  many  vicissitudes.  Turned  into  a  barrack-room 
by  the  Cromwellian  troops  in  the  autumn  of  1650,  it  remained  in  their 
occupation  for  more  than  two  years.  Consequently  it  suffered  severely 
along  with  other  churches  in  Edinburgh,  whose  '  decormentis  wer  all  dung 
doun  to  the  ground  by  these  Inglische  sodgeris,  and  burnt  to  ashes/  and 
for  the  next  four  or  five  years  the  stipends  of  the  city  ministers  were 
greatly  in  arrear,  and  the  struggle  with  poverty  is  in  marked  evidence. 

In  1656  the  building  was  divided  into  two — an  caster  and  a  wester 
church — and  we  learn  that  on  a  Sunday  in  the  winter  of  1659  the  minister 
of  the  latter  during  a  violent  storm  had,  with  his  congregation,  'to  seek 
safety  in  flight.'  The  outstanding  minister  during  the  period  of  the 
Covenant  is  undoubtedly  George  Gillespie,  whose  strikingly  intellectual 
features  are  reproduced  from  a  portrait  now  in  the  New  College,  Edin- 
burgh. Gillespie  was  the  author  of  A  Dispute  against  the  English  Popish 
Ceremonies  obtruded  upon  the  Kirk  of  Scotland,  a  work  which  was  'prohibited 
by  the  Privy  Council  and  burnt  by  the  common  hangman.'  If  Wariston 
is  right  in  his  surmise,  the  Privy  Council  might  have  saved  themselves  the 
trouble.  He  tells  us  that  on  a  certain  Sunday  he  'was  dead  al  day  both 
in  privat  and  in  publik,'  and  he  suspects  that  '  one  chief  cause '  of  his  dead- 
ness  was  that  his  mind  had  been  occupied  in  reading  Gillespie's  Dispute. 
Baillie  mentions  the  work,  saying  'I  admire  the  man  though  I  mislyke 
much  of  his  matter ;  yea  I  think  he  may  prove  amongst  the  best  witts  of 
this  Isle.'  Gillespie  indicates  that  it  was  the  custom  of  his  time  in  our 
Scottish  churches  for  the  hearers  to  cover  the  head  during  sermon. 

The  eighth  chapter,  written  by  Dr.  Hay  Fleming,  tells  the  true  story 
of  the  subscribing  of  the  National  Covenant  in  1638,  and  reveals  the  error, 
perpetuated  by  a  well-known  historical  picture  belonging  to  the  Corporation 
of  Edinburgh,  that  the  National  Covenant  was  signed  on  the  last  day  of 
February,  1638,  by  the  people  generally  in  the  Greyfriars'  Churchyard. 
The  fact  is  now  brought  out  that  it  was  in  the  church  that  the  signing  on 
that  day  took  place,  and  those  who  signed  then  were  '  the  noblemen  and 
barons.'  The  churchyard  and  picturesque  signing  with  tombstones  as 
desks  will  have  to  be  relinquished.  Many  will  share  Dr.  Hay  Fleming's 
regret  at  this,  but,  as  he  says,  '  truth  is  more  than  sentiment.' 

Coming  down  to  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries,  the  outstand- 
ing fact  is  the  number  of  distinguished  Scottish  ecclesiastics  who  have  been 
ministers  of  Old  Greyfriars'.  A  list,  which  includes  Principal  William 
Robertson  (1761-1793),  Professor  James  Finlayson  (1793-1799),  Dr.  John 


104    History  of  Preston  in  Amounderness 

Inglis  (1799-1834),  father  of  Lord  President  Inglis,  Dr.  Thomas  Guthrie 
(1837-1841),  Dr.  Robert  Lee  (1843-1869),  Dr.  Robert  Wallace  (1868- 
1876),  and  Dr.  John  Glasse  (1877-1909),  speaks  for  itself. 

The  numerous  illustrations  and  plan  of  the  Greyfriars'  yards  add  to  the 
interest  of  the  volume.  Mr.  Bryce  and  Dr.  Fleming  have  collaborated  in 
the  writing  of  a  worthy  record  of  a  notable  church,  and  its  history  has 
afforded  a  theme  for  the  treatment  of  which  in  its  different  aspects  they 
are  fully  equipped.  JOHN  EDWARDS. 

A  HISTORY  OF  PRESTON  IN  AMOUNDERNESS.  By  H.  W.  Clemesha,  M.A. 
Pp.  xi,  344,  with  five  Maps.  Demy  8vo.  Manchester  :  Sherratt  & 
Hughes,  University  Press.  1912.  7$.  6d.  net. 

THIS  careful  study  of  the  history  of  Preston,  in  Lancashire,  is  worthy  of  a 
good  place  in  the  Historical  Series  issued  under  the  patronage  of  the 
University  of  Manchester.  It  embodies  the  main  results  of  modern 
scholarship  on  the  problems  of  municipal  origins  and  development.  For 
this  reason  alone  the  book  may  be  regarded  as  a  trustworthy  manual,  which 
should  be  at  the  elbow  of  all  students  of  burghal  history. 

The  municipal  growth  of  the  town  is  somewhat  famous  owing  to  the 
incorporation  of  the  Law  of  Breteuil  in  its  governing  charters,  as  inter- 
preted nearly  twenty  years  ago  by  the  late  Miss  Mary  Bateson,  to  the 
value  of  whose  work  Mr.  Clemesha  has  paid  a  warm  tribute.  'As  a  result 
of  Miss  Bateson's  work,'  he  says,  '  we  have  learned  of  the  curious  bond 
which  unites  a  Lancashire  manufacturing  town  with  a  little  known 
Norman  village,  and  the  true  meaning  and  importance  of  the  Custumal 
of  Preston  have,  for  the  first  time,  been  made  clear  to  us.'  In  addition  to 
the  municipal  history,  the  author  has  tapped  all  other  available  sources, 
and  given  us  an  eminently  clear  and  interesting  narrative  of  the  social, 
political,  and  ecclesiastical  incidents  with  which  the  town  was  connected. 

Mr.  Clemesha  has  been  very  circumspect  in  his  discussion  of  the  origin 
of  the  mayoralty  of  Preston,  though  it  is  odd  that  he  has  omitted  to  append 
a  list  of  mayors.  One  would  have  thought  that  the  mayors  were  as  much 
entitled  to  enumeration  as  the  ecclesiastical  incumbents.  The  origin  of 
the  office  is  obscure  in  more  municipalities  than  Preston.  But  the  theory 
that  it  is  an  evolution  of  the  office  of  reeve  or  provost  may  be  dismissed. 
There  are  early  thirteenth  century  charters  in  several  northern  towns 
witnessed  by  the  mayor,  reeve,  and  bailiffs  by  name,  which  show  that  they 
existed  as  separate  offices  at  the  same  time.  Had  Mr.  Clemesha  happily 
elucidated  the  origin  of  the  mayor  of  Preston,  he  would  have  done  a  signal 
service  to  municipal  history.  JAMES  WILSON. 

QUELLEN   ZUR  GESCHICHTE  DES  PAPSTHUMS  UNO  DES  RoMISCHEN  KATHO- 

LIZISMUS.      By  Professor  Mirbt.      Pp.  xxiv,  514.     Tubingen:  Mohr. 
1911.     8  marks. 

THIS  new  edition,  the  third,  of  Professor  Mirbt's  well-known  compilation 
includes  the  more  important  pronouncements  of  Pius  X.  and  subsidiary 
documents,  such  as  salient  passages  from  Tyrrell  and  Loisy.  It  retains 
the  characteristics  of  the  previous  editions,  and,  while  seeking  to  cover  a 


Reade  :    Johnsonian  Gleanings  105 

much  wider  field,  maintains  its  position  alongside  of  the  last  edition  of 
Denzinger's  Enchiridion  as  an  indispensable  tool  of  every  student  of 
ecclesiastical  history.  DAVID  BAIRD  SMITH. 

ANTIKVARISK  TIDSKRIFT  FOR  SVERIGE,  utgifven   af  Kungl.     Vitterhets 

Historic  och  Antikvitets  Akademien.  Stockholm.  1911. 
OF  European  archaeologists  none  are  more  zealous  or  successful  than  those 
of  Sweden.  The  works  of  Dr.  Hans  Hildebrand  and  Dr.  Oscar  Montelius, 
among  others,  are  well  known  to  students  in  Britain  ;  and,  but  for  the 
difficulty  of  language,  there  would  be  a  more  extensive  acquaintance  with 
Swedish  archaeological  literature.  An  important  volume  by  other  workers 
is  now  before  us — the  Swedish  Antiquarian  Journal  for  1911,  164  pp.,  the 
nineteenth  issue  of  the  series.  Its  contents  are  two  elaborate  articles — one 
on  the  flint  beds  and  deposits  of  certain  districts  of  Sweden  (Forhisteriska 
flintgrufuor  och  Kulturlager  vid  Kvarnby  och  S.  Sallerup  I  Skane)y  by  Bror 
Schnittger,  with  eighty-seven  illustrations  ;  and  the  other,  on  the  Stone 
Age  in  Scandinavia  anterior  to  the  age  of  Stone  Kists  (F'dre  Hdll-Kisttiden\ 
by  Knut  Stjerna,  with  179  illustrations.  Both  articles  are  of  genuine 
interest,  especially  for  students  of  Comparative  Archaeology,  showing,  as 
they  do,  the  general  resemblance,  in  implements,  weapons  and  ceramic  art 
of  antiquity,  between  those  of  Sweden  and  of  other  countries,  with,  at  the 
same  time,  variations  and  peculiarities  in  form  and  style  which  demonstrate 
distinct  Scandinavian  types.  The  author  of  the  second  article  died  on 
1 5th  November,  1909.  GILBERT  GOUDIE. 

JOHNSONIAN  GLEANINGS.  Part  II.  FRANCIS  BARBER,  THE  DOCTOR'S 
NEGRO  SERVANT.  By  Aleyn  Lyell  Reade.  Pp.  132,  with  three  illus- 
trations. Foolscap  4to.  Privately  printed  for  the  Author.  1912. 
THIS  part,  dealing  exhaustively  with  the  career  of  Francis  Barber,  Dr. 
Johnson's  negro  servant,  continues  the  good  work  the  writer  is  doing 
by  rescuing  from  oblivion  the  humbler  members  of  the  circle  of  the  <  great 
Lexicographer.'  We  may  read  here  everything  that  is  known  about 
Francis  Barber,  that  he  was  a  slave  of  the  West  Indian  Bathursts,  freed  by 
them,  educated  by  Dr.  Johnson  at  Bishop  Stortford,  and  that  he,  having 
been  the  faithful  servant  of  his  master,  became  his  legatee,  and  as  such,  was 
attacked  by  the  Hawkins  family.  The  writer  defends  him  where  possible, 
and  traces  his  troubled  later  life  and  that  of  his  widow  and  his  *  methodist ' 
descendants  with  a  care  which  only  those  who  know  his  former  volumes  can 
either  expect  or  appreciate.  The  book,  a  mine  of  wealth  in  Johnsoniana, 
continues  the  labour  of  love,  and  is  worthy  of  being  connected  with  the 
great  savant  who  was  its  original  centre  and  whom  it  shows  in  so  humane 
a  light.  A.  FRANCIS  STEUART. 

A  HISTORY  OF  THE  MODERN  WORLD,  1815-1910.  By  Oscar  Browning, 
M.A.  2  vols.  Vol.  I.,  pp.  448  ;  Vol.  II.,  pp.  547.  8vo.  London  : 
Cassell  &  Co.,  Ltd.  1912.  2 is.  net. 

*  THE  present  book  has  no  pretensions  to  originality  or  research  . . .  lectures, 
writings  and  discussions,  together  with  the  best  authorities  he  could  find, 


io6        A  History  of  the  Modern  World 

form  the  sources.'  And  the  volumes  are  offered  as  *  a  plain  account  of  the 
political  events,'  as  a  contribution  to  'the  study  of  contemporary  history, 
so  important  for  the  education  of  a  politically-minded  nation.'  It  may 
further  be  explained  that  the  field  covered  is  European,  and  that  '  political ' 
is  rather  strictly  interpreted.  At  a  time  when  politics  are  being  so  inter- 
penetrated with  industrial  issues,  and  are  likely  to  be  so  increasingly,  it  is  a 
defect,  from  the  educational  point  of  view,  that  this  aspect  receives  such 
scanty  treatment,  little  better  in  fact  than  incidental.  The  rise  of  industrial 
Germany  is  an  important  factor  in  the  modern  world,  but  here  Germany 
ceases  to  count  for  anything,  save  in  diplomacy  after  1871. 

On  its  own  limitations,  however,  the  work  is  a  clear,  straightforward 
account  of  the  period  it  covers,  and  therefore  could  scarcely  fail  in  interest. 
The  closing  chapter,  however,  is  not  a  success  ;  perhaps,  being  so  near 
hand,  it  could  hardly  be  ;  but  the  title  '  Edward  the  Peacemaker  '  is  inex- 
cusable. In  the  references  to  the  late  King,  as  well  as  to  Queen  Victoria, 
there  is  a  note  of  fulsomeness  which  is  uncritical,  and  often  in  doubtful 
taste.  Nor  is  it  a  mark  of  balanced  judgment  to  speak  of  the  '  admirable 
self-sacrifice'  of  one  present  minister  and  the  'consummate  genius'  of 
another ;  it  would  be  an  interesting  exercise  in  guesswork  to  place 
these. 

There  are  some  serious  blemishes,  the  reasons  for  which,  like  those  for  a 
certain  statesman's  policy  (II.,  p.  497),  'can  only  be  conjectured.'  Mr. 
Browning  seems  incapable  of  quoting  correctly.  The  iftterance  of  Lincoln 
(II.,  30)  not  only  suffers  from  a  misprint,  but  is  further  mangled.  On  the 
opposite  page  President  Buchanan  obviously  could  not  '  offend  both  sides 
equally '  if  he  '  denied  the  right  of  the  South  to  secede,  but  also  declared 
his  own  power  to  coerce/  He  also  denied  he  had  the  power  to  coerce. 
The  extract  from  Lincoln's  speech  at  Gettysburg  (II.,  50-51)  is  not  verbally 
accurate.  The  paragraph  made  up  from  Morley's  Life  of  Gladstone  in  II., 
pp.  360-1,  is  really  nearer  the  original  in  detail  than  the  confessed  citation 
which  follows.  A  slighter  case  is  the  income  tax  arrangement  in  the 
budget  of  1853  (I.,  372).  Of  another  occasional  phenomenon  it  is  best  to 
give  a  brief  example. 

'Stringent  orders  were  issued  from  headquarters,  and  were  only  too 
literally  obeyed  . . .  and  the  French  were  allowed  to  slip  away  not  only 
unmolested  but  unobserved.  At  daybreak  on  the  i8th  Moltke  was  still 
uncertain  whether  Bazaine  had  resumed  his  retreat  to  the  Meuse  by  the 
northern  roads,  or  had  fallen  back  to  Metz.  But  he  was  ready  for  either 
contingency,  etc.' — Cambridge  Modern  History,  article  by  Major  Maurice, 
Vol.  XL,  p.  592. 

'  Stringent  orders  to  this  effect  were  issued  from  headquarters,  and  were 
obeyed  so  exactly  that  the  French  were  allowed  to  slip  away,  not  only 
unchecked  but  unobserved.  The  consequence  was  that  at  daybreak  on 
August  1 8th  Moltke  did  not  know  whether  Bazaine  was  continuing  his 
design  of  retreating  by  the  northern  roads  or  had  retired  definitely  to  Metz. 
He  had  to  be  prepared  for  either  event,  etc.' — History  of  the  Modern  World^ 
II.,  p.  197. 

W.  M.  MACKENZIE. 


The  Romanization  of  Roman  Britain       107 

THE  ROMANIZATION  OF  ROMAN  BRITAIN.  By  F.  Haverfield.  Second 
Edition,  greatly  enlarged,  with  twenty-one  Illustrations.  Med.  8vo. 
Pp.  70.  Oxford:  Clarendon  Press.  1912.  3s.6d.net. 

WE  are  glad  to  see  this  re-issue,  and  particularly  glad  to  find  that  the 
original  paper  has  been  so  very  considerably  added  to  both  in  the  way  of 
matter  and  in  the  way  of  illustration.  Pointed  and  luminous,  like  every- 
thing that  Professor  Haverfield  writes,  it  contains  in  brief  compass  an 
admirable  statement  of  a  very  important  aspect  of  the  Romano-British 
problem.  The  new  edition  has  been  brought  thoroughly  up  to  date;  and 
the  text  has  been  broken  up  into  chapters  and  amplified,  with  the  avowed 
object  of  making  it  more  useful  to  the  general  reader.  We  can  heartily 
commend  it  to  all  who  are  interested  in  the  history  of  England.  For 
students  of  the  Roman  period  it  is  indispensable. 

GEORGE  MACDONALD. 

THE  BURGH  OF  PEEBLES.  GLEANINGS  FROM  ITS  RECORDS,  1604-52.  By 
Robert  Renwick.  Second  Edition.  Pp.  xvi,  309,  with  Plan.  410. 
Peebles  :  Allan  Smyth,  Neidpath  Press.  1912.  7$.  6d.  net. 

A  BOOK  of  gleanings  printed  in  1892  from  the  newspaper  type  by  which  it 
was  originally  introduced  to  the  public  of  Peeblesshire,  is  now  fitly  repro- 
duced in  a  dignified  format  and  issued  from  a  Peebles  press  which  does  credit 
alike  to  Peebles  and  to  this  very  meritorious  and  interesting  volume  of  its 
annals.  An  excellent  part  of  the  equipment  is  a  plan  of  the  town,  with  an 
inset  diagrammatic  map  of  the  vicinity.  Mr.  Renwick's  narrative  is  a  very 
successful  example  of  the  great  service  to  national  history  which  can  be 
rendered  by  the  records  of  a  burgh  adequately  handled  and  interpreted,  with 
full  local  knowledge,  and  with  that  loving  and  unwearied  interest  in  the 
story  of  the  place,  which  is  the  first  tribute  a  great  antiquary  can  pay  to 
his  native  district.  Happily  the  records  of  the  half-century  following  the 
Union  are  by  no  means  meagre  :  no  man  living  knows  them  as  Mr. 
Renwick  does,  or  with  such  a  grasp  of  their  historical  relationships  burghally 
and  nationally  considered;  and,  besides,  the  adventures  of  Peebles  are 
themselves  worth  telling. 

The  form  chosen  is  to  piece  out  the  narrative  with  numberless  short 
extracts,  which  are  the  best  of  all  guarantees  of  the  author's  fidelity. 
Peebles  has  long  served  as  the  standard  type  of  a  small  Scottish  burgh 
having  a  large  history :  we  dare  not  use  the  image  of  the  *  penniless  lass  wi' 
a  lang  pedigree,'  for  its  dower  of  history  is  out  of  all  proportion  to  its  size. 
Near  enough  to  the  Border  to  be,  as  one  of  its  charters  says,  *  often  sacked 
burnt  laid  waste  and  desolated '  in  the  days  when  England  was  the  unfailing 
enemy,  Peebles  had  annals  which  were  well  kept  and  which  only  increased 
in  domestic  interest  as  the  town  advanced  in  prosperity  after  the  Union. 
The  Civil  War  renewed  the  burgh's  acquaintance  with  adverse  fortune,  in 
the  shape  of  occupation  by  Cromwell  after  the  battle  of  Dunbar. 

The  last  extract  is  a  description  of  the  great  eclipse  of  c  Mirk  Monday,' 
29th  March,  1652,  when  even  Peebles  was  awed,  and  'the  people  begane 
all  to  pray  to  God,'  a  sign  of  grace  which  contrasts  favourably  with  innumer- 
able earlier  incidents  when  the  town  bell  was  needed  to  warn  citizens 


io8        Renwick  :    The  Burgh  of  Peebles 

against  being  *  fund  ather  drinking  or  playing,'  and  when  '  bluiddrawing ' 
with  whingers  and  other  invasive  weapons  was  too  apt  to  result  from  fes- 
tivities. But  we  must  not  tempt  ourselves  to  quotation. 

In  1910  Mr.  Renwick  edited  for  the  Burgh  Records  Society  a  series  of 
extracts  from  the  Peebles  records  from  1652  until  1714,  which  was  a  sequel 
to  the  first  edition  of  the  present  book.  In  a  review  of  the  volume  of  1910 
(S.H.R.  viii.  275)  attention  was  called  to  the  care  Peebles  evidently  took 
of  its  muniments,  as  shewn  by  the  search  made  for  c  the  writtes  in  the 
steeple '  after  Cromwell's  men  had  made  free  with  the  town.  A  chapter 
in  the  present  volume  (pp.  278-280)  indicates  the  same  zeal  at  an  earlier 
stage.  Peebles  is  now  reaping  the  benefit  of  the  precautions  taken  by  its 
burgesses,  and  it  is  well  that  their  spirit  is  so  faithfully  reincarnated  for 
modern  conditions  in  the  person  of  Mr.  Renwick,  whom  all  burghal  students 
delight  to  honour. 

THE  CORRESPONDENCE  OF  JONATHAN  SWIFT,  D.D.,  1718-1727.  Vol.  III. 
Edited  by  F.  Elrington  Ball,  Hon.  Litt.D.,  Dublin.  Pp.  xix,  468. 
Demy  8vo.  London:  G.  Bell  &  Sons,  Ltd.  1912.  los.  6d.  net. 

THE  editor  continues  to  lavish  on  his  work  the  patient  care  that  we  have 
admired  in  the  volumes  already  issued.  We  may  read  here  some  excellent 
letters  (e.g.  on  page  100,  one  to  Archbishop  King  in  Swift's  happiest  vein), 
and  an  admirable  note  in  the  appendix  on  Esther  Vanhomrigh.  Some  of 
Vanessa's  curious  letters  appear  in  this  volume,  as  well  as  Swift's  only  letter 
to  Stella  outside  the  celebrated  *  Journal.' 

THE  RUTHVEN  FAMILY  PAPERS.  THE  RUTHVEN  VERSION  OF  THE  CON- 
SPIRACY AND  ASSASSINATION  AT  GOWRIE  HOUSE,  PERTH.  Critically 
revised  and  edited  by  Samuel  Cowan,  J.P.  Pp.  208,  with  thirteen 
Illustrations.  Crown  8vo.  London  :  Simpkin,  Marshall,  Hamilton  & 
Co.,  Ld.  1912.  75.  6d.  net. 

IT  is  sad  that  a  book  like  this  should  have  been  published  at  all.  The 
construction  is  so  faulty  and  the  proof  reading  so  neglected  that  it  is  useless 
and  partially  incomprehensible  to  the  reader.  What  the  author  meant  to 
do  was  to  give  a  new  account  of  the  Gowrie  Conspiracy  from  the  point  of 
view  of  'a  Ruthven  narrative  .  .  .  written  by  the  Ruthven  family,  or  at 
least  by  a  bona  fide  member  of  it.'  What  he  has  done  is  to  give  a  very 
confused  account  of  the  Ruthven  family  itself,  which  will  not  add  lustre  to 
his  name  as  a  genealogist  or  be  of  much  help  to  anyone.  On  page  57  he 
not  only  omits  the  first  wife  of  Patrick  Ruthven,  but  he  leads  the  unfor- 
tunate reader  to  confuse  his  daughters  with  his  sisters,  as  will  be  seen  on 
comparing  that  page  with  page  189.  Misprints  abound,  and  even  the 
pictures  (the  best  part  of  the  book)  have  errors  in  their  descriptions. 

TALES  OF  MADINGLEY.  By  Colonel  T.  Walter  Harding,  D.L.,  Hon. 
LL.D.  Pp.  xx,  491,  with  thirty-three  Illustrations.  Demy  8vo. 
Cambridge  :  Bowes  &  Bowes.  1912.  6s.  net. 

THIS  work  is  concerned  with  the  ancient  mansion  or  Madingley,  near 
Cambridge,  which  dates  from  1543.  The  home  of  the  Hyndes,  it  was 


Harding  :    Tales  of  Madingley  109 

the  residence  of  two  Princes  of  Wales,  who  became  afterwards  King 
Edward  VI.  and  King  Edward  VII.  The  author  has  collected  the 
traditions  of  his  home  and  woven  them  into  a  romance,  using  as  far  as 
possible  the  legends  and  the  knowledge  which  he  has  acquired  during  his 
searches  into  the  local  history. 

LE  MONT  SAINT  MICHEL  INCONNU.  D'APRES  DES  DOCUMENTS  INEDITS. 
Par  Etienne  Dupont.  Pp.326.  8vo.  Paris :  Perrin  et  Cie.  1912.  5  fr. 

THE  Mont  has,  in  addition  to  a  medieval  chronique  of  its  own,  a  whole 
modern  library  about  itself,  to  which  M.  Dupont  has  been  an  equally  loyal 
and  indefatigable  contributor  (S.H.R.  in.  506,  iv.  362,  v.  241,  511,  vii.  318). 
His  present  book  barely  justifies  the  claim  of  the  title  page,  for  the  inedited 
documents  used  are  very  few,  and  the  author  transcribes  for  us  no  page  of 
manuscript.  It  is,  however,  a  charming  collection  of  separate  papers  on 
such  subjects  as  the  literature,  pilgrimages,  military  and  naval  memories, 
and  the  historical  celebrities  of  the  Mont.  Among  those  themes  we  are 
glad  to  meet  one  already  dealt  with  by  M.  Dupont  in  our  own  columns 
on  the  Scottish  prisoners  in  1546.  There  are  slips  of  more  than  one  sort 
in  the  statement  that  £  Henri  VII  qui  soutenait  les  catholiques  dans  ce  pays 
envoya  Strozzi  assieger  le  chateau,'  i.e.  of  St.  Andrews. 

A  description  of  the  mode  of  salt  making  formerly  pursued  by  the  salters 
(sauniers)  of  Basse-Normandie  has  special  interest  from  the  resemblance  it 
offers  to  the  methods  followed  until  the  beginning  of  last  century  on  the 
Solway.  Odd,  but  fairly  conclusive,  is  the  author's  argument  that  the 
pictured  citadel  of  Tombelaine,  reproduced  as  his  frontispiece,  is  a  veritable 
castle  in  the  air,  as  it  never  existed  !  Interesting  is  the  story  of  Bertrand 
du  Guesclin's  wife,  Tiplaine  de  Raguenel,  with  the  legend,  evidently 
current  in  her  lifetime,  of  her  power  in  astrology  studied  from  a  turret 
chamber  on  the  Mont. 

THE  NEGRO  IN  PENNSYLVANIA  :  SLAVERY — SERVITUDE — FREEDOM,  1639- 
1861.  By  Edward  Raymond  Turner.  Pp.  xii,  314.  Washington: 
American  Historical  Association.  London:  Henry  Frowde.  1911. 
6s.  6d.  net. 

THE  Justin  Winsor  prize  in  American  history  was  awarded  by  the 
American  Historical  Association  to  this  work,  which  well  fulfils  the 
requirement  of  '  independent  and  original  investigation.'  Its  footnote 
references  to  state  papers,  pamphlets,  colonial  and  United  States  books, 
prints,  and  documents  show  a  thoroughly  painstaking  method,  earning  an 
abundance  of  fact  and  fortifying  the  author  in  his  historical  conclusions. 
Pennsylvania  not  being  a  plantation  state,  but  commercial  and  manufactur- 
ing, had  no  need  of  black  labour  as  had  the  states  further  south.  Raymond 
Turner  not  only  himself  traces,  he  also  enables  us  to  accompany  him  in  the 
process  of  tracing,  the  introduction  of  negroes  into  Pennsylvania  anterior  to 
1639,  the  gradual  determination  of  a  status  of  slavery  different  from  the 
original  conditions  of  service  and  life  servitude,  the  effect  of  Quaker  and 
German  antipathy  to  the  system  from  first  to  last  hastening  its  disinte- 
gration by  manumission  of  slaves  and  the  trend  of  legislation,  until  in  1780 
an  abolition  law  was  passed — the  first  in  America.  Nearly  seventy  years 


no     Turner:    The  Negro  in  Pennsylvania 


earlier  the  Assembly  had  passed  tariff  laws  to  check  importation,  but 
Britain  vetoed  them.  After  1780  a  new  evolution  began,  to  determine  the 
status  of  the  free  negro,  the  question  of  suffrage,  ending  in  the  conclusion 
that  he  was  got  a  freeman  for  electoral  purposes,  the  growth  strangely 
alongside  of  abolitionism  of  an  antipathy  to  the  race,  and  the  momentous 
political  issues  raised  by  conflicting  state-views  as  to  fugitive  slaves  and  by 
the  propaganda  of  the  abolitionists  seeking  to  end  slavery  piecemeal  and  of 
the  more  violent  anti-slavery  movement,  which  aimed  at  its  destruction  at 
any  cost. 

So  we  see  in  this  record,  stopping  in  1861,  the  long  development  of  the 
conditions,  and  the  nascent  and  advanced  stages  of  conflicting  opinion  which 
were  ripening  for  explosion  in  civil  war.  It  is  a  deeply  interesting  story, 
well  and  clearly  told.  In  its  beginnings  we  are  reminded  of  Roman  law 
discussions  and  distinctions  of  servitude ;  midway  we  see  the  instinct  of 
freedom  continually  threatened  by  reaction,  but  persistent  and  still  pressing 
forward ;  and  at  the  end  we  perceive  that  abolition  has  in  it  a  moral  pro- 
pulsive energy  which  must  prove  irresistible.  Besides  the  elaborate  foot- 
notes, laden  with  citations,  fifty  pages  of  bibliography  attest  the  ground 
worked  over  by  Professor  Turner  in  a  treatise  most  worthy  of  the  prize  it 
gained. 

JOURNAL   OF  JOHN   ASTON,    1639.      Pp.    47.      8vo.      Alnwick :   Henry 
Hunter  Blair.     1911. 

THIS  contribution  by  Mr.  J.  C.  Hodgson  to  the  History  of  the  Berwick- 
shire Naturalist's  Club,  Vol.  XXL,  comes  as  an  off-print,  which  is  welcome 
as  editing  a  valuable  account  of  an  Englishman's  experiences  attending  on 
King  Charles  as  a  privy  chamberman  extraordinary  in  April,  May,  and 
June,  1639,  while  the  Covenanters  awaited  attack  on  Duns  Law,  until 
after  the  Treaty  of  Berwick  had  ended  the  first  Bishops'  War.  Aston,  a 
Cheshire  gentleman  and  a  capable  observer,  details  very  clearly  all  that 
was  done.  The  disposition  of  the  royal  forces  is  intelligently  presented  : 
there  is  a  capital  sketch  of  Berwick  and  its  condition  to  resist  attack  by  the 
Covenant ;  most  of  the  town,  he  says,  were  favourable  to  the  Covenant, 
4  though  they  durst  not  openly  shew  it,  there  being  noe  reproach  soe 
shamefull  as  to  call  them  Covenanters.'  Of  chief  interest  and  moment 
are  the  descriptions  of  the  king's  camp  at  the  Birks,  three  miles  west  of 
Berwick,  and  of  General  Leslie's  position  at  Duns.  The  day  after  the 
treaty  was  signed  Aston  visited  Duns  Law  and  admired  the  skill  of  Leslie's 
formation,  which  made  it  difficult  to  estimate  the  number  of  troops. 
'  Though  one  ride  often  round  yet  hee  could  not  without  curious  observa- 
tion tell  when  hee  had  compassed  them/  [This  trick  is  old  enough  on 
the  Scottish  borders  to  be  described  in  Egilssaga  as  a  stratagem  by  which 
Egil  hoped  to  deceive  Anlaf  at  Brunanburh.]  No  feature  of  the  descrip- 
tion is  so  interesting  as  that  which  Aston  gives  of  the  Highland  contingent 
in  Leslie's  army.  We  apologise  to  Mr.  Hodgson  for  stealing  this  plum 
from  his  paper. 

'Most  guessed  them  to  bee  about  10  or  12,000  at  the  most,  accounting 
the  highlanders,  whose  fantastique  habitt  caused  much  gazing  by  such  as 


Journal  of  John  Aston  1 1 1 

have  not  scene  them  heertofore.  They  were  all  or  most  part  of  them  well 
timbred  men,  tall  and  active,  apparrelled  in  blew  woollen  wascotts  and  blew 
bonnetts.  A  pair  of  bases  of  plad,  and  stockings  of  the  same,  and  a  pair 
of  pumpes  on  their  feete:  a  mantle  of  plad  cast  over  the  left  shoulder  and 
under  the  right  arm,  a  pocquett  before  for  their  knapsack,  and  a  pair  of 
durgs  on  either  side  the  pocquet.  They  are  left  to  their  owne  election  for 
their  weapons :  some  carry  onely  a  sword  and  targe,  others  musquetts  and 
the  greater  part  bow  and  arrowes,  with  a  quiver  to  hould  about  6  shafts 
made  of  the  maine  of  a  goat  or  colt  with  the  haire  hanging  on  and  fastned 
by  some  belt  or  such  like  soe  as  it  appears  allmost  a  taile  to  them.  Theise 
were  about  1000  and  had  bagg-pipes  (for  the  most  part)  for  their  warlick 
instruments.  The  Laird  Buchannan  was  theire  leader.  Theire  ensignes 
had  strange  devices  and  strange  words  in  a  language  unknowne  to  mee 
whether  their  owne  or  not  I  know  not.  The  ensignes  of  the  other  Scotts 
had  the  St  Andrew's  crosse  in  which  this  word :  "  Covenant  for  Religion 
Crowne  and  Country." 3 

Aston's  story  is  a  piece  of  good  writing,  and  his  summary  of  the  Scottish 
position  will  close  our  quotations. 

'  Indeed  the  campe  was  not  easy  to  be  assaulted  and  the  plaine  round 
about  the  hill  for  a  mile  or  two  was  soe  strewed  with  great  stones  naturally 
that  art  could  not  have  made  a  better  defence  against  our  horse  (wherein 
was  our  greatest  strength)  and  to  helpe  them  more  the  generall  caused 
every  musquetier  instead  of  a  rest,  to  carry  a  short  staffe  shod  with  iron  at 
both  ends  to  stick  sloaping  into  the  ground  for  pallisadoes  against  our  horse : 
but  all  theise  preparations  and  great  lookes  upon  one  another  ended  in  a 
treaty :  and  soe  upon  the  2Oth  of  June  the  Scotsh  army  broke  up.' 

Numismatists  may  note  that  Aston,  in  a  schedule  of  the  Scots  coinage 
at  this  time,  says :  '  Both  wells :  VI  make  a  penny  English.  Placks:  3  make 
a  penny  English.  Atchinsons:  3  make  two  pence  English.' 

Aitchison  had  been  master  of  the  mint  under  James  VI.  and  Charles  I., 
and  was  directly  connected  with  introducing  new  copper  coins.  Bothwell, 
however,  has  apparently  not  been  traced  at  the  mint,  but  the  passage  from 
Aston  above  cited  antedates  by  eleven  years  the  oldest  reading  for  '  bodle ' 
in  the  Oxford  Dictionary. 

The  foregoing  citations  alone  suffice  to  show  what  acknowledgment 
Mr.  Hodgson  deserves  for  his  service  to  Scots  history  in  editing  the 
privy  chamberman's  journal,  the  author's  title  for  which  was  her  Eoreale 
Anno  Salutis  1639  et  Dissidia  inter  Anglos  et  Scotos. 

THE  TEINDS.  WHOSE  AND  WHAT  ARE  THEY  ?  A  SKETCH  OF  THEIR 
ORIGIN  AND  HISTORY.  By  J.  H.  Stevenson.  Pp.  32.  Cr.  8vo. 
Glasgow:  MacLehose.  1912.  Sixpence  net. 

THIS  is  a  lucid  and  carefully  worked-out  historical  answer  to  the  questions 
it  puts,  insisting  centrally  on  the  fact  that  teinds  were  not  a  tax  but  a  free- 
will gift.  Incidentally  the  rise  of  parishes  comes  into  the  story,  and  the 
changes  consequent  on  the  Reformation,  especially  as  regards  the  appro- 
priation of  teinds,  are  critically  scrutinised.  The  author  in  this  concise 
and  instructive  brochure  happily  reconciles  an  antiquary's  duty  to  history 
with  the  sympathies  of  an  elder. 


1 1 2     Bartholomew  :    Gunning's  Last  Years 

GUNNING'S  LAST  YEARS  :  NINE  LETTERS  FROM  Miss  MARY  BEART  TO 
PROFESSOR  ADAM  SEDGWICK.  Edited  by  A.  T.  Bartholomew.  Pp.  27, 
with  Frontispiece.  8vo.  Cambridge  :  Bowes  &  Bowes.  1912.  is.net. 

THIS  reprint  from  the  Cambridge  Review  has  for  frontispiece  a  portrait  of 
Henry  Gunning  from  a  painting.  The  letters  contain  flashes  of  sarcasm, 
and  are  worth  reading  in  spite  of  the  morbid  subject,  for  Miss  Beart  was 
nursing  the  dying  man  and  wrote  the  letters  to  describe  his  illness. 

We  have  frequently  reviewed  the  volumes  of  the  Cambridge  Modern 
History  as  they  have  been  published,  and  give  a  cordial  welcome  to  the 
Cambridge  Modern  History  Atlas  (Cambridge  University  Press,  1912  ; 
255.  net).  It  contains  141  maps  in  colours,  and  an  elaborate  index. 
The  volume  will  be  found  not  only  of  great  use  to  readers  of  the  Cambridge 
Modern  History,  but  as  a  work  of  reference  to  students. 

We  note  with  pleasure  the  publication  of  Chronos,  a  Handbook  of  Chrono- 
logy :  Chronological  Notes  in  History,  Art,  and  Literature  from  8000  B.C.  to 
1700  A.D.,  for  the  use  of  Travellers,  by  R.  J.  Hart  (London  :  George  Bell 
&  Sons  ;  6s.  net).  Books  such  as  this  are  of  great  service  to  students.  So 
far  as  we  have  checked  this  volume  we  have  found  it  accurate.  It  contains 
much  information  as  to  the  by-paths  of  history,  and  has  many  references  to 
literature  and  art. 

Professor  Firth  has  reprinted  from  the  Royal  Historical  Society's  Tran- 
sactions his  curious  and  attractive  paper  on  The  Ballad  History  of  the  Reign 
of  King  James  I.  It  is  a  capital  historical  anthology,  almost  every  chief 
event  of  the  reign  being  illustrated  by  satire  or  song.  Among  themes 
touched  are  the  sale  of  titles,  the  deeds  of  the  pirates,  the  lottery  of  1612, 
the  death  of  Prince  Henry,  the  King's  visit  to  Cambridge,  Gunpowder 
Plot,  the  death  of  Raleigh,  the  fall  of  John  of  Barneveld,  the  proposed  but 
unpopular  Spanish  match,  and  the  welcome  actual  French  marriage. 
Elegies  on  the  king's  death  close  the  paper  with  his  praises : 

'  For  wisdome  Salomon ;  David  for  pietie  ; 
A  heavenly  man  if  not  an  earthly  deitie.' 

Professor  Firth  adds  briskness  and  colour  to  formal  historical  record  by 
these  little  pieces,  which  are  charged  with  gossip  and  intimate  facts,  besides 
reflecting  contemporary  feeling. 


The 

Scottish   Historical    Review 

VOL.  X.,  No.  38  JANUARY  1913 

Loose  and  Broken  Men 

1  FOUND  the  other  day  an  old  bundle  of  papers  docketted  as 
above  in  my  own  hand. 

Many  years  ago  I  must  have  come  on  them  at  Gartmore,  and 
as  in  those  days  it  was  what  the  people  called  a  *  sort  o'  back-lying 
>lace,'  traditions  of  the  doings  of  loose  and  broken  men  still 
jurvived,  though  vaguely  and  as  in  a  mist.  The  loose  and 
>roken  men,  whose  fame  still  echoed  faintly  in  my  youth,  were 
tose  who  after  the  c  Forty-five  *  either  were  not  included  in 
the  general  amnesty,  or  had  become  accustomed  to  a  life  of 
violence. 

Once  walking  down  the  avenue  at  Gartmore  with  my  old  relation, 
Captain  Speirs,  we  passed  three  moss-grown  lumps  of  pudding- 
stone  that  marked  the  ancient  gallows-tree.  Turning  to  it  he 
said  : 

'  Many's  the  broken  man  your  ancestor,  old  Laird  Nicol, 
langit  up  there,  after  the  Forty-five/  He  also  told  me,  just  as  if 
he  had  been  speaking  about  savages,  '  When  I  was  young,  one  day 
up  on  Loch  Ard-side,  I  met  a  Hielandman,  and  when  I  spoke  to 
him,  he  answered  "  Cha  neil  Sassenach  "  ;  1  felt  inclined  to  lay 
my  whip  about  his  back.' 

Even  then  I  wondered  why,  but  prudently  refrained  from  say- 
ing anything,  for  the  old  Captain  had  served  through  the  Penin- 
sular Campaign,  had  been  at  Waterloo,  and,  as  the  country  people 
used  to  say,  he  had  {an  eye  intil  him  like  a  hawk/ 

This  antipathy  to  Highlandmen  which  I  have  seen  exhibited  in 
my  youth,  even  by  educated  men  who  lived  near  to  the  Highland 

S.H.R.  VOL.  x.  H 


ii4  R.   B.  Cunninghame  Graham 

Line,  was  the  result  of  the  exploits  of  the  aforesaid  loose  and 
broken  men,  who  had  descended  (unapostolically)  from  the  old 
marauding  clans. 

The  enemy  came  from  'above  the  pass/  to  such  as  my  old 
uncle,  and  all  the  glamour  Scott  had  thrown  upon  the  clans  never 
removed  the  prejudice  from  their  dour  Lowland  minds. 

Perhaps  if  we  had  lived  in  those  times  we  might  have  shared 
it  too. 

One  of  the  documents  in  the  bundle  to  which  I  have  referred  is 
docketted  '  Information  for  Mr.  Thomas  Buchanan,  Minister  of 
Tullyallan,  heritor  of  Gouston  in  Cashlie.'  Gouston  is  a  farm 
on  the  Gartmore  estate,  on  which  I,  in  years  gone  by,  have  passed 


got  a  gate 

of  the  same  kind  ;  complaints  no  doubt  all  justified,  but  difficult 
to  satisfy  without  Golconda  or  the  Rand  to  draw  upon,  are  ever 
present  in  my  mind. 

The  document  itself,  one  of  a  bundle  dealing  with  the  case, 
written  I  should  judge  by  a  country  writer  (I  have  several  docu- 
ments drawn  up  by  one  who  styles  himself  *  Writer  in  Garrachel,' 
a  farm  in  Gartmore  barony),  is  on  that  thick  and  woolly  but  well- 
made  paper  used  by  our  ancestors,  and  unprocurable  to-day.  The 
writing  is  elegant,  with  something  of  a  look  of  Arabic  about  its 
curving  lines.  It  states  that  : 

1  Ewan  Cameron,  Donald  McTavish  in  Glenco,  Allen  Mackay, 
in  thair  (in  thair,  seems  what  the  French  would  call  "une  terre 
vague,"  but  has  a  fine  noncommital  flavour  in  a  legal  docu- 
ment), John  and  Arch.  M'lan,  his  brethren,  Donald  M'lan, 
alias  Donachar,  also  Paul  Clerich,  Dugald  and  Duncan  M'Ferson 
in  Craiguchty,  Robert  Dou  M'Gregor  and  his  brethren,  John 
and  Walter  M'Watt,  alias  Forrester,  in  Offerance  of  Garrochyle 
belonging  to  the  Laird  of  Gartmore  . .  .  came  violentlie  under 
cloud  of  night  to  the  dwelling  house  of  Isabell  McCluckey, 
relict  of  John  Carrick,  tenant  in  the  town  of  Gouston  with 
this  party  above  mentioned  and  more,  on  December  sixteen 
hundred  (the  date  is  blank,  but  it  occurred  in  1698),  and  then 
on  that  same  night,  it  being  the  Lord's  Day,  broke  open  her 
house,  stript  (another  document  on  the  case  says  "  struck,'* 
which  seems  more  consonant  to  the  character  of  the  High- 
landers) and  bound  herself  and  children  contrarie  to  the 
authoritie  of  the  nation,  and  took  with  them  her  whole 


Loose  and  Broken  Men  115 

insicht  and  plenishing,1  utensils  and  domicil,  with  the  number 
of  six  horses  and  mares,  sixteen  great  cows  and  their  followers, 
item  thirty  six  great  sheep  and  lambs  and  hogs  equivalent,  and 
carried  them  all  away  violentlie,  till  they  came  to  the  said 
Craiguchty,  where  the  said  Ewan  Cameron  cohabited.' 

I  fancy  that  in  Craiguchty,  which  even  in  my  youth  was  a 
wild-looking  place,  the  '  authoritie  of  the  nation '  had  little  sway 
in  those  days.  From  another  document  in  the  bundle,  it  appears 

1  The  subjoined  Inventory  y  dated  1698,  shows  how  thoroughly  the  work  was 
done.  It  also  shows  what  a  careful  housewife  Isabell  M'Luckie  was,  and  that 
she  was  a  past  mistress  of  the  science  of  making  a  'poor  mouth? 

Ane  particular  List  of  what  goods  and  geir  utencills  and  domicills 
was  taken  and  plundered  from  Issobell  M'Luckie  Relict  of  the 
decest  John  Kerick  by  Eun  Cameron  and  his  Accomplices  as 
it  was  given  up  by  her  self : 

In  primis  there  was  Ane  gray  meir  estat  to 
Item  other  three  meirs  estat  to  20  lib  p.p.  is 

It  Ane  flecked  horse  and  ane  black  horse  estat  to  24  lib  p.p 

It  there  was  taken  away  ten  tydie  Coues  estat  to  p.p.  24  lib  is 

It  three  forrow  Cowes  giving  milk  estat  to  20  lib  pp  is 

It  two  yeild  Cowes  estat  to  12  lib  p.p.  is 

It  two  twoyeirolds  estat  to  8  lib  p.p.  is 

It  there  was  taken  away  thirtietwo  great  southland  Sheep  estat 
to  thre  pound  Scots  p  pice  is 

It  there  was  fourtein  hogs  estat  to  2  lib  10  sh:  p.p  is 

It  of  Cloath  and  wolen  yairn  estat  to 

It  Eight  plyds  viz  four  qrof  double  and  four  single  estat  to 

It  ane  pair  of  wollen  Clats  estat  to 

It  Ane  pair  of  Cards  estat  to  2  mk  is 

It  two  heckles  viz  Ane  fyne  &  ane  courser  estat  to 

It  of  mead  neii  harn  in  shirts  30  elns  estat  to 

It  of  neu  Linning  in  Shirts  24  elns  estat  to 

It  ten  petticoats  estat  to 

It  four  westcoats  for  women  estat  to 

It  thre  gouns  for  women  estat  to 

It  on  ax  two  womels  a  borrall  &  a  hamer  estat  to 

It  two  brass  pans  estat 

It  two  dozen  &  a  half  of  spoons  estat  to 

It  on  pair  of  sheetts  &  on  pair  blanqwets  estat  to 

It  on  Covering  estat  to 

It  two  bibles  estat  to 

It  on  pair  of  tongs  estat  to 

It  2  pair  shoes  &  2  pairs  stockings  estat  to 

It  two  green  aprons  estat  to 

It  Ane  pair  of  plou  Irons  and  plough  graith  estat  to 

It  Ane  pistoll  and  a  firelock  estat  to 

It  of  readie  Cash 


040  oo 
060  oo 

0 
0 

048  oo 

0 

240  oo 
060  oo 

0 

0 

024  oo 
016  oo 

0 
0 

096  oo 

0 

021  00 

0 

035  oo 
048  oo 
ooi  1  6 

0 

O 
0 

ooi  6 

8 

003  1  8 

O 

012  OO 

0 

OI2  OO 

0 

030  oo 
004  6 

0 
0 

OI2   O 

O 

002  10 

0 

OO3  12 

ooi  1  8 

0 
0 

005  oo 

0 

004  oo 

0 

003  10 

0 

OOO  IO 

0 

005  08 

0 

003  oo 

O 

OI2  OO 

0 

010  00 

0 

013  06 

8 

n6  R.   B.   Cunninghame  Graham 

that,  not  content  with  driving  off  the  stock  and  bearing  away  the 
c  insicht  and  the  plenishings/  the  complainants  and  their  servants 
'were  almost  frichted  from  their  Witts,  through  the  barbarous 
usadge  of  the  said  broken  and  loose  men/ 

However,  the  '  mad-herdsmen/  as  the  phrase  went  then,  drove 
the  c  creagh '  towards  Aberfoyle.  The  path  by  which  they  carried 
it  was  probably  one  that  I  once  knew  well. 

It  runs  from  Gartmore  village,  behind  the  Drum,  out  over  a 
wild  valley  set  with  junipers  and  whins,  till  after  crossing  a  little 
tinkling,  brown  burn,  it  enters  a  thick  copse.  Emerging  from  it, 
it  leaves  two  cottages  on  the  right  hand,  near  which  grow  several 
rowans  and  an  old  holly,  and  once  again  comes  out  upon  a  valley, 
but  flatter  than  the  last.  In  the  middle  of  it  runs  a  larger  burn, 
its  waters  dark  and  mossy,  with  little  linns  in  which  occasionally  a 
pike  lies  basking  in  the  sun. 

An  old-world  bridge  is  supported  upon  blocks  of  pudding-stone, 
the  footway  formed  of  slabs  of  whin,  which  from  remotest  ages 
must  have  been  used  by  countless  generations  of  brogue-shod 
feet,  it  is  so  polished  and  worn  smooth.  Again,  there  is  another 
little  copse,  surrounded  by  a  dry-stone  dyke,  with  hoops  of  withes 
stuck  into  the  feals,  to  keep  back  sheep,  and  then  the  track  comes 
out  upon  the  manse  of  Aberfoyle,  with  its  long  row  of  storm-swept 
Spanish  chestnuts,  planted  by  Dr.  Patrick  Graham,  author  of 


It  ane  buff  belt  ooi   04  o 

It  two  plyds  estat  to  016  oo  o 

It  of  Muslin  and  Lining  and  oyr  fyn  Close  estat  to                               020  oo  o 

It  ten  elns  of  new  black  felt  in  yearn  &  wool  oio  oo  o 

It  Six  Sack  of  tueling  four  elns  each  008  oo  o 

It  a  canvas  eight  eln  002    1 3  04 

It  a  quarter  of  Butter  &  half  ston  002  oo  o 


I  flacked  horse  4  year  old 

1  bell  broun  horse  3  whyt  feet  8  year  old 

2  bell  broun  mares  whyt  foted  whyt  nosed  7  year  old 

Merk  of  her  sheep 

prope  in  ye  far  lug  &  only  cloven  in  ye  near  lug — 

Loss  of  20  bols  of  red  land  whyt  corn  sowing  33    13  04 

It    a  hundred  cups  of  sheep  muck  09  oo  oo 

It    Sixtie  cups  of  cows  muck  02  oo  oo 

It    of  silver  rent  60  oo  oo 

It    of  Lome  meal  ten  bols  80  oo  oo 

It    of  expenses  wt.  M'Luckie  at  sevrel  trysts  I  o  oo  oo 

It    of  spy  money  10  oo  oo 

204   13     4 


Loose  and  Broken  Men  117 

Sketches  of  Perthshire.  From  this  spot,  Ewan  Cameron,  Donald 
M'lan  (alias  Donachar)  and  Robert  Dhu  McGregor,  might  have 
seen,  though  of  course  they  did  not  look,  being  occupied  with  the 
creagh,  the  church  and  ancient  churchyard  of  Aberfoyle,  and  the 
high-pitched,  two-arched  bridge,  under  which  runs  the  Avon- 
Dhu. 

All  this  they  might  have  seen  as  *  Ewan  Cameron  cohabited  at 
Craiguchty,'  near  the  Bridge  of  Aberfoyle.  Had  they  but  looked 
they  would  have  seen  the  Clachan  with  its  low,  black  huts,  look- 
ing like  boats  set  upside  down,  the  smoke  ascending  from  the 
wooden  box-like  chimneys, — these  they  did  not  mark,  quite 
naturally,  as  they  were  the  only  chimneys  they  had  ever  seen; 
nor  did  the  acrid  peat-reek  fill  their  nostrils,  accustomed  to  its 
fumes,  with  the  same  smell  of  wildness  as  it  does  ours  to-day. 

Craigmore  and  its  White  Lady  was  but  a  ruckle  of  old  stones 
to  them,  and  if  they  thought  of  any  natural  feature,  it  may  have 
been  the  Fairy  Hill  to  which  the  Rev.  Robert  Kirke,  their  minister, 
had  retired  only  six  years  before,  to  take  up  habitation  with  the 
Men  of  Peace.1 

Most  probably  they  only  scrugged  their  bonnets,  shifted  their 
targets  on  their  backs,  called  out  to  any  lagging  beast,  or  without 
stopping  picked  up  a  stone  to  throw  at  him.  The  retiring  free- 
booters 'lay  there  (Craiguchty)  the  first  night/  One  can  see 
them,  going  and  coming  about  the  little  shieling,  and  Ewan 
Cameron's  wife  and  children,  with  shaggy  hair  and  uncouth  look, 
coming  out  to  meet  them,  just  as  the  women  of  an  Arab  '  duar ' 
come  out  to  meet  a  marauding  party,  raising  their  shrill  cries. 

Some  of  the  men  must  have  been  on  guard  all  night  to  keep 
the  animals  from  straying  and  to  guard  against  surprise,  and  as 
they  walked  about,  blowing  upon  their  fingers  to  keep  them  warm, 
the  cold  December  night  must  have  seemed  long  to  them. 

They  would  sleep  little,  between  the  cold  and  fear  of  an  attack. 
Long  before  daylight  they  would  be  astir,  just  as  a  war  party  of 
Indians,  or  cattle-men  upon  an  expedition  in  America,  who  spend 
the  colder  hours  before  the  morning  seated  around  the  fire,  always 
rise  just  before  the  dawn  to  boil  their  coffee  pots.  We  know  what 
took  the  place  of  coffee  with  Ewan  Cameron  and  his  band,  or  can 
divine  it  at  the  least. 

Next  night  they  reached  Achray,  *  in  the  Earl  of  Menteith's 

1  See  the  Secret  Commonwealth  of  Elves,  Fairies  and  Fauns,  written  in  1691  (?)  and 
supposed  to  have  been  first  published  in  1815.  It  was  reprinted  in  1893,  with 
Introduction  by  Andrew  Lang. 


ii8  R.   B.  Cunninghame  Graham 

land,  and  lay  there  in  the  town.'  By  this  time  the  'said  hership ' 
(that  is,  the  stolen  beasts)  must  have  been  rather  troublesome  to 
drive,  as  the  old  trail,  now  long  disused,  that  ran  by  the  birch 
copse  above  the  west  end  of  Loch  Dunkie,  was  steep  and  rocky, 
and  ill  adapted  for  { greate  cowes.' 

Both  at  Craiguchty  and  Achray  they  had  begun  to  sell  their 
booty,  for  the  tenants  there  are  reported  as  not  having  been  c  free 
of  the  hership.' 

In  fact,  *  Walter  and  John  M'Lachlin  in  Blairwosh '  bought 
several  of  the  animals.  Their  names  seem  not  to  have  been  con- 
cealed, and  it  appears  the  transaction  was  looked  upon  as  one 
quite  natural. 

One,  Donald  Stewart,  '  who  dwells  at  the  wast  end  of  Loch 
Achray,'  also  '  bought  some  of  the  geare,'  with  '  certaine '  of  the 
sheep,  and  *  thereafter  transported  them  to  the  highland  to  the 
grass.' 

Almost  unconsciously,  with  regard  to  these  sheep,  the  Spanish 
proverb  rises  to  the  mind,  that  says,  '  a  sardine  that  the  cat  has 
taken,  seldom  or  never  comes  back  to  the  plate.' 

So  far,  all  is  clear  and  above  board.  Ewan  Cameron  and  his 
band  of  rogues  broke  in  and  stole  and  disposed  of  such  of  the 
booty  as  they  could,  sharing,  one  hopes,  equitably  between  them 
the  sum  of  '  fiftie  six  pounds,  six  shillings  and  eight  pennies ' 
(Scots)  that  they  found  in  the  house,  reserving  naturally  a  small 
sum,  in  the  nature  of  a  bonus,  to  Ewan  Cameron,  for  his  skill  in 
getting  up  the  raid. 

As  I  do  not  believe  in  the  word  '  stripping,'  and  am  aware  that 
if  we  substitute  the  homelier  '  striking '  for  it,  no  great  harm 
would  probably  be  done  in  an  age  when  the  stage  directions  in  a 
play  frequently  run  *  beats  his  servant  John,'  when  speaking  of 
some  fine,  young  spark,  all  hitherto  seems  to  have  been  conducted 
in  the  best  style  of  such  business  known  on  the  Highland  line. 

Now  comes  in  one  '  Alexander  Campbell,  alias  M'Grigor,'  who 
c  informs '  ;  oh,  what  a  falling  off  was  there,  in  one  of  the 
Gregarach. 

This  hereditary  enemy  of  my  own  family,  and  it  is  chiefly  upon 
that  account  I  wish  to  speak  dispassionately  .  .  . c  sed  magis  amicus 
veritas ' .  .  .  informed,  that  is  he  condescended  to  give  his  moral  sup- 
port to  laws  made  by  the  Sassenach  '  that  Duncan  Stewart  in  Baad  of 
Bochasteal,  bought  two  of  the  said  cowes.'  Whatever  could  have 
come  into  his  head  ?  Could  not  this  Campbell,  for  I  feel  he  could 
not  have  been  of  the  sept  of  Dougal  Ciar  Mor,  the  hero  who 


Loose  and  Broken  Men  119 

wrought  such  execution  on  the  shaveling  band1  of  clerks  after 
Glen  Fruin,  have  left  the  matter  to  the  *  coir  na  claidheamh  '  ? 

So  far  from  this,  the  recreant  M'Gregor,  bound  and  obliged 
himself  *  to  prove  the  same  by  four  sufficient  witnesses ' — so 
quickly  had  he  deteriorated  from  the  true  practice  of  his  clan. 
His  sufficient  witnesses  were  *  John  Grame  and  his  sub-tenant  in 
Ballanton,  his  neighbour  Finley  Dymoch,  and  John  M'Adam, 
Osteleir  in  Offerance  of  Gartmore.'  A  little  leaven  leaveneth  the 
whole,  and  the  bad  example  of  this  man  soon  bore  its  evil  fruit. 

We  find  that  *  Robert  Grame  in  Ballanton  '  (that  is  not  wonder- 
ful, for  he  was  of  a  hostile  clan  and  had  received  none  of  the  spoil 
as  justifiable  hush  money)  also  came  forward,  with  what  in  his  case 
I  should  soften  into  *  testimony.'  Far  more  remains  to  tell.  *  Jean, 
spouse  to  the  said  Ewan  Cameron/  that  very  Ewan  who  so  justly 
received  a  bonus  as  the  rent  of  his  ability,  also  came  forward  and 
informed.  She  deponed  c  that  Walter  M'Watt  was  of  the  band,' 
although  we  knew  it  all  before. 

It  is  painful  to  me  to  record  that  the  said  M'Watt  was  c  tenant 
to  said  Laird  of  Gartmore,'  for  it  appears  according  to  the  evidence 
of  Ewan  Cameron's  wife  that c  he  brocht  the  said  rogues  to  the  said 
house,  went  in  at  ane  hole  in  the  byre,  which  formerly  he  knew,  opened 
the  door  and  cutted  the  bands  of  the  said  cowes  and  horse.'  This 
man,  who  after  all  neither  made  nor  unmade  kings,  but  only  served 
his  lord  (Ewan  Cameron),  *  got  for  his  pains,  two  sheep,  a  plyde,  a 
pair  of  tow-cards,  two  heckles  and  a  pair  of  wool  elects,  with  ane 
maikle  brass  pan  and  several  other  thinges.'  The  harrying  of  the 
luckless  Isabell  M'Clucky  seems  to  have  been  done  thoroughly 
enough,  and  in  a  business  way.  However,  punishment  possibly 
overtook  the  evil-doers,  as  Thomas  M'Callum,  '  who  changed  the 
said  brass  pott  with  the  said  M'Watt  for  bute,' 2  testified  in  con- 
firmation of  the  above. 

*  Item  Janet  Macneall  giveth  up  that  she  saw  him  take  the 
plough  irons  out  of  a  moss  hole  the  summer  thereafter  with  ane 
pott  when  he  flitted  out  of  Offerance  to  the  waird,  and  that  he 
sent  the  plaid  and  some  other  plenishing  that  he  got  to  John 

1 1  am  well  aware  that  gentlemen  of  the  Clan  Gregor  have  indignantly  denied 
that  Dougal  Ciar  Mor  was  the  author  of  the  slaughter  of  the  students  in  Glen 
Fruin.  If  though  we  hold  him  innocent,  how  is  he  to  be  justified  in  the  eyes 
of  fame,  for  he  seems  to  have  done  nothing  else  worthy  of  remark,  .  .  .  except 
of  course  being  the  ancestor  of  Rob  Roy,  an  entirely  unconscious  feat  of  arms 
on  his  part. 

2  Bute  =  spoil. 


I2O 


R.   B.  Cunninghame  Graham 


Hunter  his  house  in  Corriegreenan  for  fear  of  being  known.  Item 
the  said  Walter  M'Watt  died  tenant  to  the  Laird  of  Gartmore 
and  his  spouse  and  the  said  John  Hunter  took  and  intromitted 
with  the  whole  geir.  Item  Elizabeth  Parland  spouse  to  umquhile 
George  M'Muir,  Moorherd  in  Gartmore,  informs  she  being  ane 
ostlere,  that  they  gave  a  cow  that  night  they  lifted  the  hership  to 
Patrick  Graeme  in  Middle  Gartfarran  in  the  byegoing  betwixt  him 
and  his  brother  Alexander  Graeme  in  Borland  and  also  that  the 
said  Robert  M'Grigor  and  his  brethern  with  the  said  John 
M'Watt  met  them  in  the  way,  although  they  came  not  to  the 
house. 

Item  that  they  sold  the  rest  of  the  geir  at  one  Nicol  M'Nicol's 
house  in  the  Brae  of  Glenurchy  and  the  said  Nicol  M'Nicol  got 
a  flecked  horse  for  meat  and  drink  from  them  and  lastly  Dugald 
M'Laren  and  his  brother  Alexander  got  aquaviti  among  them. 
This  is  the  true  information  of  the  said  persons  that  I  have 
endeavoured  to  get  nottrie  att,  and  if  they  be  not  material  bonds 
and  grounds  of  pursuit  in  it  I  give  it  over,  but  as  I  think  the 
most  material  point  is  in  the  third  article/ 

So  ends  the  document,  leaving  us  in  the  dark  as  to  what 
happened  in  the  end,  just  as  is  usually  the  case  in  life. 

The  names  of  nearly  all  the  witnesses,  as  Elizabeth  Parlane, 
John  Ffisher,  Robert  Carrick,  Robert  M'Laren,  Thomas 
M'Millan,  the  pseudo-M'Gregor,  and  of  course  the  Grames,  were 
all  familiar  to  me  in  the  Gartmore  of  my  youth. 

All  the  place-names  remain  unchanged,  although  a  certain 
number  of  them  have  been  forgotten,  except  by  me,  and  various 
old  semi-Highlanders  interested  in  such  things,  or  accustomed  to 
their  sound.  Ballanton,  Craiguchty,  Cullochgairtane  (now  Cooli- 
garten),  Offerance  of  Garrachel,  Gouston  of  Cashlie,  Bochaistail, 
Gartfarran,  Craigieneult,  Boquhapple,  Corriegreenan,  and  others 
which  I  have  not  set  down,  as  Milltown  of  Aberfoyle,  though 
they  occur  in  one  or  other  of  the  documents,  are  household 
words  to  me. 

What  is  changed  entirely  is  the  life.  No  one,  I  say  it  boldly, 
no  one  alive  can  reconstruct  a  Highlander  of  the  class  treated  of 
in  my  document  as  Loose  and  Broken  Men. 

Pictures  may  show  us  chiefs.  Song  and  tradition  tell  us  tricks 
of  manner ;  but  Ewan  Cameron,  Robert  Dou  M'Grigor,  and  their 
bold  compeers  elude  us  utterly.  A  print  of  Rob  Roy,  from  the 
well-known  picture  once  in  the  possession  of  the  Buchanans  of 
Arden,  hangs  above  the  mantelpiece  just  where  I  write  these  lines. 


Loose  and  Broken  Men  121 

He  must  have  known  many  a  "  gallowglass  "  of  the  Ewan  Cameron 
breed  ;  but  even  he  was  semi-civilised,  and  of  a  race  different 
from  all  my  friends.  Long-haired,  light  (and  rough)  footed, 
wild-eyed,  ragged  carles  they  must  have  been  ;  keen  on  a  trail 
as  is  an  Indian  or  a  Black- boy  in  North  Queensland,  pitiless, 
blood-thirsty,  and  yet  apt  at  a  bargain,  as  their  disposal  of 
the  'particular  goodes,  to  wit,  four  horses  and  two  mares,'  the 
sheep  and  other  '  gear '  goes  far  to  prove. 

The  mares  and  horses  are  set  down  as  being  worth  '  thirttie  six 
pound  the  piece  overhead/  and  I  am  certain  Ewan  Cameron  got 
full  value  for  them,  even  although  the  price  was  paid  in  Scots,  for 
sterling  money  in  those  days  could  not  have  been  much  used 
'  above  the  pass/  It  must  have  been  a  more  exciting  life  in 
Gartmore  and  in  Aberfoyle  than  in  our  times,  and  have  resembled 
that  of  Western  Texas  fifty  years  ago.  In  London,  Addison  was 
rising  into  fame,  and  had  already  translated  Ovid's  Meta- 
morphoses. Prior  was  Secretary  to  the  Embassy  in  Holland, 
Swift  was  a  parish  priest  at  Laracar,  and  in  the  very  year  (1698) 
in  which  Ewan  Cameron  drove  his  ccreagh'  past  the  Grey  Mare's 
Tail,  on  the  old  road  to  Loch  Achray,  Defoe  published  his 
Essay  on  Projects,  and  two  years  later  his  True  Englishman. 

Roads  must  have  been  non-existent,  or  at  least  primitive  in  the 
district  of  Menteith.  This  is  shown  clearly  by  the  separation,  as 
of  a  whole  world,  between  the  farm  of  Gouston,  near  Buchlyvie, 
and  the  shores  of  Loch  Achray,  where  it  was  safe  to  sell  in  open 
day,  beasts  stolen  barely  fifteen  miles  away. 

Men,  customs,  crops,  and  in  a  measure  even  the  face  of  the 
low  country  through  which  those  loose  and  broken  men  passed, 
driving  the  stolen  cows  and  sheep,  have  changed.  If  they 
returned,  all  that  they  would  find  unaltered  would  be  the  hills, 
Ben  Dearg  and  Ben  Dhu,  Craig  Vadh,  Ben  Ledi,  Schiehallion, 
Ben  Voirlich,  distant  Ben  More,  with  its  two  peaks,  and  Ben 
Venue  peeping  up  timidly  above  the  road  they  travelled  on  that 
December  night,  the  Rock  of  Stirling,  the  brown  and  billowy 
Flanders  moss,  and  the  white  shrouding  mists. 

R.    B.    CUNNINGHAME    GRAHAM. 


A  Forgotten   Scottish  Scholar   of  the  Sixteenth 

Century1 

IN  Smollett's  comedy,  The  Reprisal^  published  in  1757,  one  of 
the  characters,  a  Scottish  ensign  in  the  French  service,  makes 
this  remark  to  his  companion-in-arms,  an  Irish  lieutenant  of 
the  name  of  Ochlabber,  *  Hoot,  fie  !  Captain  Ochlabber,  whare's 
a'  your  philosophy  ?  Did  ye  never  read  Seneca  De  Consolatione, 
or  Volusenus,  my  countryman,  De  Tranquillitate  Animi  ? '  It 
was  not  very  likely  that  an  Irish  lieutenant  should  have  heard 
of  Volusenus,  and  still  less  likely  that  he  had  read  his  principal 
work.  At  least,  only  six  years  before  the  appearance  of  Smollett's 
play,  a  Principal  of  the  university  of  Edinburgh,  Dr.  William 
Wishart,  had  published  a  new  edition  of  Volusenus's  book,  accom- 
panied by  a  prefatory  epistle  in  which  the  writer2  asks  this 
question,  c  How  many  to-day  have  heard  anything  of  Volusenus  ? ' 
If  we  go  back  a  century  earlier,  we  find  that  Volusenus  was  then 
no  better  known,  even  in  his  native  country.  In  1637  had 
appeared  a  previous  issue  of  his  book,  and  the  editor,  David 
Echlin,  physician  to  Henrietta  Maria,  begins  his  dedication  as 
follows  :  *  How  much  not  only  his  parent  Scotland,  prolific  in 
such  geniuses,  but  all  the  nations  of  the  earth,  owe  to  Florentius 
Volusenus,  this  one  little  book  of  his  amply  testifies/  In  view  of 
the  immense  debt  the  world  owed  to  Volusenus,  however,  it  is 
somewhat  curious  to  find  the  editor  taking  credit  to  himself  for 
*  rescuing  Volusenus  from  the  jaws  of  Orcus.'  These  testimonies 
may  suffice  to  prove  that,  though  Volusenus  may  have  been  known 
to  a  few  scholars,  he  had  no  place  in  the  memories  of  the  mass  of 
his  countrymen  as  one  of  the  distinguished  ornaments  of  their 
nation.  Be  it  added  that  of  the  Scottish  historians  who  wrote  in 

^Delivered   as  an    Introductory  Lecture    to  the  Class  of  Ancient    (Scottish) 
History  in  the  University  of  Edinburgh. 

2  Dr.  John  Ward  of  Gresham  College,  London. 


A   Forgotten  Scottish  Scholar  123 

the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  only  one,  Calderwood, 
mentions  his  name.1 

In  recent  years,  Florence  Wilson,  for  such  is  his  name  in  the 
vernacular,  has  attracted  the  attention  of  three  distinguished 
scholars,  all  of  whom  recognised  in  him  a  rare  and  choice  spirit 
whom  his  countrymen  do  not  well  to  forget.  It  fell  to  Professor 
~  obertson  Smith  to  write  an  account  of  Wilson  for  the  Encyclopaedia 
"ritannica,  and  he  became  so  interested  in  the  task  that  he  made 

special  investigation  of  Wilson's  career,  with  the  result  that  he 
discovered  two  productions  from  his  hand  which  had  hitherto 
escaped  notice.  The  late  Dr.  R.  C.  Christie,  whose  life  was 
devoted  to  the  study  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  whose  biography 
of  the  printer  Etienne  Dolet  is  the  monument  of  his  labours,  also 
found  in  Wilson  a  subject  of  such  interest  that  he  contributed 
a  sketch  of  him  to  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  in  which 
he  throws  new  light  on  certain  periods  of  Wilson's  career. 
Finally,  a  French  historian,  M.  Ferdinand  Buisson,  well  known 
for  his  services  to  primary  education  in  France,  has  given  a 
picture  of  Wilson  and  his  surroundings  which  puts  it  beyond 
doubt  that  he  was  one  of  whom  his  country  had  reason  to  be 
proud.2 

In  the  sixteenth  century  it  was  not  the  custom  to  write  a  two- 
volume  biography  of  every  person  more  or  less  distinguished 
immediately  on  his  decease.  At  the  close  of  his  long  life,  George 
Buchanan  wrote  a  brief  sketch  of  his  own  career  ;  and  it  was  a 
wise  precaution,  since  that  sketch  is  the  foundation  of  every  bio- 
graphy that  can  be  written  of  him.  In  the  case  of  even  the  most 
notable  scholars,  a  page  or  two  prefixed  to  their  works  by  some 
one  more  or  less  intimately  acquainted  with  them  is  for  the  most 
part  the  sole  record  we  have  of  their  lives.  So  it  is  in  the  case  of 
Florence  Wilson,  of  whom  we  have  a  page  of  biography  from  the 

1  Calderwood's  account  of  Wilson  is  as  follows  :  '  Florence  Wilsone,  a  Black 
frier,  in  Elgine  of  Murrey,  threw  off  his  monkish  habite  this  yeere,  (i  539,)  and  fled 
out  of  the  countrie.  He  was  a  learned  man,  and  of  great  expectatioun,  as 
Gesnerus  gathered,  partlie  frome  his  workes,  and  partlie  by  conference  with  him 
at  Lions.  The  yeere  following,  as  he  maketh  mentioun  in  his  Bibliothecke,  when 
he  was  in  England,  he  had  some  conference  with  the  Bishop  of  Rochester.  The 
bishop  tooke  him  to  have  beene  a  merchaunt.  But  after  some  conference  he 
perceaved  him  to  be  a  learned  man,  and  burst  forth  in  these  words,  "  I  mervel 
that  the  hereticks  can  interprete  the  Scriptures  so  perfytelie  ! "  (Historie  of  the 
Kirk  of  Scotland,  i.  pp.  133-4.) 

^Sebastlen  Castelliotij  sa  Vie  et  son  (Euvre  (Paris,  1892),  vol.  i.  pp,  35-6. 


124  P.   Hume  Brown 

hand  of  one  who  wrote  some  seventy  years  after  his  death.1 
Fortunately  there  are  other  stray  sources  of  information  which 
give  us  glimpses  of  him  at  certain  periods  of  his  life  that  are  of 
special  interest  and  significance.  Anything  approaching  a  detailed 
biography  of  him,  indeed,  is  impossible  with  the  materials  at  our 
disposal,  yet,  such  as  it  is,  our  information  presents  us  with  a  career 
and  a  personality  which  seems  to  have  impressed  and  fascinated 
personages  of  the  highest  note,  equally  in  the  world  of  learning 
and  of  diplomacy. 

Of  Wilson's  parentage  we  know  nothing  —  his  biographer 
making  the  bare  statement  that  he  was  of  good  family.  Nor 
have  we  any  trustworthy  record  either  of  the  date  or  the  place 
of  his  birth.2  As  to  the  date,  all  that  we  can  safely  say  is  that 
he  was  born  in  the  opening  years  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and 
thus  was  the  contemporary  of  George  Buchanan,  who  was  born 
in  1506  or  1507,  and  with  whom  in  later  life  he  came  to  be  in 
friendly  relations.  From  a  passage  in  his  chief  work  we  inci- 
dentally learn  the  part  of  the  country  with  which  at  least  a  part 
of  his  youth  was  associated.  He  there  represents  himself  as 
walking  on  the  banks  of  the  river  Lossie  in  company  with  one 
William  Ogilvie,  who  was  to  be  his  life-long  friend,  and  dis- 
cussing the  eternal  problems  of  human  life  and  destiny.3  As  at 
the  period  when  these  discussions  took  place,  he  had  studied 
philosophy  for  four  years,  we  may  infer  that  he  had  completed 
his  course  at  some  university  where  philosophy  was  taught. 

In  the  sixteenth  century,  in  Scotland,  households  did  not  fre- 
quently migrate  from  one  part  of  the  country  to  another.  Under 
the  conditions  of  feudal  society  the  successive  generations  remained 
of  necessity  attached  to  the  neighbourhood  where  they  had  origi- 
nally struck  root.  It  seems  a  fairly  safe  inference,  therefore, 
that  on  the  completion  of  his  university  course  Wilson  returned 
to  his  native  district  and  his  paternal  home.  And  if  the  inference 
be  correct,  he  was  fortunate  in  the  region  of  his  birth.  The 
Scottish  historians,  who  wrote  in  the  sixteenth  century,  celebrate 

aThe  biographer  was  Thomas  Wilson,  advocate,  son-in-law  of  Archbishop 
Adamson.  The  biography  is  attached  to  his  edition  of  Adamson's  Works  (Adam- 
soni  Poemafa  Sacra,  Lond.  1619, 


2  His  biographer  gives  no  date,  but  specifies  the  place  of  his  birth  as  *  the  banks 
of  the  Lossie,  not  far  from  Elgin.'  This  statement  was  probably  based  on  a 
passage  in  De  Animi  Tranquillitate  referred  to  below. 

Animi  Tranquillitate  (ed.  1751),  p.  100. 


A   Forgotten  Scottish  Scholar  125 

the  district  of  Moray  as  the  garden  of  Scotland,  unsurpassed  else- 
where for  the  fertility  of  its  soil  and  the  beauty  of  its  scenery. 
In  Wilson's  day  natural  scenery  was  not  the  object  of  aesthetic 
contemplation  which  it  is  in  ours,  but  in  a  simple,  human  way 
they  found  their  own  pleasure  in  it,  as  their  writings  abundantly 
testify.  Long  afterwards,  when  settled  in  France,  he  recalled 
the  beauties  of  his  early  haunts — the  hills  clothed  with  woods, 
the  fertile  fields  and  the  neighbouring  lake,  Loch  Spynie,  fre- 
quented by  swans.1 

More  important,  in  view  of  his  subsequent  career,  is  the  fact 
that  in  the  neighbouring  town  of  Elgin  he  would  find  advantages 
which  few  other  towns  in  Scotland  could  then  offer.  There  was 
its  cathedral,  the  most  beautiful  edifice  of  its  kind  in  the  country, 
though  in  Wilson's  day  it  bore  the  marks  of  the  sacrilegious  hand 
of  the  Wolf  of  Badenoch,  who  in  the  previous  century  had 
avenged  himself  on  the  Bishop  of  Moray  by  ravaging  his  temple. 
In  the  cathedral  and  the  community  of  ecclesiastics  attached  to  it 
he  would  see  the  Church  of  Rome  represented  in  its  most  august 
form,  and  the  impression  they  made  upon  him  appears  in  his 
description  of  the  Temple  of  Peace,  constructed  of  Parian  marble, 
and  where  heathen  virtue  found  its  home.2  In  Elgin,  also, 
towards  the  end  of  the  previous  century,  1489,  the  Chapter  of  the 
cathedral  had  founded  a  school  which  from  the  richness  of  the 
diocese  of  Moray  was  likely  to  have  been  one  of  the  best  in  the 
country.  As  in  all  the  cathedral  schools  of  the  time,  Latin  would 
be  the  main  subject  of  study,  and,  if  it  were  taught  as  it  was 
taught  in  other  schools  of  which  we  have  the  record,  the  aptest 
pupils  would  acquire  a  colloquial  use  of  the  Latin  language  which 
made  them  citizens  of  educated  Europe.  The  Latin  taught  at 
Elgin  in  Wilson's  day  would,  of  course,  be  the  mediaeval  Latin  of 
the  Church,  and  not  that  language  as  it  had  come  to  be  written 
by  the  Latin  humanists  of  the  fifteenth  century.  In  an  inter- 
esting passage  in  his  Dialogue  Wilson  expresses  the  consciousness 
of  his  disadvantage  in  not  having  been  trained  in  the  latest  lights 
of  the  revival  of  letters.  To  the  two  interlocutors  who  desire 
him  to  expound  his  philosophy  of  life  he  apologises  for  himself 
as  *  a  barbarian,  born  and  reared  in  an  alien  tongue  and  alien 
manners — that  is  to  say,  among  the  remote  Britons ;  and  late  and 
superficially  tinctured  with  that  learning  which  for  them  is  foreign 
and  acquired.'8  In  point  of  fact,  wherever  he  acquired  the 
accomplishment,  Wilson  came  to  write  Latin  with  a  correctness 
1  lb.  p.  101.  2/£.  pp.  ioi  et  seq.  *  Ib.  p.  19. 


i26  P.   Hume  Brown 

which  gained  the  applause  of  his  contemporary  scholars  ;  and  he 
even  criticises  Erasmus  for  the  negligence  of  his  Latin  style.1 
And  we  shall  see  that  at  a  turning-point  of  his  career  the  choice- 
ness  and  elegance  of  his  Latin  speech  gained  him  the  friendship 
and  patronage  of  one  of  the  great  princes  of  the  Church,  accom- 
plished in  all  the  learning  of  the  age. 

Indirectly  from  Wilson  himself  we  learn  that  he  studied  at  the 
University  of  Aberdeen,  then  the  best  equipped  of  the  three 
universities  that  had  been  founded  in  Scotland  during  the  fifteenth 
century.  Under  the  munificent  patronage  of  Bishop  Elphin- 
stone,  its  founder,  it  had  a  staff  of  thirty-six  teachers — all,  be 
it  noted,  members  of  the  Collegiate  Church  of  Aberdeen.  At  its 
head  was  a  scholar  of  dubious  fame  in  our  literary  annals,  Hector 
Boyce,2  who  deserves  a  passing  reference  as  the  earliest  known 
representative  in  Scotland  of  what  is  designated  humanism.  Born 
in  Dundee  about  1465,  he  had  studied  in  Paris,  where  he  sub- 
sequently taught  philosophy  in  one  of  its  most  famous  schools, 
the  College  Montaigu.  Of  all  the  colleges  in  the  University  of 
Paris,  Montaigu  had  the  reputation  of  being  most  hostile  to  the 
new  lights  of  the  time,  and  Erasmus  bitterly  rails  against  it  as  the 
stronghold  of  effete  studies.  The  philosophy  which  Boyce  taught 
in  Montaigu,  therefore,  must  have  been  the  trifling  dialectic  into 
which  scholasticism  had  degenerated  at  the  close  of  the  fifteenth 
century.  But  what  is  singular  is  that  he  writes  a  Latin  style 
which  in  vocabulary  and  construction  has  nothing  in  common 
with  the  Latin  of  the  schoolmen,  as  we  have  it,  for  example,  in 
the  writings  of  his  contemporary,  John  Major.  Boyce  had  evi- 
dently taken  as  his  models  the  classical  writers  of  Rome,  more 
especially  Livy,  whom  in  his  History  of  Scotland  he  obviously 
sought  to  emulate.  Of  that  remarkable  history  this  is  not  the 
occasion  to  speak.  Here  we  are  only  concerned  with  the  fact 
that  Boyce  belonged  to  a  class  of  persons  who  are  found  in  every 
age.  By  his  natural  instincts  he  was  in  full  sympathy  with  the 
new  tendencies  of  his  time,  but  from  early  training  and  associa- 
tions he  could  not  entirely  free  himself  from  the  trammels  of  the 
past. 

As  philosophy  was  the  subject  on  which  Boyce  prelected,  it  is 
probable  that  it  was  at  his  feet  Wilson  sat  during  his  university 

1  De  Amuil  Tranquillitate  (ed.  1751),  p.  250. 

2  In  a  letter  addressed  later  in  life  to  his  friend  John  Ogilvie,  Wilson  sends  his 
greetings  to  Hector  Boyce,  whom,  therefore,  he  must  have  known  in  his  youth. 

Notes  and  Queries,  2nd  Series,  viii.  Sept.  10,  1859.) 


A   Forgotten  Scottish  Scholar  127 

course  at  Aberdeen.  Doubtless,  the  matter  and  method  of  Boyce's 
discourses  were  but  a  repetition  of  what  he  had  learned  in  the 
benighted  college  of  Montaigu.  At  all  events,  Wilson  does  not 
appear  to  have  thought  his  four  years'  study  of  philosophy  at 
Aberdeen  to  have  been  very  profitably  spent.  '  The  early  part  of 
my  life,'  he  says,  cwas  passed  in  learning  trifles;  would  that  a 
good  portion  of  it  had  been  devoted  to  learning  the  Greek  and 
Latin  tongues.  From  that  neglect  I  find  myself  deficient  in  those 
advantages  which  are  requisite  to  one  who  wishes  to  succeed  in 
literature.' x  Here  speaks  the  scholar,  for  whom  the  study  of 
classical  antiquity  was  the  most  desirable  discipline  for  the  human 
spirit.  By  an  interesting  coincidence,  about  the  very  period  when 
Wilson  was  listening  to  Boyce,  George  Buchanan  was  studying  at 
St.  Andrews  under  John  Major,  the  schoolman  pure  and  simple. 
And  Buchanan  was  as  irreverent  towards  his  master  as  was  Wilson. 
'  John  Major/  he  says,  c  wasted  our  time  in  dialectic  subtleties  and 
sophistical  arguments.'  It  was  the  meeting  of  the  old  world  and 
the  new.  Wilson  and  Buchanan  were  both  children  of  the  Renais- 
sance, though  each  pursued  a  path  of  his  own.  The  predilection 
of  Wilson  was  reflective  meditation  on  the  problems  of  life,  while 
the  interests  of  Buchanan  were  in  literature,  and  especially  in 
poetry,  in  which  he  was  to  win  such  a  resounding  reputation  among 
his  contemporaries. 

On  his  completing  his  university  course  at  Aberdeen,  as  we  saw, 
Wilson  appears  to  have  settled  for  a  time  at  or  near  Elgin.  When 
next  we  hear  of  him  he  is  in  Paris,  there,  like  so  many  of  his  con- 
temporaries, completing  the  studies  he  had  begun  in  his  native 
country.  There  was  a  special  inducement  for  students  of  the 
diocese  of  Moray  to  proceed  to  the  University  of  Paris.  So  far 
back  as  1325  a  Bishop  of  Moray  had  founded  a  college  there  for 
the  instruction  and  accommodation  of  youths  of  his  diocese  who 
might  choose  a  career  of  learning.  In  time  the  college  had  been 
opened  to  Scots  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  but  natives  of 
Moray  would  have  a  preferable  claim,  and  it  is  natural  to  suppose 
that,  on  his  first  settlement  in  Paris,  Wilson  would  be  a  bursar 
(exhibitioner)  of  that  college. 

At  this  point  begins  the  period  of  Wilson's  career  of  which  we 
have  any  direct  knowledge,  and  which  brings  him  before  us  as  one 
whose  gifts  and  graces  gained  him  the  confidence  of  the  greatest 
persons  in  Church  and  State.  At  some  date  before  1528  we  find 
that  he  has  made  the  acquaintance  of  no  less  a  personage  than 
1  De  Amml  Tranquillitate,  p.  250. 


128  P.   Hume  Brown 

Cardinal  Wolsey,  to  whose  son,  euphemistically  designated  his 
nephew,  he  is  acting  as  tutor  during  his  residence  in  Paris.  From 
the  earliest  of  the  few  letters  we  have  from  Wilson's  hand  we 
learn  that  in  the  autumn  of  1528  he  was  residing  with  Wolsey  at 
Richmond,  and  we  may  assume  that  previous  to  that  date  there 
had  been  more  or  less  intercourse  between  them.1  Through  his 
association  with  Wolsey,  Wilson  would  have  the  opportunity  of 
knowing  the  leading  men  of  the  time  in  England,  and  we  have  it 
from  himself  that  he  was  on  familiar  terms  with  Bishops  Fisher 
and  Gardiner,  and  Dr.  Fox,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Hereford,2 
all  of  whom  were  to  play  their  own  parts  in  the  momentous 
events  of  the  next  quarter  of  a  century.  A  kindred  spirit  to 
Wilson  would  have  been  Sir  Thomas  More,  but  More's  name 
does  not  occur  in  the  list  of  eminent  Englishmen  with  whom 
he  was  associated.  Though  an  acceptable  guest  at  the  tables 
of  the  great,  he  steadfastly  maintained  his  independence  of 
mind.  On  one  occasion,3  he  tells  us,  he  found  that  in  his 
intercourse  with  a  certain  exalted  personage  he  was  expected  to 
pay  court  to  him  in  a  fashion  that  compromised  his  self-respect, 
whereupon  he  cut  the  connection,  though  this  implied  the  tem- 
porary sacrifice  of  his  own  fortunes.  According  to  John  Major, 
*  fier  comme  un  Escossois '  was  a  byword  in  France  in  his  day, 
and  it  would  seem  that  Wilson  had  his  share  of  the  national 
characteristic. 

In  1528,  when  Wilson  was  his  housemate,  the  fate  of  Wolsey 
was  trembling  in  the  balance.  In  the  course  of  the  negotiations 
connected  with  the  divorce  of  Catherine  of  Arragon  he  had 
incurred  the  suspicions  of  his  imperious  master  Henry  ;  in  1529 
came  his  tragic  fall ;  and  in  November  of  the  following  year  he 
died  a  broken  man.  The  ruin  of  Wolsey  involved  a  change  in 
the  fortunes  of  Wilson,  but  he  was  lucky  enough  to  find  a  new 
patron,  with  whom  he  was  to  be  associated  for  the  next  six  or 
seven  years.  This  new  patron  was  Thomas  Cromwell,  formerly 
Wolsey's  secretary,  but  who  now  took  Wolsey's  place  in  the 
councils  of  Henry.  It  is  in  a  new  capacity,  however,  that  we 
now  find  our  wandering  Scot.  From  an  entry  in  the  State  Papers 
of  Henry  VIII.  under  the  date  24th  May,  1530,  we  learn  that  he 
is  again  in  Paris,  and  that  Dr.  Fox  has  been  commissioned  to  pay 
him  the  sum  of  £6  135.  4d.  The  money  had  been  sent  by 

1  State  Papers  of  Henry  VllL,  ist  October,  1528. 

2  He  mentions  his  intimacy  with  these  persons  in  De  Anlmi  Tranquillitate. 
zDe  Anlmi  Tranquillitate,  p.  235. 


A   Forgotten  Scottish  Scholar  129 

Cromwell,  for  whom  Wilson  was  now  performing  certain  services 
in  Paris.  What  these  services  were  appears  from  letters  addressed 
by  Wilson  to  Cromwell  that  have  been  preserved.  The  first 
letter,1  dated  25th  April,  1531,  is  written  in  English,  and  is  the 
only  specimen  preserved  of  Wilson's  composition  in  the  vernacular. 
The  letter  has  in  parts  been  destroyed  by  fire,  but  enough  of  it 
has  been  preserved  to  show  its  general  purport.  The  information 
it  conveys  is  mainly  concerned  with  cases  of  heretical  preaching 
in  France,  a  subject  in  which  Cromwell  would  be  naturally 
interested  as  bearing  on  his  own  policy  towards  the  Church. 
What  is  more  to  our  purpose,  however,  are  the  personal 
references  which  the  letter  contains.  We  learn  from  it  that 
Wilson  has  a  benefice  in  Kent,  probably  the  gift  of  Cromwell, 
and  that  in  his  absence  his  duties  are  performed  by  a  procurator, 
for  whom  he  prays  Cromwell's  good  offices.  He  had  been  com- 
missioned to  purchase  books  for  Cromwell  in  Paris,  but  his  purse 
is  empty  (its  usual  condition,  he  says),  though  he  is  assured  by 
Maister  Hampton  that  he  would  not  lack  money  for  anything 
that  concerned  Cromwell's  interests.  In  the  course  of  fifteen  or 
sixteen  days  he  was  returning  to  England,  when  he  would  report 
the  rest  of  his  news. 

What  is  noteworthy  in  this  letter  is  the  familiar  tone  with 
which  he  addresses  the  great  minister,  now  the  chief  adviser  of 
the  King  of  England. 2  Evidently  there  had  been  much  previous 
intercourse  between  them,  and  Cromwell,  who  was  noted  for  his 
discernment  of  men,  had  seen  that  Wilson  possessed  the  qualities 
of  a  useful  agent.  We  see,  therefore,  the  new  capacity  in  which 
Wilson  now  found  himself.  He  was  one  of  those  many  emissaries 
for  whom  Cromwell  found  employment  in  keeping  him  informed 
of  all  the  movements  on  the  continent  which  might  have  a  bearing 
on  his  own  policy  in  the  conduct  of  English  affairs. 

Other  letters  of  Wilson's  belonging  to  the  same  period  further 
illustrate  the  nature  of  the  business  which  he  transacted  for  Crom- 
well in  Paris.  The  *  Maister  Hampton '  just  mentioned  informs 
Cromwell  that  Wilson  has  spent  ten  or  twelve  crowns  in  buying 
books  for  him — a  sum  he  was  little  able  to  spare,  and  which  he 
(Hampton)  had  made  good  to  him.  Wilson  was  coming  to 
England  to  look  after  his  benefice  in  Kent,  which  is  in  danger  of 
being  taken  from  him. 

1  This  letter,  and  another  addressed  to  Dr.  Starkey,  appear  in  vol.  i.  of  the 
Bannatyne  Miscellany. 

2  In  a  subsequent  letter  Wilson  apologises  for  the  familiarity  of  his  address. 

I 


130  P.  Hume  Brown 

A  second  letter  of  Wilson's  to  Cromwell  proves  that  he  was  in 
complete  sympathy  with  Cromwell's  ecclesiastical  policy.  It  is 
dated  I9th  September,  1535,  by  which  date,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, Henry  VIII.  had  definitely  broken  with  the  Church  of 
Rome,  and  Bishop  Fisher  and  Sir  Thomas  More  had  been  sent 
to  the  scaffold  for  refusing  to  acknowledge  Henry  as  Head  of  the 
Church  in  England.  The  letter  further  shows  that  Wilson  was 
known  as  Cromwell's  accredited  agent  in  Paris.  The  bearer  of 
communications  addressed  to  Henry  from  Rome  had  requested 
Wilson  to  supply  him  with  credentials  to  Cromwell,  who  might 
secure  his  access  to  Henry.  And  Wilson  had  his  own  informa- 
tion to  convey  to  Cromwell  regarding  the  attitude  of  France 
towards  English  policy.  A  certain  Captain  Jean  Borthwick 
(evidently  a  Scotsman  in  the  service  of  France),  who  had  lately 
come  from  England,  had  made  a  most  favourable  report  of  the 
state  of  that  country  in  the  presence  of  the  King  of  France  and 
his  leading  councillors,  and  urged  them  to  stand  by  Henry  in  his 
quarrel  with  Rome.  But  the  most  interesting  statement  in  the 
letter,  so  far  as  Wilson  is  concerned,  is  in  its  concluding  sentence. 
*  I  leave  this  day  for  Italy,'  he  writes,  '  to  see  if  I  can  gain  my 
living  in  some  university  there.' l  So  it  would  appear  that  his 
connection  with  Cromwell  had  not  put  money  in  his  purse. 

At  this  period  begins  the  part  of  Wilson's  life  which  is  of 
essential  interest — the  period  when  he  comes  before  us  as  a 
typical  scholar  of  the  Renaissance.  While  resident  in  Paris  he 
had  had  other  illustrious  patrons  besides  Cromwell,  doubtless 
commended  to  them  by  his  connection  with  the  English  govern- 
ment as  well  as  by  his  own  personal  qualities.  One  was  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  brother  of  Mary  of  Lorraine,  second  wife 
of  James  V.  The  great  family  of  Guise,  to  which  the  Cardinal 
belonged,  had  not  at  this  time  attained  the  ascendancy  which  at  a 
later  date  made  it  supreme  in  the  councils  of  France,  but  the  high 
rank  and  ambition  of  its  different  members  already  gave  it  a  fore- 
most place  in  the  kingdom.  The  Cardinal  himself  was  one  of 
those  magnificent  ecclesiastics  who  followed  the  fashion  set  by  the 
churchmen  of  Italy  of  posing  as  a  patron  of  learning  and  learned 
men,  and  on  Wilson  he  conferred  an  annual  pension,  so  inter- 
mittently paid,  however,  that  Wilson  apparently  found  it  necessary 
to  find  a  more  satisfactory  patron.2  The  scholars  of  the  period, 

1  State  Papers  of  Henry  Vlll.  iQth  Sept.  1535. 

2  The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  may  have  been  the  exalted  personage  who  exacted 
a  subservience  which  Wilson  resented. 


A  Forgotten  Scottish  Scholar  131 

it  is  to  be  remembered,  saw  no  indignity  in  these  relations  ;  in 
their  own  estimation  they  conferred  honour  on  the  rich  and  great 
who  gave  them  of  their  superfluity.  Such  was  the  plea  of  men 
like  Erasmus  and  our  own  Buchanan  when  they  appealed  for 
pecuniary  assistance  to  enable  them  to  live  and  pursue  their  special 
studies. 

Wilson's  new  patron  was  Jean  du  Bellay,  Bishop  of  Paris,  and 
one  of  the  leading  French  diplomatists  of  the  time.  As  du  Bellay 
had  been  ambassador  in  England  during  the  years  following  1527, 
he  had  probably  made  Wilson's  acquaintance  in  the  circle  of 
Wolsey  and  Cromwell.1  When  Wilson  informed  Cromwell  that 
he  was  on  the  point  of  starting  for  Italy,  he  did  not  add  that  it 
was  in  the  suite  of  the  bishop  he  would  accomplish  the  journey. 
Such  was  the  case,  however,  and  the  fact  need  not  surprise  us,  as 
it  was  then  the  custom  of  the  great  to  have  a  scholar  in  their  train 
who  might  entertain  them  with  their  learned  conversation.2 
Buchanan,  for  example,  accompanied  the  Mareschal  de  Brissac  in 
his  military  campaigns,  and  was  an  honoured  guest  at  his  table. 

We  know  that  Wilson  visited  Italy  at  some  period  of  his  life, 
but  it  was  not  at  this  time.  While  on  the  road  to  Rome,  he  fell 
ill  at  Avignon  and  found  himself  in  circumstances  which  throw  a 
curious  light  on  the  bishop's  liberality.  He  was  not  only  ill,  but 
so  destitute  of  means  that  he  could  not  even  procure  the  common 
necessaries  of  life.  On  his  recovery  he  recalled  a  conversation  he 
had  had  in  the  previous  summer  with  a  friend  in  London,  who 
had  recommended  the  town  of  Carpentras  as  a  congenial  place  for 
quiet  study. 3  But  there  was  an  additional  inducement  that  drew 
him  to  Carpentras.  An  important  school  had  lately  been  estab- 
lished there,  and  it  had  come  to  Wilson's  knowledge  that  the 
managers  were  looking  out  for  a  master  to  take  charge  of  one  of 
its  departments.  As  it  happened,  the  person  who  would  have 
the  chief  influence  in  the  appointment  was  one  whose  repu- 
tation as  a  scholar  and  a  patron  of  scholars  was  known  to  all  the 
learned  world.  This  was  Jacopo  Sadoleto,  Bishop  of  Carpentras,4 
who  on  account  of  the  elegance  of  his  Latin  style  had  held  the 
post  of  Apostolical  Secretary  to  two  successive  popes.  In  Sadoleto 
were  combined  a  genuine  piety  and  a  cultivated  taste  rarely  found 

1  Du  Bellay  was  a  patron  of  Rabelais  among  others. 

2  As  we  have  seen,  Wilson's  intention  was  to  seek  some  scholastic  appointment 
in  Italy.     He  had,  therefore,  no  special  post  in  du  Bellay's  train. 

3  State  Papers  of  Henry  Fill.,  Wilson  to  Dr.  Starkey,  2ist  Nov.  1535. 

4  Sadoleto  was  made  a  cardinal  in  the  following  year,  1536. 


132  P.  Hume  Brown 

among  the  high  ecclesiastics  of  the  time.  He  was  one  of  a  small 
group  of  eminent  churchmen  who  aimed  at  a  reconciliation 
between  Protestantism  and  Catholicism  on  the  basis  of  a  liberal 
religion  which  would  preserve  the  unity  of  Christendom,  and  thus 
avert  the  disasters  which  must  follow  a  divided  authority  in  the 
Church.  But  our  chief  interest  in  Sadoleto  in  the  present  connec- 
tion is  that  from  his  hand  we  have  the  only  characterisation  of 
Wilson  which  enables  us  to  realise  what  manner  of  man  he  was. 

On  a  day  in  November,  1535,  Wilson,  with  recovered  health, 
walked  from  Avignon  to  Carpentras,  a  distance  of  some  twenty 
miles,  and  reached  Sadoleto's  episcopal  palace  at  nightfall.  In  a 
letter  of  Sadoleto  we  have  an  account  of  the  interview  that 
followed,  and  the  letter,  be  it  said,  is  one  of  the  most  generally 
interesting  documents  of  the  time  that  have  come  down  to  us. 
It  is  a  representative  specimen  of  the  epistolary  style  in  which  the 
humanists  of  the  period  sought  to  emulate  Cicero  and  Pliny,  and 
it  breathes  the  very  spirit  of  that  zeal  for  classical  antiquity  which 
created  a  bond  of  union  between  the  scholars  of  all  countries. 
Moreover,  as  has  been  said,  it  presents  us  with  a  portrait  of 
Wilson  which  explains  what  it  was  in  him  that  attracted  so  many 
different  types  of  men.  The  letter  was  written  four  days  after  the 
arrival  of  Wilson  at  Carpentras,  and  is  addressed  to  a  cousin  of 
Sadoleto's  who  had  been  commissioned  to  secure  a  suitable  person 
for  the  vacant  mastership.  The  letter  is  too  long  to  be  quoted  in 
full,  but  even  an  abridgement  of  it  will  convey  its  general  character. 

Four  days  ago,  Sadoleto  writes,  he  had  sat  down  for  an  even- 
ing's study,  when  his  chamberlain  announced  that  a  stranger,  by 
his  gown  evidently  a  scholar,  desired  to  see  him.  He  was 
annoyed  at  being  disturbed,  but  he  ordered  the  visitor  to  be 
admitted.  The  cardinal  is  at  once  arrested  by  the  stranger's 
address,  and  by  the  refinement  and  choiceness  of  his  Latinity. 
Questions  then  follow.  Whence  did  he  come,  where  had  he  been 
educated,  what  was  his  past  history  ?  To  his  surprise  Sadoleto 
learns  that  the  stranger  comes  from  Scotland,  *  that  remotest  part 
of  the  earth.'  His  name,  he  learns,  is  Volusenus,  and  he  had 
come  from  Avignon  to  Carpentras  partly  to  make  the  acquaintance 
of  Sadoleto,  and  partly  to  offer  himself  as  a  candidate  for  the 
vacant  post  in  the  school  at  Carpentras.  Meanwhile  Sadoleto  is 
every  moment  becoming  more  and  more  charmed  with  the 
modesty  and  evident  accomplishments  of  his  visitor,  and  is 
delighted  at  the  prospect  of  having  such  a  man  in  his  neighbour- 
hood. On  the  following  day  he  invites  the  magistrates  of  the 


A  Forgotten  Scottish  Scholar  133 

town  to  meet  the  stranger  at  dinner,  when  Wilson  displays  such 
gifts  and  graces  that  the  magistrates  there  and  then  offer  him  the 
vacant  post  in  their  school.1 

Though  introduced  to  his  new  position  under  such  happy 
auspices,  Wilson  apparently  did  not  find  it  altogether  to  his  mind. 
His  annual  salary  was  a  hundred  gold  crowns2 — a  sum  which 
Sadoleto  must  have  thought  inadequate,  as  in  the  following  year 
he  besought  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  to  renew  his  former  pension 
to  Wilson  on  the  ground  that  he  was  as  assiduous  in  his  studies  in 
Carpentras  as  he  had  been  in  Paris.3  Moreover,  the  subjects 
Wilson  had  to  teach — Latin  grammar  and  the  rudiments  of  Greek 
— were  uncongenial  to  him,  as  his  own  predilection  was  for  the 
study  of  philosophy.4 

How  long  Wilson  retained  his  post  at  Carpentras  no  authority 
informs  us,5  but  what  further  notices  we  have  of  him  associate  his 
last  years  not  with  Carpentras  but  with  the  neighbouring  city  of 
Lyons.  Lyons  was  at  this  time  the  intellectual  capital  of  France ; 
from  its  printing-presses  issued  the  most  important  publications  of 
the  day  ;  and  scholars  from  all  countries  found  a  society  within 
its  walls  which  was  hardly  to  be  found  elsewhere.  In  Lyons 
Wilson  must  either  have  permanently  resided,  or  have  paid  it  long 
and  frequent  visits,  as  he  was  an  esteemed  intimate  of  the  most 
distinguished  men  who  resided  there.6  Two  references  to  him, 
which  belong  to  this  period,  deserve  to  be  quoted  as  showing  the 
quality  of  his  mind  and  the  range  of  his  accomplishments.  One 
is  from  Conrad  Gesner,  whose  encyclopaedic  knowledge  gave  him 
pre-eminence  even  in  that  age  of  prodigious  acquirements. 
Gesner,  who  met  Wilson  in  Lyons  in  1540,  describes  him  as 
being  then  still  only  a  youth,  and  adds  that  from  his  erudition 
great  things  were  expected  to  the  benefit  of  all  the  learned.7 
More  specific  as  to  Wilson's  accomplishments  is  the  reference  of 
another  scholar,  who  depicts  him  as  having,  in  addition  to  his 
virtues  and  pleasant  manners,  not  only  a  knowledge  of  the  arts 

lSadoleti  Epistolarum  libri  sexdecim  (Lugduni,  1554),  p.  657. 
2  In  the  letter  just  quoted  Sadoleto  states  the  salary  as  100  gold  crowns  ;  Wilson 
in  his  letter  to  Starkey  says  the  sum  was  70  crowns. 
*Sadoleti  Epistolae,  p.  228. 

4  Wilson  to  Starkey,  2 1st  Nov.,  1535. 

5  His  death  at  Vienne  on  his  journey  home  may  imply  that  he  had  started  from 
Carpentras,  where  he  may  have  been  residing. 

6  See  Buisson,  op  cif.  i.  pp.  35-6. 

7  Gesneri  Eibllotheca  Universalis  (Tiguri,  1545),  f-  245-6. 


134  P.   Hume  Brown 

and  sciences,  but  also  an  acquaintance  with  six  languages — among 
them  being  French,  Italian,  and  Spanish — which  he  had  acquired 
in  the  countries  where  they  were  spoken.1  From  these  references 
and  from  other  sources  it  is  apparent  that  among  the  distinguished 
men  in  Lyons  Wilson  was  among  the  most  distinguished,  and  that 
his  society  was  sought  as  an  honour  and  a  privilege. 

The  year  1546  is  recorded  as  the  date  of  his  death.  In  that 
year  he  set  out  for  his  native  land,  which,  so  far  as  we  know,  he 
had  only  once  visited  since  he  had  first  left  it.  Scotland  at  this 
time  was  not  an  inviting  place  for  men  of  Wilson's  tastes  and  ways 
of  thinking.  In  1546  George  Wishart  was  burned  and  Cardinal 
Beaton  murdered,  and,  as  affairs  went  in  Church  and  State, 
Wilson  who,  as  we  shall  see,  was  neither  a  sound  Protestant  nor 
a  sound  Catholic,  might  find  himself  between  two  fires.  Before 
starting  on  his  homeward  journey,  therefore,  he  consulted  Sado- 
leto  as  to  the  course  he  should  follow  in  a  land  so  distracted  by 
civil  and  religious  strife.  Sadoleto's  advice  was  characteristic  ; 
the  existing  religious  dissensions  in  the  religious  world,  he  wrote, 
were  such  as  to  try  men's  faith,  but  he  recommended  Wilson,  as 
far  as  in  him  lay,  to  abide  by  the  religion  of  his  fathers  and 
dedicate  to  its  service  the  gifts  which  had  been  bestowed  upon 
him.2 

But  Wilson  was  not  destined  to  see  his  native  land.  On  his 
journey  home  he  died  at  Vienne  on  the  Rhone,  under  what 
circumstances  no  record  tells  us.  His  death  was  lamented  by  one 
who,  like  himself,  represented  Scotland  in  the  European  society  of 
letters.  At  some  period  which  we  cannot  definitely  fix,  Wilson 
had  met  George  Buchanan,  probably  in  Paris,  and,  though  their 
respective  careers  did  not  again  bring  them  together,  each  con- 
tinued to  retain  for  the  other  an  esteem,  of  which,  as  it  happens, 
two  memorials  remain.  In  the  library  of  the  University  of  Edin- 
burgh is  preserved  a  Hebrew  dictionary  with  this  inscription  : 
Georgius  Buchananus :  Ex  munificentia  Florentii  Voluseni ;  and  from 
the  pen  of  Buchanan  we  have  an  epitaph  on  Wilson,  the  poignant 
brevity  of  which  is  the  best  evidence  that  it  came  from  the  heart. 

Hie  musis,  Volusene,  jaces,  carissime,  ripam 
Ad  Rhodani,  terra  quam  procul  a  patria  ! 

Hoc  meruit  virtus  tua,  tellus  quae  foret  altrix 
Virtutum,  ut  cinercs  conderet  ilia  tuos. 

1  Les  embftmes  de  Seigneur  Andrt  Alciat,  de  nouveau  traiulatz  en  Franfois,  vers  pour 
vers,jouxte  la  diction  Latine,  etc.  (Lyons,  1549). 
*Sadoleti  Epistolae,  p.  639. 


A  Forgotten  Scottish  Scholar  135 

The  work  which  preserved  Wilson's  name  among  the  learned 
for  at  least  two  centuries  after  his  death  was  his  De  Animi  Tran- 
quillitate?  That  it  had  a  considerable  circulation  during  that  period 
is  proved  by  the  fact  that  it  passed  through  four  editions,  the  first 
of  which  appeared  in  1543  and  the  last  in  1751.  The  special 
charm  it  had  for  certain  minds  can  easily  be  understood.  It  is 
written  in  a  Latin  style  which,  though  interspersed  with  unclassical 
words  and  phrases,  is  fluent  and  easy,  and  it  abounds  with  literary 
allusions  which  appeal  to  the  scholar.  But  its  chief  attractiveness 
is  in  its  fine  vein  of  meditation,  suggestive  at  once  of  a  wide 
humanity,  of  refinement,  and  moral  elevation,  which  we  know  to 
have  been  Wilson's  characteristics.  The  book  is  written  in  the 
form  of  a  dialogue — obviously  in  imitation  of  the  philosophical 
dialogues  of  Cicero.  There  are  three  interlocutors,  Wilson  him- 
self and  two  friends,  who  are  represented  as  looking  to  him  as 
their  master,  from  whom  they  expect  to  hear  words  of  wisdom. 
The  scene  of  the  conversation  is  a  garden  on  the  slope  of  a  hill 
overlooking  the  town  of  Lyons  and  the  surrounding  country. 
The  main  intention  of  the  book,  a  good-sized  octavo,  is  to  show 
the  superiority  of  the  Christian  religion,  compared  with  pagan 
philosophy,  in  furthering  man  to  his  highest  good.  At  the  period 
when  the  book  was  written,  be  it  noted,  this  was  not  merely  an 
academic  thesis :  it  was  an  address  to  the  times.  In  Italy  especially, 
admiration  for  the  Greek  and  Roman  classics  had  gone  so  far  that 
the  Church  itself  seemed  on  the  way  to  be  paganised.  Cardinal 
Bembo,  one  of  the  devotees  of  the  ancients,  warned  Sadoleto 
against  reading  St.  Paul's  Epistles  for  the  reason  that  they  would 
corrupt  his  Latin  style,  and  Erasmus  expressed  his  fear  lest  Jupiter 
should  one  day  be  re-enthroned  on  the  Capitoline  Hill.  In  the 
exposition  of  his  theme  Wilson  adopts  the  conventional  device  of 
a  dream,  in  which  he  has  a  vision  of  two  temples,  one  symbolising 
pagan  philosophy,  the  other  Christianity.  In  the  first  temple  he 
is  attended  by  a  philosopher  who  expounds  to  him  the  conditions 
under  which  tranquillity  is  attainable  by  man's  own  unaided  efforts ; 
in  the  second,  he  has  for  his  guide  St.  Paul,  who  convincingly  shows 
him  that,  not  by  his  own  good  works,  but  only  by  the  grace 
of  God,2  can  man  attain  salvation  and  the  highest  bliss.  The  fact 

1It  may  be  worth  noting  that  a  copy  of  De  Animi  Tranqui/!itafe,which  had  belonged 
to  Dr.  Samuel  Parr,  was  presented  to  the  Elgin  Literary  and  Scientific  Association 
by  Dr.  Taylor  in  1861.  I.  Taylor,  A  Memoir  of  F/orenfius  Volutenus.  Elgin,  1 86 1. 

2  Professor  Robertson  Smith  says  that  Wilson  *  ultimately  reaches  a  doctrine  as 
to  the  witness  of  the  spirit  and  the  assurance  of  grace,  which  breaks  with  the 


136  P.  Hume  Brown 

that  Wilson  chose  St.  Paul  as  the  exponent  of  Christian  doctrine 
would  seem  to  indicate  his  own  leanings  in  the  great  controversy 
between  Rome  and  Protestantism.  That  he  had  not  actually 
broken  with  the  Church  of  Rome  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  before 
starting  for  Scotland,  as  we  have  seen,  he  had  consulted  Sadoleto 
as  to  the  course  he  should  follow  in  that  country.  It  is  certain, 
however,  that  there  was  much  in  that  Church  with  which  he  was 
out  of  sympathy.  In  his  Treatise,  which  we  are  considering,  he 
speaks  scathingly  of  the  vice  and  indolence  of  the  higher  clergy, 
and  he  cordially  expresses  his  approval  of  certain  Italian  reformers 
who  were  pressing  for  a  religious  renewal  virtually  along  the  lines 
of  Luther.1  More  significant,  however,  is  the  fact  that  he  approved 
of  Henry  VIII. 's  assumption  of  the  Headship  of  the  Church  in 
England,  and  that,  as  we  have  seen,  he  actually  wrote  in  defence 
of  Henry 's  ecclesiastical  policy.  The  truth  seems  to  be  that  at 
the  time  of  his  death  Wilson  stood  in  the  same  relation  to  the 
Church  as  men  like  Erasmus  and  Buchanan.  Both  Erasmus  and 
Buchanan  were  unsparing  in  their  denunciations  of  its  abuses,  but 
both  remained  members  of  its  communion,  though  in  the  end 
Buchanan  went  over  to  Protestantism.  Had  Wilson  lived  to 
settle  in  Scotland,  the  probability  is  that  he  would  have  done 
likewise. 

From  this  sketch  of  Wilson's  career,  necessarily  fragmentary 
as  it  is,  we  may  yet  conceive  what  manner  of  man  he  was.  It 
is  itself  a  striking  tribute  to  his  personality  that  he  was  admitted 
to  intimacy  with  the  first  men  of  the  age — men  who  were  fashion- 
ing the  destinies  of  kingdoms.  That  he  should  have  commended 
himself  to  men  so  different  as  Wolsey,  Cromwell,  Fisher,  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  and  Cardinal  Sadoleto,  is  conclusive  proof 
of  the  breadth  of  his  interests,  of  his  practical  sagacity,  of  his  tact 
in  the  ways  of  the  world.  But  Wilson  found  his  most  congenial 
society,  not  among  statesmen  and  diplomatists,  but  among  men 
whose  main  concern  was  to  make  prevail  that  ideal  of  a  pietas 
litterata,  a  cultured  piety,  which  should  combine  the  essential 
teaching  of  Christianity  with  the  free  outlook  on  life  of  classical 
antiquity.  By  his  elevation  of  mind,  his  various  accomplish- 
ments, and  his  gift  of  persuasion,  Wilson  was  a  natural  leader  in 
such  a  society.  If  we  look  for  a  kindred  spirit  among  his 

traditional  Christianity  of  his  time,  and  contains  ethical  motives  akin  to,  though 
not  identical  with,  those  of  the  German  Reformation/  (Article  on  Wilson  in  the 
Encyclopaedia  Britannica.) 

1  De  Ammi  Tranquillitate,  pp.  3,  5,  242. 


A  Forgotten  Scottish  Scholar  137 

countrymen,  we  may  find  him  in  Archbishop  Leighton,  that 
'  Christianised  Plato/  as  Coleridge  calls  him.  In  Leighton's  dis- 
courses delivered  as  Principal  of  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  we 
have  the  same  richness  of  classical  culture  in  a  mind  '  naturally 
Christian,'  the  same  spirit  of  renouncement,  which  yet  did  not 
preclude  an  active,  practical  beneficence.  Leighton's  lot  was  cast 
on  a  time  which  demanded  a  more  strenuous  nature  than  his,  and 
had  Wilson  lived  to  return  to  his  native  country,  his  lot  would 
have  been  similar.  In  the  civil  and  religious  dissensions  which 
then  distracted  Scotland,  his  quietism,  like  that  of  Leighton,  might 
have  been  found  an  unseasonable  virtue.  As  it  was,  he  was 
spared  the  stern  test,  and  he  comes  before  us  as  one  of  the  select 
spirits  of  his  nation,  somewhat  veiled  from  our  gaze,  but  with 
lineaments  sufficiently  distinguishable  to  justify  us  in  paying 
tribute  to  him,  as  one  who  in  his  generation  stood  for  the  best 
that  men  then  felt  and  knew. 

P.  HUME  BROWN. 


Authorship  of  the  Chronicle  of  Lanercost1 

THE  authorship  of  the  Chronicle  of  Lanercost,  when  the 
manuscript  first  came  within  the  cognisance  of  literary 
men,  was  unhesitatingly  ascribed  to  the  canons  of  the  house  which 
bears  its  name,  and  such  origin  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
doubted  till  the  transcript  in  the  Cotton  collection  was  printed  in 
1839  as  a  joint- production  of  the  Bannatyne  and  Maitland  Clubs 
under  the  care  of  the  Rev.  Joseph  Stevenson. 

Nothing  is  known  of  the  history  of  the  manuscript  of  the 
Chronicle  (Cotton  MS.  Claudius,  D.  vii.)  before  the  sixteenth 
century,  when  it  came  into  the  possession  of  Sir  Henry  Savile,  who 
published  his  Scriptores  post  Eedam  in  1596.  There  is  little  doubt 
that  the  manuscript  belonged  to  him  before  it  passed  into  the 
collection  of  Sir  Robert  Cotton.  Not  only  is  there  a  printed  label 
bearing  Sir  Henry's  name  pasted  on  the  fly-leaf,  but  traces  of 
perusal  by  him  may  be  ascertained  from  annotations  in  the  margin. 
For  example,  the  phrase  *  in  comitatu  Roberti  de  Sabuil '  on 
folio  97  is  underlined  in  the  text,  and  a  note  is  placed  in  the 
margin  to  call  attention  to  the  early  occurrence  of  the  name. 
Indications  are  not  wanting  on  several  folios  that  the  manuscript 
was  used  by  students  and  that  attempts  were  made  to  disclose  the 
constituent  parts  of  the  compilation. 

The  whole  manuscript,  which  is  bound  in  one  volume,  com- 
prises 242  vellum  leaves  or  484  folios,  arranged  in  double  column 
and  written  in  a  hand  apparently  of  the  fourteenth  or  early 
fifteenth  century.  There  is  some  evidence  that  the  hand  varies, 
but  not  perhaps  more  than  may  be  ascribed  to  different  sessions 
by  the  same  writer.  In  the  later  portions  of  the  manuscript,  say 
from  folio  66,  which  represents  the  year  1181,  a  new  style  of 
rubric  and  illumination  begins.  Perhaps  a  uniform  style  should 
not  be  assumed  for  any  large  sections  of  the  narrative.  The 

1  The  references  in  footnotes,  when  not  otherwise  stated,  apply  to  the  pages  of 
Sir  Herbert  Maxwell's  forthcoming  volume  of  this  translation,  of  which  I  have 
seen  a  proof  copy. 


Authorship  of  the  Chronicle  of  Lanercost     139 

scribe  did  not  always  finish  his  folio  before  commencing  the  next. 
Several  columns  are  blank,  occasionally  a  whole  folio.  In  one 
instance  at  least,  he  had  just  commenced  a  new  folio  (fol.  101) 
under  the  year  1 1 90,  but  before  he  had  proceeded  far  down  the 
first  column  and  had  written  'Deinde  Rex  Anglic/  he  stopped 
and  commenced  a  new  folio  witu  the  same  words.  When  he  had 
reached  folio  2ib,  the  end  of  the  introductory  portions,  he  laid 
down  his  pen  with  the  pious  sentiment,  c  finite  libro  benedicamus 
Domino/  leaving  a  whole  leaf  blank  before  he  resumed.  The 
abrupt  ending  of  the  manuscript  has  tempted  some  late  student 
to  remark  that  *  videtur  hoc  exemplar  esse  imperfectum.'  It 
may  be  added  that  he  was  not  the  last  to  hold  a  similar  opinion. 

Students  of  the  manuscript  were  under  no  delusion  about  its 
authorship.  In  various  places  the  legend  '  historia  canonici  de 
Lanercost  in  comitatu  Northumbrie '  is  met  with,  which  may  be 
taken  as  the  unauthorised  interpolation  of  the  reader.  The 
owners,  however,  may  be  justly  regarded  as  responsible  for  the 
index  and  table  of  contents,  though  not  made  at  the  same  date  or 
by  the  same  person.  The  *  elenchus  contentorum  '  appears  to  be 
the  earlier.  Referring  to  the  beginning  of  the  continuous  narra- 
tive on  folio  23,  apart  from  the  fragments  with  which  the  Chronicle 
is  prefaced,  we  have  *  Larga  Anglic  historia  composita  per  canonicum 
de  Lanercost  in  comitatu  Northumbrie  que  descendit  ad  tempora 
Edwardi  tertii.'  The  ignorance  of  the  geography  of  Cumber- 
land, which  placed  Lanercost  in  the  neighbouring  county,  is  very 
welcome,  inasmuch  as  it  shows  that  the  compiler  of  the  elenchus 
was  not  a  local  antiquary  prejudiced  in  favour  of  the  Lanercost 
authorship. 

It  is  different,  however,  with  the  index  at  the  end  of  the  volume, 
the  writing  of  which  appears  to  be  in  a  later  hand,  perhaps  about 
the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century.  The  compiler  of  the  index 
was  not  only  a  north-countryman  interested  in  northern  history, 
but  he  held  decided  views  on  the  authorship.  In  fact,  the  index 
was  made  for  the  sole  use  of  historical  students  of  the  Border 
counties,  but  especially  of  the  county  of  Cumberland.  It  em- 
bodies the  principal  local  references,  notably  those  relating  to  the 
priory  of  Lanercost  and  the  barony  of  Gillesland,  with  very  little 
reference  to  occurrences  elsewhere  except  when  they  affected  that 
neighbourhood.  The  index  is  entitled,  cEx  manuscripto  per 
quemdam  canonicum  de  Lanercost  infra  baroniam  de  Gillisland 
in  comitatu  Cumbrie  composita.'  In  referring  the  reader  to  the 
visitation  of  the  priory  of  Lanercost  by  the  Bishop  of  Carlisle  in 


140  Rev.  James  Wilson 

1281,  which  will  be  discussed  presently,  the  index-maker  remarked 
that  *  constat  fol.  206  authorem  libri  esse  canonicum  de  Laner- 
cost.' The  compiler  of  this  addition  to  the  volume  appears  to 
have  had  no  doubt  about  the  authorship. 

The  first  writer  who  printed  portions  of  the  manuscript,  so  far 
as  we  have  ascertained,  was  Henry  Wharton,  librarian  at  Lambeth, 
who  extracted  from  it  the  references  to  Bishop  Grosteste  of  Lincoln, 
and  published  them  in  1691  in  the  Anglia  Sacra  (ii.  341-3).  The 
heading  of  the  chapter  indicates  Wharton's  view  of  the  author- 
ship :  '  Vita  Roberti  Grosthed,  ex  Annalibus  de  Lanercost,  in 
Bibliotheca  Cottoniana,  Claudius  D.  7.'  But  in  the  preface  he 
has  given  a  more  positive  opinion.  c  Among  the  unprinted 
chronicles,'  he  says,1  '  the  author  of  the  Annals  of  Lanercost  has 
commemorated  (celebramf)  Bishop  Robert  the  most  fully :  I  have 
therefore  appended  his  account  of  Robert's  life.  The  Annals  of 
Lanercost  are  extant  from  the  coming  of  the  Saxons  to  the  year 
1347,  exceedingly  copious  (valde  prolixi\  in  the  Cotton  Library. 
The  monastery  of  Lanercost  is  situated  in  the  county  of  Cumber- 
land near  the  borders  of  Scotland.  Its  annals  were  written  by 
several  persons  in  succession,  as  appears  at  the  year  1245,  where 
the  writer  states  that  he  had  committed  to  the  earth  the  Elect  of 
Glasgow.' 

The  value  of  the  compilation  was  known  to  Dr.  William 
Nicolson,  Bishop  of  Carlisle  (1702-1718),  whose  literary  activities 
entitle  him  to  rank  among  the  laborious  scholars  who  adorned 
the  age  in  which  he  lived.  Writing  with  his  customary  precision 
in  1708,  he  referred  to  'the  jingling  rhyme  on  the  building  of 
the  Roman  Wall  in  the  Chronicle  of  Lanercost2  (MS.  in  Bibl. 
Cott.  Claudius  D.  vii.  fol.  14*,)'  and  spoke  of ( the  learned  Canon 
Regular  who  was  the  author  of  the  Chronicle.'  The  same  prelate 
had  no  misgivings  about  the  authorship  in  1713,  when  he  urged 
Humfrey  Wanley,  the  famous  librarian  of  the  Earl  of  Oxford,3  to 
publish  '  a  Chronicle  by  some  of  the  Canons  of  Lanercost  in  this 
diocese,'  a  manuscript  c  in  the  Cotton  Library,  Claudius,  D.  vii.' 
It  was  probably  owing  to  the  well-deserved  reputation  of  Bishop 
Nicolson  as  a  scholar  of  exceptional  critical  ability  that  the  author- 
ship had  not  been  called  in  question  till  the  publication  of  the 
manuscript  by  the  Scottish  Clubs. 

Planta,  when  making  a  catalogue  of  the  Cottonian  collection  in 

1  Anglia  Sacra,  ii.  pref.  xvii. 

2  Stuke ley's  Diaries  and  Letters  (Surtees  Soc.),  ii.  62. 

3  Chron.  de  Lanercost,  pp.  xv-xviii. 


Authorship  of  the  Chronicle  of  Lanercost     141 

1 80 1  for  the  Record  Commission,  accepted  the  traditional  author- 
ship without  demur.  His  account  of  the  contents  of  the  Chronicle 
is  taken  almost  wholly  from  the  elenchus  contentorum  of  the 
Cotton  manuscript.  The  introductory  fragments  are  resolved 
into  nine  sections,  which  take  up  the  first  2 1  folios  of  the  manu- 
script, as  already  noticed.  The  Chronicle  itself,  beginning  on 
folio  23,  is  described1  as  ca  history  of  the  affairs  of  the  kings  of 
the  Britons  and  the  English  from  Cassibelanus  to  1346,  extracted 
by  a  canon  of  Lanercost  in  the  county  of  Cumberland  from 
William  of  Malmesbury,  Henry  archdeacon  of  Hereford,  Gildas, 
Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  and  Helinand.'  Though  we  cannot 
accept  the  sources  here  indicated,  the  statement  is  useful  as 
expressing  the  opinion  of  the  authorities  of  the  Record  Com- 
mission on  the  authorship  in  1801.  It  was  not  till  Stevenson 
had  printed  the  manuscript  that  the  origin  of  the  Chronicle  was 
ascribed  to  a  Minorite  friar  of  Carlisle. 

As  the  manuscript  bears  no  title,  and  as  nothing  is  known  of 
its  early  history,  a  discussion  of  the  probable  authorship  must  rest 
wholly  on  internal  evidence.  But  it  is  difficult  to  make  an  exposi- 
tion of  the  evidences  intelligible  to  students  of  the  printed  text, 
owing  to  Stevenson's  treatment  of  the  manuscript.  He  regarded 
the  portion  issued  by  the  Scottish 2  Clubs  '  as  a  continuation  to 
the  Annals  of  Roger  of  Hoveden,  beginning  where  the  work  of 
that  writer  terminates  without  a  break  of  any  description.'  For 
this  reason  he  started  his  edition  of  the  Chronicle  on  folio  iy2b  in 
the  middle  of  the  column,  where  the  transcriber  or  author  left  no 
mark  to  indicate  a  new  work.  Opinions  may  differ  on  the  wisdom 
of  such  a  step,  but  no  authority  for  the  arbitrary  division  is  recog- 
nised in  the  manuscript.  For  our  own  part,  we  prefer  the  state- 
ment of  Bishop  Stubbs 3  that  a  copy  of  Hoveden  was  c  used  as 
the  basis  of  the  Lanercost  Chronicle,'  that  is,  of  the  unprinted 
portion  embracing  folios  23-172.  Students  of  the  manuscript 
will  agree  with  the  Bishop  rather  than  with  the  Editor. 

Though  the  question  of  sources  does  not  arise,  it  may  be 
permissible  to  notice  a  few  incidents  in  order  to  show  the  author's 
historical  equipment  independent  of  his  use  of  the  exemplars  he 
had  before  him.  Few  of  the  chroniclers,  except  the  historians  of 
Hexham,  mention  the  battle  of  Clitheroe  in  1138  and  the  sub- 
sequent proceedings  at  Carlisle  for  the  alleviation  of  the  atrocities 

1  Catalogue  of  the  MSS.  in  the  Cottonian  Library,  p.  197. 

2  Chronicon  de  Lanercost^  p.  iii. 

3  Roger  de  Hoveden  (R.S.),  i.  pref.  Ixxxiii. 


142  Rev.  James  Wilson 

of  warfare.  Certainly  Hoveden  has  left  these  matters  unrecorded. 
But  our  author  on  folio  6ob  has  meditated  on  that  period  to  some 
purpose.  c  William,  son  of  Duncan,  nephew  of  King  David,'  he 
narrates,  *  vanquished  the  English  army  in  Craven  at  Clitheroe, 
slaying  very  many  and  taking  numerous  prisoners.  At  the  same 
time  Alberic,  a  monk  of  Cluny,  then  Bishop  of  Ostia  and  Legate 
of  the  Apostolic  See,  who  had  been  sent  by  Pope  Innocent  to 
England  and  Scotland,  came  to  King  David  at  Carlisle  and 
reconciled  (pacificavit)  Bishop  Adelulf  to  King  David  and  restored 
him  to  his  own  (proprie}  See,  as  also  John  Bishop  of  Glasgow. 
In  addition  he  obtained  from  King  David  that  in  the  feast  of 
St.  Martin  they  should  bring  all  the  English  prisoners  to  Carlisle 
and  there  give  them  their  freedom.  When  this  was  done  that 
city  was  not  inappropriately  called  Cardoliumy  which  means  carens 
dolore,  because  there  captivitas  Anglorum  caruit  dolore!  If  this 
account  is  laid  alongside  what  is  known  from  other  sources  of 
the  incidents  of  1138,  it  will  be  observed  how  little  the  author 
followed  the  textual  phraseology  of  the  Hexham  writers.1  The 
etymological  adaptation  of  Cardolium  to  suit  the  happy  incident 
appears  to  be  quite  new  to  history. 

Another  passage,  indicative  of  his  independence  of  Hoveden, 
raises  a  question  of  considerable  interest  in  the  literary  history  of 
England  and  Scotland.  So  important  is  the  text  that  it  must  be 
reproduced  in  the  original. 

Eodem  anno,  videlicet,  anno  domini  m°  c°  ij°,  Rex  Henricus  primus,  ut 
dicitur,  per  consilium  et  industriam  Matildis  regine,  constituit  canonicos 
regulares  in  ecclesia  Karleolensi.  Quidam  vero  presbiter,  ad  conquestum 
Anglic  cum  Willelmo  Bastardo  veniens,  hanc  ecclesiam  et  alias  plures  et 
aliquas  villas  circumiacentes,  pro  rebus  viriliter  peractis,  a  rege  Willelmo  in 
sua  susceperat,  Walterus  nomine.  Henricus  [episcopatum  2]  sancte  Marie 
Karleolensis  fundavit  et  non  multo  post  in  pace  quievit.  Cuius  terras  et 
possessiones  Rex  Henricus  dedit  canonicis  [Rex  H.  underlined  for  deletion] 
regularibus  et  priorem  eorum  primum  Adelwaldum,  iuvenem  quidem  etate 
sed  moribus  senem,  priorem  sancti  Oswaldi  de  Nosles  constituit,  quern 
postea  corrupte  Adulfum  vocabant. 

It  is  true  that  this  statement  is  made  in  the  form  of  a  note  at 
the  bottom  of  folio  58*,  but  it  is  not  the  interpolation  of  a  sub- 

1  Priory  of  Hexham  (Surtees  Soc.),  i.  82-3,  98-9,  117-21. 

2  There  has  been  an  erasure  here  in  a  very  contracted  text,  but  perhaps  of  only- 
one  letter.     A  late  hand  has  interlineated  ecclesiam.    As  the  bishopric  was  founded 
only  a  few  years  before  King  Henry's  death,  episcopatum  was  probably  in  the 
scribe's  mind.     The  sentence  has  been  misplaced  :  it  should  have  been  written 
at  the  end  of  the  passage. 


Authorship  of  the  Chronicle  of  Lanercost     143 

sequent  writer.  The  note  is  introduced  in  the  same  hand  and 
with  the  same  ink  as  the  text  in  a  place  reserved  for  it.  The 
position  on  the  folio  only  shows  that  the  statement  was  not  in 
the  exemplar  the  scribe  was  following  for  that  portion  of  the 
narrative.  Its  resemblance  to  the  famous  passage1  in  the  Scoti- 
chronicon  (i.  289)  on  the  foundation  of  the  priory  of  Carlisle  will 
be  recognised. 

Other  passages  in  the  manuscript  tell  the  same  tale.  The 
compressed  account  on  folio  5ia  of  William  the  Conqueror's 
visit  to  Durham,  his  foundation  of  the  castle  there,  his  attempted 
profanation  of  the  tomb  of  St.  Cuthbert,  and  his  meticulous  flight 
beyond  the  Tese,  shows  indebtedness  to  Simeon  of  Durham  as 
well  as  to  Hoveden.  It  is  not  necessary  to  multiply  proofs  of 
Bishop  Stubbs'  statement  that  the  earlier  portion  of  the  manu- 
script is  based  on  the  Chronicle  of  Roger  of  Hoveden,  and  not  a 
mere  continuation  of  it,  as  Stevenson  has  suggested.  In  not  a 
few  instances  the  author  has  shown  his  independence  by  addition, 
omission,  and  compression.2 

That  Hoveden  was  the  basis  of  the  compilation  for  the  twelfth 
century  every  student  of  the  manuscript  will  acknowledge.  From 
this  circumstance  alone  we  get  an  important  sidelight  on  the 
authorship.  It  is  stated  in  the  manuscript  on  folio  103,  under 
the  year  1 1 90,  that  David,  brother  of  William  King  of  Scotland, 
married  blank,  sister  of  Ranulf  earl  of  Chester,  and  on  folio  157 
in  the  list  of  the  bishops  assembled  in  London  in  1199  occurs 
the  name  of  blank.  Archbishop  of  Ragusa.  Thanks  to  the  masterly 
collation  of  the  Hoveden  manuscripts  by  Bishop  Stubbs,  we  can 
identify  from  lacunae  like  these  the  actual  text  of  Hoveden  that 
the  author  of  our  chronicle  had  before  him.  It  was  the  Laudian 
copy  now  in  the  Bodleian,  where  alone  these  two  omissions  in 
the  same  manuscript  are  found.  The  interest,  however,  is  not 

1If  Abbot  Bower  of  Inchcolm  added  this  note  to  Fordun's  work,  as  it  is 
generally  believed,  from  what  source  is  it  likely  that  the  superior  of  a  Scottish 
Augustinian  house  should  have  obtained  such  local  information  ?  The  statement 
in  the  Scotuhronicon  that  the  priory  of  Carlisle  was  founded  in  1 102  was  supposed 
to  be  unsupported  till  within  recent  years.  It  has  now  the  countenance  of  an 
English  as  well  as  a  French  Chronicle.  See  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  Report,  vi.  354.. 

2  The  same  discretion,  used  by  the  author  when  dealing  with  the  Chronicle  of 
Melrose  as  his  exemplar,,  will  be  observed  if  a  collation  is  made  of  the  early  pages 
of  Stevenson's  printed  text  with  the  corresponding  passages  of  that  chronicle. 
The  author  appropriated  whole  slices  of  the  Chronicle  of  Melrose  when  they 
suited  his  purpose.  He  did  the  same  with  Hoveden  for  the  twelfth  century,  but 
perhaps  with  more  frequency  and  freedom. 


144  Rev.  James  Wilson 

confined  to  this  point.  The  Laudian  copy  has  on  its  fly  leaves 
transcripts  of  four  documents,  all  relating  to  Carlisle.  These 
show,  as  Bishop  Stubbs1  remarked,  that  the  manuscript  'was  at 
one  time,  and  that  probably  a  very  long  time,  in  possession  of 
either  the  city  or  the  Bishop  of  Carlisle/  But  as  one  of  these 
deeds  is  a  letter  from  Henry  VI.  to  Bishop  Lumley,  dated 
23rd  November,  1436,  '  de  custodia  ville  et  castri  Karlioli,'  we 
need  have  no  hesitation  in  ascribing  the  ownership  of  the  manu- 
script to  that  prelate,  who  was  then  warden  of  the  Western 
March.  It  probably  formed  part  of  the  episcopal  library  at 
Rose  Castle.  The  deeds  of  this  nature,  inserted  in  it,  just  cover 
the  period  of  the  episcopal  residence  there  up  to  Bishop  Lumley's 
day.  This  identification,  so  far  as  our  inquiry  is  concerned, 
localizes  the  production  of  our  chronicle  to  the  district  of  Carlisle,2 
the  area  of  the  bishop's  jurisdiction. 

Turning  now  to  Stevenson's  printed  text,  and  especially  to  that 
portion  of  it  translated  by  Sir  Herbert  Maxwell,  when  we  are 
approaching  the  floruit  of  the  author,  no  reader  can  help  feeling 
that,  like  works  of  this  nature,  the  Chronicle  is  a  compilation 
from  various  sources,  and  that  the  materials,  which  make  up  the 
narrative,  are  of  unequal  historical  value.  It  cannot  be  said  that 
the  compiler  was  a  skilled  artist  in  the  use  of  his  sources.  There 
is  no  attempt  to  write  continuous  history,  though  a  fair  semblance 
of  chronological  arrangement  has  been  maintained.  Duplicate 
entries  are  frequent,  many  of  which  have  been  pointed  out  by 
the  translator,  and  need  not  be  repeated  here.  This  repetition  is 
evidence  enough,  if  nothing  else  existed,  that  the  Chronicle  at 
this  period  was  a  sort  of  journal  or  literary  scrap-book  for  the 
purpose  of  jotting  down  historical  events  as  information  had 
reached  the  authorities.  An  entry  was  made  from  perhaps  im- 
perfect knowledge,  either  from  a  written  source  or  oral  intelligence  : 
later  details  arrived  or  a  fuller  account  was  found,  and  a  more 
extended  record  of  the  incident  was  afterwards  made  without 
expunging  the  previous  entry.  In  most  of  the  duplicate  passages 

1  Roger  de  Hoveden  (R.S.),  i.  pref.  pp.  Ixxiv-lxxx. 

2  But  it  does  far  more  than  this.     The  scholar,  who  undertakes  to  identify  the 
sources  of  the  chronicle  on  the  lines  of  those  issued  in  the  Rolls  Series,  will  have 
to  define  its  relationship  to  the  Cronica  de  Karleolo,  compiled  for  Edward  I.  in 
1291  by  the  canons  of  Carlisle,  as  well  as  to  Bishop  Lumley's  copy  of  Hoveden. 
It  will  be  an  interesting  study,  and  will  result  in  the  probable  discovery  that  the 
Carlisle  copy  of  Hoveden  was  lent  to  the  canons  of  Carlisle  in  1291,  as  well  as  to 
the  canons  of  Lanercost. 


Authorship  of  the  Chronicle  of  Lanercost     145 

it  will  be  found  that  the  second  carries  with  it  more  particulars 
than  the  first. 

The  method  of  the  compiler  comes  into  view  in  the  manipula- 
tion of  his  sources  about  1 290.  In  dealing  with  the  plutocrat J  of 
Milan,  '  it  pleases  me/  he  says,  '  to  add  in  this  place  what  ought 
to  have  found  a  convenient  place  in  the  beginning  of  the  eighth 
part,  forasmuch  as  it  happened  at  that  time,  although  I  did  not 
receive  timely  notice  of  this  matter/  Passages  of  this  sort  furnish 
some  evidence  that  the  work  was  not  undertaken  and  carried  out 
by  the  same  person  at  the  period  in  which  the  story  draws  to  a 
close.  But  if  the  printed  portion  of  the  Chronicle  was  mainly 
compiled  from  written  sources,  to  which  assumption  there  is  much 
antagonistic  evidence,  the  duplicate  passages  offer  indubitable 
proof  of  the  writer's  unskilfulness  in  his  craft. 

There  is  strong  reason  for  believing  that  the  body  of  the 
Chronicle  was  not  put  together  in  or  after  1346.  In  various 
passages  noticed  by  the  translator,  contemporary  allusions  are 
made  at  long  distant  periods  quite  incompatible  with  a  single 
authorship  after  the  close  of  the  work.  A  few  instances  must 
suffice.  Under  1293  there  is  recorded  a  story 2  from  Wells  about 
'  what  I  know  to  have  happened  nine  years  ago '  to  a  prebendary 
of  that  church.  c  This  event,'  the  chronicler  relates,  '  took  place 
in  the  year  (19  March,  1285-6)  when  Alexander,  King  of  Scotland, 
departed  this  life,  and  was  told  to  our  congregation  by  a  brother 
who  at  that  time  belonged  to  the  convent  of  Bristol.'  There  is 
no  reasonable  doubt  that  the  entry  was  made  in  the  year  to  which 
it  refers  when  the  story  came  to  hand.  Another  incident,  not 
included  in  this  translation,  is  equally  conclusive.  It  is  well 
known  3  that  Nicholas  of  Moffat  was  made  archdeacon  of  Teviot- 
dale  in  1245,  and  though  twice  elected  Bishop  of  Glasgow  he 
died  unconsecrated  in  1270.  With  this  neglected  churchman  the 
author  of  this  portion  of  the  Chronicle  was  so  familiar,  that  he 
says  he  officiated  at  his  funeral.4  Contemporaneous  allusions  like 
these  go  a  long  way  to  show  that  the  compilation  was  built  up 
continuously,  period  by  period,  and  cannot  be  the  work  of  a  single 
compiler  in  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century. 

But  it  is  not  so  easy  to  form  a  definite  opinion  of  the  nature  of 
the  institution  responsible  for  the  continuous  production  of  such 
a  work.  It  seems  to  be  agreed  that  the  Chronicle  emanated  from 
some  religious  house  on  the  English  side  of  the  Border.  The  tone 

JP.  67.  2  Pp.   IOI-I02. 

3Dowden,  Bishops  of  Scotland,  pp.  304-6.         *Chron.  de  Lanercost,  p.  53. 

K 


146  Rev.  James  Wilson 

of  the  composition  in  its  acrimonious  hostility  to  Scottish  interests 
betrays  its  English  origin  :  the  historical  setting  of  the  narrative 
is  similarly  conclusive  of  its  localisation  to  the  Border  counties. 
The  ecclesiastical  colour  of  the  incidents  cannot  be  mistaken  :  the 
lightning  of  the  churchman  coruscates  on  every  page.  As  these 
general  considerations  will  be  conceded,  the  difficulty  lies  in  the 
identification  of  the  particular  religious  house  in  which  the  work 
was  done. 

It  was  a  bold  and  praiseworthy  venture  of  Stevenson  to  cut 
himself  adrift  from  the  traditional  view  that  the  Chronicle 
emanated  from  the  priory  of  Lanercost,  and  to  suggest  the  Grey- 
friar  House  in  Carlisle  as  the  more  probable  source.  With  much 
acumen  has  he  marshalled  his  evidence,  and  with  all  the  modera- 
tion of  conviction  has  he  defended  his  own  discovery.  Without 
going  over  in  detail  the  formidable  list  of  evidences  in  support  of 
the  Minorite  authorship,  it  may  be  here  acknowledged  that  no 
critical  student  can  fail  to  be  impressed  with  the  cogency  of  his 
arguments.  The  narrative  bristles  with  the  exploits  and  virtues 
of  the  Friars  Minor.  One  would  think  that  it  was  specially 
composed  in  glorification  of  that  Order.  The  passages  are 
too  numerous  for  special  discussion:  they  are  all  of  the  same 
character:  on  every  occasion,  in  season  and  out  of  season, 
the  merits  of  the  brothers  of  St.  Francis  are  lauded  to  the 
skies. 

While  this  much  is  admitted  without  reserve,  the  weak  side  of 
Stevenson's  proposition,  as  it  would  seem,  presents  itself  when  he 
attempts  to  identify  the  Franciscan  habitation  in  which  he  locates 
the  Chronicle.  If  the  work  is  due  to  Minorite  authorship,  internal 
evidence  gives  little  encouragement  to  make  Carlisle  the  head- 
quarters of  the  particular  congregation  that  gave  it  birth.  So 
much  of  the  narrative  is  taken  up  with  affairs,  political  and 
ecclesiastical,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  that  city,  that  the  editor  was 
constrained,  as  it  may  be  permissible  to  believe,  to  fix  on  that 
place,  in  spite  of  the  evidence,  as  the  local  habitation.  The  over- 
whelming evidence  for  a  Greyfriar  authorship  is  more  conclusively 
in  favour  of  Berwick  than  of  Carlisle. 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  references  to  this  Mendicant  Order 
are  for  the  most  part  very  general.  News  about  the  Order  came 
from  all  points  of  the  compass  in  the  shape  of  prattle  and  legend  : 
in  very  few  instances  can  it  be  said  to  be  local.  When  local  news 
protrudes  itself,  the  scene  is  at  Berwick  or  elsewhere,  not  at 
Carlisle.  Some  specific  instances  of  the  compiler's  connexion 


Authorship  of  the  Chronicle  of  Lanercost     147 

with  Berwick  are  very  striking.  In  his  vision l  after  Mass  on  the 
Lord's  Day  in  1296,  'as  I  was  composing  my  limbs  to  rest/  he 
saw  an  angel  with  a  drawn  sword,  *  brandishing  it  against  the 
bookcase  in  the  library,  where  the  books  of  the  friars  were  stored, 
indicating  by  this  gesture  that  which  afterwards  I  saw  with  my 
eyes,  viz.  the  nefarious  pillaging,  incredibly  swift,  of  the  books, 
vestments  and  materials  of  the  friars/ 

At  the  following  Easter  King  Edward  sacked  Berwick,  when  a 
most  circumstantial  account  is  given  of  the  siege  and  slaughter. 
c  I  myself/  the  chronicler 2  adds,  c  beheld  an  immense  number  of 
men  told  off  to  bury  the  bodies  of  the  fallen/  The  description 
of  the  siege  of  Berwick  by  Bruce  in  1312  is  equally  personal  and 
explicit.  It  is  unmistakably  the  account  of  an  eye-witness.  The 
Scottish  scaling-ladders,  he  says,3  were  of  wonderful  construction, 
'as  I  myself,  who  write  these  lines,  beheld  with  my  own  eyes.* 
Personal  testimony 4  is  again  advanced  in  the  description  of  the 
battle  at  the  same  town  in  1333.  If  the  authorship  is  exclusively 
the  work  of  the  Minorites,  its  localisation,  on  the  face  of  the 
evidence,  must  be  transferred  from  Carlisle  to  Berwick.  The 
former  place  supplies  no  local  or  personal  touches  to  the  narrative 
beyond  a  few  isolated  facts,  with  little  bearing  on  the  authorship, 
which  can  be  explained  in  another  way. 

But  a  new  order  of  things  is  introduced  when  we  approach  the 
local  affairs  of  the  priory  of  Lanercost.  Their  prominence  in  the 
Chronicle  after  1280  can  scarcely  be  explained  without  assuming 
that  the  author  or  successive  authors  were  connected  with  the 
house,  or  had  some  annals  or  domestic  memoranda  of  the  institu- 
tion at  hand.  The  internal  affairs  of  the  priory  loom  largely  in 
the  narrative.  It  is  not  merely  great  events  touching  the  place, 
like  those  of  Berwick,  that  are  recorded,  events  known  to  fame 
and  of  general  interest,  but  the  local  colour  is  more  clearly  mani- 
fested by  incidental  remarks,  quite  undesigned,  let  fall  as  it  were 
by  chance,  known  to  very  few  and  of  no  particular  concern,  which 
betray  the  locality.  No  external  writer  could  be  the  mouthpiece 
of  such  minute  intelligence,  nor  is  it  likely,  had  it  come  to  his 
knowledge,  that  he  would  have  thought  it  worthy  of  record. 
Some  of  these  incidental  allusions  will  be  noticed  later  on. 

Without  following  Stevenson  throughout  his  category  of 
allusions  to  Lanercost,  it  may  be  here  said  that  the  influence  of 
the  canons  on  the  authorship  is  not  to  be  estimated  by  a  single 
incident  or  a  number  of  incidents  of  a  general  nature,  but  by  the 

lChron.  de  Lanercost,  pp.  132-3.       3Pp.  134-5.       3P.  201.       4Pp.  278-80. 


148  Rev.  James  Wilson 

particular  attention  which  the  compiler  or  compilers  gave  to  that 
house  as  compared  with  similar  institutions  or  localities  in  the 
Border  district.  No  other  place  or  immediate  neighbourhood  has 
had  the  same  search-light  from  the  author's  pen  thrown  upon 
it.  One  of  these  incidents  evidently  puzzled  Stevenson,  and 
though  he  tried  valiantly  to  make  it  fit  his  hypothesis,  it  must  be 
acknowledged  that  he  has  grievously  failed.  The  year  1280-81 
was  memorable  in  the  annals  of  the  house.  It  signalised  a  victory 
for  the  canons  in  the  local  baronial  court :  witnessed  a  gracious 
visit  of  King  Edward  and  Queen  Eleanor  :  and  brought  Ralf  of 
Ireton,  the  new  Bishop  of  Carlisle,  on  a  visitation  of  the  priory. 
In  the  record  of  these  events  we  have,  it  is  true,  no  gushing  or 
embroidered  narrative,  but  we  have  particulars  in  abundance  to 
connote  the  interested  spectator.  The  very  day  on  which  the 
local  court  declared  the  immunity  of  the  canons  from  manorial 
taxation  is  recorded  : *  the  canonical  dress  of  the  prior  and  his 
brethren,  when  the  royal  party  was  received  at  the  gate  of  the 
priory,  and  the  nature  of  the  royal  bounty  are  duly  described. 
The  contents  of  the  King's  game-bag,  which  helped  to  get  Steven- 
son out  of  his  difficulty,  need  give  no  trouble.  It  was  naturally 
recorded  on  hearsay  evidence,  and  was  thrown  in  with  the  account 
of  the  royal  visit  on  the  gossip  of  the  community. 

The  Bishop's  visitation  of  the  convent  has  even  more  personal 
notice.  It  took  place  on  22  March,  1281  :  he  was  met  at  the 
gate  like  the  King  and  Queen  :  he  first  gave  the  benediction  and 
then  the  kiss  of  peace  to  all  the  brethren  :  after  his  hand  had  been 
first  kissed  he  gave  them  a  kiss  on  the  lips.  Then  the  Bishop 
entered  the  chapter-house  and  preached  :  the  very  text  of  his  dis- 
course has  been  preserved.  At  the  conclusion  of  the  sermon,  he 
proceeded  with  his  visitation,  the  object  of  his  presence  there,  c  in 
which  we  were  compelled  (coacti  sumus\J  says 2  the  narrator,  c  to 
accept  new  constitutions.7  It  is  only  candour  to  say  that  Stevenson 
misunderstood  the  procedure  of  an  episcopal  visitation  of  an 
Augustinian  house.  It  had  nothing  to  do  with  a  general  visita- 
tion of  the  diocese.  It  was  when  the  preaching  was  ended  that 
the  visitation  began — inquiry  into  the  mode  of  doing  divine  ser- 
vice, ministrations  in  their  parochial  churches,  their  conduct  of  the 
secular  affairs  of  the  community,  the  hearing  of  complaints  and 
the  adjusting  of  irregularities.  Other  visitations  of  Lanercost  are 
on  record,  and  the  mode  of  procedure  is  well  known.  The 
graphic  touches  of  the  simple  narrative  could  only  come  from  one 
1  Chron.  de  Lanercost,  pp.  23-4.  2  P.  25. 


Authorship  of  the  Chronicle  of  Lanercost    149 


who  took  part  in  the  function  and  who  could  describe  its  succes- 
sive phases  with  ceremonial  exactness. 

On  the  previous  page  of  the  printed  book,  but  on  the  same 
folio  of  the  manuscript,  another  personal  allusion,  overlooked  by 
Stevenson,  is  equally  conclusive  against  Minorite  authorship.  On 
24  October,  1280,  the  narrator1  tells  that  'a  convocation  was 
held  in  Carlisle  Cathedral  by  Bishop  Ralf,  and  a  tenth  of  the 
churches  was  granted  to  him  by  the  clergy  for  two  years  accord- 
ing to  the  true  valuation,  to  be  paid  in  the  new  money  within  a 
year  :  wherefore  we  paid  (sofoimus)  him  in  all  twenty-four  pounds/ 
The  writer  of  this  passage  was  clearly  subject  to  ecclesiastical 
taxation,  whereas  the  friars,  having  no  material  resources  except 
the  actual  buildings  they  inhabited,  were  exempt  from  episcopal 
subsidies  and  all  kinds  of  assessment.  It  was  different  with  the 
canons,  who  bore  their  share  of  such  impositions  in  common  with 
the  parochial  clergy.  The  special  assessment  here  mentioned  was 
a  subsidy  granted  to  an  incoming  Bishop  by  the  clergy,  parochial 
and  collegiate,  of  his  diocese.  The  poet  of  the  Chronicle  gave 
vent  to  his  feelings  about  the  exaction  in  pungent  metre : 

Poor  sheep,  bereft  of  ghostly  father, 
Should  not  be  shorn  :  but  pampered  rather. 
Poor  sheep !  with  cares  already  worn, 
You  should  be  comforted,  not  shorn. 
But  if  the  shepherd  must  have  wool, 
He  should  be  tender,  just  and  cool.2 

If  the  amount  of  the  subsidy  be  compared  with  the  value  of 
the  revenues  of  Lanercost,  as  assessed  for  taxation  ten  years3 
afterwards,  no  doubt  will  be  entertained  that  the  sohimus  of  the 
record  exactly  tallies  with  the  taxable  capacity  of  the  canons  of 
that  house. 

Though  Stevenson  was  sincere  in  his  exposition  of  the  Lanercost 
evidence,4  and  enumerated  some  of  the  most  conspicuous  allusions 
to  it  in  the  Chronicle,  he  has  omitted  one  of  the  most  important, 

XP.  23.  2 Pp.  23-4. 

3Taxafio  Eccknastua  (Rec.  Com.),  pp.  318-20. 

4  In  fact,  Stevenson  missed  the  significance  of  all  the  Lanercost  allusions.  For 
example,  the  chronicler  has  much  to  say  about  Macdoual's  doings  in  Galloway  in 
1 307,  including  the  capture  of  Bruce's  two  brothers  and  the  decapitation  of  the 
Irish  kinglet  and  the  lord  of  Cantyre,  and  the  sending  of  the  spoils,  quick  and 
dead,  to  King  Edward  at  Lanercost.  But  he  did  not  tell  that  the  spoils  were  first 
exhibited  to  the  Prince  of  Wales,  then  sojourning  at  Wetheral  near  Carlisle,  on 
their  gruesome  pilgrimage  to  the  King  (Register  of  Wetherhal,  p.  402,  cd.  J.  E. 
Prescott).  The  inference  is  obvious. 


150  Rev.  James  Wilson 

as  evidential  of  the  interested  onlooker,  the  account  of  the  pillage 
of  the  priory  by  King  David  cum  diabolo  in  1346,  the  year  in 
which  the  Chronicle  ends.  The  touch  of  personal  indignation 
in  his  description  of  the  Scottish  King  is  only  of  a  piece  with  the 
account  of  the  arrogance  of  his  soldiery  in  the  devastation  of  the 
sanctuary  :  they  threw  out  the  vessels  of  the  church,  plundered 
the  treasury,  smashed  the  doors,  stole  the  jewels  and  annihilated 
everything  they  could  lay  hands  on.1 

It  is  not,  however,  in  the  record  of  great  events,  likely  to  attract 
general  attention,  but  in  the  trifles  of  language  and  incident,  where 
the  student  will  find  his  embarrassment  if  he  quarrels  with  the 
traditional  authorship.  The  phraseology  touching  Lanercost,  from 
its  first  introduction  to  its  last  mention,  presupposes  the  local 
resident.  One  word  only  is  used  to  designate  a  journey  to  that 
place.  In  1280  King  Edward  and  Queen  Eleanor  came  (venerunt) 
to  Lanercost :  in  1281  Bishop  Ireton  came  (venit):  in  1306  King 
Edward  came  (venit)  :  in  1311  King  Robert  came  (venit)  with  a 
great  army  :  and  in  1346  King  David  and  his  rascal  rout  came 
(venerunt)  to  the  priory  of  Lanercost  and  went  off  (exierunt)  by 
way  of  Naworth  Castle.  Though  the  narrator  is  liberal  in  his  use 
of  the  word  in  expressing  locomotion,  he  frequently  interlards  the 
usage  with  '  went '  (adivi?)  or  c  passed '  (transivit)  in  respect  of 
other  places.  But  so  far  as  Lanercost  is  concerned  there  is  no 
variation :  always  came>  never  went,  as  if  the  author  was  resident 
there. 

The  migration  of  brothers  from  one  house  to  another,  an  inci- 
dent of  infinitesimal  interest  outside  an  ecclesiastical  enclosure,  is 
not  without  instruction.  The  house  from  which  the  brother  was 
transferred  is  never  mentioned.  The  reticence  is  such  as  might  be 
expected  if  the  narrator  was  an  inmate.  In  all  cases,  so  far  as  we 
have  observed,  intercommunication  was  restricted  to  Augustinian 
communities.  Nicholas  of  Carlisle  was  sent  in  1281  to  reside  at 
Gisburn  2  and  became  an  inmate  (professus  esf)  there.  Incidental 
allusion  to  another  migration  is  more  significant  still.  In  1288  we 
are  told  that  brother  N.  de  Mor  received  the  canonical  habit,  and 
in  1 307  that  he  was  sent  by  the  Queen  to  Oseney,  another  Augus- 
tinian house.3  But  it  is  not  stated  in  what  house  he  took  the 
canon's  profession  nor  from  what  house  he  was  transferred  to 
Oseney.  The  nature  of  the  profession,  however,  predicates  the 
canon  and  not  the  friar.  But  when  we  know  that  Queen  Margaret 
spent  quite  half  of  the  latter  year  at  Lanercost,  the  veil  falls  from 

1  Chron.  de  Lanercost,  p.  332.  2P.  28.  3Pp.  55,  181. 


Authorship  of  the  Chronicle  of  Lanercost     1 5 1 

the  transaction.  Similar  mystery  hangs  over  the  conventual  apos- 
tacy  of  John  of  Newcastle,  who  took  the  monastic  habit  in  the 
neighbouring  Cistercian  house  of  Holmcultram.  In  this  instance 
there  is  no  mention  of  transference,  but  the  renunciation  of  his 
first  vows  brought  forth  the  contemptuous  gibe  of  the  Lanercost 
poet,  that 

With  altered  habit,  habits  too  must  alter, 

Much  need  that  John  with  sin  no  more  should  palter. 

Unless  to  mend  his  ways  he  doth  not  fail, 

White  gown  and  snowy  cowl  will  nought  avail.1 

Isolated  incidents  like  these  are  eloquent  of  the  local  chronicler 
and  his  mode  of  record.  His  familiarity,  too,  with  occurrences  in 
the  Austin  houses  of  Gisburn,  Oseney,  Hexham,  and  Markby 
points  in  the  same  direction. 

The  poet  of  the  Chronicle  deserves  honourable  mention.  His 
effusions,  always  diverting,  if  not  always  in  the  best  of  metre,  are 
quoted  under  the  name  of  Brother  H.,  or  Henry,  or  Henry  de 
Burgo.  Few  readers  will  gainsay  the  suggestion  that  he  was  first 
canon  and  afterwards  prior  of  Lanercost.  In  1287  William 
Grynerig  came  to  live  in  the  community  (inter  nos\  and  his  habits 
as  a  vegetarian  were  a  source  of  perplexity  to  the  house.  Brother 
Henry  hit  off  the  situation  thus  : 

You  may  not  seek  a  canon's  dress  to  wear 
Who  cannot  feed  yourself  on  common  fare.2 

The  poet  let  the  cat  out  of  the  bag  when  he  revealed  the  vestis 
canonicalis  employed  inter  nos  :  a  friar  did  not  wear  the  canonical 
habit.  Perhaps  the  most  striking  of  the  undesigned  coincidences 
supplied  by  Henry's  muse  in  favour  of  Lanercost  occurs  in  his 
use  of  the  word  garcifer  to  express  a  youth.  The  chronicler  in  the 
same  folio  uses  garcio  and  garcifery  which  Sir  Herbert  Maxwell 
distinguishes  in  his  translation  as  page  and  young  fellow ;  but  it 
was  garcifer  that  Brother  Henry  adopted  for  his  verse.  It  is  a 
singular  coincidence,  as  showing  the  currency  of  this  rare  word 
among  the  canons  of  Lanercost,  the  chartulary  of  whose  house 
abounds  in  rare  words,  that  shortly  before  1280,  when  William 
garcifer  was  slain  on  one  of  his  moonlight  expeditions,  the  same 
word  was  used  by  one  of  the  canons  of  that  house  in  his  sworn 
depositions  touching  a  local  dispute.  Richard,  the  cook  of 
Lanercost,  alleged  on  oath  that  a  garcifer  in  the  kitchen,  after- 
wards chief  cook,  had  oftentimes  gone  with  the  canons  to  the  vale 

*P.  28.  2 P.  52. 


152  Rev.  James  Wilson 


of  Gelt  to  receive  the  disputed  tithes.1  If  this  is  a  mere  linguistic 
coincidence,  accidents  of  this  kind  seem  only  to  happen  at  Laner- 
cost. 

In  1300  Henry  de  Burgo,  canon  of  Lanercost,  was  the  bearer 
of  a  gift  from  Edward  I.  to  the  high  altar  of  that  church 2 :  on 
14  March,  1303-4,  Henry,  canon  of  Lanercost,  appeared  as 
proctor  for  his  house  in  an  act  before  Archdeacon  Peter  de 
Insula  of  Carlisle8  :  he  was  elected  prior  about  1310,  and  died  in 
1315.*  As  Henry  rose  in  favour  among  his  brethren,  and  as 
years  lent  gravity  to  his  demeanour,  it  may  be  permissible  to 
assume  that  his  versification  took  a  similar  turn.  His  rhymes 
between  1280  and  1290  may  be  regarded  as  his  best  for  piquancy 
and  fun.  After  his  elevation  to  the  priorate,  verses  in  his  name 
cease  in  the  Chronicle,  and  verses  with  any  pretension  to  local 
colour  vanish  altogether  after  his  death. 

No  discussion  of  authorship  would  be  complete  without  refer- 
ence to  the  prominence  in  the  Chronicle  given  to  the  lords  of 
Gillesland.  No  franchise,  ecclesiastical  or  secular,  receives  such 
attention.  In  fact  the  descent  of  the  lordship  in  the  family  of 
Multon  is  not  only  unique  in  the  territorial  history  of  the  Border 
counties,  but  it  is  singularly  accurate.  No  other  lordship  has 
mention  of  its  successive  owners.  This  feature  is  so  obvious  that 
it  needs  no  elaboration.  It  is  odd  that  Stevenson  should  have 
singled  out  one  of  those  references  as  incompatible  with  the 
Lanercost  authorship,  whereas  the  very  mention  of  a  paltry  suit 5 
in  the  court  of  Irthington,  the  capital  messuage  of  Gillesland  in 
1280,  would  seem  to  suggest  the  opposite.  Though  the  local 
verdict  was  of  immense  interest  to  the  canons,  a  glorification 
of  the  victory  over  their  neighbour  and  patron,  which  Stevenson 
expected,  would  have  been  imprudent,  not  to  say  dangerous,  if 
the  record  had  ever  met  his  eye.  The  canons  of  Lanercost  were 
well  aware  of  the  power  of  their  patrons  over  them,  as  we  know 
from  the  history  of  that  house. 

From  another  quarter  a  charge  of  inaccuracy  has  been  brought 
against  the  chronicler  for  his  account  of  the  territorial  descent  of 
Gillesland.  In  the  same  year,  we  are  told,6  died  *  Thomas  de 
Multona  secundus,'  then  lord  of  Holbeach.  It  is  unlikely,  says 

1  Chartulary  of  Lanercost,  MS.  xiii.  10. 

2  Liber  Quof.  Garder.  (Soc.  of  Antiq.),  p.  40. 

3  Chartulary  of  Lanercost,  MS.  xiv.  n. 

4 P.  216.  5P.  23.  «P.  in. 


Authorship  of  the  Chronicle  of  Lanercost     153 

he  objector,  that  a  canon  of  Lanercost  should  have  fallen  into 
this  mistake,  as  the  Thomas  de  Multon,  who  died  at  that  time, 
was  the  third  and  not  the  second  who  was  lord  of  Gillesland. 
The  objection  wholly  fails,  inasmuch  as  the  Thomas  de  Multon, 
who  came  between  the  Thomas  primus  and  the  Thomas  secundus 
in  the  family  tree,  was  never  lord  of  Gillesland  at  all,  his  mother, 
through  whom  the  barony  came  to  that  family,  having  outlived 
him.1  Misinterpretation  of  disjointed  entries  in  this  Chronicle 
has  led  to  much  confused  chronology.  The  account2  of  the 
espousal  of  the  heiress  of  the  last  of  the  Multons  in  1313  and  her 
subsequent  rape  from  the  castle  of  Warwick  by  the  first  of  the 
Dacres  of  Gillesland  is  so  picturesque  in  detail  that  scholars  have 
worried  themselves  over  the  exact  meaning  of  some  of  its 
phraseology. 

How  came  the  Chronicle  to  be  so  full  of  Lincolnshire  news  ? 
After  describing  the  avarice  of  the  canons  of  Markby  in  1289, 
some  features  of  which  he  had  hesitation  to  explain  in  detail,  the 
narrator  states  that  he  was  unwilling  to  believe  the  story  till  he 
had  the  particulars  from  the  lips  of  a  nobleman 3  who  lived  not 
more  than  three  miles  from  the  place  under  discussion.  Who 
was  this  nobleman  ?  Can  there  be  a  doubt  that  Thomas  de 
Multon,  lord  of  Holbeach,  who  lived  in  that  neighbourhood,  was 
retailer  of  the  news  ?  In  keeping  with  this  we  have  the  accounts 
of  sundry  occurrences  in  Lincolnshire,  some  of  them  of  little 
interest  beyond  the  ambit  of  the  county,  the  communication  of 
which  may  be  ascribed  to  that  family. 

In  holding  an  even  balance  between  the  rival  claims  to  author- 
ship, the  geographical  and  business  relationships  of  Lanercost 
should  not  be  omitted.  The  situation  was  on  one  of  the  high- 
ways between  England  and  Scotland.  To  this  circumstance  alone 
may  be  ascribed  many  of  the  sufferings  it  endured.  There  was 
no  religious  house  in  Cumberland  that  was  more  frequently 
burned  by  the  Scots,  and  no  district  that  underwent  more  pillage 
than  Gillesland.  In  times  of  peace  Scotsmen  came  into  England 
by  the  Maiden  Way,  the  old  Roman  highway  from  Roxburgh  to 
Cumberland  and  the  valley  of  the  Eden,  for  the  purpose  of  trade, 
as  did  Fighting  Charlie  in  the  days  of  the  Wizard  of  the  North. 
In  recording  one  of  these  raids,  the  chronicler  shows  how  much 
Lanercost  occupied  his  mind  when  he  tells  that  the  Scots  passed 
near  the  priory  of  Lanercost  on  their  return  to  Scotland.4 
JFine  Roll,  12  Edw.  I.  m.  n.  2  P.  205. 

8  Pp.  56-8.  4P.  211. 


. 

Rev.  James  Wilson 


By  reason  of  its  business  connexions  the  house  had  unrivalled 
opportunities  for  gathering  news  relating  to  the  Border  districts. 
Apart  from  the  advantages  of  its  geographical  situation,  the 
canons  had  property  in  Carlisle,  Dumfries,  Hexham,  Newcastle, 
and  Mitford  near  Morpeth.  From  1202  they  were  obliged  to 
attend  the  yearly  fair  of  Roxburgh  on  St  James'  Day  to  pay  a 
pension  to  the  monks  of  Kelso,  issuing  from  the  church  of 
Lazonby,  in  Cumberland,  in  which  they  had  a  joint  interest. 
Some  of  their  property  in  Carlisle  and  Newcastle,  not  to  speak  of 
Dumfries,  lay  alongside  the  friaries  of  the  Minorites  in  these 
towns.  The  direct  road  from  Lanercost  to  Berwick,  a  town  which 
figures  largely  in  the  narrative,  passed  near  Roxburgh  and 
through  Kelso,1  and  if  a  return  journey  was  made  to  visit  their 
Northumberland  estates,  Berwick  would  inevitably  be  a  halting- 
place.  It  will  be  seen,  therefore,  that  within  the  area  of  the 
Lanercost  connexions  many  of  the  scenes  depicted  in  the  printed 
portion  of  the  Chronicle  took  place. 

If  it  be  admitted  that  the  Chronicle  bears  evidence  of  con- 
tinuous production  as  the  work  of  more  than  one  author,  the 
presumptions  in  favour  of  Lanercost  are  difficult  to  set  aside. 
The  canon  of  an  Augustinian  priory  belonged  to  his  house  :  he 
was  the  member  of  a  corporation  with  historic  succession  :  like  a 
family,  his  house  inherited  ancestral  traditions.  If  attachment 
to  the  house  of  his  profession  was  a  feature  of  his  rule,  the  direct 
opposite  was  the  characteristic  of  the  friar's  calling.  The  friar  did 
not  belong  to  a  house  :  local  detachment  was  his  glory  :  his 
individuality  was  lost  in  his  province.  He  was  a  wanderer,  a  sort 
of  parochial  assistant,  who  went  about  from  place  to  place  under 
the  Bishop's  licence  to  give  clerical  help  where  required.  Like 
John  Wesley  in  his  palmy  days,  the  friar  was  incapable  of  localisa- 
tion :  the  world  was  his  parish.  In  addition,  the  Austin  canons 
in  the  North  of  England  had  a  well-deserved  reputation  as 
patrons  of  learning  and  students  of  history,  for  which  their 
constitution  well  fitted  them.  Nearly  half  of  their  houses  in  the 
North  produced  chronicles,  the  value  of  which  is  appreciated  at 
the  present  day.  Who  is  not  acquainted  with  the  work  of  John 
and  Richard  of  Hexham,  Alan  Frisington  of  Carlisle,  William  of 
Newburgh,  Peter  Langtoft,  Walter  of  Hemingburgh,  John  of 
Bridlington,  Stephen  Edeson  of  Wartre,  Walter  Hilton  of  Thur- 
garton,  George  Ripley,  and  Robert  the  Scribe,  scholars  who  shed 
lustre  on  the  Augustinian  institute  in  Northern  England  ?  The 
1  Britannia  Depicta  (1720),  pp.  160-162. 


• 


Authorship  of  the  Chronicle  of  Lanercost     155 

Chronicle  of  Lanercost  betrays  many  symptoms  of  learning  and 
scholarship  in  agreement  with  Augustinian  traditions.  It  requires 
a  robust  faith  to  predicate  in  the  mendicant  friar  a  knowledge  of 
Beda,  Chrysostom,  Ambrose,  Justin  Martyr,  Gregory,  and 
Augustine,  leaving  out  the  Theodosian  Code,1  as  the  quotation 
is  in  some  doubt.  Whatever  imperfections  the  composition  may 
contain,  and  nobody  wishes  to  conceal  them,  the  authors  may 
reasonably  be  acquitted  of  ignorance  of  patristic  learning. 
Literary  touches  of  various  forms  brighten  up  the  dull  catena  of 
miracle  and  legend. 

In  the  light  of  what  has  been  already  stated,  it  would  be 
hazardous  to  offer  a  dogmatic  view  of  the  authorship  of  the 
Chronicle,  but  it  seems  quite  reasonable  to  hold  that  the  pre- 
ponderance of  evidence  favours  the  Augustinian  house.  In  the 
early  vicissitudes  of  the  friars  in  the  Border  counties,  oppor- 
tunities for  undertaking  and  continuing  such  a  work  simply  did 
not  exist.  The  sources  of  the  Chronicle,  so  far  as  they  can  be 
conjectured,  are  a  strange  mixture  of  written  history  and  oral 
tale.  Many  of  the  stories  there  recorded,  some  of  them  being  in 
glorification  of  the  Mendicant  Orders,  were  taken  down  from  the 
lips  of  a  narrator.  An  Augustinian  house  with  the  geographical 
advantages  of  Lanercost  was  well  adapted  to  serve  as  an  emporium 
of  news,  and  the  ubiquitous  friars,  who  often  assisted  the  canons 
in  parochial  administration,  were  convenient  agents  to  collect  the 
supply.  But  the  corpus  of  the  Chronicle,  taken  as  it  exists  in 
manuscript,  was  compiled  from  written  sources,  and  the  insti- 
tution from  which  it  emanated  was  well  supplied  with  some  of 
the  best  materials  for  the  period  to  which  it  relates. 

JAMES  WILSON. 


1The  phrase,  feste  theodoctoy  which  puzzled  Sir  Herbert  Maxwell  (p.  128), 
should  be  compared  with  teste  Ezechlele  (p.  126)  and  teste  Chrysostomo  (p.  135)  as 
clearly  correlative.  Stevenson  should  have  printed  theodocto  as  a  proper  name, 
but  the  spelling  is  probably  corrupt.  The  print,  however,  corresponds  with  the 
text  of  the  manuscript.  The  quotation  savours  of  the  style  of  the  Theodosian 
Code. 


Hamilton  of  Kincavil  and  the  General  Assembly 

of  1563 

THE  General  Assembly  of  the  Church  of  Scotland  has  recently 
obtained  possession  of  a  document  of  more  than  ordinary 
interest.  The  earlier  records  of  the  Assembly  are  unfortunately 
most  imperfect.  Neither  the  originals  nor  complete  transcripts 
are  known  to  exist.  And  The  Booke  of  the  Universal  Kirke  pub- 
lished by  the  Bannatyne  Club,  is  largely  made  up  of  material 
from  various  writers,  by  whom  portions  of  the  records  bear  to  be 
quoted  or  summarized.  In  this  compilation  (vol.  i.  p.  36)  under 
date  2yth  June,  1563,  appears  a  short  account  of  the  proceedings 
of  the  General  Assembly  anent  the  case  of  James  Hamilton  of 
Kincavil.  This  bears  to  be  taken  from  Calderwood's  History  of 
the  Church  of  Scotland.'1  The  document  which  the  Assembly  has 
now  acquired  is  an  official  extract  on  parchment  from  the  missing 
Register  of  the  Acts  of  Assembly,  and,  as  will  be  seen,  it  sets 
forth  the  proceedings  at  length. 

For  its  proper  understanding  a  brief  statement  of  facts  seems 
necessary.  James,  or,  as  he  is  generally  called,  Sir  James  Hamilton 
of  Kincavil,  was  the  eldest  son  of  Sir  Patrick  Hamilton  of  Kin- 
cavil,  by  Margaret  Stewart,  daughter  of  the  Duke  of  Albany,  and 
thus  the  elder  brother  of  Patrick  Hamilton,  Abbot  of  Fearn,  who 
was  burned  at  St.  Andrews  on  29th  February,  1528.  The  circum- 
stances surrounding  the  condemnation  and  burning  of  Patrick 
Hamilton  are  still  obscure.  The  hostility  of  Angus  the  Regent 
to  a  Hamilton  can  easily  be  understood.  But  the  martyr  was 
closely  related  to  the  Betons,  and  both  the  Archbishop  and  his 
nephew,  the  future  Cardinal,  had  shown  themselves  to  be  friendly. 
Stranger  still,  Sir  James  Hamilton  of  Finnart — a  bastard  son  of 
Arran  and  thus  Patrick's  own  cousin — in  spite  of  all  the  ties 
of  kinship,  was  prominent  in  the  proceedings  against  him.  It 
seems,  too,  that  only  the  extraordinary  rapidity  with  which  the 
sentence  was  carried  into  effect  prevented  Sir  James  Hamilton 
1  Wood  row  Society,  vol.  ii.  p.  228. 


Hamilton  of  Kincavil  157 

of  Kincavil  from  attempting  to  rescue  his  brother  by  force. 
Foiled  in  this  he  appears  to  have  openly  shown  his  resentment 
and  his  desire  for  revenge,  in  his  wrath  probably  adopting  the 
propositions  attributed  to  his  theological  brother  and  condemned 
as  heretical. 

In  the  result  he  and  his  sister  were  with  other  alleged  heretics 
cited  to  appear  at  Holyrood,  in  the  summer  of  1534,  before  the 
Bishop  of  Ross,  as  Commissioner  for  the  Archbishop  of  St. 
Andrews,  who,  besides  being  primate,  was  also  the  ordinary  of  the 
diocese.  The  story  is  first  told  by  Foxe,1  from  whom  Calder- 
wood  and  other  writers  seem  to  have  copied  it. 

Within  a  year  after  the  martyrdom  of  Henry  Forest  or  thereabout  was 
called  James  Hamelton  of  Linlithgow,  his  sister  Katharine  Hamelton  the 
spouse  of  the  Captain  of  Dun  bar  :  also  another  honest  woman  of  Leith: 
David  Straton  of  the  house  of  Lawristone  and  Master  Norman  Gurley. 
These  were  called  to  the  Abbey  Church  of  Holyrood  House  in  Edinburgh 
by  James  Hay  bishop  of  Ross  Commissioner  to  James  Beton  Archbishop  in 
presence  of  King  James  the  Fifth  of  that  name,  who  upon  the  day  of  their 
accusation  was  altogether  clad  in  red  apparel.  James  Hamelton  was 
accused  as  one  that  maintained  the  opinion  of  Master  Patrick  his  brother, 
to  whom  the  King  gave  counsel  to  depart  and  not  to  appear  for  in  case  he 
appeared  he  could  not  help  him,  because  the  bishops  had  persuaded  the  King 
that  the  cause  of  heresy  did  in  no  wise  appertain  unto  him.  And  so 
Hamelton  fled  and  was  condemned  as  an  heretic  and  all  his  goods  and  lands 
confiscated  and  disposed  unto  others. 

Katharine  Hamelton  his  sister  appeared  upon  the  scaffold  and  being 
accused  of  a  horrible  heresy  to  wit  that  her  own  works  could  not  save  her, 
she  granted  the  same  :  and  after  a  long  reasoning  between  her  and  Master 
John  Spens  the  lawyer  she  concluded  in  this  manner  <  Work  here  work 
there  ;  what  kind  of  working  is  all  this  ?  I  know  perfectly  that  no  kind 
of  works  can  save  me  but  only  the  works  of  Christ  my  Lord  and  Saviour.' 
The  King  hearing  these  words  turned  him  about  and  laughed  and  called 
her  unto  him  and  caused  her  to  recant  because  she  was  his  aunt,  and  she 
escaped. 

The  forfeited  estates  of  Sir  James  Hamilton  were  at  once 
granted  to  a  variety  of  persons,  as  appears  from  the  Great  Seal 
Register  of  the  time.  In  particular,  Sir  James  Hamilton  of 
Finnart,  then  high  in  favour  with  the  King,  on  December  10, 
1535,  obtained  a  charter  of  the  lands  of  Kincavil  and  the  office  of 
Sheriff  of  Linlithgow,  then  in  the  King's  hands,  *  ob  Jacobi 
Hammyltoun  olim  de  Kincavil  existentiam  convicti  et  fugitivi  a 
legibus  pro  heresi/ 

1  Book  of  Martyrs,  Edn.  1846,  vol.  iv.  p.  579  ;  see  also  Letters  and  Papers  Foreign 
and  Domestic,  passim,  for  references  to  Hamilton. 


158  J.   R.  N.   Macphail 

But  in  spite  of  the  bishops  the  King  was  still  minded  to  save 
his  kinsman.  In  a  letter  to  the  Pope,  dated  29th  March,  I537,1 
he  asks  direct  for  the  offender's  pardon.  Though  printed  by 
Father  Theiner,  this  letter,  because  of  the  light  it  throws  on  the 
situation,  may  appropriately  be  given  here  at  length.  It  is  as 
follows  : 

Beatissime  Pater.  Ad  sanctos  pedes  officiosam  salutem.  Hie  lacobus 
Hammiltonn  ex  nobili  domo  originem  trahens,  et  alias  nobis  familiaris, 
iuvenili  quadam  facilitate  et  rerum  imperitia  a  priscis  patrum  institutis 
antea  descivit,  vocatusque  in  iudicium  non  gravate  abiuravit  omnem 
heresim  et  cum  detestatione  execratus  est,  sese  ut  orthodoxum  decet 
vivere  velle  professus.  Postea  paucis  interpositis  annis  rursum  in  iudicium 
vocatus  ob  quasdam  suspiciones  metu  periculi  e  nostro  regno  discessit. 
Quare  iudicum  conspectum  fugisse,  tandem  per  contumaciam,  ut  sus- 
pectus  iudicatus  est,  in  opiniones  abiuratas  relapsus.  Ouoniam  autem  ipse 
nobis  non  vulgare  exhibet  penitudinis  specimen,  eo  Rbentius  adducimur 
ut  Sanctitatem  tuam  supplices  rogemus,  quatenus  is,  qui  insano  cuique 
patet  Christi  exuperantis  clemenciae  am  plexus  per  tuam  Beatitudinem 
obvius  sit :  ea  tamen  lege  rogamus,  si  certe  pre  se  ferre  respiciencie  con- 
stantieque  specimen  visus  fuerit,  quod  nobis  profecto  multis  magnisque 
de  causis  pre  se  ferre  videtur :  in  summa  oramus  hanc  nostram  petitionem 
frustra  non  haberi ;  etiamsi  quedam  nostre  littere  antea  forte  ad  tuam 
Beatitudinem  misse  viderentur  aliquid  durius  de  homine  sentire.  Reliquum 
est  ut  diu  felixque  Christi  ecclesie  regimen  vivas  precemur.  Ex  Rotho- 
mago  xxix  Martii  anno  domini  millesimo  quingentesimo  trigesimo 
septimo. 

E.V.S.  Devotus  filius 

Scotorum  Rex 
James  R. 

The  royal  appeal  seems  to  have  been  successful,  and  Sir  James, 
now  purged  of  heresy,  was  able  to  return  to  Scotland.  But 
the  sentence  against  him  was  not  quashed  and  it  appears  from 
subsequent  proceedings  in  Parliament  that  the  Bull  which  he 
obtained  was  without  prejudice  to  the  rights  of  the  Crown  or 
other  parties  in  his  forfeited  estates.2 

Back  in  Scotland,  he  before  long  found,  or  made,  an  oppor- 
tunity of  settling  accounts  with  Sir  James  of  Finnart,  whom,  in 
1540,  he  delated  to  the  King  in  respect  of  an  alleged  plot  some 
twelve  years  old.  The  royal  consent  to  his  arrest  having  been 
obtained,  Sir  James  of  Finnart  was  tried,  condemned,  and  executed 
with  a  celerity  that  must  have  reminded  him  of  the  fate  of  the 
Abbot  of  Fearn. 

It  would  not  have  been   surprising  if,  during  the  troublous 

1  Vetera  Monumenta,  p.  607.  2  Acts,  ii.  469. 


Hamilton  of  Kincavil  159 

times  that  followed,  Sir  James  Hamilton  of  Kincavil  had  found 
some  short-hand  method  of  reacquiring  his  forfeited  estates  and 
ignored  mere  legal  formalities.  To  some  extent  he  appears  to 
have  done  so.  Moreover,  when  the  papal  jurisdiction  was  swept 
away  in  1560,  it  might  also  have  been  expected  that  the  old 
sentence  would  have  been  civilly  ignored — and,  if  remembered  at 
all,  been  regarded  as  a  mark  of  distinction.  But  the  Scots  have 
always  attached  importance  to  the  due  observance  of  legal  forms, 
and  accordingly  Sir  James  took  steps  to  have  it  properly  reduced. 
The  method  which  he  adopted  is  interesting.  He  '  purchased 
edicts '  from  the  superintendent  of  Lothian,  for  trying  an  action 
of  reduction  before  the  General  Assembly,  calling  as  respondents 
certain  persons  who  appear  to  have  been  in  possession  of  his 
forfeited  estates.  That  action  was  duly  entertained  by  that 
Reverend  Court,  and  what  happened  is  told  in  the  extract  already 
referred  to,  and  which  is  as  follows : 

At  Perth  the  xxvi  day  of  Junii  the  jeir  of  God  ane  thousand  five  hundre* 
threscore  thre  3eris  anent  ye  edictis  purchassit  and  rasit  upon  ye  complaint 
of  James  Hammiltoun  of  Kyncavill  Shereff  of  Linly*qw  fra  maister  Johnn 
Spottiswod  superintendent  of  Lotheane  the  said  James  reproducit  ye  saidis 
edictis  in  ye  public  assembley  grantit  to  him  be  ye  said  superintendent 
under  his  signett  and  subscriptioun  manuall  datitt  at  Edinbur*  ye  ellevint 
day  of  Junii  instant  execute  and  indorsate  be  Johnn  Knox  minster  of 
Edinbur*  Patrik  Kinloquhy  minster  of  Linly'qw  Johnn  Duncansoun 
and  Alexander  Oswald  minster  of  Streviling  and  [  ] 

respective,  ye  threttene  day  of  ye  same  mone*  aganis  Patrik  Crummye  in 
Carribbin  James  Gib  of  Carribder  Johnn  Cokburn  of  Clarkingtoun 
Elizabe*  Danielstoun  his  spouse  Robert  Danielstoun  sone  and  apperand 
aire  to  umq11  James  Danielstoun  his  tutouris  and  curatouris  gif  he  any 
hes  James  Witherspoun  provest  of  Linly'qw,  William  Hammiltoun  of 
Hombye  and  all  uthers  havand  or  pretendand  to  have  any  interes  to  ye 
actioun  and  caus  eftir  following  that  they  and  every  ane  of  thame  suld 
compeir  before  ye  generall  assembley  of  ye  Kirk  of  this  realme  ye  xxvi  day 
of  this  mone*  w*  continuatioun  of  dayes  to  heire  and  see  ye  articlis  quhairof 
James  umq11  bischope  of  Ros  commissionare  to  James  umq11  Archebischope 
of  Sanctandrois  w*  certane  utheres  his  collegis  condempnit  ye  said  James 
Hammiltoun  as  ane  heritik,  to  be  decernit  godlie  and  catholick  and  naway 
repugnant  to  ye  scriptures  of  God  and  ye  said  pretendit  sentence  wrangous- 
lie  led  and  gevin  aganis  him  in  penam  contumacie  to  be  cassit  annullit  and 
decernit  wrangouslie  gevin  and  proceditt  from  ye  begynnyng  w*  all  yat 
followit  yairupoun  and  thairfor  ye  said  James  (be  yair  pretendit  sentence 
and  decreit  infamit)  to  be  reponitt  agane  in  integrum  to  his  fame  honor 
and  dignitie  lik  as  he  wes  before  ye  geving  and  pronuncing  yairof  for  the 
causis  foirsaidis  and  uthers  to  be  proponit  lik  as  at  mair  lenth  wes  contenit 
in  ye  saidis  edictis  in  lik  maner  ye  said  James  producitt  ye  foirsaid  sentence 


160  J.   R.  N.  Macphail 

gevin  be  ye  said  commissionare  of  ye  daitt  at  Halyruidhous  ye  xxvi  day  of 
August  in  ye  ^eir  of  God  ane  thousand  five  hundret  fourtie  foure  [sic]  jeris 
signitt  and  subscrivit  be  maister  Andro  Oliphant  notare  publick  and  scribe 
to  ye  said  sentence  condempnand  ye  said  James  as  ane  heretik  for  balding 
and    maintenyng  of  thir    articlis    following     To   witt   that   umq11   Patrik 
Hammiltoun  deit  as  ane  gude   Christiane  and  Catholic  man  being  con- 
dempnit   as   ane    impenitent    heritik    and    brint    be    thame   and    yat   he 
wes  content  to  dee  ye  same  deith     That  thair  is  na  purgatorie     That  it 
aucht  not  to    be  prayit   for  ye  deid      That  he  held   with  him  certane 
buikis  condempnit  and  suspect  of  heresye     That  ane  man  had  not  fre  will 
That  he  usit  ye  lordis  prayer  publiclie   in  ye  vulgare  toung     That  he 
contempnit  and  causit  to  contempne  ye  preching  of  ye  freris  precheours 
and  farther  as  ye  same  sentence  at  lenth  proportit  qlk  altogydder  ye  said 
James    acceptit    in    sa    fer   as   they    maid    for    him    and   na   utherwayes 
Requiring  humillie  ye  Kirk  yair  assemblit  to  proceid  and  geve  fur*  thair 
sentence  in  ye  premissis  according  to  ye  word  of  God  equitie  and  justice 
the  qlk  request  ye  Kirk  thocht  just  and  consonant  unto  rasone  and  eftir 
calling  of  ye  saidis  parteis  and  all  uthers  having  interes  oftymes  callit  and 
nane  comperand  the  assembley  continewit  ye  advising  of  the  actioun  and 
caus  to  ye  end  of  yis  conventioun  and  then  to  decerne  thairin  and  geve 
fur*  yair  sentence  according  to   Goddis  word     Tharaftir  ye  xxvii  day  of 
Junii    foirsaid   comperit  personallie   in  ye  said  assembley  ye  said  James 
Hammiltoun  of  Kincavill  sheref  of  Linly*qw    and  in  ye  terme    assignit  be 
ye  said  assembley  to  pronunce  and  geve  fur*  thair  sentence  in  ye  caus 
before  expressit  the  said  James  repetit  ye  saidis  edictis  and  sentence  abone 
mentionate  and  contentis  thairof  si  et  in  quantum,  etc.,    Requiring  humillie 
ye  Kirk  yair  assemblit  as  of  before  to  proceid  and  geve  fur*  thair  sentence 
according  to  ye  word  of  God  in  ye  premissis     The  Assembley  eftir  calling 
of  ye   saidis   persons   summondit  and   not  comperand  eftir  also    mature 
deliberatioun  and  advising  of  ye  saidis  edictis  sentence  producit  before  tham 
and  articlis  contenit  thairin  having  God  and  his  evirlasting  word  before 
thair  ees  and  eftir  lang  rasounyng  upon  ye  saidis  articlis  contenit  in  ye 
foirsaid  sentence  w*  ane  voce  and  mynd  decernit  deliverit  and  for  finall 
sentence   pronuncit  the   saidis   articlis   contenit  in   ye   foirsaid   pretendit 
sentence  to  be  cattiolick  and  godlie  and  na  way  repugnant  to  ye  word  of 
God  according  to  godlie  interpretouris  thairof    The  proces  and  pretendit 
sentence   gevin   be  ye  said  James  umq11   bishope  of  Ros  commissionare 
foirsaid  to  have  bene  from  ye  begynnyng  wickit  and  ungodlie  wrangouslie 
procedit  and  gevin  aganis  ye  said  James  in  penam  contumacie  and  thairfor 
to  be  cassit  annullit  and  rescindit  w*  all  yat  followit  thairupon  and  ye  said 
James  Hammilton  to  be  restorit  and  reponitt  in  integrum  to  his  fame  honr 
and  dignitie  as  he  wes  befoir  ye  geving  of  ye  said  pretendit  sentence  be  said 
umq11  commissionare  and  sa  to  be  jugeitt  be  all   faythfule  in  all  tymes 
cuming  be  yis  sentence  gevin  at  Perth   in  ye   Generall  Assembley  and 
thryde  sessioun  thairof  ye  xxvii  day  of  Junii  ye  jeir  of  God  foirsaid  at  ellevin 
houris  before  noun  Before  yir  witnessis  Johnn  Wishart  of  Pittarro  Johnn 
Bellenden  of  Auchinnoull  Kny*  Comptrollare  and  Justice   Clerk  to  our 
soverane  ladye,  maister  James  Makgill  of  Rankelo'  nether  and  clerk  of 


Hamilton  of  Kincavil  161 

register  to  hir  hienes  w*  uthers  diverss  Extractit  out  of  ye  register  of  ye 
Acts  of  ye  said  Assembley  be  me  Johnn  Gray  notare  public  and  scribe  to 
yis  generall  conventioun  testifeing  ye  same  be  my  signett  and  subscriptioun 
manuall 

JN.  GRAY.     (Subscript) 

Although  this  extract  speaks  for  itself,  one  or  two  points  may 
be  noted.  First,  the  extremely  detailed  and  formal  procedure  is 
interesting.  Next,  it  is  plain  that  at  that  time  there  was  not 
thought  to  be  any  break  in  the  continuity  of  the  Church.  The 
papal  jurisdiction  had  no  doubt  been  abolished  by  statute,  but  its 
previous  acts  remained  unaffected.  The  old  sentence  thus  stood. 
But  the  General  Assembly,  being  now  the  supreme  court  of  the 
Church,  could  reduce  it  on  cause  shown.  The  use  of  the  word 
Catholic  is  also  to  be  noted.  Further,  it  is  not  the  Court  of 
Session  but  the  Assembly  that  is  asked  to  reduce  this  judicial 
sentence,  now  thirty-nine  years  old — and  that  although  the  reduc- 
tion was  obviously  intended  to  have  civil  consequences. 

There  is  thus,  it  will  be  noted,  a  remarkable  distinction  between 
the  present  case  and  that  of  Sir  John  Borthwick  in  1561.  Here 
the  inherent  jurisdiction  of  the  General  Assembly  was  assumed 
and  acted  on  by  all  concerned.  There  the  sentence  was  reviewed 
by  '  Mr.  Ihon  Wynram  superintendent  of  Fyff,  minister  eldaris 
and  diaconis  of  Cristis  Kyrk  within  the  reformed  citie  of  Sanct- 
androis,'  under  a  remit  from  the  Lords  of  Secret  Council,  and 
quashed  after  consultation  with  certain  theologians.  [St.  Andrews 
Kirk  Session  Register,  Scottish  Hist.  Society,  pp.  8  8  et  seq.~\ 

J.  R.  N.  MACPHAIL. 


James  Mill  in  Leadenhall  Street 
1819-1836 

npHAT  the  publication  of  his  History  of  British  India  was 
X  followed  by  his  appointment  to  a  lucrative  post  in  the 
East  India  House  is  of  course  a  well-known  fact  in  the  life  of  the 
elder  Mill.  Yet  none  of  his  biographers  gives  a  clear  and  con- 
nected account  of  his  official  career  ;  while  the  chief  of  them — 
Professor  Bain — is  not  always  accurate  in  his  scanty  references  to 
the  subject.  In  the  following  examination  of  this  important 
aspect  of  Mill's  life,  the  Company's  records,  now  in  the  India 
Office  at  Westminster,  have  been  utilized. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  responsibility 
of  digesting  practically  the  whole  of  the  despatches  received  from 
India,  and  of  drafting  the  Directors'  replies,  rested  on  the 
shoulders  of  one  man,  who  was  officially  designated  the  Examiner 
of  Indian  Correspondence ;  and  this  individual,  Samuel  Johnson  by 
name,  was  supposed  to  be  qualified  to  advise  his  employers  on  all 
questions — political,  revenue,  judicial,  or  military — that  were 
brought  to  their  notice.  Naturally,  this  system  came  near  to 
breaking  down.  Although  Johnson  had  a  number  of  assistants, 
it  was  found  impossible  to  deal  promptly  with  the  rapidly  growing 
correspondence  ;  and  it  became  not  unusual  for  an  India  letter  to 
remain  unanswered  for  three  or  four  years,  or  even  longer.  At 
last  an  effort  was  made  to  lighten  the  labours  of  the  Examiner, 
and  in  1804  the  duty  of  dealing  with  military  correspondence 
was  handed  over,  by  a  curious  arrangement,  to  the  Auditor  of 
Indian  Accounts,  who  was  already  responsible  for  correspondence 
on  financial  topics.  Apparently  this  change  was  not  found  satis- 
factory ;  for  a  few  years  later  the  military  work  was  transferred 
to  a  secretary  specially  appointed  for  that  purpose.  In  1809  two 
Assistant  Secretaries  were  introduced,  to  whom  was  entrusted  the 
control,  under  Johnson's  supervision,  of  the  judicial  and  revenue 
correspondence  respectively,  while  an  Assistant  Examiner  took 


James  Mill  in  Leadenhall  Street         163 

charge  of  the  miscellaneous  subjects  grouped  under  the  head  of 
Public.  Political  matters,  as  being  the  most  important,  remained 
under  the  direct  care  of  the  Examiner.  Thus  matters  stood  for 
several  years,  except  that  in  1817  Samuel  Johnson  retired  and  his 
place  was  taken  by  William  M'Culloch,  who  had  been  for  some 
time  his  principal  assistant. 

In  1819  came  a  great  change.  Rundall,  the  chief  Assistant 
Examiner,  and  Halhed,  one  of  the  Assistant  Secretaries  appointed 
ten  years  before,  retired  simultaneously ;  and  as  the  other 
Assistant  Secretaryship  had  been  vacant  for  some  time,  the 
Directors  had  three  appointments  to  fill  up  at  once  in  this 
important  department.  The  matter  was  carefully  considered  by 
the  Committee  of  Correspondence,  who  on  May  12,  1819,  made 
a  special  report  on  the  subject.  In  this  they  pointed  out  that 
the  work  had  been  for  some  time  falling  seriously  into  arrear  ; 
that  the  business  of  the  department  had  much  increased,  and  was 
likely  to  increase  still  further  ;  many  questions,  they  said,  con- 
nected with  the  internal  administration  of  India  had  acquired 
additional  importance  of  late  years,  and  the  necessity  was  apparent 
for  a  '  higher  than  ordinary  standard  of  qualifications  for  a  satis- 
factory and  even  a  tolerable  discharge  of  that  duty/  They  had 
reluctantly  come  to  the  conclusion  that  none  of  the  clerks  in  the 
department  possessed  the  requisite  attainments,  and  they  recom- 
mended therefore  the  provisional  appointment  of  three  gentlemen 
from  outside  as  Assistants  to  the  Examiner.  As  some  compensa- 
tion to  the  clerks  who  were  thus  passed  over,  the  creation  of 
a  fourth  Assistantship  was  suggested,  for  which  one  of  their 
number,  Mr.  J.  J.  Harcourt,  was  proposed,  with  consequent 
promotion  for  each  of  his  juniors. 

The  three  new  names  submitted  by  the  Committee  were  those 
of  Mr.  Edward  Strachey,  Mr.  James  Mill,  and  Mr.  Thomas  Love 
Peacock.  The  first  of  these  was  a  retired  member  of  the  Bengal 
Civil  Service,  who  had  gone  out  in  1793,  and  after  serving, 
mostly  in  a  judicial  capacity,  at  various  stations  in  the  North- 
Western  Provinces  and  Bengal,  had  returned  to  England  in 
iSn.1  Of  James  Mill  the  Committee  remarked  :  'This  gentle- 

1  He  was  the  second  son  of  Sir  Henry  Strachey,  Bart.,  M.P.,  dive's  former 
secretary.  Carlyle,  in  his  Reminiscences,  describes  him  as  '  a  genially  abrupt  man  ; 
"  Utilitarian "  and  Democrat  by  creed,  yet  beyond  all  things  he  loved  Chaucer 
and  kept  reading  him.  A  man  rather  tacit  than  discursive  ;  but  willing  to  speak, 
and  doing  it  well,  in  a  fine,  tinkling,  mellow-toned  voice,  in  an  ingenious 
aphoristic  way  ;  had  withal  a  pretty  vein  of  quiz,  which  he  seldom  indulged  in. 
A  man  sharply  impatient  of  pretence,  of  sham  and  untruth  in  all  forms ;  especially 


164  W.   Foster 

man's  character  is  before  the  public  as  the  author  of  a  History  of 
India^  and  from  the  research  displayed  in  the  course  of  that  work, 
as  also  from  private  testimony,  the  Committee  have  every  reason 
to  believe  that  his  talents  will  prove  beneficial  to  the  Company's 
interests.'  Thomas  Love  Peacock  had  recently  sprung  into 
notice  by  the  publication,  in  rapid  succession,  of  Headlong  Hall, 
Melincourt,  and  Nightmare  Abbey  ;  but  city  men  do  not,  as  a  rule, 
look  for  business  ability  in  a  novelist,  and  it  may  be  surmised 
that  his  appointment  was  largely  due  to  the  influence  of  his 
friend,  Peter  Auber,  the  Company's  Secretary.  The  canvass  for 
these  appointments  had  been  going  on  for  some  months  ;  and 
Auber  had  done  his  best  to  further  Peacock's  interests  by  pro- 
curing him  temporary  employment  in  the  Examiner's  Department 
from  the  preceding  Christmas.  Mill  had  made  formal  application 
by  a  letter  dated  March  22,  1819;  but  as  early  as  February  he  had 
hinted  to  a  correspondent  that  '  friends  of  mine  among  the  East 
India  Directors  have  views  in  my  favour  of  considerable  import- 
ance in  the  East  India  House,'  and  by  April  his  supporters, 
prominent  among  whom  were  Ricardo,  Hume,  and  Place,  were 
making  every  effort  to  secure  his  appointment.  The  'Chairs' 
were  favourable  to  him,  solely  on  the  ground  of  his  ability  and 
knowledge  ;  and  George  Canning,  then  President  of  the  Board  of 
Control,  is  said  to  have  lent  his  powerful  influence.1 

The  Committee's  report  was  considered  by  the  Directors  on 
May  1 8,  1819,  when  the  recommendations  it  contained  were 
discussed  and  approved.  To  Strachey  was  allotted  a  salary  of 
£1000  per  annum  ;  to  Mill,  ^800  ;  and  to  Peacock,  j£6oo. 

contemptuous  of  "quality"  pretensions  and  affectations,  which  he  scattered 
grinningly  to  the  winds.  Dressed  in  the  simplest  form  ;  walked  daily  to  the 
India  House  and  back,  though  there  were  fine  carriages  in  store  for  the  women 
part ;  scorned  cheerfully  "  the  general  humbug  of  the  world,"  and  honestly  strove 
to  do  his  own  bit  of  duty,  spiced  by  Chaucer  and  what  else  of  inward  harmony  or 
condiment  he  had.  ...  A  man  of  many  qualities  :  comfortable  to  be  near.' 
Many  of  his  traits  are  reflected  in  the  character  of  the  Squire  in  his  son's  Talks  at 
a  Country  House  ;  and  we  are  probably  not  wrong  in  identifying  him  with  the 
*  retired  Bengal  judge '  mentioned  in  that  work,  of  whom  it  is  said  that  *  such  is 
the  force  of  habit  that,  when  he  had  occasion  to  take  notes  of  an  important  trial 
at  the  Somersetshire  assizes,  he  actually  wrote  them  in  Persian  rather  than  in  the 
English  words  in  which  the  evidence  was  given,  just  as  he  had  done,  many  years 
before,  when  trying  dakoits  at  Jessore.' 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  recall  that  two  of  Edward  Strachey's  sons — Sir  John 
and  Sir  Richard — added  fresh  lustre  to  the  family  name  by  their  splendid  services 
to  India. 

1  Bain's  Life  of  Jama  Mill,  pp.  167,  185. 


James  Mill  in  Leadenhall  Street         165 

Harcourt,  the  fourth  Assistant,  was  given  £800  a  year,  his 
previous  services  being  taken  into  account.  All  four  appoint- 
ments were  to  be  regarded  as  probationary,  and  the  arrangement 
was  to  be  reconsidered  at  the  end  of  two  years.  Their  specific 
duties  are  not  mentioned  ;  but  it  would  seem  that  Strachey  took 
the  judicial  branch,  Mill  the  revenue,  and  Harcourt  the  public, 
while  M'Culloch  himself  looked  after  political  matters.  Peacock 
probably  attended  to  the  miscellaneous  subjects  which  did  not 
come  under  any  of  those  four  heads. 

It  was  a  bold  measure  to  entrust  important  duties  of  this 
nature  to  three  men  of  mature  years,1  of  whom  two  were  entirely 
destitute  of  the  customary  training,  and  the  third  had  had  but  a 
few  months.  One  can  fancy  the  general  shaking  of  bewildered 
heads,  and  the  loudly  expressed  disgust  of  the  men  who  had  been 
for  years  engaged  in  producing  drafts  on  the  pattern  sanctioned 
by  the  usage  of  generations — assenting  here,  carping  there,  refer- 
ring to  forgotten  orders  of  twenty  years  previous,  or  postponing 
a  decision  until  the  receipt  of  further  information.  l  The  style  as 
we  like  is  the  Humdrum,'  a  Director  is  reported  to  have  replied 
to  a  youthful  aspirant  who  inquired  what  was  the  best  method  to 
adopt  in  composing  official  despatches.  Harcourt  and  his  juniors 
had  no  doubt  cultivated  with  care  the  style  of  the  Humdrum  ; 
yet  here,  by  a  bouleversement  not  to  be  expected  from  so  eminently 
conservative  a  body  as  the  Directors,  they  were  pushed  aside  for 
newcomers  who  probably  would  not  care  a  straw  for  tradition  or 
precedent.  However,  the  experiment  was  fully  justified  by  its 
success.  On  April  10,  1821,  the  Correspondence  Committee 
brought  up  another  report,  which  stated  that  the  services  of  the 
three  new  Assistants  '  have  been  strongly  recommended  by  the 
gentlemen  who  have  filled  the  Chairs  since  that  period,  and  have 
been  approved  by  the  Committee  in  various  instances  wherein 
they  have  had  an  opportunity  of  witnessing  the  result  of  their 
labors/  They  submitted,  therefore,  'that  those  gentlemen  be 
admitted  permanently  on  the  establishment  of  the  Examiner's 
Office/  This  the  Court  approved  ;  and  at  the  same  time  added 
£200  to  the  salary  of  each,  the  increase  to  take  effect  from  the 
preceding  Lady  Day. 

James  Mill  was  now  fairly  in  the  saddle,  and  quickly  made  his 

powers  felt.     The  favourable  impression  produced  by  his  ability 

and  assiduity  was  shown  by  the  resolution  come  to  by  the  Court 

on  April  9,  1823,  to  raise  his  salary  to  £1200  from  Lady  Day, 

1  Strachey  was  45,  Mill  46,  and  Peacock  34  at  the  time  of  appointment. 


1 66  W.   Foster 

and  to  grant  him  the  title  of  Assistant  Examiner,  his  former 
colleagues  (of  whom  Peacock  also  received  an  increase  of  £200) 
being  subtly  distinguished  as  Assistants  under  the  Examiner. 
This  meant  of  course  that  he  was  placed  above  Strachey,  who 
thereupon  handed  in  his  resignation.  The  Court  accepted  it,  but 
with  such  expressions  of  regret  that  the  way  was  left  open  to  him 
to  reconsider  the  matter  ;  and  a  few  weeks  later  he  asked  and 
obtained  leave  to  withdraw  his  letter  and  resume  his  place. 

At  the  same  meeting  which  decided  Mill's  promotion,  it  was 
resolved  to  add  another  clerk  to  the  Examiner's  department ;  and 
the  nomination  having  been  placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  Chairman, 
Mr.  James  Pattison,  he  gave  it  to  John  Stuart  Mill,  who  thus  got 
his  foot  on  the  official  ladder  which  his  father  was  climbing  with 
so  much  success.1  The  actual  date  of  appointment  was  May  21, 
1823,  when  John  Mill  had  just  turned  seventeen.  The  first 
three  years  of  his  service,  which  ranked  as  a  kind  of  apprentice- 
ship, were  rewarded,  as  usual,  with  a  gratuity  of  £30  only  ;  but 
once  past  this  stage  his  rise  was  almost  as  rapid  as  his  father's  had 
been.  In  March,  1827,  he  was  given  a  special  gratuity  of  £200 
for  his  czeal  and  assiduity' ;  and  a  year  later  the  Court  c  resolved 
by  the  ballot  that  Mr.  John  Mill,  the  eleventh  clerk  in  the  office 
of  the  Examiner  of  Indian  Correspondence,  who  has  been 
employed  in  the  corresponding  department  since  his  first  appoint- 
ment and  who  has  been  reported  well  qualified  for  that  duty,  and 
to  whose  application,  industry,  and  general  good  conduct  the 
Examiner  has  borne  the  strongest  testimony,  be  removed  from 
his  present  situation  and  appointed  an  Assistant  to  the  Examiner 
next  under  Mr.  Harcourt,  with  an  addition  of  £200  to  his 
present  salary,  making  his  total  allowance  ^310  per  annum.'  He 
thus  jumped  over  the  heads  of  the  ten  clerks  above  him,  though 
his  salary  remained  a  comparatively  small  one.  This,  however, 
was  partially  remedied  by  a  special  gratuity  of  £200,  which  was 
given  to  him  each  year  from  1829  up  to  1834,  when  the  allowance 

1  Since  1814  the  Mill  family  had  been  residing  at  No.  I  Queen's  Square, 
Westminster  (now  40  Queen  Anne's  Gate),  and  thence  father  and  son  would 
walk  daily  to  the  office,  probably  with  many  a  discussion  on  the  way.  In  1831 
a  move  was  made  to  a  large  detached  villa  in  Vicarage  Place,  Kensington,  after- 
wards called  Maitland  House.  From  about  1822  James  Mill  was  in  the  habit  of 
taking  a  summer  residence  in  Surrey,  his  chosen  headquarters  in  later  years  being 
the  village  of  Mickleham,  between  Leatherhead  and  Dorking.  There  the  family 
would  remain  for  six  months  in  each  year,  and  there  Mill  spent  the  six  weeks  of 
his  annual  holiday.  The  rest  of  the  time  he  went  thither  from  Friday  to 
Monday,  while  John,  who  (not  being  the  head  of  a  department)  had  to  make  the 
usual  Saturday  attendance,  would  come  down  on  the  Saturday  afternoon. 


James  Mill  in  Leadenhall  Street          167 

,s  made  a  permanent  addition  to  his  salary,  which  had  by  that 
time  reached  ^420. 

With  James  Mill's  outside  work — important  as  it  was — we  have 
here  nothing  to  do,  but  we  must  record  a  few  more  facts  about 
his  official  career.  On  September  16,  1829,  'as  a  mark  of  the 
Court's  approbation  of  the  great  attention  and  ability  with  which 
he  has  discharged  the  duties  of  his  office,'  his  salary  was  increased 
by  £300,  to  date  from  the  29th  of  that  month.  A  year  later 
JVTCulloch  intimated  his  intention  of  retiring l  and  the  Committee 
of  Correspondence  advised  that  Mill  should  be  appointed  to 
succeed  him.  The  matter  was  debated  by  the  Directors  at  a 
meeting  held  on  December  8,  1830,  when  considerable  opposition 
was  manifested.  It  was  urged  that  M'Culloch's  post  should  not 
be  filled  up — meaning  apparently  that  Mill  was  to  do  the  work 
on  his  existing  salary.  This,  however,  was  negatived  ;  and  it 
was  resolved  that  he  should  be  made  Examiner  from  Christmas, 
at  £  1 900  a  year,  and  that  the  vacancy  thus  created  should  not  be 
filled,  but  Strachey  and  Peacock  should  be  appointed  Senior 
Assistants  on  £1200  (a  rise  of  £200  for  the  latter).2 

The  next  event  of  importance  in  the  history  of  the  department 
was  the  death  of  Strachey.  This  necessitated  the  appointment  of 
someone  to  look  after  the  judicial  work ;  and,  as  Indian  experience 
was  apparently  considered  essential,  a  new  Assistant  was  intro- 
duced (February  8,  1832),  to  rank  next  below  Peacock,  with  a 
salary  of  £1000.  The  person  chosen  was  David  Hill,  who  had 
spent  eighteen  years  in  the  Madras  Civil  Service  and  had  recently 
been  Chief  Secretary  in  that  Presidency. 

The  Company  was  now  in  the  midst  of  the  great  struggle 
which  was  to  terminate  its  existence  as  a  commercial  body. 
During  the  period  that  had  elapsed  since  the  last  renewal  of  its 
charter,  public  opinion  had  set  strongly  against  the  continuance 
of  its  privileges, -especially  of  its  monopoly  of  the  China  trade. 
The  growth  of  liberal  views,  the  stimulus  given  to  commerce  by 
the  conclusion  of  a  general  peace,  and  the  consequent  cry  for  new 
markets,  had  made  the  merchants  of  England  unanimous  in 

1  Professor   Bain  says  that  he  was  told    'that  M'Culloch's  reputation   as  an 
administrator  was  very  high,  his  despatches  being  accounted  perfect  models  and 
even  superior  to  Mill's.'     As,  however,  this  statement  is  traceable  to  Horace 
Grant,  a  clerk  in  the  Examiner's  department  who  bore  a  grudge  against  James 
Mill,  the  Professor  thinks  that  the  comparison  is  not  altogether  to  be  trusted. 

2  These  particulars,  and  some  of  the  others  given  above,  correct  in  several 
respects  Professor  Bain's  statements  in  his  Life  of  James  Mi//. 


1 68  W.   Foster 

demanding  unrestricted  access  to  the  ports  of  the  Far  East ;  and 
in  this  they  could  count  on  the  hearty  support  of  the  general 
public,  aggrieved  by  the  high  price  of  tea.  The  chief  plea  urged 
by  the  Company  in  defence  of  its  monopoly  was  that  from  the 
profits  of  this  trade  came  not  only  the  dividends  of  the  pro- 
prietors, but  also  the  wherewithal  to  meet  the  deficits  of  the 
Indian  administration  ;  but  this  provoked  the  obvious  retort  that 
there  was  no  reason  why  the  nation  should  pay  a  high  price  for 
an  article  of  prime  importance  in  order  to  find  funds  for  these  two 
purposes.  As  early  as  1820  Committees  of  both  Houses  of 
Parliament  had  reported  in  favour  of  a  relaxation  of  the  restric- 
tions imposed  by  the  Company  ;  but  the  Government  of  the  day 
refused  to  take  action,  and  attempts  made  nine  years  later  to 
raise  the  question  afresh  were  foiled  in  like  manner. 

However,  action  of  some  sort  was  so  clearly  necessary,  in  order 
to  satisfy  public  opinion,  that  early  in  the  session  of  1830 
Committees  were  appointed  both  in  the  Lords  and  Commons  '  to 
inquire  into  the  present  state  of  the  East  India  Company  and  the 
trade  between  the  East  Indies,  Great  Britain,  and  China/  In  July 
both  Committees  submitted  preliminary  reports,  dealing  chiefly 
with  the  China  trade ;  but  the  further  prosecution  of  their 
inquiries  was  stopped  by  the  dissolution  entailed  by  the  death  of 
the  King,  and  the  matter  was  not  taken  up  again  until  February, 
1831 — this  time  by  a  Committee  of  the  Commons  alone.  Even 
then,  the  conflict  over  the  Reform  Bill  brought  about  a  fresh 
appeal  to  the  country  in  April,  and  a  third  Committee  was  not 
constituted  until  the  end  of  June. 

Ministers  had  already  avowed  their  intention  of  throwing  open 
the  trade  with  China,  and  consequently  the  Committee  turned  its 
attention  chiefly  to  the  details  of  Indian  administration.  James 
Mill  was  called  in  August,  and  his  evidence  lasted  through  eight 
sittings.  It  was  restricted  to  revenue  matters,  and  is  remarkable 
for  its  thoroughgoing  defence  of  the  existing  system.  He 
strongly  condemned  the  Permanent  Settlement  of  Bengal,  and 
suggested  as  a  partial  remedy  the  purchase  by  Government  of  the 
zamindari  rights  as  they  came  into  the  market,  to  be  followed  by 
a  resettlement  with  the  tenants  on  the  old  hereditary  principle. 
Asked  as  to  the  probity  or  otherwise  of  the  subordinate  native 
officials,  he  replied  that  there  was  '  a  total  absence  of  a  moral 
feeling  in  the  country.  ...  It  is  not  shameful  to  be  dishonest 
in  a  public  trust/  These  and  other  answers  appear  to  have 
irritated  certain  of  the  members  opposed  to  the  Company,  and 


James  Mill  in  Leadenhall  Street         169 

on  the  last  day  of  his  examination  he  was  pointedly  asked  :  '  Do 
you  conceive  that  it  is  possible  for  any  person  to  form  an 
adequate  judgment  of  the  character  of  a  people  without  being 
personally  acquainted  with  them  ?  *  to  which  he  made  the  quiet 
reply  :  '  If  the  question  refers  to  myself,  I  am  far  from  pre- 
tending to  a  perfect  knowledge  of  the  character  of  the  people  of 
India.' 

The  Committee  briefly  reported,  on  October  n,  1831,  the 
evidence  they  had  taken  ;  but  everybody's  attention  was  absorbed 
by  the  struggle  over  the  Reform  Bill — which  the  Lords  had 
thrown  out  three  days  before — and  no  attempt  was  made  to  deal 
with  the  question  of  India  during  the  rest  of  the  session.  On 
January  27,  1832,  the  appointment  of  a  Committee  was  once 
again  moved  and  agreed  to.  This  time  sub-committees  were 
formed,  who  took  up  the  subject  in  six  branches.  On  four  of 
these  Mill  was  again  examined.  He  expressed  himself  in  favour 
of  relieving  the  Supreme  Government  from  the  task  of  conducting 
the  local  administration  of  Bengal ;  he  also  advocated  the  substi- 
tution of  Lieutenant-Governors  for  the  Governors  of  Madras  and 
Bombay,  and  the  amalgamation  of  the  Presidential  armies.  He 
strongly  supported  the  recommendation  of  the  Indian  Govern- 
ment for  the  establishment  of  a  Legislative  Council,  which  he 
would  constitute  of  one  or  more  experienced  civilians,  one  lawyer, 
one  native,  and  an  individual  c  thoroughly  versed  in  the  philo- 
sophy of  man  and  of  government.'  The  existing  exemption  of 
Europeans  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Company's  courts  he 
severely  condemned,  as  well  as  other  defects  in  the  judicial 
system.  He  considered  the  use  of  Persian  in  the  law  courts  an 
absurdity,  but  the  substitution  of  English  would  have  an  equally 
bad  effect ;  the  only  proper  course  was  to  employ  judges  familiar 
with  the  vernacular.  He  approved  the  opening  of  the  civil 
service  to  public  competition  (of  the  Haileybury  system  he  had 
come  to  an  opinion  c  by  no  means  favourable '),  and  would  also 
do  what  was  possible  to  educate  the  natives.  As  regards  the 
employment  of  the  latter  in  Government  service,  he  would 
observe  strict  impartiality,  taking  the  best  man  for  the  post, 
whether  a  native  or  a  European.  On  revenue  topics,  he  repeated 
his  conviction  of  the  '  pernicious '  effects  of  the  Permanent 
Settlement,  and  opposed  the  abolition  of  the  salt  duty  (c  I  know 
of  no  substitute  for  the  tax  on  salt  which  would  be  so  little 
onerous  to  the  people ')  ;  while  as  regards  opium  he  could  '  see 
no  objection  to  the  present  mode  at  all.'  Questioned  as  to  the 


170  W.   Foster 

native  states,  he  expressed  strong  opinions  regarding  the  misery- 
caused  by  their  misgovernment — a  misgovernment  which,  he 
thought,  the  policy  in  vogue  did  much  to  perpetuate  by  abstaining 
from  any  real  interference  in  the  internal  administration  of  those 
states,  whilst  guaranteeing  their  rulers  against  the  natural  remedy, 
rebellion.  Either,  he  said,  the  states  should  be  left  entirely  alone 
(a  course  which  he  admitted  was  in  most  cases  out  of  the  ques- 
tion) or  the  administration  should  be  taken  over  and  the  princes 
reduced  to  the  position  of  pensioners. 

The  Committee  reported  to  the  House  on  August  16,  1832  ; 
but  the  close  of  the  session  prevented  further  action.  Meanwhile 
a  long  and  elaborate  correspondence  went  on  between  the  Court 
of  Directors  and  the  Board  of  Control  regarding  the  terms  to  be 
allowed  to  the  Company  by  the  Government ;  and  in  this  Mill 
of  course  bore  a  leading  part.  We  need  not  enter  into  the 
details  of  the  controversy,  except  to  say  that  the  honours  of 
debate  appear  to  have  fallen  to  the  Company's  representatives, 
and  that  considerable  concessions  were  obtained  as  the  result  of 
their  efforts. 

The  Bill  was  introduced  in  the  Commons  at  the  end  of  June, 
1833,  and  was  read  a  second  time  on  July  10,  when  Macaulay, 
as  one  of  the  Commissioners  of  the  India  Board,  made  a  masterly 
speech  in  its  favour.  Part  of  his  task  was  to  justify  to  the 
Reformed  Parliament  the  abstention  of  the  Government  from  any 
attempt  to  provide  India  with  representative  institutions  ;  and  in 
doing  this  he  made  a  clever  use  of  the  evidence  given  by  Mill, 
whom  he  characterised  as  a  *  gentleman  extremely  well  acquainted 
with  the  affairs  of  our  Eastern  Empire,  a  most  valuable  servant  of 
the  Company,  and  the  author  of  a  History  of  India  which,  though 
certainly  not  free  from  faults,  is,  I  think,  on  the  whole  the 
greatest  historical  work  which  has  appeared  in  our  language  since 
that  of  Gibbon.'  '  That  gentleman,'  he  said,  '  is  well  known  to 
be  a  very  bold  and  uncompromising  politician.  He  has  written 
strongly,  far  too  strongly  I  think,  in  favour  of  pure  democracy. 
He  has  gone  so  far  as  to  maintain  that  no  nation  which  has  not  a 
representative  legislature,  chosen  by  universal  suffrage,  enjoys 
security  against  oppression.  But  when  he  was  asked,  before  the 
Committee  of  last  year,  whether  he  thought  representative 
government  practicable  in  India,  his  answer  was  :  "  utterly  out  of 
the  question." ' 

The  Bill  emerged  from  Committee  practically  unaltered,  and 
was  carried  up  to  the  Lords  at  the  end  of  July.  A  few 


James  Mill  in  Leadenhall  Street         171 

amendments  were  made,  in  which  the  Commons  concurred, 
and  in  August  the  measure  became  part  of  the  law  of  the  land. 

The  passing  of  the  Act  was  followed  by  the  appointment  of 
Macaulay  to  the  newly  created  post  of  Legal  Member  of  the 
Cover nor-General's  Council — an  appointment  generously  sup- 
ported by  Mill,  who  bore  no  malice  for  the  attacks  which  the 
younger  man  had  made  on  him  in  the  pages  of  the  Edinburgh 
Review.*  'The  late  Chairman/  wrote  Macaulay  to  his  sister, 
*  consulted  him  about  me  ;  hoping,  I  suppose,  to  have  his  support 
against  me.  Mill  said,  very  handsomely,  that  he  would  advise 
the  Company  to  take  me  ;  for,  as  public  men  went,  I  was  much 
above  the  average  and,  if  they  rejected  me,  he  thought  it  very 
unlikely  that  they  would  get  anybody  so  fit.'  Between  Macaulay 's 
appointment  and  his  sailing,  he  and  Mill  held  frequent  confer- 
ences. Another  consequence  most  welcome  to  the  latter  was  the 
nomination  of  a  small  commission  to  inquire  into  the  Indian 
judicial  system,  with  Macaulay  as  president.  One  of  the  com- 
missioners, Mr.  Charles  Hay  Cameron  (afterwards  himself  Legal 
Member),  was  an  old  friend  of  Mill,  who  eight  years  before  had 
endeavoured,  but  without  success,  to  get  him  elected  to  the  chair 
of  philosophy  in  the  newly  founded  University  of  London.  He 
too  availed  himself  of  every  opportunity  of  consulting  Mill  before 
setting  out  to  take  up  his  post.  In  August,  1834,  the  latter 
writes  to  Brougham  :  c  Cameron  has  been  down  with  me  for 
some  days,  mainly  with  a  view  to  go  into  the  details  of  his 
magnificent  charge.  He  views  it  with  the  proper  spirit ;  and  I 
doubt  not  India  will  be  the  first  country  on  earth  to  boast  of  a 
system  of  law  and  judicature  as  near  perfection  as  the  circum- 
stances of  the  people  would  admit/  How  well  this  anticipation 
was  fulfilled  by  the  Criminal  Code,  which  was  the  outcome  of  the 
Commission's  labours,  is  now  a  matter  of  common  knowledge. 

In  1835  a  writership  in  the  Bengal  Presidency  was  procured 
for  Mill's  second  son,  James  Bentham  Mill.  He  went  through 
the  ordinary  routine  of  appointments,  serving  mostly  in  the 
North-Western  Provinces  ;  retired  in  1852  ;  and  died  ten  years 
later.  A  younger  son,  George  Grote  Mill,  was  appointed  a  clerk 
in  the  India  House  in  1 844.  He  is  described  as  very  able  and 
of  a  genial  temperament,  but  constitutionally  delicate.  Having 

1With  equal  generosity  Macaulay  refused  to  include  these  articles  in  his 
Collected  Essays,  and  in  the  preface  expressed  regret  for  his  'unbecoming  acrimony' 
and  his  satisfaction  that  Mill  'was,  when  his  valuable  life  closed,  on  terms  of 
cordial  friendship  with  his  assailant.' 


172  W.   Foster 

contracted  lung  disease  through  overtasking  his  strength  in  a 
Swiss  walking  tour,  he  was  obliged  to  give  up  his  post  in  1850, 
and  died  at  Madeira  three  years  later.  Some  account  of  him 
will  be  found  in  an  article  by  David  Masson  on  Memories  of 
London  in  the  Forties^  which  appeared  in  BlackwootTs  Magazine 
for  February,  1908. 

Early  in  1836  several  changes  were  made  in  the  Examiner's 
department,  in  consequence  of  the  retirement  of  Harcourt,  whose 
place  was  not  filled  up.  James  Mill's  salary  was  raised  to  ^2000 ; 
the  title  of  Assistant  Examiner  was  revived  and  given  to  Peacock 
with  £1500  a  year  ;  while  the  salaries  of  Hill  and  John  Mill  were 
made  £1200  and  j£8oo  respectively.  John  Mill  was  not  yet 
thirty  years  of  age. 

James  Mill  was  now  nearly  sixty-three,  and  his  life  of  strenuous 
toil  had  of  late  told  rapidly  on  his  health.     In  August,  1835,  he 
had  had  an  ominous  hemorrhage  of  the  lungs,  followed  by  con- 
siderable weakness  ;  and  although  he  got  back  to  London  from 
Mickleham  in  the  autumn,  he  was  unable  to  resume  his  duties  at 
the  India  House.     However,  he  was  still  hopeful,  and  wrote  to 
Lord  Brougham  in  January  '  they  tell  me  that,  if  I  take  care  till 
the  good  weather  comes,  I  shall  be  well  again.'     But  he  grew 
weaker  and  weaker,  and  before  long  it  became  evident  that  he 
would  never  see  Leadenhall  Street  any  more.     As  the  end  drew 
near,  his  affection  for  his  children  showed  through  the  mask  of 
reserve  which  he  had  hitherto  chosen  to  wear.     John  was  in  bad 
health,  and  had  been  ordered  by  the  doctor  to  Brighton  ;  James 
was  in  India  ;  and  only  George  and  Henry  remained  with  the 
stricken   father.     '  Although,'    wrote    Henry,    '  he    seldom    said 
anything  about  it,  never  by  way  of  complaint,  yet  he  sometimes, 
when  he  thought  he  should  not  recover,  used  to  say  to  me  or 
George  that  he  would  very  willingly  die,  if  it  were  not  that  he 
left  us  too  young  to  be  sure  how  we  should  turn  out.'     In  June 
his  friend  Place  wrote  :  '  Stayed  too  long  with  poor  Mill,  who 
showed  much  more  sympathy  and  affection  than  ever  before  in 
all  our  long  friendship.     But  he  was  all  the  time  as  much  of 
a  bright,  reasoning  man  as  he  ever  was — reconciled  to  his  fate, 
brave  and  calm.'     After  a  time  bronchitis  supervened,  and  on 
June  23,  1836,  the  sufferer  passed  away.     He  was  buried  in  the 
old  parish  church  at  Kensington,  and  a  marble  tablet  erected  to 
his  memory.     The  church  has  since  been  rebuilt,  and  the  tablet 
is  now  to  be  found  in  the  porch. 

To  the  question  how  the  elder  Mill  appeared  to  his  Leadenhall 


James  Mill  in  Leadenhall  Street         173 

Street  associates  and  what  manner  of  man  he  was  during  busi- 
ness hours,  tradition  gives  little  answer.  We  gather,  however, 
that  he  was  a  strict  disciplinarian,  scrupulously  observing  office 
rules  himself,  and  expecting  others  to  observe  them  likewise. 
Genial  and  patient  towards  his  subordinates  he  is  not  likely  to 
have  been,  considering  his  natural  coldness  of  disposition  and 
irritability  of  temper ;  but  one  may  feel  sure  that  he  was  inflexibly 
just  in  his  dealings  with  them,  and  anxious  to  encourage  and 
reward  those  who  displayed  industry  and  ability.  *  One  thing  is 
certain/  writes  Professor  Bain,  '  that  Mill  acquired  a  very  great 
amount  of  influence  and  authority  with  the  Court  of  Directors. 
It  is  doubted  whether  anyone  before  or  since  obtained  the  same 
share  of  their  confidence.  It  has  been  said  that,  he  being  dead 
when  the  Macaulay  Commission  brought  over  their  new  Code  for 
India,  the  Directors  could  not  trust  their  own  judgment  so  far  as 
to  put  it  in  force/  And  this  influence  was  not  merely  that  which 
an  official  of  long-standing  would  naturally  have  with  a  hetero- 
geneous body  like  the  Court  ;  it  was  due  largely  to  Mill's 
exceptional  force  of  character.  *  He  was  a  born  leader — a  king 
of  men/  says  Professor  Bain  with  enthusiasm  ;  and  even  that 
coolest  of  filial  critics,  his  eldest  son,  bears  similar  testimony  : 
*  My  father's  .  .  .  senses  and  mental  faculties  were  always  on  the 
alert ;  he  carried  decision  and  energy  of  character  in  his  whole 
manner  and  into  every  action  of  life  ;  and  this,  as  much  as  his 
talents,  contributed  to  the  strong  impression  which  he  always 
made  upon  those  with  whom  he  came  into  personal  contact/ 

Of  the  elder  Mill's  services  to  India,  his  son  writes  :  '  The 
influence  which  his  talents,  his  reputation,  and  his  decision  of 
character  gave  him  with  superiors  who  really  desired  the  good 
government  of  India,  enabled  him  to  a  great  extent  to  throw  into 
his  drafts  of  despatches,  and  to  carry  through  the  ordeal  of  the 
Court  of  Directors  and  Board  of  Control,  without  having  their 
force  much  weakened,  his  real  opinions  on  Indian  subjects.  In 
his  History  he  had  set  forth,  for  the  first  time,  many  of  the  true 
principles  of  Indian  administration  :  and  his  despatches,  following 
his  History,  did  more  than  had  ever  been  done  before  to  promote 
the  improvement  of  India  and  teach  Indian  officials  to  understand 
their  business.  If  a  selection  of  them  were  published,  they 
would,  I  am  convinced,  place  his  character  as  a  practical  statesman 
fully  on  a  level  with  his  eminence  as  a  speculative  writer/ 

W.  FOSTER. 


Chronicle  of  Lanercost1 

WHEN  the  King  of  England  reached  Poissy,  he  found  the 
bridge  broken  and  guarded  by  1000  knights  and  2000 
cross-bowmen,  so  that  it  might  not  be  repaired  to  enable  the  King  of 
England  to  cross.  But  the  King  of  England,  having  killed  the 
guards,  speedily  reparied  the  bridge,  and  crossed  over  with  his  army. 
Then  he  proceeded  through  Picardy  to  Ponthieu  ;  his  enemy 
followed  him  to  Crecy-en-Ponthieu,  where,  on  the  seventh  of 
the  kalends  of  September,2  by  the  help  of  the  Lord,  he  defeated 
his  enemy  in  a  great  battle.  For  the  action  began  on  the  afore- 
said day,  to  wit,  the  Saturday  after  the  feast  of  S.  Bartholomew, 
and  continued  until  noon  on  the  following  day,  and  was  brought 
to  a  close,  not  by  human,  but  by  divine,  power.  Among  those 
slain  and  captured  there  were  the  King  of  Bohemia3  and  the  King  of 
Majorca,  also  the  Duke  of  Lorraine,  the  Archbishop  of  Sens  and 
[the  bishop  of]  Nimes,4  the  Comte  d'Alen^on,  who  was  the  King 
of  France's  brother,  the  Abbot  of  Corbeil,  besides  the  Count  of 
Flanders,  the  Comte  d'Albemarle  [?],5  the  Comte  Sauvay,  the 

1See  Scottish  Historical  Review,  vi.   13,  174,  282,  383;  vii.  56,  1 60,  271,  377  ; 
viii.  22,  159,  276,  377;  ix.  69,  159,  278,  390;  x.  76. 

2  26th  August. 

3  Froissart  describes  thus  the  death  of  this  gallant  old  King  Charles  of  Bohemia. 
*  Having  heard  the  order  of  battle,  he  enquired  where  was  his  son  the  lord  Charles. 
His  attendants  answered  that  they  did  not  know,  but  believed  he  was  fighting. 
The  king  said  to  them — "Gentlemen,  you  are  all  my  people,  my  friends  and 
brethren  in  arms  this  day  ;  wherefore,  as  I  am  blind,  I  beseech  you  to  lead  me  so 
far  into  the  battle  that  I  may  deal  one  blow  with  my  sword."    The  knights  replied 
that  they  would  lead  him  forward  at  once  ;  and,  lest  they  should  lose  him  in  the 
mellay,  they  fastened  all  the  reins  of  their  horses  together,  and  put  the  king  at  their 
head,  that  he  might  gratify  his  wish.    They  advanced  against  the  enemy  ;  the  king 
rode  in  among  them  and  made  good  use  of  his  sword.     He  and  his  companions 
fought  most  gallantly ;  but  they  pressed  forward  so  far  that  they  were  all  killed ; 
and  on  the  morrow  they  were  found  on  the  ground,  with  their  horses  all  tied 
together.'     (Froiuart,  ch.  cxxii.). 

4  Artlnepltcopw  Senonensis  Neminensis.     Nimes  was  not  an  archiepiscopal  see. 

5  Comes  Daumarle. 


Chronicle  of  Lanercost  175 

Comte  de  Blois,  the  Comte  de  Mont  Villiers,  the  Comte  de 
Sainiers  and  his  brother,  the  Prior-in-chief  of  the  Hospital  of 
Jerusalem,  the  High  Lord  of  Rosenburg  and  chief  man  in  all 
France  after  the  King,  the  Vicomte  de  Turnas,  the  Lord  de 
Morles,  the  Lord  of  Righou,  the  Lord  of  Saint-Vinaunt,  and 
many  other  knights  and  esquires.  More  than  20,000  were  killed, 
and  people  without  number  of  other  nations ;  many  were  captured 

I  and  imprisoned,  King  Philip  [saved  himself]  by  flight  in  arms. 
After  this  the  King  of  England  undertook  the  siege  of  Calais, 
which  was  from  old  time  most  hurtful  to  the  English. 
Blessed  be  the  Lord  God  of  Israel !  who  hath  visited  and 
redeemed  his  people  and  raised  up  a  horn  of  salvation  for  us  in 
the  house  of  David,  from  our  enemy  ! 
In  the  same  year,  that  is  1346,  to  wit  on  the  vigil  of  S.  Luke 
the  Evangelist,1  from  the  root  of  iniquity  in  Scotland  sprang  a 
stem  of  evil,  from  which  tree  certain  branches  broke  forth,  bear- 
ing, I  trow,  a  crop  of  their  own  nature,  the  buds,  fruit  and  foliage 
of  much  confusion.  For  in  those  days  there  went  forth  from 
Scotland  the  sons  of  iniquity,  persuading  many  people  by  saying, 
'  Come,  let  us  make  an  end  of  the  nation  of  England,  so  that  their 
name  shall  no  more  be  had  in  remembrance  ! '  And  the  saying 
seemed  good  in  their  eyes.  Wherefore  on  the  sixth  day  of 
October,  the  Scot  assembled,  children  of  accursed  Belial,  to  raise 
war  against  God's  people,  to  set  a  sword  upon  the  land,  and  to 
ruin  peace.  David,  like  another  Ahab  deceived  by  an  evil  spirit 
],2  strong  men  and  eager  and  most  ready  for  war,  earls, 
barons,  knights  and  esquires,  with  two  thousand  men-at-arms  and 
20,000  commonalty  of  the  villages,  who  are  called  '  Hobelers ' 
among  them,  and  of  foot  soldiers  and  archers  it  was  calculated 
there  were  ten  thousand  and  more.  Impelled  by  pride  and  led  by 
the  devil,  these  invaded  England  with  a  lion-like  rush,  marching 
straight  upon  the  fortress  of  Liddel.  Sir  William  of  Douglas 
arrived  with  his  army  at  the  said  fortress  in  the  morning,  and 
David  in  the  evening,  laid  siege  thereto  on  the  aforesaid  day. 
For  three  days  running  they  lay  there  in  a  circle,  nor  did  they 
during  the  said  days  allow  any  attacks  to  be  made  on  the  threat- 
ened 3  fortress.  But  on  the  fourth  day,  having  armed  themselves 
before  sunrise  with  spears,  stones,  swords  and  clubs,  they  delivered 
assaults  from  all  quarters  upon  the  aforesaid  fortress  »and  its 
defenders.  Thus  both  those  within  and  without  the  fortress 
fought  fiercely,  many  being  wounded  and  some  slain  ;  until  at 
1 1 7th  October.  2  Words  missing  in  original.  3  Praelibato. 


176  Sir  Herbert  Maxwell,   Bart. 

length  some  of  the  Scottish  party  furnished  with  beams  and  house- 
timbers,  earth,  stones  and  fascines,  succeeded  in  filling  up  the 
ditches  of  the  fortress.  Then  some  of  the  Scots,  protected  by 
the  shields  of  men-at-arms,  broke  through  the  bottom  of  the  walls 
with  iron  tools  and  many  of  them  entered  the  said  fortress  in  this 
manner  without  more  opposition.  Knights  and  armed  men 
entering  the  fortress  killed  all  whom  they  found,  with  few  excep- 
tions, and  thus  obtained  full  possession  of  the  fortress. 

Then  Sir  Walter  de  Selby,  governor  of  the  fortress,  perceiving, 
alas  !  that  his  death  was  imminent  and  that  there  was  no  possible 
means  of  escape  for  him,  besought  grace  of  King  David,  imploring 
him  repeatedly  that,  whereas  he  had  to  die,  he  might  die  as  befitted 
a  knight,  and  that  he  might  end  his  last  day  in  the  field  in  com- 
bat with  one  of  his  enemies.  But  David  would  not  grant  this 
petition  either  for  prayer  or  price,  being  long  demented  with 
guile,  hardened  like  another  Pharaoh,  raging,  furious,  goaded  to 
madness  worse  than  Herod  the  enemy  of  the  Most  High.  Then 
the  knight  exclaimed,  '  O  king,  greatly  to  be  feared !  if  thou 
wouldst  have  me  behold  thee  acting  according  to  the  true  kingly 
manner,  I  trust  yet  to  receive  some  drops  of  grace  from  the  most 
felicitous  fountain  of  thy  bounty.' 

O,  infamous  rage  of  this  wicked  king  !  Alas  !  he  would  not 
even  allow  the  knight  to  confess,  but  commanded  him  to  be 
beheaded  instantly  ;  and  he  had  hardly  ceased  speaking  when 
those  limbs  of  the  devil,  the  tyrants  torturers  who  were  standing 
by,  carried  out  in  act  what  he  had  ordered  in  speech.  And  thus 
these  evil  men,  shedders  of  blood,  wickedly  and  inhumanely 
caused  human  blood  to  flow  through  the  field.  Wherefore  shortly 
after  God  poured  forth  upon  them  abundantly  his  indignation. 
Thus,  therefore,  did  these  wretches,  ut  alteri  filii,  bragging  over 
the  fate  of  a  just  man,  stamp  their  feet  and  clap  their  hands,  and 
they  marched  forth  rejoicing,  horse,  foot  and  men-at-arms,  David 
and  the  devil  being  their  leaders. 

Coming  then  to  the  priory  of  Lanercost,  where  dwell  the 
canons,  venerable  men  and  servants  of  God,  they  entered 
arrogantly  into  the  sanctuary,  threw  out  the  vessels  of  the  temple, 
plundered  the  treasury,  shattered  the  bones,  stole  the  jewels,  and 
destroyed  as  much  as  they  could.  Thence  these  sacrilegious  men 
marched  by  Naworth  Castle  and  the  town  of  Redpath,  and  so  the 
army  arrived  in  Tynedale.  But  the  English  of  the  Carlisle  dis- 
trict had  a  truce  with  the  Scots  at  that  time,  so  that  in  that  march 
they  burnt  neither  towns  nor  hamlets  nor  castles  within  the 


Chronicle  of  Lanercost  177 

bounds  of  Carlisle.  David  then  came  to  Hexham  Priory,  where 
the  Black  Canons  dwell,  and,  as  is  to  be  deplored,  on  that  occasion 
and  on  others  David  utterly  despoiled  the  aforesaid  priory  ;  for 
the  Scottish  army  lay  there  for  three  whole  days,  and  David  took 
delight  in  burning,  destroying  and  wrecking  the  church  of  God. 

Not  this  the  David  whom  the  Lord 

To  honour  did  delight ; 
But  quite  a  different  David  who 

To  Christ  did  show  despite. 
He  proved  his  evil  kind  when  he 

God's  altar  did  defile  ; 
Blacker  his  guilt  when  to  the  flames 

He  gave  the  sacred  pile.1 

It  was,  then,  not  David  the  warrior,  but  this  David  the  defaecator 
o,  for  some  reason  or  other,  strictly  ordered  that  four  northern 
towns  should  not  be  burnt,  to  wit,  Hexham,  Corbridge,  Darlington 
ind  Durham,  because  he  intended  to  obtain  his  victual  from  them 
in  the  winter  season;  but  a  certain  proverb  saith,  'The  bear 
wanteth  one  way  and  his  leader  another/  Wherefore,  although 
the  man  himself  had  laid  his  plans,  we  were  patiently  hoping  for 
something  different. 

The  Scots  marched  from  Hexham  to  the  town  of  Ebchester, 
ravaging  all  parts  of  the  country.  Thence,  praised  be  God  !  they 
crossed  toward  the  wood  of  Beaurepair 2  for  our  deliverance  and 

1  Non  tamen  Ilk  David  quern  Christum  sanctificavit, 
Sed  erat  ille  David  qui  Christum  inhonoravit. 
Quod  bene  probavit  cum  super  altare  cacavit ; 
Sed  plus  peccavit  quando  sacra  templa  cremavit. 

The  reference  is  to  an  accident  which,  it  was  alleged,  happened  to  the  infant 
David  at  his  baptism.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  monkish  spite  against  everything 
Scottish  that  this  little  mishap  was  made  the  subject  of  unseemly  reproach 
throughout  King  David's  reign.  The  following  lines,  which  will  not  bear 
translation,  and  seven  others  which  I  do  not  care  to  quote  even  in  the 
original  Latin,  occur  in  a  monkish  poem  on  the  Battle  of  Neville's  Cross.  ({Political 
Poems  and  Songs  of  the  iflh  Century,  vol.  i.  p.  48.  Rolls  Series.  1859.) 

Dum  puerum  David  praesul  baptismate  lavit, 
Ventrem  lavavit,  baptisterium  maculavit. 
Fontem  foedavit  in  quo  mingendo  cacavit ; 
Sancta  prophanavit,  olei  faeces  reseravit. 
Brus  nimis  emunxit,  cum  stercore  sacra  perunxit, 
^.  Se  male  disjunxit,  urinae  stercore  junxit. 
f^  Dum  baptizatur  altare  Dei  maculatur, 
Nam  super  altare  fertur  mingendo  cacare, 
Fac  singularis  puer  hie  caslestibus  aris 

Optulit  in  primis  stercora  foeda  nimis. 
2  Now  Beaupark. 

M 


178  Sir  Herbert  Maxwell,   Bart. 

their  confusion.  David  abode  in  the  manor  of  Beaurepair,  sending 
forth  his  satellites  in  all  directions,  bidding  them  drive  off  cattle, 
burn  houses,  kill  men  and  harry  the  country.  In  like  manner  as 
[that  other]  David  seized  the  poor  man's  lamb,  although  he  him- 
self possessed  sheep  and  oxen  as  many  as  he  would ;  wherefore, 
according  to  Scripture,  his  son  died ;  so  did  [this]  David,  a  root 
of  iniquity,  believing  himself  like  another  Antiochus,  to  possess 
at  least  two  kingdoms,1  suddenly  attack  towns  and  hamlets,  inflict 
injury  upon  the  people,  gather  spoil,  destroy  houses,  carry  women 
into  captivity,  seize  men  and  cattle,  and,  worst  of  all,  command 
churches  to  be  burnt  and  books  of  law  to  be  thrown  into  the 
flames,  and  thus,  alackaday  !  did  he  hinder  work  in  the  vineyard  of 
the  Lord.  He  caused,  I  say,  a  great  slaughter  of  men,  and,  uplifted 
in  pride,  he  declared  that  he  would  assuredly  see  London  within  a 
very  short  time  ;  which  purpose  the  Searcher  of  Hearts  caused  to 
fulfil  his  fate.2  Thus  this  most  cruel  David  was  ill  at  ease,  being 
inspired  by  the  devil  and  destitute  of  all  kingly  grace  through  his 
exceeding  moroseness. 

Who  can  describe  the  pride  of  old  men  ?  Scarcely  can  any  one 
now  living  reckon  up  the  scourges  of  the  feeble  mourners,  the 
groanings  of  the  young  people,  the  weariness  of  the  weepers,  the 
lamentation  and  wailing  of  all  the  humbler  folk ;  for  thus  [the 
Scripture]  had  been  actually  fulfilled,  'A  voice  is  heard  in  Rama,  and 
would  not  be  comforted.'  Goaded  by  memories  sad  and  joyful3 
I  shall  not  waste  time  in  many  words,  but  pass  on  briefly  to  the 
course  of  events.  Every  husband  uttered  lamentation,  and  those 
who  were  in  the  bonds  of  matrimony  mourned  cheerlessly ;  young 
and  old,  virgins  and  widows,  wailed  aloud.  It  was  pitiful  to  hear. 
Little  children  and  orphans,  crying  in  the  streets,  fainted  from 
weeping.  Wherefore  when  the  [arch]  bishop  of  York  beheld  the 
extreme  grief  of  the  people  together  with  the  lamentations  of  the 
commonalty,  he,  like,  for  instance,  that  other  noble  priest, 
the  mourning  Mattathias,  with  his  five  sons,  Abaron  and  Apphus, 
Gaddis,  Thasi  and  Maccabeus,  did  not  take  to  flight  like  a  mer- 
cenary, but  like  a  good  shepherd  went  forth  against  the  wolves 
with  Sir  Henry  de  Percy,  Sir  John  de  Mowbray,  Sir  Rafe  de 
Neville,  Sir  Henry  de  Scrope  and  Sir  Thomas  de  Rokeby,  and 
chose  out  of  the  north  men  prudent  and  apt  for  war,  in  order  to 

1  i  Maccabees,  ch.  i. 

2  Ad  suum  fortunum  disposult  lmplerey  appears  to  be  a  misreading  of  suamfortunam. 
8  Pro?  memoris  stimulojam  dolem  gaudendo,  seems  to  be  a  corrupt  reading. 


Chronicle  of  Lanercost  179 

deliver  his  sheep  from  the  fangs  of  the  wolves.  He  went  to 
Richmond,  and  lay  there  several  days  with  his  army;  but  my 
lord  de  Percy,  with  many  other  valiant  men  from  all  parts 
remained  on  watch  in  the  country. 

The  [arch]  bishop,  then,  moved  out  of  Richmond  with  his 
army  on  the  day  before  the  Ides  of  October,1  and  directed  his 
march  along  the  straight  road  to  Barnard  Castle,  and  on  the 
morrow  he  and  the  other  commanders  reckoned  up  their  force  of 
men-at-arms,  cavalry,  foot-soldiers  and  fighting  men  upon  a 
certain  flat-topped  hill,  near  the  aforesaid  castle.  Also  the  leaders 
did  there  set  their  army  in  order  of  battle,  etc.,  as  was  proper. 
They  arranged  themselves  in  three  columns,  whereof  Sir  Henry 
de  Percy  commanded  the  first,  Sir  Thomas  de  Rokeby  the  second, 
and  the  [arch]  bishop  of  York  the  third — a  wise  father,  chaste  and 
pious,  shepherd  of  his  flock.  These  men  marched  cautiously  to 
the  town  of  Auckland,  in  no  spirit  of  hatred  as  Cain  [felt]  when 
he  slew  Abel,  nor  inflated  with  any  such  pride  as  Absolom's  who 
hung  in  the  tree,  putting  their  trust,  not  in  swords,  helmets, 
lances,  corselets,  or  other  gilded  armour,  but  only  in  the  name  of 
Christ,  bent  upon  no  invasion  but  only  upon  resisting  the  invaders. 
Pitching  their  tents  in  a  certain  beautiful  woodland  near  the  afore- 
said town,  the  English  army  spent  the  whole  night  there. 

At  dawn  next  morning,  that  is  on  the  vigil  of  S.  Luke  the 
Evangelist,2  William  de  Douglas  rode  forth  from  the  Scottish 
army  with  500  men  to  harry  the  country  and  gather  spoil.  Thus 
the  Scots  seized  their  prey  in  the  early  morning,  but  in  the  evening 
the  English  divided  the  spoil. 

On  that  morning,  while  the  Scots  were  plundering  the  town  of 
Merrington,  suddenly  the  weather  became  inclement,  with  thick 
fog.  And  it  came  to  pass  that  when  they  heard  the  trampling  of 
horses  and  the  shock  of  armoured  men,  there  fell  upon  them  such 
a  spasm  of  panic  that  William  and  all  those  with  him  were  utterly 
at  a  loss  to  know  which  way  to  turn.  Wherefore,  as  God  so 
willed,  they  unexpectedly  stumbled,  to  their  astonishment,  upon 
the  columns  of  my  lord  the  Archbishop  of  York  and  Sir  Thomas 
de  Rokeby,  by  whom  many  of  them  were  killed,  but  William  and 
two  hundred  with  him  who  were  on  armoured  horses,  escaped  for 
the  time,  but  not  without  wounds.  Then  Robert  de  Ogle,  who 
is  of  great  strength  and  not  without  skill  in  the  art  of  war, 
followed  them  over  hill  and  dale,  killing  many  of  the  enemy  with 
his  own  hand,  and  would  not  stop  until  beside  a  great  pool  in  a 
1 1 4th  October.  2  lyth  October. 


180  Sir  Herbert  Maxwell,  Bart. 

certain  deep  woodland  glen  his  charger,  being  utterly  at  a  stand- 
still, was  quite  unable  to  go  further.  Now  came  William,  greatly 
heated,  to  the  Scottish  army,  crying  aloud  with  much  excitement, 
'  David  !  arise  quickly  ;  see  !  all  the  English  have  attacked  us.' 
But  David  declared  that  could  not  be  so.  '  There  are  no  men  in 
England/  said  he,  *  but  wretched  monks,  lewd  priests,  swineherds, 
cobblers  and  skinners.  They  dare  not  face  me :  I  am  safe 
enough/  But  they  did  face  him,1  and,  as  was  afterwards  evident, 
they  were  feeling  his  outposts. 

'Assuredly/  replied  William,  'oh  dread  king,  by  thy  leave  thou 
wilt  find  it  is  otherwise.  There  are  diverse  valiant  men  [among 
them]  ;  they  are  advancing  quickly  upon  us  and  mean  to  fight/ 

But  just  before  he  spoke  two  Black  Monks  came  from  Durham 
to  treat  with  David  for  a  truce.  '  See/  said  David,  '  these  false 
monks  are  holding  conference  with  me  guilefully.  For  they 
were  detaining  me  in  conclave  in  order  that  the  English  army 
might  attack  us  while  we  were  thus  deceived/ 

He  ordered  them,  therefore,  to  be  seized  and  beheaded  at  once ; 
but  all  the  Scots  were  so  fully  occupied  at  the  time  that  the  monks 
escaped  secretly,  serene  and  scatheless,  footing  it  home  without 
any  loss. 

On  that  day  David,  like  another  Nebuchadnezzar,  caused  the 
fringes  of  his  standard  to  be  made  much  larger,  and  declared 
himself  repeatedly  to  be  King  of  Scots  without  any  hindrance. 
He  ordered  his  breakfast  to  be  made  ready,  and  said  that  he 
would  return  to  it  when  he  had  slain  the  English  at  the  point  of 
the  sword.2  But  soon  afterwards,  yea  very  soon  after,  all  his 
servants  had  to  hurry,  allowing  the  food  to  fall  into  the  fire. 
Thus  David,  prince  of  fools,  wished  to  catch  fish  in  front  of  the 
net,  and  thereby  lost  many  and  caught  but  few.  Therefore  he 
failed  to  carry  out  the  plan  he  had  laid,  because,  like  Aman  and 
Achitophel,  that  which  he  had  prepared  for  us  befel  himself.  So 
David,  having  reckoned  up  his  forces,  called  the  Scots  to  arms — 
the  folk  that  were  eager  for  war  and  were  about  to  be  scattered  ; 
and  like  Jabin  against  Joshua,  he  marshalled  three  great  and  strong 
columns  to  attack  the  English.  He  set  Earl  Patrick  over  the 
first  division  ;  but  he,  like  an  ignorant  fellow,  refused  to  lead  the 

1  Sed  ilium  respexit,  should  be  respexerunt. 

2  Reminding  one  of  Napoleon's  taunt  to  Soult  on  the  morning  of  Waterloo. 
'  Parceque  vous  avez  et£  battu  par  Wellington  vous  le  regardez  comme  un  grand 
general.     Et,  moi,  je  vous  dis  que  Wellington  est  un  mauvais  general,  que  les 
Anglais  sont  de  mauvaises  troupes,  et  que  ce  sera  f  affaire  d'un  dejeuner.1 


Chronicle  of  Lanercost  181 

first  line,  demanding  the  third,  more  out  of  cowardice  than 
eagerness.1  The  Earl  of  Moray  forthwith  undertook  his  [Earl 
Patrick's]  duty,  and  so  held  chief  command  in  the  first  division 
of  the  army,  and  afterwards  expired  in  the  battle.  With  him 
were  many  of  the  valiant  men  of  Scotland,  such  as  the  Earl  of 
Stratherne,  the  Earl  of  Fife,  John  de  Douglas,  brother  of  William 
de  Douglas,  Sir  Alexander  de  Ramsay,2  and  many  other  powerful 
earls  and  barons,  knights  and  esquires,  all  of  one  mind,  raging 
madly  with  unbridled  hatred  against  the  English,  pressing  forward 
without  pause,  relying  on  their  own  strength,  and,  like  Satan, 
bursting  with  over-weening  pride,  they  all  thought  to  reach 
the  stars. 

King  David  himself  commanded  the  second  division — not, 
however  that  David  of  whom  they  sang  in  the  dance  that  he 
had  put  ten  thousand  to  flight  in  battle,  but  that  David  of 
whom  they  declared  in  public  that  his  stench  and  ordure  had 
defiled  the  altar.  With  him  he  took  the  Earl  of  Buchan,3 
Malcolm  Fleming,  Sir  Alexander  de  Straghern  (father  and  son 
without  the  holy  spirit),4  the  Earl  of  Menteith,5  and  many  others 
whom  we  do  not  know,  and  whom  if  we  did  know,  it  would  be 
tedious  to  enumerate.  In  the  third  division  was  Earl  Patrick, 
who  should  have  been  more  appropriately  named  by  his  country- 
men '  Non  hie/6  He  was  late  in  coming,  but  he  did  splendidly, 
standing  all  the  time  afar  off,  like  another  Peter  ;  but  he  would 
not  wait  to  see  the  end  of  the  business.  In  that  battle  he  hurt 

1  This  seems  to  be  the  meaning  of  the  passage,  whence  some  words  have  probably 
dropped  out.     Sed  ipse,  sicut  sctolus  abnegans  principium  fiet  postulavit. 

2  He  means  Sir  William  de  Ramsay.     Sir  Alexander  had  been  starved  to  death 
by  *  the  Flower  of  Chivalry '  in  Hermitage  Castle. 

3  There  was  no  Earl  of  Buchan  at  this  time.     Sir  Henry  de  Beaumont  was 
recognised  as  Earl  in  1312  in  right  of  his  wife,  a  niece  of  John  Comyn,  last  Earl 
of  Buchan  in  the  Comyn  line  ;  but  Sir  Henry  died  in  1 340,  and  his  son,  Sir  John, 
never  claimed  the  title. 

4  Sir  Malcolm  Fleming  of  Cumbernauld  was  created  Earl  of  Wigtown  in  1341. 
The  name  of  his  son  is  not  known.    Sir  Malcolm  survived  him,  and  was  succeeded 
in  the  earldom  by  his  grandson  Thomas. 

5  Sir  John  Graham,  Earl  of  Menteith  in  right  of  his  wife,  who  inherited  from 
her  uncle  Murdach,  eighth  earl  in  the  Celtic  line,  killed  at  Dupplin  Moor  in 
1332.     John  Earl  of  Menteith  was  taken  prisoner  at  Neville's  Cross  and  executed 
in  London  in  March,  1347. 

6  Patrick,  9th  Earl  of  Dunbar.     In  Stevenson's  text  the  sense  of  this  pleasantry 
is  marred  by  the  misplacement  of  a  comma  after  patria.     The  passage  should  run, 
Comes  Patrik,  sed  melius  vocaretur  de  patria  non  hie. 


1 82  Sir  Herbert  Maxwell,   Bart. 

no  man,  because  he  intended  to  take  holy  orders  and  to  celebrate 
mass  for  the  Scots  who  were  killed,  knowing  how  salutary  it  is  to 
beseech  the  Lord  for  the  peace  of  the  departed.  Nay,  at  that 
very  time  he  was  a  priest,  because  he  led  the  way  in  flight  for 
others.1 

His  colleague  was  Robert  Stewart  ;2  if  one  was  worth  little  the 
other  was  worth  nothing.  Overcome  by  cowardice,  he  broke  his 
vow  to  God  that  he  would  never  await  the  first  blow  in  battle. 
He  flies  with  the  priest  [Earl  Patrick],  and  as  a  good  cleric,  will 
assist  the  mass  to  be  celebrated  by  the  other.  These  two,  turning 
their  backs,  fought  with  great  success,  for  they  entered  Scotland 
with  their  division  and  without  a  single  wound  ;  and  so  they 
led  off  the  dance,  leaving  David  to  dance  as  he  felt  inclined. 

About  the  third  hour  the  English  army  attacked  the  Scots  not 
far  from  Durham,  the  Earl  of  Angus 3  being  in  the  first  division, 
a  noble  personage  among  all  those  of  England,  of  high  courage 
and  remarkable  probity,  ever  ready  to  fight  with  spirit  for  his 
country,  whose  good  deeds  no  tongue  would  suffice  to  tell. 

Sir  Henry  de  Percy,  like  another  Judas  Maccabeus,  the  son  of 
Mattathias,  was  a  fine  fighter.  This  knight,  small  of  stature  but 
sagacious,  encouraged  all  men  to  take  the  field  by  putting  himself 
in  the  forefront  of  the  battle.  Sir  Rafe  de  Neville,  an  honest  and 
valiant  man,  bold,  wary  and  greatly  to  be  feared,  fought  to  such 
effect  in  the  aforesaid  battle  that,  as  afterwards  appeared,  his  blows 
left  their  marks  upon  the  enemy.  Nor  was  Sir  Henry  de  Scrope 
behindhand,  but  had  taken  his  post  from  the  first  in  the  front  of 
the  fight,  pressing  on  the  enemy. 

In  command  of  the  second  division  was  my  lord  the  Archbishop 
of  York,  who,  having  assembled  his  men,  blessed  them  all,  which 
devout  blessing,  by  God's  grace,  took  good  effect.  There  was 
also  another  bishop  of  the  order  of  Minorite  Friars,  who,  by  way 
of  benediction,  commanded  the  English  to  fight  manfully,  always 
adding  that,  under  the  utmost  penalty,  no  man  should  give  quarter 
to  the  Scots  ;  and  when  he  attacked  the  enemy  he  gave  them  no 
indulgence  of  days  from  punishment  or  sin,  but  severe  penance 
and  good  absolution  with  a  certain  cudgel.  He  had  such  power 

1  Another  sarcasm,  which  cannot  be  rendered  in  English,  the  play  being  on  the 
words  Presbyter  and  prabuit  iter. 

2  King  David's  nephew  and  heir-presumptive  :  afterwards  Robert  II. 

3  Gilbert  de  Umfraville,  4th  Earl  of  Angus  in  the  English  line,  g.-grandson  of 
Matilda,  who  succeeded  to  the  earldom  from  her  uncle  Malcolm,  5th  and  last 
earl  in  the  Celtic  line 


Chronicle  of  Lanercost  183 

at  that  time  that,  with  the  aforesaid  cudgel  and  without  confession 
of  any  kind,  he  absolved  the  Scots  from  every  lawful  act. 

In  the  third  division  Sir  John  de  Mowbray,  deriving  his  name 
a  rey  was  abounding  in  grace  and  merit.  His  auspicious  renown 
deserves  to  be  published  far  and  wide  with  ungrudging  praise,  for 
he  and  all  his  men  behaved  in  such  manner  as  should  earn  them 
honour  for  all  time  to  come.  Sir  Thomas  de  Rokeby,  like  a 
noble  leader,  presented  such  a  cup  to  the  Scots  that,  once  they 
had  tasted  it,  they  had  no  wish  for  another  draught ;  and  thus  he 
was  an  example  to  all  beholders  of  how  to  fight  gallantly  for  the 
sacred  cause  of  fatherland.  John  of  Coupland  dealt  such  blows 
among  the  enemy  that  it  was  said  that  those  who  felt  the  weight 
of  his  buffets  were  not  fit  to  fight  any  longer. 

Then  with  trumpets  blaring,  shields  clashing,  arrows  flying, 
lances  thrusting,  wounded  men  yelling  and  troops  shouting,  the 
conflict  ended  about  the  hour  of  vespers,  amid  sundered  armour, 
broken  heads,  and,  oh  how  sad  !  many  laid  low  on  the  field.  The 
Scots  were  in  full  flight,  our  men  slaying  them.  Praise  be  to  the 
Most  High  !  victory  on  that  day  was  with  the  English.  And 
thus,  through  the  prayers  of  the  blessed  Virgin  Mary  and  Saint 
Cuthbert,  confessor  of  Christ,  David  and  the  flower  of  Scotland 
fell,  by  the  just  award  of  God,  into  the  pit  which  they  themselves 
had  dug. 

This  battle,  therefore,  as  aforesaid  was  fought  between  the 
English  and  the  Scots,  wherein  but  few  Englishmen  were  killed, 
but  nearly  the  whole  of  the  army  of  Scotland  was  either  captured 
or  slain.  For  in  that  battle  fell  Robert  Earl  of  Moray,1  Maurice 
Earl  of  Stratherne,  together  with  the  best  of  the  army  of  Scotland. 
But  David,  so-called  King  of  Scotland,  was  taken  prisoner,  together 
with  the  Earls  of  Fife,  of  Menteith,  and  of  Wigtown,  and  Sir 
William  of  Douglas  and,  in  addition,  a  great  number  of  men-at- 
arms.  Not  long  afterwards,  the  aforesaid  David  King  of  Scots 
was  taken  to  London  with  many  of  the  more  distinguished 
captives  and  confined  in  prison,  the  Earl  of  Menteith  being  there 
drawn  and  hanged,  quartered,  and  his  limbs  sent  to  various  places 
in  England  and  Scotland.  But  one  of  the  aforesaid  captives,  to 
wit,  my  lord  Malcolm  Fleming,  Earl  of  Wigtown,  was  not 
sent  to  London  by  reason  of  his  infirmity,  but,  grievous 
to  say !  was  allowed  to  escape  at  Bothall  through  the 
treachery  of  his  guardian,  a  certain  esquire  named  Robert 

1His  name  was  not  Robert,  but  John.  He  was  second  son  of  Thomas  Randolph, 
ist  Earl  of  Moray,  and  succeeded  his  brother  Thomas  as  3rd  Earl  in  1332. 


184  Chronicle  of  Lanercost 


de  la  Vale,  and  thus   returned  to  Scotland   without  having    to 
pay  ransom. 

After  the  aforesaid  battle  of  Durham,  my  lord  Henry  de  Percy 
being  ill,  my  lord  of  Angus  and  Ralph  de  Neville  went  to  Scotland, 
received  Roxburgh  Castle  on  sure  terms,  patrolled  the  Marches 
of  Scotland,  exacting  tribute  from  certain  persons  beyond  the 
Scottish  sea,  received  others  to  fealty,  and  returned  to  England, 
not  without  some  losses  to  their  army. 


(Explidt  (Stoniflrn  b* 


Reviews  of  Books 

THE  CANON  LAW  IN  MEDIAEVAL  ENGLAND.  By  Arthur  Ogle,  M.A., 
Rector  of  Otham,  Maidstone.  Pp.  xxi,  220.  Demy  8vo.  London  : 
John  Murray.  1912.  6s.  net. 

THIS  book  is  the  last  word  in  an  old  and  interesting  controversy.  In 
England  since  the  Reformation  the  King  has  been  'over  all  persons  and  in 
all  causes  within  his  dominions  supreme/  But  before  that  event  certain 
departments  of  the  law  were  administered  by  ecclesiastical  judges  in  accord- 
ance with  laws  which  the  secular  power  could  not  initiate.  Part  of  this 
jurisprudence  is  still  the  law  of  the  land.  Where  did  it  come  from  ?  The 
legally  orthodox  view  is  that  it  is  the  common  law  of  the  Church  of 
England,  the  Jus  commune  ecclesiasticum  of  the  kingdom,  plus  such  portions 
of  the  c  Roman '  canon  law  as  were  c  received '  in  England,  and  the  legisla- 
tion of  English  Councils,  legatine  and  provincial.  In  strong  contrast  to  this 
doctrine  stands  the  theory  set  forth  by  Professor  F.  W.  Maitland  in  his 
Roman  Canon  Law  in  the  Church  of  England,  1898.  He  maintains 
that  the  Jus  commune  ecclesiasticum  of  England,  as  of  every  other  Catholic 
country,  was  the  'Roman'  canon  law,  to  which  the  English  legislation 
aforesaid  was  merely  ancillary  ;  but  modified  by  a  small  body  (as  he  con- 
sidered it)  of  custom,  '  prescript  and  laudable,'  and  limited  in  its  scope  by 
the  action  of  the  secular  courts  which  in  many  matters  administered  their 
own  law  and  would  not  allow  the  canon  law  to  be  administered. 

Twenty  years  earlier  the  matter  had  been  stated  somewhat  differently  by 
Canon  (afterwards  Bishop)  Stubbs,  the  greatest  and  the  most  conservative  of 
our  historians  of  the  Middle  Ages,  in  his  Constitutional  History.  There, 
after  enumerating  the  sources  of  canon  law,  viz.  the  constitutions  of  Popes, 
Councils,  Legates,  Archbishops  and  Bishops,  he  says,  '  All  were  regarded  as 
binding  on  the  faithful  within  their  sphere  of  operation,  and,  except  where 
they  came  into  collision  with  the  rights  of  the  Crown,  common  law  or 
statute,  they  were  recognised  as  authoritative  in  ecclesiastical  procedure.' 
This  says  nothing  of  difference  of  authority  between  'foreign '  and '  national ' 
legislation,  and  might  have  been  written  by  a  sharer  of  Maitland's  views. 
But  a  few  years  later  Stubbs  subscribed  the  Report  of  the  Ecclesiastical 
Courts  Commission,  which  states  that  '  the  canon  law  of  Rome,  although 
regarded  as  of  great  authority  in  England,  was  not  held  to  be  binding  on 
the  Courts.'  In  an  Appendix  to  that  Report  he  says  that  the  canons  of 
the  Legatine  Councils  '  which  might  possibly  be  treated  as  in  themselves 
wanting  the  sanction  of  the  national  church,  were  ratified  in  Councils  held 
by  (Archbishop)  Peckham.'  And  about  the  same  time  he  stated  in  a  lecture 


1 86    Ogle:   Canon  Law  in  Mediaeval  England 

that  the  constitutions  of  Legates  and  Archbishops  collected  by  Ayton  and 
Lyndwood  respectively  '  became  the  authoritative  canon  law  of  the  realm.' 

It  is  not  wonderful  that  Maitland  cited  Stubbs  as  the  most  illustrious 
supporter  of  the  doctrine  opposed  to  his  own.  Is  that  a  correct  statement 
of  Stubbs'  position  ?  The  Bishop  survived  the  publication  cf  Maitland's 
book  three  years,  but  he  made  no  reply  to  it.  Indeed  he  is  known  to  have 
said  in  conversation  that  'he  was  not  prepared  to  dissent  from  Professor 
Maitland's  view.'  That  this  does  not  imply  that  Stubbs  agreed  with  Mait- 
land, may  be  conceded  to  Mr.  Ogle  ;  Maitland's  is  not  a  definitive 
conclusion,  but  a  thesis  to  be  tested  by  more  thorough  study.  But  what  is 
the  exact  difference  between  the  positions  of  the  two  ?  That  question  I 
do  not  find  so  easy  as  Mr.  Ogle  does.  Stubbs  held  that  the  '  canon  law 
of  Rome '  was  not  held  to  be  binding  on  the  courts.  If  he  meant  the 
courts  Christian,  why  did  he  choose  as  his  example  the  case  of  the  canon 
law  of  legitimation  per  subsequent  matrimonium^  which  was  accepted  by  the 
Anglican  church  but  rejected  by  the  state  ?  The  paragraph  which  denies 
authority  to  the  '  foreign '  canon  law  goes  on  to  define  the  relation  of  the 
state  to  the  legislation  of  the  national  church,  and  may  be  summed  up  thus  : 
Papal  legislation,  if  unacceptable  to  the  King's  courts,  could  not  be  acted 
upon  ;  national  church  legislation,  if  unacceptable,  could  not  be  enacted. 
Lyndwood's  code,  says  Stubbs,  was  the  authoritative  canon  law  of  the 
realm,  yet  <  it  was  rather  as  the  work  of  an  expert  than  as  a  body  of 
statutes  that  it  had  its  chief  force.'  And  the  observation  which  follows, 
that  '  the  study  of  the  canon  law  was  a  scientific  and  professional,  not 
merely  mechanical  study,'  seems  to  exclude  the  notion  that  Stubbs  meant 
to  ascribe  either  to  Lyndwood  or  to  Peckham  (for  instance)  authority  in 
any  sense  which  would  deny  a  like  authority  to  Pope  or  foreign  canonist. 
Again,  did  Stubbs  mean  to  attribute  to  the  legatine  constitutions,  after  their 
ratification  by  Peckham's  Council,  a  binding  force  which  before  such 
ratification  they  lacked  ?  Could  such  a  view  be  maintained  against  the 
plain  statement  of  Lyndwood  that  Pope  ranks  above  legate,  legate  above 
archbishop  (just  as  the  word  of  the  commander-in-chief  is  of  more  weight 
than  that  of  his  second  in  command,  and  the  word  of  the  second  in  com- 
mand than  that  of  a  general  of  division)  ?  Altogether,  I  see  no  sufficient 
reason  to  doubt  that  Stubbs  accepted  Maitland's  view  so  far  as  it  goes.1 

But  I  conceive  the  true  reason  of  the  distrust  with  which  Maitland's 
book  was  received  and  is  still  regarded  by  many  scholars,  is  to  be  found 
in  his  hint  as  to  its  possible  bearing  on  'the  continuity  and  discon- 
tinuity of  English  ecclesiastical  affairs.'  This  is  of  course  a  matter  of 
feeling ;  Maitland  very  properly  gave  it  the  go-by.  Notwithstanding 
which,  it  appears  that  a  Welsh  Member  of  Parliament  has  got  hold  of 

1The  valuable  essay  by  the  Dean  of  Arches  (Quarterly  Review  for  October, 
1912),  which  has  appeared  since  this  review  was  put  in  type,  sets  forth 
Bishop  Stubbs'  latest  views,  unknown  to  me  as  to  Mr.  Ogle.  The  conclusion  of 
the  whole  matter  is  that  Stubbs  regarded  the  Papal  decretals  '  not  (like  Maitland) 
as  statute  law,  but  rather  as  case  law.'  Both  are  definitions  by  way  of  analogy — 
the  only  question  between  the  two  authorities  comes  to  be,  which  analogy  is  the 
closer  ?  I  prefer  Stubbs.  But  the  issue  is  surely  a  narrow  one. 


Ogle:    Canon  Law  in  Mediaeval  England    187 

Maitland's  book,  and  pressed  him  into  the  service  of  Welsh  Disendow- 
ment,  declaring  that  c  Professor  Maitland  has  advanced  arguments  to 
establish  the  absolute  identity  of  the  ecclesiastical  legal  system  of  the  pre- 
Reformation  Church  of  England  with  that  of  the  contemporary  Church  of 
Rome.'  And  so  Mr.  Ogle  in  the  book  before  us,  having  (as  he  tells  us) 
already  satisfied  himself  that  Maitland's  thesis  so  far  as  true  is  not  new  and 
so  far  as  new  is  not  true,  has  taken  the  opportunity  of  publishing,  as  a  con- 
tribution to  current  politics,  his  reasons  for  that  opinion.  At  the  end  of  his 
first  chapter  he  asks  the  reader  to  dismiss  from  his  mind  Disestablishment 
and  Disendowment ;  but  he  does  not  set  the  example.  Maitland  is  treated 
throughout  as  men  treat  their  political  opponents.  His  other  works,  even 
the  chapter  on  Marriage  in  the  History  of  English  Law,  even  the  little 
skirmish  with  Canon  Maccoll,  seem  known  to  Mr.  Ogle  by  hearsay  only  : 
he  knows  that  Maitland  laid  no  claim  to  profound  knowledge  of  canon  law 
— of  differing  measures  of  profundity  he  recks  not.  So  the  great  scholar  is 
held  up  as  one  who  consulted  Lyndwood  by  the  index  and  read  him  no 
further  than  the  rubrics.  Which  makes  one  laugh — the  Professor  who 
advised  his  freshmen  to  read  the  newspapers  would  probably  have  laughed 
too.  But  if  Maitland  had  been  alive,  and  had  thought  fit  to  answer,  it 
might  have  been  more  entertaining  still.  There  are  two  sides  to  every 
question,  especially  in  politics. 

Sometimes  Mr.  Ogle  scores  a  point — it  is  rash  to  differ  from  Maitland, 
but  Mr.  Ogle  appears  to  be  right  as  to  the  interpretation  of  the  gloss  in 
Lyndwood  about  'Procurations,'  Ubi  consuetudo  summam  procurations  non 
limitaty  which  Maitland  seems  to  refer  to  the  case  of  prelates  other  than 
archdeacons ;  Mr.  Ogle  refers  it  to  the  case  of  archdeacons  elsewhere 
than  in  England.1  Again,  Maitland's  description  of  Lyndwood's  work  as 
*  a  manual  for  beginners '  is  loose — a  beginner  ought  certainly  to  mean  one 
who  intends  to  go  on.  The  viri  ecclesiastici  simplices  for  whose  profit 
Lyndwood  wrote  (as  he  tells  us),  wanted  not  instruction,  but  a  book  of 
reference.  But  does  Mr.  Ogle  make  any  impression  on  Maitland's  position  ? 
He  sees  that  it  is  not  so  very  remote  from  Stubbs',  and  Stubbs'  position  is 
what  he  stands  for — so  to  him  as  to  Maitland  the  Jus  commune  ecclesiasticum 
is  not  (as  it  is  to  the  orthodox  lawyer)  the  '  King's  ecclesiastical  law,'  but 
the  Corpus  Juris  Canonici.  He  has  to  confine  himself  to  such  of  Maitland's 
assertions  as  are  not  countenanced  by  Stubbs.  Has  he  proved  that  the 
courts  Christian,  when  unfettered  by  the  King's  judges,  ever  rejected  a 
decretal  on  the  ground  that  it  was  contrary  to  the  constitution  of  a  national 
or  provincial  council  ?  I  think  not.  Has  he  proved  that  a  decretal  lacked 
'binding  force'  in  England,  in  any  other  sense  than  that  it  could  be  rendered 
inoperative  by  the  King's  judges  ?  A  distinction  has  to  be  drawn  here. 

1  Lyndwood  wrote  before  the  loss  of  England's  possessions  in  France.  I  ought 
to  add  that  the  statement,  made  on  the  authority  of  an  obviously  corrupt  gloss  of 
John  of  Ayton,  that  English  Bishops  exacted  no  Procurations,  could  easily  be  refuted 
by  Record.  As  to  the  assertion  that  they  made  no  visitations,  is  it  for  a  champion 
of  '  the  continuity  of  English  ecclesiastical  affairs '  to  accept  so  light-heartedly  a 
splenetic  statement  reflecting  so  seriously  on  his  predecessors  ?  Neglect  there 
doubtless  was,  but  it  was  not  universal. 


1 88    Ogle:   Canon  Law  in  Mediaeval  England 

Of  executive  acts,  specially  provisions  to  benefices,  the  validity  could  be 
contested  on  many  grounds — even  individual  Bishops  could  in  practice 
exercise  a  good  deal  of  discretion  in  such  cases,  and  in  a  competition  it  was 
by  no  means  always  the  Papal  nominee  who  prevailed — that  is  true  not  only 
in  England  where  questions  of  patronage  were  decided  by  the  King's  courts, 
but  also  in  Scotland  where  they  were  decided  by  the  courts  Christian.  But 
was  the  legislation  of  the  Popes  of  like  uncertain  operation  ?  It  has  not 
been  proved.  That  a  Papal  decree  '  cannot  execute  itself  is  true,  but  the 
same  is  true  of  all  church  courts.  No  such  court  could  inflict  any  punish- 
ment except  ecclesiastical  censures ;  it  was  for  the  civil  courts  to  apply  the 
temporal  consequences — did  they  ever  refuse  to  do  so  on  the  ground 1  that 
the  censuring  authority  was  '  foreign  '  ? 

As  to  the  extent  to  which  canon  law  in  England  was  modified  by 
national  (Mr.  Ogle  will  not  have  it  called  local)  custom,  that  has  been 
always  a  strong  point  with  the  lawyers — a  judge  in  a  celebrated  case 
spoke  of  England  as  patria  consuetudinaria.  It  is  pre-eminently  a 
question  to  be  looked  at  by  dry  light.  Maitland  is  suspected  of 
having  belittled  the  effect  of  custom  in  the  interests  of  his  thesis.  Mr. 
Ogle's  remarks  are  largely  repetitions  of  Maitland's  with  the  accentua- 
tion changed.  But  he  can  show  that  Lyndwood  sometimes  imputed  to 
custom  what  really  originated  in  the  action  of  the  civil  courts.  Which  is 
all  right ;  only  in  counting  up  the  differences  between  *  English '  and 
4  foreign '  canon  law,  we  must  not  reckon  the  same  thing  twice.  Mr.  Ogle 
claims  to  have  found  one  English  custom  overlooked  by  Maitland,  that  a 
beneficed  clerk  could  bequeath  even  his  bona  ecclesiae  contemplatione  acquisita. 
But  the  rule  of  canon  law  to  the  contrary,  says  Joseph  Robertson,2  c  was 
seldom  or  never  proclaimed  without  some  hesitation  or  reserve,'  and 
4  even  where  the  rule  was  peremptory,  it  was  not  always  inflexibly 
applied.'  So  in  this  the  English  were  not  so  penitus  toto  divisi  orbe  as  a 
reader  of  Mr.  Ogle  might  suppose.  And  was  this  custom  of  old  standing 
in  England  or  was  it  merely  a  tolerated  irregularity  ?  Certainly  the 
Calendars  of  the  Papal  Registers  supply  many  instances  of  English  clergy- 
men obtaining  the  Pope's  license  to  make  wills  ;  but  these  grow  rarer 
in  Lyndwood's  day. 

Again,  it  is  surely  going  rather  far  to  speak  of  the  assignation  of  the 
cognisance  of  testamentary  causes  to  the  courts  Christian  as  *  an  immense 
breach  in  the  Roman  canon  law.'  By  that  law  it  was  the  duty  of  the 
Bishop  to  look  after  legacies  to  pious  objects ;  the  most  reasonable  account 
of  the  English  arrangement  is  that  our  ancestors  regarded  a  will  as  primarily 
a  provision  for  the  weal  of  the  testator's  soul  by  liberality  to  Holy  Church3 ; 
to  which  the  taking  thought  for  relatives  and  dependants  made  a  natural 
appendix.  As  for  the  'characteristically  mediaeval  deal'  by  which  Mr. 
Ogle,  turning  Maitland's  rhetoric  into  logic,  says  that  the  advowson  was 

1  Leaving  out  of  account  cases  such  as  arose  in  the  reign  of  John. 

2  Statuta  Ecclesiae  Scoficanae,  i.  c.     I  owe  this  reference  to  Mr.  R.  K.  Hannay. 
The  examples  given  are  continental. 

8  See  Pollock  and  Maitland,  ii.  332  ff. 


Monuments  in  the  County  of  Wigtown     189 

assigned  to  the  secular  and  the  testament  to  the  ecclesiastical  court,  what 
then  is  to  be  said  of  Scotland,  where  the  Church  looked  after  both  one  and 
the  other  ? 

Enough  of  fault-finding — a  good  rousing  philippic  against  Welsh  Dis- 
establishment all  good  Tories  (and,  it  is  believed,  many  good  Liberals) 
could  enjoy.  A  thorough  examination  of  Maitland's  book  by  a  scholar 
soaked  in  mediaeval  record  would  be  a  real  gain  to  learning.  But  the  two 
do  not  mix  well.  As  for  the  <  continuity  of  the  Anglican  church,'  with 
deep  humility  I  suggest  that  if  it  was  not  broken  by  the  substitution  of 
royal  for  Papal  supremacy,  it  may  have  survived  the  change  of  the  authority 
for  its  canon  law,  especially  when  so  much  of  the  substance  of  the  law 
itself  was  conserved. 

But  the  most  interesting  part  of  Mr.  Ogle's  reply  is  that  which  repudiates 
the  sharp  line  drawn  by  Maitland  between  church  legislation  and  state 
legislation  affecting  the  church,  and  (partly  following  suggestions  of  Mait- 
land's)  welcomes  certain  measures  which  might  be  deemed  encroachments 
on  the  part  of  the  royal  authority  as  having  proved  beneficial  to  the  church 
— state  and  church  being  alike  organs  of  a  Christian  nation.  And,  if  I 
understand  him  aright,  he  regards  this  interaction  of  the  two  powers  as 
a  process  which  found  its  fit  and  providential  climax  in  their  consolidation 
in  the  hands  of  Henry  VIII.  This  is  a  conclusion  which,  to  put  it  mildly, 
study  of  the  middle  ages  does  not  assist  one  to  grasp.  Marsilius  is  far  off 
the  beaten  track  of  mediaeval  thought.  But  it  is  quite  in  line  with  English 
case-law,  and  it  contains  the  germ  of  a  noble  apologia  pro  ecclesia  Anglicana — 
if  it  is  a  peculiarly  and  characteristically  English  conception,  no  true 
Englishman  will  think  or  ought  to  think  the  worse  of  it  for  that. 

J.  MAITLAND  THOMSON. 

REPORT  AND  INVENTORY  OF  MONUMENTS  AND  CONSTRUCTIONS  IN  THE 
COUNTY  OF  WIGTOWN.  Issued  by  the  Royal  Commission  on  the 
Ancient  and  Historical  Monuments  and  Constructions  of  Scotland. 
Pp.  xlv,  196.  With  numerous  Illustrations.  8vo.  London  :  His 
Majesty's  Stationery  Office.  1912.  6s.  6d.  net. 

THE  Royal  Commissioners  acknowledge  in  all  their  volumes  their  obligation 
to  their  Secretary,  Mr.  A.  O.  Curie ;  the  reports  on  Sutherland,  Caithness, 
and  Wigtown  are  due  almost  entirely  to  him. 

Mr.  Curie's  report  on  Wigtownshire  is  a  valuable  contribution  to  arch- 
aeology. His  strength  lies  in  his  clear,  unbiased  description  of  what  he  has 
discovered,  carefully  examined,  and  measured.  It  is  not  so  strong  in  his 
history  of  the  districts.  He  accepts  the  old  often-repeated  and  only  half 
accurate  stories  of  tribes  and  missionaries  and  kings  ancient  and  modern ; 
it  is  when  he  is  on  the  hillside,  on  the  dangerous  cliffs  above  the  sea,  seeing 
earth  work  and  mason  work  which  others  have  not  detected  as  artificial, 
that  he  is  an  antiquary  and  guide  of  rare  capacity. 

It  is  pleasant  to  find  that  he  attributes  many  of  the  hut  circles  and 
curious  narrow,  low,  almost  uninhabitable  constructions  as  probably  not 
the  abodes  of  human  beings,  but  '  erected  in  connection  with  pastoral 
occupation  over  many  centuries  of  time.'  These  may  have  been  used  as 


1 90     Monuments  in  the  County  of  Wigtown 

sleeping  places  by  those  in  charge  of  flocks  on  the  hill  pasture,  but  from 
their  position  and  size  it  is  unlikely  that  they  were  the  dwellings  of  a 
debased  diminutive  race  of  men. 

There  are  many  small  lochs  in  Wigtownshire,  and  in  most  of  these  are 
the  remains  of  crannogs,  little  artificial  islands  connected  with  the  land  by 
causeways.  It  is  uncertain  for  what  purpose  these  were  made,  probably  as 
a  safe  place  in  troubled  times  to  keep  cattle  and  their  caretakers. 

Another  class  of  monuments,  to  the  inspection  and  measurement  of 
which  Mr.  Curie  devoted  much  care,  are  promontory  forts,  places  of  safety 
both  from  attacks  from  the  sea  and  from  robbers  and  unfriendly  neighbours 
on  the  land  side. 

There  are  notices  of  the  examination  of  many  other  forts,  entrenchments, 
cairns,  stone  circles,  standing  and  inscribed  stones,  illustrated  by  good  photo- 
graphs and  wood  cuts  from  the  Transactions  of  the  Society  of  Antiquaries. 

Coming  down  to  comparatively  recent  times,  Mr.  Curie  differs  from  Mr. 
Skene  and  others,  and  finds  Wigtownshire  more  devoid  of  signs  of  Roman 
occupation  than  any  other  district  of  southern  Scotland. 

The  most  interesting  antiquities  in  this  county  are  the  churches  and 
crosses  and  caves  at  Whithorn,  St.  Ninian's  kirk,  Isle  of  Whithorn,  etc., 
which  are  connected  with  Ninian,  who  commenced  his  missionary  labours 
in  Galloway  about  A.D.  396. 

There  are  eleven  mote-hills  in  the  county  connected  with  medieval 
baronies ;  none  of  them  are  of  great  size  or  of  much  importance. 

Wigtownshire  is  poor  in  old  churches  and  monasteries.  The  priory  of 
Whithorn  is  ruined  and  the  remains  unimportant,  except  a  fine  Norman 
door,  which  has  suffered  from  alterations.  The  buildings  of  the  abbey  of 
Glenluce  probably  were  never  very  beautiful ;  nothing  now  remains  of  an 
earlier  date  than  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century.  The  old  feudal 
castles  were  long  ago  demolished  ;  there  are  some  baronial  castles  of  the 
latter  part  of  the  fifteenth  century,  and  several  domestic  houses  of  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  centuries.  All  of  these  have  been  often  pictured 
and  described  by  Billings,  M'Gibbon,  and  Ross,  and  others. 

In  this  volume  there  are  good  reproductions  of  photographs  of  Mochrum, 
Castle  Kennedy,  Dunskey,  etc. 

When  the  ancient  remains  in  all  the  Scottish  counties  have  been  syste- 
matically examined  with  the  same  accuracy,  there  will  be  ample  material 
from  which  to  draw  conclusions  as  to  the  approximate  dates  and  probable 
use  of  the  numerous  forts  and  earthworks,  crannogs,  brochs,  cup-marked 
and  other  inscribed  stones,  and  how  far  they  are  similar  and  how  far 
different  from  similar  remains  in  other  countries. 

Every  one  who  cares  for  the  antiquities  of  Scotland  ought  to  possess 
these  reports  of  the  Royal  Commission,  and  every  one  who  reads  them  will 
admire  and  be  grateful  to  Mr.  Curie.  A.  C.  LAWRIE. 

LAWYERS'  MERRIMENTS.  By  David  Murray,  LL.D.,  F.S.A.  Pp.  xiv,  302. 
With  Illustrations.  8vo.  Glasgow :  James  MacLehose  &  Sons.  1912. 
75.  6d.  net. 

DR.  MURRAY  might  have  taken  as  the  motto  of  this  volume  the  words  of 
Montaigne :  *  Ce  sont  icy  mes  fantasies,  par  lesquelles  je  ne  tasche  point  a 


Murray  :    Lawyers'  Merriments  191 

donner  a  connoistre  les  choses,  may  moy.  ...  A  mesme  que  mes  resveries 
se  presentent,  je  les  entasse  ;  tantost  elles  se  pressent  en  foule,  tantost  elles 
se  trainent  a  la  file.'  For  the  most  part  his  *  resveries '  present  themselves 
4  en  foule,'  and  suggest  the  hurried  activity  of  a  shipmaster  in  the  course  of 
jettisoning  part  of  the  cargo  of  his  heavy-laden  galleon.  The  reader  finds 
himself  struggling  in  the  midst  of  Goldastus,  Raymond  Lull,  de  Thou, 
Bartolus,  Lord  Deas,  and  a  mixed  cargo  of  jurists  and  antiquaries,  who  have 
been  read,  annotated,  examined,  opened  or  looked  at  by  the  author.  The 
situation  recalls  the  shipwreck  in  the  Satyricon  of  Petronius  Arbiter  rather 
than  that  of  St.  Paul,  but  *  on  revient  toujours  a  la  mer  ou  il  est  doux  de 
faire  naufrage.' 

The  volume  is  neither  a  catalogue  ratsonnenor  a  collection  oifaits  divers  ; 
it  belongs  to  the  world  of  Jerome  Cardan  and  Robert  Burton,  and  one  can 
picture  these  worthies  greeting  its  author  with  a  whimsical  smile  of  wel- 
come. Its  charm  lies  not  in  its  learning,  but  in  the  personal  note  which 
sounds  through  its  crowded  pages.  It  is  a  note  that  is  classic  and  unmistak- 
able, with  its  lift  of  sober  eloquence  and  impatience  with  the  outer  world 
of  barbarians.  What  reader  can  resist  it  ? 

4 1  attended  my  first  book  auction,  on  the  High  Street  of  Ayr,  in  the 
summer  of  1852,  and  made  a  few  small  purchases,  more  in  accordance  with 
my  finances  than  my  wishes.  I  had  been  a  collector  even  earlier,  and  have 
been  so  ever  since.  .  .  .  One's  library  may  seem  a  poor  thing  to  the  cold 
and  indifferent  outside,  and  badly  selected  to  those  of  different  tastes. 
"  Guenille,  si  1'on  veut ;  ma  guenille  m'est  chere." ' 

The  learned  author  will  permit  us  to  take  leave  of  him  with  the  Spanish 
proverb  :  c  Dios  te  guarde  de  parrafo  de  legista,  De  infra  de  Canonista,  De 
etcetera  de  escribano  y  de  recipe  de  medico.' 

DAVID  BAIRD  SMITH. 

CATALOGUE  OF  OXFORD  PORTRAITS.  By  Mrs.  Reginald  Lane  Poole. 
Vol.  I.  Pp.  xxxii,  278.  With  many  Illustrations.  8vo.  Oxford  : 
The  Clarendon  Press.  1912.  I2s.  od.  net. 

To  people  of  a  certain  habit  of  mind  the  interest  of  portraiture  far  trans- 
cends that  of  any  other  form  of  art.  But  while  portrait  painting  may  be 
one  of  the  noblest  mediums  of  artistic  expression,  and  not  a  few  of  the 
greatest  pictures  in  the  world  are  portraits,  its  primary  interest  to  many  is 
not  the  aesthetic  charm  or  insight  shown  in  its  conception,  or  the  technical 
power  with  which  it  is  laid  down  and  carried  out.  To  these  its  chief 
appeal  lies  in  the  purely  subjective  elements — in  the  record  given  of  the 
appearance  and  bearing  of  those  who  have  made  history  or  have  contributed 
to  the  progress  of  the  race,  and  the  side-lights  thrown  upon  particular 
epochs  by  the  bringing  together  of  a  series  of  portraits  of  the  chief  actors  in 
them.  As  the  great  mass  of  engraved  portraits,  from  the  times  of  Durer 
until  the  introduction  of  process-reproduction,  shows,  portraiture  for  its 
own  sake  has  always  been  a  subject  of  social  curiosity  or  historical  investiga- 
tion ;  and  the  institution  of  the  National  Portrait  Galleries,  and  of  museums 
like  the  Carnavelet  in  Paris,  has  led  to  an  increased  and  more  public 
interest  in  such  matters,  and  a  more  exact  and  scholarly  treatment  of  them. 


192     Poole  :   Catalogue  of  Oxford  Portraits 

Systematic  study  has  been  further  facilitated  and  stimulated  by  the 
organization  of  general  or  more  restricted  loan  exhibitions,  of  which  the 
most  recent  of  importance  were  the  series  of  university  portraits  held  at 
Oxford  in  the  years  1904-5-6,  the  show  of  early  English  portraiture 
arranged  by  the  Burlington  Club  in  1909,  and  the  Scottish  collection 
brought  together  at  Glasgow  last  year.  And  the  development  of  photo- 
graphy and  the  introduction  of  cheap  reproductive  methods  have  not  only 
added  greatly  to  the  means  of  comparison  available,  but  have  extended  the 
use  of  portrait  illustration  until  it  has  become  a  definite  and  almost  indis- 
pensable adjunct  to  history  and  biography. 

As  already  indicated,  the  Oxford  exhibitions  were  amongst  the  most 
important  collections  of  the  kind  that  have  been  brought  together.  Con- 
fined, with  a  few  exceptions,  to  works  owned  locally,  the  570  portraits 
then  shown  were  of  course  limited  in  scope  to  those  of  people  more  or 
less  connected  with  learning  and  associated  with  Oxford.  But  if  this 
limited  the  interest  and  deprived  the  exhibitions  of  the  richness  of  contrast 
possessed  by  collections  embracing  a  more  varied  field,  it  concentrated 
attention  upon  the  great  part  played  by  Oxford  in  the  public  affairs  of 
England.  These  portraits  were  all  described,  and  many  were  illustrated, 
in  the  memorial  catalogues  issued  at  the  time,  and  now  Mrs.  Reginald 
Lane  Poole  has  published,  through  the  Clarendon  Press,  the  first  volume 
of  a  work  in  which  all  the  portraits  belonging  to  the  university,  colleges, 
city  and  county  of  Oxford  are  to  be  catalogued.  The  undertaking 
is  an  extensive  one,  and  involves  an  amount  of  careful  study  and  exact 
research  of  which  only  those  who  have  had  some  experience  of 
similar  work  have  any  idea  ;  but  Mrs.  Poole's  courage  and  patience  have 
been  equal  to  the  long  strain,  and  the  volume  just  issued  gives  a  detailed 
and  elaborate  account  of  the  portraits  in  the  University  Collections  and  the 
Town  and  County  Halls. 

In  an  introduction  Mrs.  Poole  tells  the  story  of  the  foundation  and 
growth  of  the  Bodleian  Collection  (1602),  the  Ashmolean  Museum  (1683), 
and  the  University  Galleries  (1845),  an^  indicates  the  causes  which  have 
given  each  of  these  collections  a  special  character.  The  catalogue,  which 
is  divided  into  sections  dealing  with  the  separate  institutions,  each  arranged 
chronologically,  has  been  carried  out  on  the  best  lines,  and  gives,  in  addition 
to  short  biographies,  a  concise  description  of  each  portrait,  with  its  dimen- 
sions, a  statement  as  to  when  it  was  acquired  and  how,  mention  of  the  chief 
reproductions,  and  now  and  then  a  note  about  other  versions.  Reproduc- 
tions of  some  eighty  portraits  are  given,  and,  as  those  illustrated  in  the 
catalogues  of  the  Oxford  Exhibitions  (very  few  of  which  are  given  over 
again)  are  indicated  in  the  descriptions  by  an  asterisk,  the  work  when  com- 
pleted will  form  a  very  complete  and  useful  record  of  all  portraits  in 
Oxford  and  of  where  reproductions  of  the  more  important  are  to  be  found. 
The  volume  is  an  admirable  piece  of  work.  Mrs.  Poole  deserves  great 
credit  for  the  adequate  accomplishment  of  a  difficult  and  rather  thankless 

task-  JAMES  L  CAW. 


I 


SIR   HENRY  SAVILE 
From  Catalogue  of  Oxford  Portraits  by  Mrs.  Lane  Poole. 


Companion  to  Roman  History  193 

>MPANION  TO  ROMAN  HISTORY.  By  H.  Stuart  Jones,  M.A.  Pp.  xii, 
472.  With  80  plates,  65  other  illustrations,  and  7  maps.  Demy  8vo. 
Oxford  :  Clarendon  Press.  1912.  155.  net. 

E  task  of  producing  a  comprehensive  handbook  of  this  sort  was  anything 
but  easy.  It  has  been  discharged  with  a  thoroughness  and  success  that  call 
for  the  warmest  commendation.  Mr.  Stuart  Jones's  qualifications  for  the 
undertaking  were,  of  course,  exceptional.  An  excellent  scholar  and  a 
highly  competent  archaeologist,  he  had  the  added  advantage  of  having 
served  for  some  time  as  Director  of  the  British  School  at  Rome,  and  of 
having  gained  in  this  way  an  invaluable  acquaintance  with  local  conditions 
and  with  actual  remains.  As  a  result,  he  has  given  us  a  manual  which  is 
far  in  advance  of  anything  of  the  kind  that  has  yet  seen  the  light,  and 
which  is  not  likely  to  be  superseded  for  many  a  year  to  come. 

An  introductory  chapter  summarizes  the  present  position  of  our  know- 
ledge regarding  the  prehistoric  problems  connected  with  the  Italian  penin- 
sula, sketches  the  development  of  the  town  and  land  system,  describes  the 
growth  of  Rome  itself  from  its  first  beginnings  to  the  days  of  its  greatest 
prosperity,  and  concludes  with  a  succinct  account  of  the  roads  and  sea- 
routes  that  furnished  the  main  arteries  for  trade  and  intercourse  under 
Republic  and  Empire.  Then  follow  130  pages  devoted  to  'Architecture.' 
The  allowance  may  seem  generous,  but  every  inch  of  the  space  is  required 
to  accommodate  the  mass  of  material  that  is  grouped  together  under  this  one 
general  heading.  The  various  types  of  structure  are  dealt  with  separately, 
Vitruvian  lore  being  aptly  illuminated  by  discussion  of  the  more  important 
surviving  examples.  To  those  who  have  not  visited  the  Saalburg  Museum, 
the  most  novel  section  of  the  chapter  on  *  War '  will  be  that  which  treats  of 
Roman  artillery.  Besides  this,  however,  it  contains  much  that  is  not 
accessible  in  equally  convenient  form  anywhere  else.  One  cannot  help 
regretting  that  the  organization  of  the  army  had  to  be  dismissed  so  briefly. 

The  subjects  of  the  remaining  chapters  are  *  Religion,'  '  Production  and 
Distribution,'  'Money,'  'Public  Amusements,'  and  'Art.'  Of  these,  that 
upon  <  Money '  is  the  slightest ;  it  should  have  given  references  to  Haeber- 
lin's  Corpus  of  Acs  Grave  and  to  Willers's  Geschichte  der  romischen  Kupfer- 
pragung,  the  latter  of  which  has  rather  upset  orthodox  views  as  to  the 
arrangement  made  circa  15  B.C.  between  Augustus  and  the  Senate.  The 
chapter  on  'Production  and  Distribution,'  on  the  other  hand,  is  among 
the  best  in  the  volume.  There  are  few  indeed  who  will  not  learn  a  great 
deal  from  what  it  has  to  say  of  agriculture,  of  industry  and  commerce,  of 
handicrafts  and  manufactures. 

Mr.  Stuart  Jones  writes  clearly  and  well,  so  that  the  volume  is  readable 
in  spite  of  the  closeness  with  which  the  information  is  necessarily  packed. 
In  his  selection  of  illustrations  he  has  displayed  both  catholicity  of  taste  and 
soundness  of  judgment.  It  is  a  pity  that  the  reproductions  are  not  always 
satisfactory.  The  tombstone  of  the  centurion  M.  Caelius,  for  example,  on 
p.  205,  is  particularly  disappointing.  Improvement  in  such  details  may  be 
effected  when  the  book  is  reprinted,  as  it  is  quite  certain  to  be  ere  long. 

GEORGE  MACDONALD. 

N 


i94        Porteous  :    The  History  of  Crieff 

THE  HISTORY  OF  CRIEFF  FROM  THE  EARLIEST  TIMES  TO  THE  DAWN  OF 
THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY.  By  Alexander  Porteous,  F.S.A.Scot. 
With  Introduction  by  the  Rev.  W.  P.  Paterson,  D.D.,  Professor  of 
Divinity  in  the  University  of  Edinburgh.  Pp.  xviii,  423.  With 
numerous  Illustrations.  4to.  Edinburgh  :  Oliphant,  Anderson  & 
Ferrier.  1912.  2 is.  net. 

WHEN  it  is  said  that  in  this  profusely  illustrated  and  handsome  volume  the 
portraits  of  the  first  town  councillors  of  Crieff  are  the  product  of  a  photo- 
graphic studio,  not  much  will  probably  be  expected  in  the  way  of  historic 
annals.  And  yet  this  town  on  the  Highland  border,  chiefly  known  to 
outsiders  as  a  popular  health  resort,  though  it  did  not  become  a  police  burgh 
governed  by  its  own  magistrates  till  1864,  na<^  ^ts  origin  in  a  period  too 
remote  to  be  definitely  traced.  The  story  of  the  town  and  its  neighbour- 
hood is  worth  telling,  and  has  been  well  told  by  Mr.  Porteous,  who  begins 
his  narrative  by  giving  some  account  of  the  Roman  remains  discovered  in 
the  district,  the  roads  and  camps  which  are  still  visible,  and  he  likewise 
alludes  to  the  invasion  of  Strathearn  by  Egfrid  of  North umbria,  then 
marching  to  meet  his  fate  at  Nechtanmere. 

Coming  to  the  twelfth  century,  when  charters  make  their  appearance, 
the  earls  of  Strathearn  are  identified  as  lords  of  the  soil  and  founders  of  the 
abbey  of  Inchaffrey.  In  one  of  the  abbey  charters  the  name  of  Crieff  is 
found  on  record  for  the  first  time,  the  'parson  of  CreP  being  one  of  the 
witnesses.  It  is  thus  as  a  kirk  town,  the  centre  of  a  parish,  that  the  place 
comes  into  notice,  but  any  ecclesiastical  importance  which  may  have 
attached  to  it  in  the  early  centuries  was  somewhat  lessened  by  annexation 
of  the  parsonage  to  the  Chapel  Royal  of  Stirling  some  sixty  years  before 
the  Reformation.  Subsequent  to  the  Reformation  a  proposal  to  make 
Crieff  the  seat  of  a  presbytery  did  not  receive  effect,  and  since  that  time 
the  church  history  of  the  town  and  parish  is  in  the  main  uneventful,  though 
the  ministerial  roll  contains  the  names  of  some  men  of  note.  Principal 
Cunningham,  who  wrote  the  History  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  was  minister 
of  the  parish  between  1845  anc^  1886,  and  was  succeeded  by  the  present 
Professor  of  Divinity  in  Edinburgh  University,  Dr.  Paterson,  who  contri- 
butes an  appreciative  introduction  to  this  volume.  Dr.  Thomas  M'Crie, 
son  of  the  author  of  the  Life  of  Knoxy  and  himself  a  prolific  writer  on 
various  subjects,  was  for  four  years  an  Anti-burgher  minister  in  Crieff. 

The  old  statistical  account  of  the  parish  was  written  by  Robert  Stirling, 
who  became  minister  in  1770,  when  the  population  of  the  town  and  parish 
was  under  2000.  Alluding  to  the  primitive  customs  of  the  period,  he 
quaintly  attributes  a  rise  in  church-door  collections  to  the  effect  of  the 
increasing  'luxury  and  vanity  of  the  lower  classes.'  About  the  year  1778 
female  servants  and  others  of  that  rank  began  first  to  wear  ribbons,  and, 
conscious  of  attracting  superior  notice,  they  also  displayed  greater  charity. 

In  the  latter  days  of  heritable  jurisdictions,  and  succeeding  to  the  heredi- 
tary stewards  and  mairs  of  Strathearn,  whose  open-air  courts  were  held  at 
a  place  called  the  <  Skath  of  Crieff,'  owners  of  no  fewer  than  three  baronies 
had  each  a  share  in  the  judicial  supervision  of  the  town.  The  Drummond 
family  ruled  over  two-thirds  of  it,  and  in  1685  they  built  a  tolbooth  as  a 


Porteous  :    The  History  of  Crieff       195 


substitute  for  the  *  Skath.'  In  the  cattle-lifting  days  many  a  Highland 
riever  passed  from  the  '  Skath  '  to  the  '  kind  gallows  of  Crieff,'  a  designation 
given  to  the  local  gibbet  for  reasons  which  cannot  be  satisfactorily  explained. 
In  a  note  to  Waver  ley  Sir  Walter  Scott  mentions  that  the  Highlanders 
used  to  touch  their  bonnets  as  they  passed  the  spot  which  had  been  fatal  to 
many  of  their  countrymen,  with  the  ejaculation,  'God  bless  her  nain  sell  and 
the  Teil  tamn  you.'  The  stocks  and  part  of  the  gallows  are  still  preserved 
as  relics.  A  market  cross  was  erected  by  a  Drummond  baron  two  hundred 
years  ago,  and  one  of  his  successors,  Lord  Willoughby  de  Eresby,  gifted  it 
to  the  town  in  1852.  The  other  two  baronies,  which  between  them 
absorbed  the  remainder  of  the  town,  bore  the  names  of  Crieff  and  Broich 
respectively.  Each  of  the  three  barons  appointed  a  bailie,  by  whom  courts 
were  held  for  his  special  district.  Mr.  Porteous  gives  some  extracts  from 
the  court  book  of  Crieff  barony.  By  an  act  of  atrocious  vandalism  the 
records  of  the  steward  court  of  Strathearn,  consisting  of  forty  large  vellum- 
bound  volumes,  were  destroyed  so  recently  as  the  year  1798.  Two  com- 
panies of  the  Sutherland  Fencibles,  at  that  time  stationed  in  Crieff  and 
occupying  the  tolbooth  as  a  guard-room,  ruthlessly  used  the  books  as  fuel. 

Mr.  Porteous  has  treated  his  subject  in  sections,  each  topic  being  dis- 
cussed in  a  continuous  historical  narrative.  His  opening  chapters  deal  with 
ancient  history  and  early  juridical  procedure.  Ecclesiastical,  industrial,  and 
educational  history  follow;  and  after  treating  of  municipal,  military,  and 
political  matters,  the  modes  of  communication  and  social  history,  the  book 
concludes  with  biographical  sketches  of  the  more  distinguished  townsmen. 

Of  industries,  the  brewing  of  ale  and  beer  takes  an  early  and  prominent 
place.  Distilling  came  later,  and  from  the  second  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century  down  to  about  the  year  1837  the  various  distilleries  and  breweries 
gave  employment  to  a  large  number  of  persons.  One  of  the  distilleries 
was  so  well  conducted  as  to  be  reputed  the  '  rendezvouz  for  all  that  was 
bright  in  intellect  in  Crieff.'  A  slight  mishap,  however,  occurred  on  the 
occasion  of  a  big  copper  kettle  being  placed  in  position.  A  dinner  to 
twenty-two  guests  was  given  inside  the  kettle,  and  some  of  them  got  so 
'  helplessly  drunk '  that  they  could  not  get  out  till  next  morning.  A  linen 
factory  was  established  in  1763,  papermaking  in  1731,  and  the  hand-loom 
weavers,  who  formed  themselves  into  a  benefit  society  in  1770  and  later  on 
possessed  a  hall  for  their  meetings,  flourished  till  near  the  middle  of  last 
century.  These  and  many  other  industries,  both  those  which  have  finished 
their  course  and  those  which  still  survive,  are  duly  chronicled.  A  great 
cattle  market,  or  'tryst,'  as  it  was  called,  held  at  Michaelmas  yearly,  is 
traced  back  to  the  period  when  the  Lowlanders  were  afraid  to  enter  the 
mountain  fastnesses,  and  Crieff  was  mutually  chosen  by  Highlanders  and 
Lowlanders  as  the  meeting  place  for  the  purchase  and  sale  of  black  cattle. 
The  Celtic  bard,  Robert  Bonn,  attended  the  market  on  one  occasion,  and 
he  speaks  of  'counting  droves  in  the  enclosures  of  Crieff.'  Much  against 
the  will  of  cattle  dealers  in  the  north,  the  '  tryst '  for  black  cattle  was  trans- 
ferred to  Falkirk  in  1770. 

The  chapters  on  social  history,  with  entertaining  extracts  from  Miss 
Wright's  Journal^  will  probably  be  best  liked,  especially  by  Crieff  people. 


196      Constitution  and  Finance  of  English 

The  illustrations,  already  alluded  to,  consisting  chiefly  of  portraits,  are 
well  executed,  but  so  much  cannot  be  said  for  the  maps,  which,  on  account 
of  their  small  lettering  and  general  want  of  clearness,  are  not  of  much 
assistance  to  the  reader.  RQBERT  R£NWICK> 

THE  CONSTITUTION  AND  FINANCE  OF  ENGLISH,  SCOTTISH  AND  IRISH 
JOINT-STOCK  COMPANIES  TO  1720.  By  William  Robert  Scott,  M.A., 
D.Phil.,  Litt.D.  Volume  III.  The  General  Development  of  the 
Joint-Stock  System  to  1720.  Pp.  Ivi,  488.  Royal  8vo.  Cambridge  : 
University  Press.  1912.  175.  net. 

DR.  SCOTT  published  Volumes  II.  and  III.  of  his  book,  giving  the  detailed 
history  of  each  company  individually,  before  Volume  I.,  in  which  the  results 
of  his  valuable  researches  are  treated  comparatively,  that  is,  the  history  and 
development  of  the  joint-stock  system  are  treated  as  a  whole,  and  its  rela- 
tion to  and  influence  on  the  general  economic  conditions  of  the  country 
are  shown.  As  the  joint-stock  organisation  was  made  use  of  to  promote 
almost  every  branch  of  trade  and  industry,  to  found  colonies,  drain  land, 
develop  insurance  and  banking,  its  importance  in  the  history  of  the  economic 
development  of  Britain  can  hardly  be  overestimated. 

This  type  of  organisation  gave  opportunities  of  investing  to  those  unable 
to  take  an  active  part  in  commercial  or  manufacturing  concerns,  and  there- 
fore helped  to  undermine  the  restrictions  of  craft  gilds  and  regulated  com- 
panies, and,  by  giving  facilities  for  the  use  of  capital,  helped  the  growth  of 
credit  which  was  so  important  a  feature  in  economic  development.  The 
fortunes  of  the  companies  varied  with  the  general  prosperity  of  the  country, 
and  their  history  therefore  includes  much  of  the  financial  history  of  England 
and  of  the  Crown,  and  also  gives  valuable  information  and  data  for  the 
study  of  the  theory  of  financial  crises.  Throughout  the  volume  the  gradual 
growth  of  a  measure  of  uniformity  and  of  approximation  to  modern  methods 
in  the  financial  organisation  of  the  different  concerns  is  traced.  The 
volume,  therefore,  is  full  of  valuable  information  and  conclusions  on  many 
aspects  of  economic  history  drawn  from  an  exhaustive  examination  of 
printed  and  manuscript  sources. .  The  extensive  bibliography  will  be  most 
useful  to  students  of  the  period. 

It  is  impossible  to  do  more  here  than  briefly  notice  a  few  points  of 
interest.  The  share  of  the  companies  in  the  colonial  and  maritime  expan- 
sion of  England  was  very  considerable.  Naval  stores  were  provided  by  the 
trading  companies  to  the  Baltic,  copper  and  bronze  for  cannon  by  mining 
associations.  The  privateering  expeditions  which  struck  at  Spain  were 
financed  by  joint-stock  enterprise,  as  were  most  of  the  early  plantations  in 
America.  The  outlay  on  the  latter  was  surprisingly  small  for  the  result 
achieved:  Dr.  Scott  estimates  it  up  to  1624  as  ^300,000.  The  inter- 
dependence of  the  companies  is  interesting.  For  instance,  much  of  the 
capital  for  the  Levant  Company  came  from  privateering  gains,  and  again 
the  East  India  Company  was  partly  financed  out  of  the  profits  of  the  Levant 
concern. 

The  history  illustrates  the  difference  between  the  development  of 
France,  so  largely  promoted  and  aided  by  the  Crown,  and  that  of  England, 


Scottish  and  Irish  Joint-Stock  Companies    197 


where  the  Government  was  too  poor  to  do  more  than  offer  facilities  for 
enterprise.  Indeed,  far  from  getting  financial  help,  the  English  companies 
to  some  extent  took  the  place  of  the  foreign  financiers  who  in  earlier  times 
had  made  loans  to  the  Crown.  Elizabeth  got  help  from  the  Merchant 
Adventurers ;  James  I.  and  Charles  I.  extracted  bribes  and  benevolences 
from  various  companies  ;  Parliament  borrowed  from  them  during  the  civil 
war  ;  and  the  later  Stewarts  received  handsome  presents  from  the  East 
India  and  other  companies.  Their  fortunes  were  also  greatly  influenced 
by  the  political  and  financial  policy  of  the  Government.  Wars  naturally 
affected  trade  to  a  considerable  extent.  At  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
century  business  men  protected  themselves  from  the  effects  of  decisive 
engagements  by  wagers.  If  they  expected  a  gain  by  the  successes  of  the 
allies,  they  would  wager  that  their  forces  would  not  be  victorious  before 
a  certain  date,  and  so  minimised  their  losses,  though  reducing  their  maximum 
gains.  The  attempts  of  James  I.  and  Charles  I.  to  secure  income  from 
companies  which  were  intended  to  promote  industry  and  trade  interfered 
with  the  stability  and  growth  of  both.  The  rise  in  the  customs  under 
James  I.  led  to  a  decline  in  the  carrying  trade ;  the  disputes  about  tonnage 
and  poundage  discouraged  merchants,  as  did  the  sudden  changes  made  by 
Charles  I.  in  grants  of  privileges.  Charles  II.'s  stop  of  the  Exchequer  was 
a  great  blow  to  trade.  Dr.  Scott  thinks  that  the  Navigation  Act  of  1651 
was  not  necessary  at  that  time  and,  in  fact,  'involved  a  further  disor- 
ganisation of  trade.' 

The  bearing  of  this  volume  on  the  questions  of  freedom  from  restrictions, 
of  monopolies  of  industrial  processes  and  of  trade  routes  is  interesting. 
Capital  owned  by  other  than  merchants  was  employed  at  an  early  date,  an 
important  matter  when  it  was  as  scarce  as  at  the  beginning  of  this  period. 
This  partly  accounted  for  the  success  of  the  joint-stock  companies  over  the 
regulated  type  of  organisation  which  limited  membership  more  strictly. 
The  case  for  monopoly  in  distant  trades,  and  where  protection  and  negotia- 
tion were  required,  was  strong,  and  the  East  India  and  Hudson  Bay  com- 
panies succeeded  in  maintaining  theirs  for  long.  In  the  former  the  system 
of  terminable  stocks,  common  in  the  early  companies,  prevented  for  some 
time  the  investment  of  capital  in  fortifications  and  buildings  to  secure  the 
permanency  of  trade,  a  precaution  which  was  not  neglected  by  the  Dutch 
company.  This  arrangement  also  made  confusion  in  the  division  of  profits 
and  of  capital.  The  chief  differences  in  the  constitution  of  English  and 
Scottish  companies  was  that  in  the  former  the  supreme  authority  was  vested 
in  a  governor  to  whom  the  other  officials  were  subordinated,  while  in  the 
latter  affairs  were  managed  by  a  group  of  managers.  In  Scotland  acts  were 
passed  granting  privileges  to  those  who  incorporated  themselves,  one  of  the 
principal  being  freedom  from  foreign  competition  ;  while  in  England  a 
charter  was  considered  necessary  for  the  constitution  of  a  trading  corpora- 
ton.  By  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  '  mechanism  of  stock 
exchange  dealings  had  been  developed '  ;  and  the  <  pernicious  art  of  stock 
jobbing'  was  bitterly  attacked,  and  was  held  to  be  responsible  for  the 
collapse  of  1720.  The  true  cause  of  this  crisis  was  rather  the  exaggerated 
ideas  of  the  possibilities  of  a  *  fund  of  credit,'  aggravated  by  the  venality  of 
the  ministry  and  the  House  of  Commons. 


198 


Lumsden  and  Aitken  : 


Dr.  Scott  finds  that  the  theory  of  the  occurrence  of  commercial  crises 
every  ten  years  does  not  hold  during  this  period  ;  nor  do  the  theories  that 
they  are  caused  by  sunspots,  over-speculation,  over-production,  apply.  He 
finds  them  to  be  the  result  of  failure  to  forecast  the  future — a  combination 
of  subjective  and  objective  conditions. 

This  treatment  of  the  joint-stock  system,  accompanied  by  the  account  of 
the  relation  of  its  development  to  the  general  financial,  political  and 
economic  history  of  the  period,  is  of  great  and  many-sided  interest  and 
value.  When  a  new  edition  of  this  volume  is  issued,  perhaps  Dr.  Scott 
will  expand  further  his  summary  in  the  last  chapter,  and  thus  discuss  the 
subject  apart  from  a  hampering  accumulation  of  fact  and  detail.  We 
would  suggest  also  that  so  useful  a  volume  should  not  be  allowed  to  suffer 
in  value  by  the  vagaries  of  the  punctuation. 

THEODORA  KEITH. 

HISTORY  OF  THE  HAMMERMEN  OF  GLASGOW  :  A  STUDY  TYPICAL  OF 
SCOTTISH  CRAFT  LIFE  AND  ORGANISATION.  By  Harry  Lumsden, 
LL.B.,  Clerk  of  the  Trades  House  of  Glasgow,  and  Rev.  P.  Hen- 
derson Aitken,  D.Litt.  Pp.  xxv,  446.  410.  Paisley :  Alexander 
Gardner.  1912. 

OF  the  numerous  citizens  of  Glasgow  who  come  in  contact  with  the  bene- 
ficent operations  of  one  or  other  of  its  fourteen  Incorporated  Trades  not 
many  are  likely  to  have  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  origin  of  these 
bodies  and  the  important  part  they  took  in  the  administration  of  municipal 
and  industrial  affairs  during  the  bygone  centuries.  But  for  those  who  desire 
enlightenment  on  the  subject  a  rare  opportunity  is  now  afforded  by  the 
publication  of  this  book  by  Mr.  Lumsden  and  Dr.  Aitken,  embodying  the 
result  of  their  collaborative  investigation.  Though  chiefly  concerned  with  the 
Hammermen  of  Glasgow,  the  authors  have  not  confined  themselves  within 
these  limits,  but  have  extended  their  survey  over  the  field  of  Scottish  craft 
life  and  organisation  in  general.  To  the  credit  of  the  Glasgow  incorpora- 
tions, most  of  them  have  already  issued  historical  sketches  of  their  respective 
crafts,  but  the  authors  of  the  present  work  are  the  first  to  supply  a  fairly 
adequate  account  of  the  origin  and  development  of  a  typical  craft  incorpora- 
tion, with  special  reference  to  its  relationship  to  the  other  component  parts 
in  the  constitution  of  a  burgh. 

At  the  outset  reference  is  made  to  the  trade  guilds  of  ancient  Greece  and 
Rome,  resembling  those  of  medieval  Europe,  which  in  turn  were  adopted 
by  our  Anglo-Saxon  ancestors.  Associations  of  persons  exercising  the  same 
craft  and  united  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  and  promoting  their  common 
interests,  come  into  prominence  in  England  in  the  fourteenth  century,  and 
it  is  not  long  after  that  time  that  their  existence  can  also  be  traced  in 
Scottish  towns.  Burgesses  were  then  divided  into  the  two  classes  of  mer- 
chants who  bought  and  sold,  and  craftsmen  who  manufactured  the  articles 
of  sale.  Other  inhabitants,  such  as  servants,  journeymen  and  apprentices, 
were  regarded  as  unfreemen,  and  could  not  carry  on  any  trade  or  business 
within  the  burgh.  Voluntary  confederations  of  craftsmen  evidently  existed 
in  Scotland  before  1424,  as  an  act  of  parliament  passed  in  that  year  directed 


History  of  the  Hammermen  of  Glasgow    199 

that  in  every  town  of  the  realm  there  should  be  chosen  a  deacon  of  each 
craft  for  supervision  of  the  work  wrought  by  craftsmen,  so  that  the  King's 
lieges  should  not  be  defrauded  as  they  had  been  in  time  past  by  'untrue  men 
of  the  craft.'  But  in  order  that  the  rules  and  regulations  adopted  by  these 
associated  bodies  for  the  management  of  their  affairs  and  guidance  of  their 
members  might  be  clothed  with  due  legality,  it  was  considered  necessary  to 
have  them  formally  sanctioned  by  the  governing  body  of  the  burgh.  The 
usual  procedure  was  for  the  town  council,  in  compliance  with  a  petition 
presented  by  a  craft,  to  issue  a  document,  authenticated  by  affixing  the 
common  seal  of  the  burgh,  and  specifying  the  powers  and  privileges  sought 
for  and  granted  ;  and  this  writing,  variously  called  a  charter  of  erection,  a 
letter  of  deaconry,  or  a  seal  of  cause,  conferred  on  the  persons  procuring  it 
the  status  of  a  legal  incorporation. 

Glasgow  Hammermen,  embracing  blacksmiths,  goldsmiths,  lorimers, 
saddlers,  bucklemakers,  armourers  and  others,  obtained  their  first  seal  of 
cause  in  1539,  but  it  is  clear  from  the  narrative  contained  in  their  petition 
that  they  had  already  been  established  as  a  voluntary  association.  This  seal 
of  cause  was  granted  by  the  magistrates  and  council,  with  the  approval  of 
the  archbishop  and  chapter  of  the  cathedral,  and  besides  prescribing  the 
regulations  for  the  admission  of  members,  and  the  rules  for  securing  effi- 
ciency of  workmanship  and  exercise  of  the  other  usual  powers  and  privileges, 
it  contains  special  provision  for  upholding  divine  service  at  the  altar  of  St. 
Eloi,  the  patron  saint  of  hammermen.  On  the  assumption  that  the  altar 
here  referred  to  had  its  place  in  the  cathedral,  Dr.  Aitken  thinks  it  ought 
to  be  added  to  the  list  of  known  altars  there.  In  two  of  the  Glasgow  Seals 
of  cause  of  the  pre-Reformation  period,  that  of  the  Skinners  in  1516,  and 
that  of  the  Cordiners  in  1558,  the  altars  of  St.  Christopher  and  St.  Ninian, 
respectively,  are  expressly  stated  to  be  situated  in  the  Metropolitan  Kirk, 
but  the  locality  of  the  altar  of  St.  Eloi  is  not  mentioned  in  the  Hammer- 
men's seal  of  cause,  and  it  may  thus  have  had  its  place  in  one  of  the 
chapels  of  the  city,  not  improbably  the  old  chapel  of  St.  Mary  adjoining 
the  tolbooth. 

Having  described  the  origin,  constitution  and  composition  of  the  Ham- 
mermen craft,  Mr.  Lumsden  gives  a  series  of  chapters  on  freemen,  appren- 
tices and  servants,  the  management  of  the  craft,  the  rights,  privileges, 
duties  and  obligations  of  craftsmen,  and  the  craft  in  relation  to  the  Guildry, 
the  Trades  House  and  the  Town  Council — the  whole  forming  a  lucid  and 
comprehensive  narrative  and  commentary,  enhanced  by  illustrative  quota- 
tions from  the  minute  books  of  the  craft,  which  begin  in  1616.  In  Dr. 
Aitken's  section  a  highly  instructive  account  is  given  of  craft  life  and  work 
in  their  different  phases  at  kirk  and  market,  at  change  house  and  hospital, 
and  in  public  affairs.  Here,  too,  the  craft's  minutes  are  skilfully  woven 
into  the  narrative,  the  interest  in  which  is  maintained  to  the  last,  even 
though,  in  consequence  of  the  abolition  of  exclusive  trading  privileges  in 
1846,  the  incorporation  has  since  been  chiefly  concerned  with  the  manage- 
of  its  funds  as  a  charitable  institution. 

The  book  is  profusely  decorated  with  portraits  and  illustrations  of  ham- 
mermen handiwork,  and  there  are  also  facsimiles  of  old  writings.  In  one 


200 


Wilson  :    Rose  Castle 


of  the  Appendices  the  charge  against  the  Incorporation  of  Hammermen  of 
having  prevented  James  Watt  from  starting  business  in  Glasgow  as  a 
mathematical  instrument  maker  is  discussed,  and  the  conclusion  is  arrived 
at  that  the  story  is  *  nothing  more  than  a  baseless  myth.'  Elsewhere,  how- 
ever, the  *  mythical '  story  related  by  Spottiswood  about  the  threatened 
destruction  of  the  cathedral  is  repeated  without  qualification.  It  is  highly 
improbable  that  the  cathedral  itself  was  ever  in  danger  of  effacement,  and 
the  tradition  to  that  effect  seems  merely  to  have  been  based  on  a  proposal 
made  in  1588  for  removing  the  north-west  tower.  The  design  was  frus- 
trated at  the  time,  its  accomplishment  having  been  reserved  for  the  ill-advised 
renovators  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

ROBERT  RENWICK. 

ROSE  CASTLE,  THE  RESIDENTIAL  SEAT  OF  THE  BISHOP  OF  CARLISLE.  By 
the  Rev.  James  Wilson,  B.D.,  Litt.D.  Pp.  xx,  270.  With  Plans 
and  Illustrations,  and  an  Appendix  of  Original  Documents.  Demy  8vo. 
Carlisle  :  Charles  Thurnam  &  Sons.  1912.  6s.  net. 
WHEN  Henry  I.  founded  the  house  of  Austin  Canons  at  Carlisle  in  the 
year  1 132,  he  endowed  the  body,  after  the  fashion  of  the  time,  with  churches 
not  only  in  Cumberland  and  Westmorland,  but  also  in  Northumberland 
and  elsewhere.  In  the  following  year  a  diocese  was  constituted,  it  being 
intended  that  the  bishop  should  not  only  be  diocesan,  but  also  prior  of  the 
convent.  This  arrangement  was  found  not  to  work  so  well  as  the  founder 
expected,  and  in  the  year  1219  a  letter  was  written  by  Henry  III.  to  the 
Pope  telling  him  that  during  the  destitution  of  the  see,  lasting  from  1157 
to  1203,  certain  churches  in  the  diocese  of  Durham  had  been  alienated 
through  the  neglect  of  the  canons.  In  consequence  of  the  disputes  between 
the  bishop  on  the  one  side,  and  the  canons  on  the  other,  their  estates,  under 
the  authority  of  the  papal  legate  Pandulf,  were  partitioned.  Among  the 
estates  set  aside  as  the  patrimony  of  the  see  was  the  lordship  of  Linstock, 
north  of  Carlisle,  and  there,  at  the  first,  the  bishop  had  his  residence. 

But  Linstock  was  exposed  to  raids  from  the  North,  and  in  the  year  1230, 
Walter,  the  fourth  bishop  in  the  succession,  obtained  from  the  king  a  grant 
of  the  manor  of  Dalston,  some  six  or  eight  miles  to  the  south-west  of,  and 
therefore  protected  by,  the  city.  Here  he  either  adapted  an  existing  building 
or  built  himself  a  see-house,  which,  from  the  year  1255  to  the  present  time, 
has  been  the  official  residence  of  the  Bishop  of  Carlisle. 

The  evolution  of  this  house,  its  description,  and  its  vicissitudes,  form  the 
subject  of  Dr.  Wilson's  volume. 

After  an  introductory  chapter,  in  which  is  sketched  the  story  of  the  other 
manor-houses  and  towers  once  held  by  the  bishop,  Dr.  Wilson,  with 
sufficient  fulness,  relates  the  story  of  the  acquisition  of  Dalston — of  which 
parish  he  is  the  vicar — and  discusses  the  erection  of  the  see-house  on  which 
was  bestowed  the  name  of  Rose.  He  adduces  evidence  to  suggest  that  the 
name  may  have  been  contemporary  with  the  acquisition  of  Dalston,  and 
sets  out  the  different  theories  advanced  to  explain  this  unusual  though 
attractive  designation.  In  the  pages  that  follow  he  weaves  the  warp  of  the 
history  of  the  structure  with  the  woof  of  the  personal  history  of  its  succes- 


Russell :    Maitland  of  Lethington        201 

sive  owners,  in  a  manner  which  arouses  and  sustains  the  eager  attention  of 
the  reader. 

In  the  chapter  given  to  the  chapel- — in  the  more  usual  sense  of  a  building 
— there  is  a  luminous  and  informing  description  of  the  bishop's  '  chapel '  in 
the  technical  use  of  the  word,  meaning  the  episcopal  apparatus  of  books, 
ornaments,  vestments,  etc.;  Bishop  Lyttelton,  in  the  year  1762,  whimsically 
complaining  that  his  predecessor  had  not  left  him  even  a  chaplain's  surplice. 

In  the  chapter  dealing  with  the  precincts  of  the  castle,  mention  is  made 
of  the  large  sums  of  money  received  for  fines  by  Bishop  Sterne,  who  was 
translated  to  York  in  1664.  The  revenues  of  the  see  arising  from  rectories 
appropriate,  and  other  scattered  possessions,  were  collected  by  the  bishop  after 
the  custom  of  other  ecclesiastical  corporations,  handed  down  from  the  days 
of  imperial  Rome,  of  demising  the  tithes  and  manors  to  middlemen,  who 
paid  a  substantial  sum  in  ready  money  as  a  consideration,  or  fine,  for  the 
lease,  and  also  yearly  a  small  or  moderate  reserved  rent.  The  middlemen 
— the  publicans  of  distant  Galilee — sublet  to  the  owner  or  cultivator  of  the 
land,  of  course  taking  a  profit  on  the  transaction.  Very  seldom  did  it 
happen  that  the  farmer  of  the  tithe  and  the  cultivator  failed  to  come  to  a 
bargain  or  working  arrangement.  If  they  did  fail  to  come  to  terms  of 
arrangement,  the  proprietor  of  the  tithes,  or  his  lessee,  was  put  to  the  dis- 
agreeable necessity  of  lifting  his  tithes  in  kind,  viz.  the  tenth  sheaf,  the  tenth 
calf,  the  tenth  lamb,  and  so  forth.  This  archaic  system  was  put  an  end  to 
by  the  Tithe  Commutation  Act,  following  which  the  bishop  was  able  to 
cut  down  the  establishment,  which  previously  had  devoured  his  revenues. 

Special  commendation  is  due  to  the  selection  of  illustrative  documents, 
comprising  the  grant  of  the  manor  and  the  advowson  of  the  church  of 
Dalston  to  Bishop  Walter  by  Henry  III.  on  the  26th  of  February,  1230. 

The  volume  is  well  printed  and  beautifully  illustrated. 

J.  C.  HODGSON. 

MAITLAND  OF  LETHINGTON,  THE  MINISTER  OF  MARY  STUART  :  A  STUDY 
OF  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIMES.  By  E.  Russell.  Pp.  viii,  516.  8vo. 
London  :  Nisbet  &  Co.  1912.  155.  net. 

THIS  interesting  volume  is  not  in  the  strict  sense  a  biography  of  Maitland. 
While  it  is  more  than  a  biography,  it  is  not,  except  as  regards  the  earlier 
portions  of  his  career,  very  biographical.  Later  the  author's  plan  gradually 
becomes  more  comprehensive,  and  for  the  greater  portion  of  the  book  the 
'Times'  of  Maitland  bulk  more  largely  than  himself,  such  biographical 
details  as  are  supplied  being  referred  to  in  an  incidental  fashion.  Even  his 
second  marriage  is  mentioned  only  cursorily,  and  it  is  not  even  stated 
whether  he  had  any  descendants.  We  are  not  told  of  the  method  of  the 
final  conveyance  of  the  infirm  secretary  to  the  castle  ;  we  have  merely  the 
bald  statement  that  Grange  'was  joined  (nth  April)  by  Maitland' ;  nor  is 
any  mention  made  of  Knox's  denunciation  of  Maitland,  nor  of  Maitland's 
complaint  in  a  letter  to  the  session  of  Edinburgh  against  Knox's  slander,  nor 
of  the  character  of  Knox's  deathbed  message  to  Kirkaldy,  nor  of  Maitland's 
characteristic  and  scornful  reply  :  all  we  are  told  is  that  the  '  pin-pricks '  of 
Maitland  disturbed  the  Reformer's  '  last  illness,'  which  they  probably  did 
not. 


202        Russell  :    Maitland  of  Lethington 

The  word  '  Times '  in  the  title  must  also  be  understood  in  a  somewhat 
restricted  sense.  Social  and  ecclesiastical  events  and  characteristics  are  not 
dealt  with  in  detail :  the  book  is  concerned  mainly  with  the  complex 
political  intrigues  of  the  period.  Further,  matters  with  which  Maitland 
had  no  direct  connection  are  treated  almost  as  fully  as  those  in  which  he 
was  immediately  concerned.  His  aims  and  intentions  might  have  been 
set  forth  fully  enough,  and  certainly  more  consecutively,  without  so  detailed 
an  account  of  his  'Times' ;  and,  again,  we  might  have  had  a  more  compre- 
hensive account  of  his  'Times,'  and  a  fuller  exposition  of  the  character  and 
aims  of  the  other  personalities  of  the  drama,  but  for  the  special  purpose  that 
has  determined  the  character  of  the  book.  Still,  Mr.  Russell's  plan  has 
advantages  of  its  own  :  though  it  prevents  him  supplying  a  fully  compre- 
hensive account  of  the  'Times'  of  Maitland,  it  enables  him  to  devote  a  more 
detailed  attention  to  certain  aspects  of  them,  than  would  otherwise  have 
been  possible  within  the  compass  of  his  present  volume.  Moreover,  what 
he  has  done  he  has  generally  done  very  well :  with  great  care,  with  admir- 
able lucidity,  and  with  as  much  freedom  from  bias  as  one  can  reasonably 
expect. 

Necessarily  Mr.  Russell's  standpoint  is  not  that  of  every  other  student 
of  the  period.  Here  there  is  still  considerable  variety  of  opinion,  if  not 
partizanship ;  and  doubtless  there  are  some,  besides  myself,  who,  more 
particularly,  will  not  coincide  with  his  estimates  either  of  Moray  or  Knox, 
or  with  all  his  judgments  about  Mary.  For  example,  there  is  hardly  a 
unanimous  opinion  that '  Knox  was  more  of  a  statesman  than  an  ecclesiastic ' ; 
nor  will  every  one  admit  that  the  position  of  Knox  is  quite  fully  or  satis- 
factorily defined  by  the  following  formula  :  '  The  Church  and  State  in  his 
view,  as  later  in  that  of  Hooker  and  Arnold,  were  co-extensive — only 
different  aspects  and  relations  of  the  same  national  life.'  Indeed  the  wide 
difference  between  Knox  and  Arnold  is  shown  in  the  very  next  sentence. 
'Every  Scot  owed  allegiance  to  the  Church  as  he  did  to  the  State,'  for 
Arnold  would  not,  as  Knox  did,  seek  to  enforce  allegiance  to  the  Church 
by  legal  penalties.  Again,  the  position  of  Knox  is  only  deceptively  defined 
by  stating  that  he  held  '  that  the  Sovereign  of  a  Protestant  State  should  be 
a  Protestant.'  What  he  did  hold  was  that  there  should  be  neither  Catholic 
Sovereigns  nor  Catholic  States.  Moreover,  it  is  questionable  whether  Scot- 
land on  Mary's  arrival  was  either  de  jure  or  by  full  persuasion  de  facto 
a  Protestant  State.  Knox  was  even  afraid  that  with  Mary  as  queen 
it  might  not  be  long  a  Protestant  State ;  but  whether  the  majority 
of  the  nation  were  Protestants  or  not,  did  not,  with  him,  affect  the 
question  of  what  was  permissible.  His  aim  had  been  to  change  the 
religion  of  the  State,  and  while,  as  Mr.  Russell  tells  us,  the  crown  in 
Scotland  was  'the  ruling  factor  in  the  government  and  policy  of  the 
State,'  he  sought  to  override  the  crown  and  the  government  so  far  as 
religion  was  concerned  ;  and  in  those  times  this  meant  the  substitution 
of  the  Kirk,  or  rather  himself,  as  '  the  ruling  factor '  in  the  State.  His 
views  of  the  relations  of  Church  and  State  were,  in  short,  medieval,  not 
modern.  They  supposed  a  certain  infallibility  in  himself  and  in  the  Kirk. 
Again,  it  would  be  more  correct  to  speak  of  Knox's  '  demagogic '  than  his 


Russell  :    Maitland  of  Lethington        203 

1  democratic  fervour.'  He  sought  to  utilize  even  the  rascal  multitude  for 
his  own  ends  ;  but  it  was  for  him  and  the  Kirk,  not  for  the  rascal  multi- 
tude, to  determine  the  State  religion  :  he  courted  the  nobility  for  his  own 
purposes  as  much  as  he  did  the  people,  and  his  second  marriage  seems  to 
show  that  he  had  even  some  kind  of  aristocratic  aspirations. 

As  for  Moray,  Mr.  Russell  seems  to  assign  him  a  wisdom,  impeccability, 
and  unselfishness  of  an  almost  unprecedented  character  among  men,  not  to 
mention  politicians,  and  especially  politicians  of  that  age.  He  will  not  have 
his  motives  questioned  in  the  case  of  any  of  the  windings  and  turnings  of 
what  was,  in  any  case,  a  very  opportunist  career,  whether  opportunist 
mainly  for  the  sake  of  his  sister,  his  country,  his  religion,  or  himself.  Mr. 
Russell  could  not,  of  course,  give  the  same  detailed  attention  to  Moray's 
aims  and  motives  as  he  has  done  to  those  of  Maitland  ;  but  it  is  putting  too 
great  a  strain  on  the  reader's  credulity  to  take  for  granted  that  his  motives 
were  always  unimpeachable,  and  that  he  was  always  in  the  right. 

Three  illustrations  of  cardinal  points  must  suffice.  One  of  the  most 
cardinal  is  Moray's  reasons  for  his  rebellion  against  his  sister  on  account  of 
the  Darnley  marriage,  and  it  is  a  rather  difficult  one  ;  but  the  remarkable 
fact  is  that  Moray  allowed  himself  to  be  named  one  of  a  commission  to 
arrange  with  Elizabeth  terms  that  would  guard  Protestantism  and  might 
satisfy  her  ;  that  the  negotiations  failed  simply  because  Elizabeth  refused  to 
negotiate  at  all ;  and  that  nevertheless  Moray  combined  with  Elizabeth 
against  his  sister  with  the  view  of  expelling  her  from  the  throne.  Another 
cardinal  and  difficult  question  is  the  attitude  of  Moray  towards  the  Don 
Carlos  negotiations.  This  can  hardly  be  explained  as  Mr.  Russell,  follow- 
ing Professor  Hume  Brown,  would  seek  to  explain  it,  by  the  mere  desire  of 
Moray  to  bring  pressure  to  bear  on  Elizabeth  to  arrange  terms  with  his 
sister.  It  may  even  be  doubted,  if  not  more  than  doubted,  whether  Moray 
now  deemed  this  either  possible  or  desirable ;  but  here  Mr.  Russell  ignores  a 
statement  of  Maitland  to  De  Quadra  that  Moray's  hatred  of  the  Hamiltons 
might  tend  to  make  him  even  support  the  Spanish  marriage.  The  Hamil- 
tons had,  in  fact,  all  along  been  the  bete  noir  both  of  Maitland  and  Moray. 
Further,  it  is  clear  that  Maitland  and  Moray  had  at  least  convinced  them- 
selves that,  meanwhile,  they  had  no  option  but  to  humour  the  Queen  by 
agreeing  to  negotiations  which,  so  far  at  least  as  the  consent  of  Philip  was 
concerned,  might  have  been  successful.  A  third  cardinal  question  concerns 
the  conduct  of  Moray  in  allowing  himself  to  be  juggled  by  Elizabeth  into 
publicly  exhibiting  the  casket  documents  at  Westminster.  According  to 
Sir  James  Melville — though  this  Mr.  Russell  does  not  record — Maitland 
told  him  that  he  had  'shamed  himself  in  doing  so.  When  in  Edinburgh 
Castle  Maitland  affirmed,  in  a  letter  to  Burghley,  that  he  never  left  Moray 
*  till  he  left  all  honesty,'  and  all  that  Mr.  Russell  has  to  say  to  this  is  that 
it  is  difficult  to  understand  it,  'except  on  the  assumption  of  Maitland's 
political  infallibility  and  the  consequent  duty  of  Moray  to  follow  him 
blindly/ 

Necessarily  Mr.  Russell's  attitude  to  Knox  and  Moray  tends  to  make 
him  put  a  more  unfavourable  construction  on  the  conduct  of  Mary  than  he 
might  otherwise  have  done,  but  it  says  much  for  his  fair-mindedness  that, 


204      Calendar  of  the  East  India  Company 

as  a  rule,  it  has  affected  very  little  his  verdict  on  Maitland,  which,  except 
as  regards  the  final  stand  made  by  him  on  the  Queen's  behalf,  is  very 
favourable  and  appreciative.  So  far  as  I  can  judge,  his  book,  as  regards  the 
aims  and  motives  of  Maitland,  is,  on  the  whole,  admirably  illuminative;  but 
then,  as  it  happens,  I  had  already  formed  views  about  Mainland's  policy 
similar  in  many  respects  to  those  so  carefully  and  minutely  expounded  by 
Mr.  Russell,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  I  already  entertained  opinions  some- 
what different  from  his  about  Moray,  Knox,  and  Mary. 

On  one  point,  however — Maitland's  conduct  in  the  Darnley  murder — he 
expresses  an  opinion  with  which  I  am  quite  unable  to  coincide.  He  partly 
excuses  him  for  a  reason  quite  beyond  my  comprehension.  That  '  he  was 
morally  guilty,'  is,  he  says,  <  of  course  undeniable,  though  his  views  as  to 
Darnley's  criminality  in  relation  to  Mary  require  to  be  taken  into  account.' 
Now  if  Mr.  Russell  had  said  c  Darnley's  criminality  in  relation  to  Maitland 
and  the  Protestant  party,'  I  could  have  understood  him,  but  his  criminality 
in  relation  to  Mary  !  What  was  Darnley's  criminality  in  relation  to 
Mary  ?  Was  it  not,  primarily,  his  sanction  of  the  murder  of  Riccio  ?  And 
was  not  Maitland  himself  very  largely  responsible  for  Darnley's  sanction  of 
it  ?  The  responsibility  of  Maitland  and  the  Protestant  party  for  the  murder 
of  Riccio  seems  also  to  have  been  one  of  the  difficulties  connected  with  a 
possible  trial  of  Darnley.  There  was  a  proposal  to  'get  him  convict  of 
treason,  because  he  consented  to  her  Grace's  retention  in  ward,'  but  in  that 
case  others  beside  him  would  have  to  be  convicted. 

The  book  may  be  cordially  commended  to  the  attention  of  all  who  are 
seriously  interested  in  Scottish  history. 

T.  F.  HENDERSON. 

A  CALENDAR  OF  THE  COURT  MINUTES,  ETC.,  OF  THE  EAST  INDIA  COM- 
PANY, 1644-1649.  By  Ethel  Bruce  Sainsbury.  With  an  Introduction 
and  Notes  by  William  Foster.  Pp.  xxviii,  424.  8vo.  Oxford : 
Clarendon  Press.  1912.  I2s.  6d.  net. 

THIS  instalment  of  the  Court  Books  and  other  home  documents  is  dominated 
by  the  after  effects  of  the  Civil  War,  and  thus  the  present  volume  is  one  in 
which  the  human  interest  is  greater  than  in  its  predecessors.  We  see  the 
Company  still  trying  to  obtain  payment  for  the  pepper  it  had  been  forced 
to  sell  to  Charles  L,  and,  as  the  struggle  progressed  in  England,  endeavour- 
ing to  secure  recognition  from  the  Government.  Nor  did  it  escape  from 
the  divisions  of  the  time,  since  in  1645  one  of  its  ships,  the  John,  was  taken 
to  Bristol  by  John  Mucknell,  the  commander,  and  handed  over  to  the 
Royalists.  This  was  an  exception  to  the  general  loyalty  of  the  Company's 
servants  to  the  orders  of  the  Committee,  and  one  gathers  that  Mucknell 
acted  as  he  did  through  a  fear  that  he  would  be  superseded.  The  friction 
with  Courteen's  Association  still  continued.  Sir  W.  Courteen  was  dead 
and  his  son  was  in  financial  difficulties,  but  several  merchants  had  decided 
to  continue  the  venture.  These  eventually  joined  the  East  India  Company. 
Two  new  colonies  were  projected,  one  in  Madagascar  (which  was  a 
failure)  and  another  in  Assada.  The  latter  continued  for  a  short  time, 
and  it  had  a  short  history  of  some  importance.  There  are  many  matters  of 


English  Factories  in  India,  1637-1641     205 

interest  touched  on  in  this  volume,  as,  for  instance,  the  adventures  of  the 
Dolphin^  which  lay  during  a  storm  '  for  more  than  an  howers  tyme  without 
righting';  or,  again,  the  ingenuous  plea  of  a  shareholder  who  wished  to 
avoid  paying  calls  on  his  stock,  who  puts  the  matter  as  follows,  that  he 
*  might  have  liberty  to  vacate  his  subscription  with  their  love  for  that  hee 
did  not  desire  to  bee  an  adventurer  with  them.'  In  modern  times,  instead 
of  the  reluctant  stockholder  being  dismissed  'with  love,'  he  is  usually 
involved  in  legal  proceedings. 

W.  R.  SCOTT. 

THE  ENGLISH  FACTORIES  IN  INDIA,  1637-1641 :  A  Calendar  of  Docu- 
ments in  the  India  Office,  British  Museum,  and  Public  Record  Office. 
By  William  Foster.  Pp.  xlvi,  339.  With  Frontispiece.  8vo. 
Oxford:  Clarendon  Press.  1912.  I2s.6d.net. 

THE  period  covered  by  this  volume  of  the  'factory  records'  is  one  in 
which  the  Dutch  and  Portuguese  were  still  in  conflict  in  India.  The 
French  and  the  Danes  were  beginning  to  make  tentative  efforts  at  obtain- 
ing some  footing  in  the  country ;  while  the  English  were  impeded  by  the 
rivalry  between  the  original  company  and  Courteen's  Association.  The 
latter  was  unfortunate  in  the  loss  of  shipping,  but  it  had  begun  to  found  a 
few  factories.  The  division  of  interest  and  uncertainty  as  to  the  position 
of  the  company  at  home  restricted  the  efforts  of  its  servants  in  the  East,  and 
it  appears  from  their  letters  that  they  were  frequently  in  want  of  money. 
Events  which  were  destined  to  be  the  forerunners  of  territorial  acquisitions 
may  be  dimly  foreshadowed  in  the  fortifications  which  were  begun  at 
Madraspatam  and  at  Fort  St.  George.  A  change  in  the  manner  of  trade 
is  to  be  seen  in  the  employment  of  small  vessels  for  coastwise  voyages, 
though  this  practice  led  to  losses  through  the  activities  of  Malabar  and 
other  pirates. 

Altogether  this  instalment  of  the  Calendar  contains  much  varied  and 
interesting  information,  while  it  continues  to  manifest  the  same  careful 
editing  to  which  attention  has  previously  been  drawn.  It  is,  in  fact,  a 
storehouse  of  exceedingly  valuable  information  concerning  the  various 
settlements,  which  is  set  forth  in  an  interesting  and  attractive  manner. 

W.  R.  SCOTT. 


JOHN  OF  GAUNT'S  REGISTER.  Edited  for  the  Royal  Historical  Society  by 
Sydney  Armitage-Smith.  Volume  I.  pp.  xxv,  350 ;  Volume  if. 
pp.  415.  4to.  (Camden  Third  Series,  Vols.  XX.-XXI.)  London: 
Offices  of  the  Society,  Gray's  Inn.  1911. 

MEDIEVAL  students  must  welcome  this  edition  of  Part  I.  of  the  Register  of 
the  Duchy  under  'Time-honoured  Lancaster '  during  the  years  1371-76 
as  an  invaluable  record  of  feudal  administration,  throwing  the  most  varied 
light  on  its  times  by  virtue  of  its  catholicity  of  writs  issued  from  the  Lan- 
castrian Chancery  and  passed  under  the  Duke's  privy  seal.  The  Royal 
Historical  Society  has  chosen  wisely  to  authorize  the  editor  (best  known 
as  author  of  the  recent  standard  biography  of  John  of  Gaunt)  to  print  the 


206  John  of  Gaunt's  Register 

Register  to  all  intents  and  purposes  in  full,  although  this  has  involved  con- 
siderable repetitions  of  the  common  form  of  contracts,  mandates,  grants, 
indentures,  letters,  etc.,  which  make  up  the  book.  The  entries  number 
1812;  the  editor's  index  occupies  55  double-columned  pages  of  names;  the 
matter  of  the  documents  is  rich  in  information  on  financial,  military,  and 
estate  usages  and  management ;  and  the  administrative  entourage  of  a  great 
baron,  brother  of  Edward  III.,  is  seen  under  conditions  of  routine  and 
custom  which  make  the  Register  a  document  almost  as  much  for  Europe 
as  for  England. 

For  Scotland,  while  direct  references  are  few,  the  parallel  of  institutional 
methods  and  observances  is  of  first-class  utility  in  its  wealth  of  analogy  and 
illustration.  In  1374-75  there  are  complaints  about  the  loss  in  the  Tweed 
fisheries  because  the  people  of  Scotland  disturb  the  tenants  by  (  maistrie,' 
and  about  the  Scots  groat  being  worth  only  three  pennies  of  England,  in 
consequence  of  which  Dunstanborough  rents  were  in  arrear.  A  well- 
known  Scottish  soldier  appears  for  several  years  in  the  service  of  the  Duke. 
This  is  John  of  Swinton,  who,  in  1372,  as  an  esquire,  makes  formal 
indenture  of  service  with  the  Duke  *  pur  pees  et  pur  guerre,'  on  terms 
which  include  arrangements  for  board  and  wages  in  peace,  and  a  fee  of  2O/. 
besides  *  restor '  of  horses  in  war-time,  the  esquire  rendering  to  the  Duke 
one-third  of  any  ransoms  or  profits  of  war  he  might  win.  A  clause  pro- 
vides for  a  break  on  the  possible  contingency  that  Swihton's  service  might 
be  interrupted  *a  cause  de  sa  ligeance' :  that  is,  as  a  Scottish  vassal  he  might 
be  required  elsewhere,  or  on  the  other  side  from  the  Duke's.  In  1374 
Swinton,  now  a  knight,  makes  a  fresh  contract  on  terms  heightened  by 
the  change  of  standing  and  service,  including  4O/.  of  annual  fee  instead  of 
the  former  2O/.,  but  still  yielding  c  tierce  partie '  of  booty.  He  served  that 
year  in  the  campaign  in  Aquitaine,  and  received  credits  against  more  than 
one  'bille'  on  that  account.  His  experiences,-  no  doubt,  enhanced  his 
military  efficiency,  though  he  was  to  perish  at  Homildon  in  1402. 

What  the  Scottish  reader  will  chiefly  prize  in  the  volumes,  however,  is 
its  body  of  data  on  such  matters  as  the  keeping  of  castles  and  forests, 
arraying  of  defence  when  the  '  byekenes '  (beacons)  were  lit  or  the  hue  and 
cry  arose,  and  above  all,  the  watchfulness  of  the  feudal  lord  over  homages, 
wardships,  marriages,  aids,  and  other  sources  of  tenurial  revenue. 

It  is  not  a  domestic  but  an  estate  Register,  yet  it  continually  touches 
interesting  things  and  people.  For  instance,  Chaucer  is  granted  an  annuity 
for  services  rendered  to  the  Duke,  inclusive,  as  we  know,  of  Blaunche  the 
Duchesse,  written  after  the  death  of  the  Duke's  first  wife  in  1369. 
Chaucer's  wife,  too,  receives  specific  as  well  as  pecuniary  gifts.  Writs  of 
permission  to  cut  timber,  *  cheynes  freynes  boubes  et  alney  x  et  tout  manere 
de  southboys,'  are  interesting.  Even  more  attractive  are  permissions  to 
exercise  the  'ju  solace  et  deduyt'  of  'savagin'  in  the  ducal  forests,  or  to 

1  This  passage  probably  confirms  Bishop  Dowden's  solution  of  a  difficulty  he 
had  in  editing  the  Chartulary  of  Lindores,  p.  259,  where  'de  bule  et  de  auhne* 
was  taken  to  mean  birch  and  alder.  Cf.  Reg.  de  Kelso,  p.  94,  *  de  quercu  quam 
de  Bule/  In  the  passage  supray  '  boubes '  is  perhaps  '  boules ' ;  and  *  alney J  clearly 
points  to  Latin  '  alnetum,'  alder. 


Armitage  :    The  Early  Norman  Castles    207 

have  '  une  course  et  une  trete '  for  the  capture  of  the  game.  And  it  is 
piquant  to  find  a  *  Curson  de  Ketilston '  caught  poaching,  and  only  released 
on  security  against  such  trespasses  thenceforward.  We  cannot  doubt  that 
the  recognition  of  John  of  Gaunfs  Register ,  Part  L,  as  a  great  source  book, 
formulary,  and  corpus  of  administrative  usage  in  the  middle  ages,  will 
be  such  as  to  encourage  the  Society  to  complete  the  work,  and  to  cheer 
the  editor  in  carrying  out  to  the  end  the  task  he  has  so  efficiently  and 
auspiciously  begun.  Perhaps,  too,  we  may  hope  to  have  from  him  one  day 
a  complementary  exposition  of  the  Register  more  elaborate  than  the  brief 
introduction  with  which  he  has  equipped  the  present  volumes.  Gratitude 
for  present  favours  naturally  finds  expression  as  a  lively  desire  for  favours 
yet  to  come.  GEO.  NEILSON. 

THE  EARLY  NORMAN  CASTLES  OF  THE  BRITISH  ISLES.  By  Ella  S. 
Armitage.  Pp.  xvi,  408.  With  numerous  Illustrations  and  Plans. 
Demy  8vo.  London:  John  Murray.  1912.  155.  net. 
THIS  is  a  valuable  addition  to  books  dealing  with  Norman  castles  and  their 
plans,  written  after  many  years  of  special  study.  It  is  an  endeavour  to 
prove,  and  in  a  very  masterly  way,  that  the  castles  built  by  the  Normans 
in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  were,  c  with  very  few  exceptions,'  earthworks 
with  wooden  buildings  upon  them,  and  that  there  is  not  the  least  reason  for 
supposing  that  any  pre-Norman  race  ever  threw  up  the  earthen  mounds 
which  have  been  assigned  to  them  by  many  writers  in  recent  years.  Mrs. 
Armitage  states  that  even  on  the  Continent  the  private  castle  took  root  only 
on  the  triumph  of  feudalism  after  the  date  of  the  Norman  Conquest.  The 
authoress  asserts  that  the  '  burh '  of  the  Saxons  was  not  a  moated  hillock, 
but  a  borough  surrounded  by  walls,  the  town  itself  being  the  fortified 
place  as  a  protection  to  the  burghers,  differing  in  this  respect  from  the 
Norman  castle,  in  which  the  Norman  lord  resided,  which  was  alone 
fortified.  She  points  out  that  the  Danish  camps  were  '  mere  enclosures  of 
large  area,  which  very  much  resembled  the  larger  Roman  camps  .  .  .  and, 
like  them,  they  frequently  grew  into  towns.' 

The  moated  mound  is  not  peculiar  to  this  island,  but  is,  I  believe,  to  be 
found  on  the  Continent  of  Europe  from  Denmark  southwards.  The  Conti- 
nental examples  are,  I  am  told,  apparently  of  the  time  of  Charlemagne. 
One  of  those  mounds  in  England,  of  which  not  much  notice  has  been  taken, 
is  the  fine  specimen  at  Maryport,  in  Cumberland,  on  the  same  tongue  of 
land  on  which  the  Roman  camp  stands,  but  at  the  smaller  end  of  it,  almost 
surrounded  by  the  river  Ellen,  the  town  itself  lying  in  a  sort  of  saddle 
between  the  camp  and  the  mound.  There  are  early  references  to  '  Allen- 
burgh,'  but  the  reference  is  more  likely  to  be  to  the  camp  than  to  the  mote 
hill. 

Mrs.  Armitage  gives  credit  to  Mr.  J.  H.  Round  as  the  first — in  1894 — to 
attack  the  late  Mr.  G.  T.  Clark's  theory  that  the  moated  mound  was 
Saxon,  and  also  to  Mr.  George  Neilson,  whose  help  she  duly  acknowledges, 
for  following  up,  in  his  The  Motes  in  Norman  Scotland,  Dr.  Round  in  his 
reasoning.  She  only  claims,  and  this  in  a  very  vigorous  manner,  to  have 
carried  the  argument  a  stage  farther  by  showing  that  the  private  castle  did 


208       Armitage  :    The  Early  Norman  Castles 

not  exist  in  Britain  until  brought  in  by  the  Normans,  and  that  these 
mounds  are,  therefore,  in  every  case  of  Norman  origin.  Apart  from  all 
this,  I  do  not  think  it  necessary  that  so  much  abuse  should  have  been 
heaped  upon  Mr.  Clark's  work  as  has  been  by  some  writers.  After  all, 
he  was  a  pioneer  in  the  study,  and,  like  all  pioneers,  may  have  made 
mistakes,  or  possibly  errors,  in  his  estimate  of  the  date  of  some  earthworks 
and  mounds,  but  there  are  beyond  a  doubt  some  cases  which  are  in  favour 
of  Mr.  Clark's  theory.  Notwithstanding  this,  his  Military  Architecture 
In  England^  published  some  thirty  years  ago,  will  remain  the  text-book  on 
the  subject.  And  then,  where  would  the  present-day  writers  have  been 
without  Mr.  Clark's  book  on  which  to  base  their  studies  ? 

We  have  had  instances  lately  of  old  theories  being  departed  from  for  new 
ones,  and  these  in  their  turn  discarded  for  the  earlier.  Important  as  the  book 
is,  and  marking,  as  it  does,  an  advance  in  the  study  of  Norman  castles,  yet  we 
cannot  accept  the  conclusions  until  much  more  study  has  been  made  of  the 
remains  by  means  of  the  spade. 

A  list  of  the  castles  in  England  is  given  in  the  work  which  can  be 
historically  traced  to  the  eleventh  century,  and  there  are  also  lists  of  those 
castles  the  date  of  which  can  be  definitely  fixed,  including  those  erected 
by  Henry  II.,  as  recorded  in  the  Pipe  Rolls,  a  list  which  is  stated  to  be  the 
most  complete  ever  published.  This  may  be,  but  I  am  under  the  impres- 
sion that  Dover  is  mentioned  in  either  the  Pipe  or  Close  Rolls  of  Henry  II., 
and  therefore  might  have  been  included,  and  that  Richmond  Castle,  while 
stated  in  the  text  to  have  been  finished  by  Henry  II.,  is  not  given  in  the  list. 

The  book  does  not  deal  apparently  entirely  with  '  early '  Norman  castles, 
but  some  of  late  Norman  and  even  transitional  date  are  included  as  well. 
In  the  list  on  p.  396  Newcastle  is  said  to  be  outside  the  town — it  is  not  so 
now.  Its  date  is  given  as  between  1167  and  1177  ;  the  tower  was  begun 
in  1172.  There  is  no  evidence  that  the  castle  was  outside  the  Roman 
station  of  Pons  Aelii. 

With  respect  to  the  use  of  the  novel  word  *  motte,'  Mrs.  Armitage 
informs  us  that  it  is  late  French  for  a  *  clod  of  earth ' ;  but  why  the  well- 
known  name  of '  mote '  or  '  moot '  hill  cannot  be  adhered  to  is  a  puzzle,  or 
even  '  mount '  or  '  mound,'  and  I  am  glad,  therefore,  to  note  that  the  late 
Professor  Skeat  entered  a  protest  against  its  use,  as,  he  said,  there  was  no 
authority  for  it,  and  he  for  one  declined  to  accept  it.  The  New  Oxford 
Dictionary  gives  1272  for  the  first  use  of  *  mote,'  but  none  for  '  motte.' 

R.  BLAIR. 


AN  INTRODUCTORY  ECONOMIC  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND.  By  Stanley  Salmon, 
B.A.  Oxon.  Pp.  vii,  130.  Cr.  8vo.  London:  Longmans,  Green  & 
Co.  1912.  is.6d.net. 

MR.  SALMON'S  book  should  be  valuable  both  as  a  text-book  for  school  use 
and  to  those  who  desire  some  knowledge  of  the  general  course  of  economic 
history,  which  is  a  necessary  basis  for  the  study  of  the  many  economic 
problems  of  the  present  day.  As  a  rule  there  is  no  want  of  interest  in  this 
subject  in  schools,  and  it  should  be  possible  to  give  some  lessons  on  economic 


Salmon :    Economic  History  of  England    209 

development  in  the  higher  forms.  But  until  lately  such  questions  have  not 
had  much  attention  from  writers  of  school  history  books,  and  Mr.  Salmon's 
book  will  therefore  be  of  great  service,  more  especially  as  he  discusses 
material  progress  as  well  as  changes  in  economic  theory. 

The  first  five  chapters  give  a  general  sketch  of  economic  history  :  the 
manor  and  the  three-field  system  in  the  country,  the  guilds  in  the  towns 
(though  it  is  hardly  necessary  when  space  is  so  limited  to  give  rather  doubtful 
theories  of  guild  origins),  the  changes  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  cen- 
turies, the  growth  of  industry  and  trade  and  the  development  of  the 
mercantile  system,  and  the  industrial  revolution.  The  last  six  chapters 
are  devoted  to  historical  accounts  and  statements  of  the  modern  position  of 
those  problems  which  in  some  degree  have  been  present  in  all  ages :  poor 
relief,  the  relations  of  capital  and  labour,  the  regulation  or  freedom  of 
trade,  currency,  banking.  These  chapters,  partly  because  of  the  nature 
of  the  subject,  are  less  easy  to  follow  than  the  earlier  part,  but  as  a 
supplement  to  lectures  they  would  be  very  useful  in  schools,  and  for  other 
readers  they  give  an  excellent  summary  of  past  legislation  and  of  present 
theories. 

This  book,  of  course,  deals  with  English  economic  history,  and  while  it 
will  be  a  good  companion  to  English  political  history  in  Scottish  schools,  a 
history  on  similar  lines  of  Scotland,  whose  economic  development  had  much 
in  common  with  but  also  much  that  is  dissimilar  from  that  of  England, 
would  be  of  great  value.  THEODORA  KEITH. 

RESPONSIBLE  GOVERNMENT  IN  THE  DOMINIONS.  By  Arthur  Berriedale 
Keith,  M.A.,  Edinburgh  ;  D.C.L.,  Oxon. ;  of  the  Inner  Temple, 
Barrister-at-Law,  and  of  the  Colonial  Office,  Junior  Assistant  Secretary 
to  the  Imperial  Conference.  In  three  volumes.  Clarendon  Press, 
Oxford.  1912.  Two  guineas  net. 

To  say  that  these  three  volumes  are  a  monument  to  the  learning  and 
industry  of  Mr.  Keith  conveys  no  impression  of  the  real  service  which  he 
has  rendered  to  all  serious  students  of  the  organisation  of  the  Empire.  In 
no  other  book  can  they  find  the  same  full  information  stated  with  accuracy 
and  impartiality,  and  drawn  from  sources  which  are  difficult  of  access  even 
to  the  expert.  From  his  position  in  the  Colonial  Office  the  author  is 
familiar  with  the  routine  of  official  business,  which  very  frequently  neces- 
sitates detailed  study  of  the  fundamental  dispatches  as  well  as  the  relative 
colonial  legislation,  and  as  a  secretary  to  the  Imperial  Conference  he  is 
conversant  also  with  the  debates  on  the  important  topics  discussed  at  these 
meetings.  Of  his  industry  and  erudition  there  is  literally  no  end,  and  we 
congratulate  him,  among  other  things,  on  having  completed  this  work  while 
he  is  still  a  comparatively  young  man.  For  most  people  it  would  have  been 
a  life  sentence. 

The  three  volumes  are  divided  into  eight  parts,  of  which  three  are  to  be 
found  in  the  first  volume,  viz.:  Part  i.  is  introductory,  Part  ii.  treats  of  the 
origin  and  development  of  responsible  government  in  various  parts  of  the 
Empire,  Part  iii.  deals  with  the  executive  government  under  such  heads  as  The 
Governor,  The  Powers  of  the  Governor,  The  Governor  and  his  Ministers, 

o 


2io    Responsible  Government  in  the  Dominions 

The  Governor  as  head  of  the  Dominion  Government,  The  Governor  and  the 
Law,  The  Governor  as  an  Imperial  Officer,  The  Cabinet  System  in  the 
Dominions,  and  The  Civil  Service.  Part  iii.  treats  in  great  detail  of  the  Par- 
liaments in  the  Dominions,  and  considers  among  other  topics  the  territorial 
limitations  of  Dominion  legislation,  the  repugnance  of  Colonial  laws,  the 
franchise,  and  the  procedure  and  powers  of  the  Upper  and  Lower  Houses 
in  the  various  Dominions. 

We  can  make  no  attempt  to  deal  adequately  with  the  great  wealth  of 
material  contained  in  these  1700  pages,  but  the  professed  student  of 
Imperial  organisation  may  accept  our  assurance  that  no  topic  of  im- 
portance has  been  omitted.  The  treatment  in  each  case  is  similar. 
The  relative  policy  is  quoted  from  dispatches  of  the  Imperial  Government, 
or  the  relative  legislation  of  the  Dominion  is  given  in  its  historical  setting, 
and  there  is  the  most  ample  reference  to  decisions  in  cases  which  have 
come  before  the  courts. 

The  last  part,  which  deals  with  the  Imperial  Conference,  is  an  admirably 
full  and  impartial  account  of  the  growth  of  these  meetings,  which,  from 
being  specially  summoned  on  ceremonial  occasions,  such  as  the  Jubilee  in 
1887,  have  now  advanced  to  a  secure  position  in  the  organisation  of  the 
Empire,  meeting  every  four  years.  In  this  respect  the  Imperial  Conferences 
have  already  achieved  the  development  which,  in  a  totally  different  sphere, 
the  Hague  Conferences  are  undergoing. 

Even  to  the  reader  who  is  not  a  professed  student  of  Imperial  organisation 
the  contents  of  the  three  volumes  will  prove  of  great  practical  interest. 
Lawyers  in  this  country  who  desire  information  on  special  topics  of  law  in 
the  dominions,  such,  for  example,  as  Merchant  Shipping  or  Copyright 
legislation,  may  be  referred  with  confidence  to  this  work.  Should  they 
have  occasion  to  engage,  for  example,  in  the  difficult  task  of  ascertaining 
from  the  books  usually  found  in  our  legal  libraries  the  views  held  by  the 
courts  of  the  Commonwealth  on  the  test  of  jurisdiction  in  divorce,  they 
will  thank  Mr.  Keith  for  his  valuable  chapter  on  this  topic  in  vol.  iii.  It 
gives  not  only  a  useful  synopsis  of  the  relative  legislation  in  the  different 
states,  but  also  a  digest  of  the  case-law  which  is  not  easily  accessible 
elsewhere. 

There  is  a  suggestive  chapter,  too,  on  the  treaty  relations  of  the 
Dominions,  a  subject  seldom  lacking  in  perplexity  for  the  ordinary  lawyer 
even  when  he  has  had  some  training  in  International  Law.  Mr.  Keith 
shows,  in  the  most  interesting  way,  how  the  general  principle  that  treaties 
made  by  the  Crown  are  binding  on  the  Colonies  whether  consented  to  by 
Colonial  governments  or  not,  has  been  modified  in  many  ways  to  meet  the 
needs  of  the  Dominions.  At  International  Law  the  British  Empire  remains 
technically  a  unit,  and  the  treaty-making  power  resides  in  the  Sovereign. 
Yet  it  has  been  found  necessary  to  modify  this  general  principle,  and  since 
1882,  when  the  Commercial  Treaty  with  Montenegro  was  concluded,  it 
has  been  the  practice  to  give  the  Colonies  an  option  of  adhering  to  a  treaty 
within  a  period,  which  is  usually  two  years. 

Mr.  Keith  properly  differentiates  between  the  treaties  which  benefit  the 
Dominions  independently  of  consent  and  those  which  do  not.  A  treaty 


esponsible  Government  in  the  Dominions    211 

giving  to  British  subjects  political  rights,  such  as  the  right  to  acquire  real 
property,  or  exemption  from  local  military  obligations,  applies  to  British  sub- 
jects being  Colonials,  even  though  their  Colony  has  not  adhered  to  the  treaty. 
With  treaties  of  this  kind  must  be  contrasted  those  conferring  purely  com- 
mercial privileges  where  a  differentiation  of  treatment  can  be  based  on  a  dif- 
ferentiation of  locality.  This  difference  is  illustrated  by  the  position  of  an 
Australian  in  Japan  who  has  the  benefit  of  rights  under  the  British  treaty 
with  that  country,  while  goods  imported  to  Japan  from  Australia  are  not 
entitled  to  the  special  tariff  granted  in  Japan  to  goods  imported  from  the 
United  Kingdom.  But  even  in  negotiating  political  treaties  it  is  now  the 
practice  for  the  Imperial  Government  to  consult  the  Dominions  so  far  as 
their  rights  are  affected.  In  questions  with  the  United  States  the  practice 
is  expressly  sanctioned  by  Act  of  General  Arbitration  Treaty  of  1911, 
which  reserves  to  the  British  Government  'the  right  before  concluding  a 
special  agreement  in  any  matter  affecting  a  self-governing  dominion  of  the 
British  Empire  to  obtain  the  concurrence  therein  of  the  Government  of 
that  dominion.' 

Yet,  while  the  technical  legal  unity  of  the  Empire  in  international  rela- 
tions is  still  maintained,  so  that  foreign  governments  look  to  the  Imperial 
Government  for  redress  for  wrongs  suffered  at  the  hands  of  Colonial  govern- 
ments, it  is  noteworthy  that  of  late  years  Canada  has  been  allowed  to  carry 
on  informal  negotiations  at  her  own  hand  with  consular  representatives  of 
foreign  powers  on  matters  of  strictly  local  interest.  Two  instances 
occurred  in  1910  when  Mr.  Fielding,  Canadian  Minister  of  Finance,  con- 
ducted informal  negotiations  with  the  German  Consul-General  relating  to 
the  surtax  of  33^  per  cent,  on  German  goods  imported  into  Canada,  and  on 
another  matter  with  the  Italian  Consul-General.  The  famous  reciprocity 
negotiations  with  the  United  States  in  the  following  year  were  similar  in 
point  of  form,  though  the  need  for  embodiment  in  a  formal  treaty  was 
avoided  by  the  stipulation  that  the  agreement  should  be  carried  into  effect 
by  concurrent  legislation  in  the  two  countries.  The  latter  negotiations,  as 
Mr.  Keith  points  out,  raised  in  a  new  form  the  view  which  had  long  been 
held  by  the  Liberal  Party  in  Canada  that  the  Dominion  Government 
should  be  given  the  full  treaty  power.  And  he  draws  attention  in  this  con- 
nection to  the  fact  that  Victoria  made  the  same  demand  in  1870,  coupling 
it  with  one  for  neutrality  in  the  time  of  war.  To  grant  the  full  treaty- 
making  power  to  the  Dominions  is  impossible  if  the  legal  unity  of  the 
Empire  is  to  be  retained,  for  the  grant  would  change  a  unitary  state  into  a 
confederation  with  all  its  attendant  disadvantages.  This  may  be  the  natural 
course  of  development,  but  the  demand  for  it  has  not  at  present  sufficient 
strength.  And,  in  view  of  Mr.  Borden's  present  proposals  for  co-operation 
in  Imperial  Defence  with  a  sort  of  Canadian  diplomatic  agent  in  London, 
it  is  interesting  to  find  Canada,  at  the  Imperial  Conference  in  1911,  declining 
any  system  of  automatic  consultation  on  political  treaties  prior  to  ratification 
by  Great  Britain,  inasmuch  as  it  might  involve  acceptance  of  the  consequences 
of  the  policy  denoted  by  such  treaties. 

A.  H.  CHARTERIS. 


212 


Clapham  :    The  Abbe  Sieyes 


THE  ABBE  SIEVES.  AN  ESSAY  IN  THE  POLITICS  OF  THE  FRENCH 
REVOLUTION.  By  J.  H.  Clapham,  M.A.,  Fellow  of  King's  College, 
Cambridge.  Pp.  vi,  275.  Demy  8vo.  London  :  P.  S.  King  &  Son. 
1912.  8s.  6d. 

A  PUBLISHED  work  from  one  of  the  late  Lord  Acton's  pupils  is  always  an 
event  of  some  interest,  and  Mr.  Clapham's  book  is  a  welcome  addition  to 
the  list  of  scholarly  volumes  which  owe  much  of  their  inspiration  to 
Acton's  Cambridge  teaching.  The  book  is  not  a  biography,  but  a  study  in 
political  science,  and  as  such  it  deserves  to  take  rank  with  the  most 
scientific  analyses  of  Revolutionary  politics  that  have  appeared  within 
recent  years.  Sieyes  is,  however,  neither  a  great  nor  an  interesting 
personality.  This  fact  may  atone  for  the  absence  of  any  earlier  English 
book  on  the  subject,  but  at  all  events  the  Abbe's  political  philosophy 
contains  an  element  of  sheer  metaphysics  that  must  appeal  to  the  English 
mind,  if  only  by  contrast,  and  which  provides  perhaps  the  best  explanation 
of  the  hatred  that  the  whole  revolutionary  movement  inspired  in  such  a 
man  as  Burke.  <  Those  who  are  not  my  species  are  not  my  fellow-men  ;  a 
noble  is  not  of  my  species;  he  is  a  wolf,  and  therefore  I  shoot' — such  is  the 
syllogism  of  the  unfrocked  priest  who  began,  as  a  disciple  of  Condillac,  to 
elaborate  his  '  system '  of  political  science  long  before  the  overthrow  of  the 
monarchy. 

It  is  of  interest  to  note  that  parts  of  the  completed  system  show  the 
influence  of  the  English  philosopher,  Harrington — both  writers,  for 
instance,  advocate  the  expounding  of  political  doctrine  to  the  people  by 
state  lecturers — but  the  two  differed  fundamentally  in  this,  that  Sieyes 
ignored  and  despised  the  influence  of  tradition  in  politics,  while  of 
Harrington  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury  said  that  he  had  the  greatest 
knowledge  of  history  of  any  man  he  knew.  <  The  statesman  must  be  first 
of  all  a  historian  and  a  traveller '  ;  in  these  words  the  author  of  the  Oceana 
has  anticipated  most  of  the  criticism  that  can  be  directed  against  theorists 
like  Sieyes  who  have  conceived  of  politics  as  the  science,  not  of  what  is,  but  of 
what  should  be,  and  who  have  elevated  their  conception  into  an  idealisation 
which,  spurning  the  material  support  of  history,  is  as  capable  of  classification 
and  deduction  as  the  abstractions  of  mathematics. 

Strangely  enough,  the  only  English  thinker  with  whom  Sieyes  seems  to 
have  anything  in  common  is  Milton.  Both  were  idealists ;  they  looked 
for  salvation  to  the  possibilities  of  the  future  rather  than  to  the  teachings  of 
the  past ;  neither  could  regard  with  respect  a  distinctively  national 
institution ;  they  each  wished  to  sweep  away  '  privilege '  and  entrust 
administrative  functions  only  to  the  *  choicer  sort '  of  people,  and  moreover 
they  agreed  in  regarding  the  state  as  something  wide  enough  to  secure  a 
more  direct  and  central  control  in  the  spheres  of  religion  and  education. 
Although  they  were  connected  with  movements  that  have  been  associated 
with  the  rise  of  democracy,  neither  had  any  sympathy  with  *  popular' 
rights  as  such.  Sieyes  proposed  to  secure  the  representation  of  great 
interests  rather  than  of  numerous  classes,  and  he  was  always  distrustful  of 
the  mob,  while  Milton,  with  an  inconsequence  that  was  delightful,  urged 
that  if  the  rabble  would  not  have  *  liberty '  (as  defined  in  the  <  Ready  and 


Fasv 


Clapham  :    The  Abbe  Sieyes  213 


I 


Easy  Way  to  Establish  a  Free  Government '),  the  boon  should  nevertheless 
be  forced  on  the  unwilling  by  means  of  Monk's  <  faithful  veteran  army  ! ' 

The  biographical  element  in  Mr.  Clapham's  book  is  always  secondary, 
and  the  author's  task  has  been  to  show  the  connection  between  Sieyes' 
theories  and  the  constitutional  experiments  which  were  launched  on  France 
in  the  period  between  the  formation  of  the  Constituent  Assembly  and  the 
appearance  of  the  Consulate.  It  cannot  be  said  that  Mr.  Clapham  has 
always  been  successful,  though  the  task  is  undoubtedly  a  difficult  one.  The 
historical  background  often  seems  lacking  in  perspective,  and  the  balance  is 
not  always  consistently  maintained  between  the  examination  of  Sieyes' 
theories  and  the  account  of  their  influence  on  contemporary  practice.  The 
book  is,  perhaps  on  this  account,  sometimes  rather  difficult  to  read  ;  the 
style  is,  moreover,  both  allusive  and  epigrammatic ;  occasionally  there  is  a 
noticeable  lack  of  clarity.  It  is  possible  that  the  author  might  well  have 
separated  Sieyes  the  theorist  from  Sieyes  the  politician  ;  certainly  such  an 
arrangement  of  the  subject  might  have  induced  greater  clearness.  In  this 
respect  chapters  vii.  and  viii.  are  the  most  *  readable,'  because  they  have 
so  small  an  ingredient  of  Sieyes'  theorisings. 

Moreover,  in  his  style  Mr.  Clapham  is  not  without  some  traces  of 
Acton's  example.  A  considerable  amount  of  information  is  often  com- 
pressed into  each  sentence,  and  the  paragraph  acquires  a  precision  and 
unity  at  the  expense  of  the  chapter.  A  summing  up  at  the  end  of  each 
chapter  would  in  this  case  have  been  a  great  help  to  the  reader,  who  is 
frequently  left  in  a  state  of  embarrassment  amid  the  somewhat  frigid  and 
perhaps  Teutonic  isolation  of  the  various  paragraphs.  But  the  book 
contains  a  very  large  amount  of  information,  and  readers  need  not  be 
deterred  by  disadvantages  so  easily  overcome. 

DAVID  OGG. 

LORD  CHATHAM  AND  THE  WHIG  OPPOSITION.  By  D.  A.  Winstanley, 
M.A.  Pp.  viii,  460.  Cambridge :  At  the  University  Press,  1912. 
75.  6d.  net. 

MR.  WINSTANLEY  might  have  chosen  a  more  arresting  title  for  a  book  so 
full  of  dramatic  and  decisive  interest.  In  effect  the  great  protagonists  of 
these  six  years  are  not  so  much  Chatham  and  the  Whig  groups  in  opposition 
as  non-party  and  party  government,  <  efficiency '  as  against  Whig  or  Tory, 
*Not  men  but  measures'  in  contrast  with  the  opposite  principle.  Here 
surely  Mr.  Winstanley  has  mis-stated  the  attitude  of  Chatham  and  Shelburne 
in  giving  the  formula  as  'Men  not  measures'  (pp.  31,  51),  which  is  in 
contradiction  thereto,  since  the  cry  was  '  that  the  country  would  never 
know  good  government  until  ministers  were  selected,  not  on  account  of 
their  political  connections  or  their  following  in  Parliament,  but  by  reason  of 
their  capacity  for  administration '  (p.  17)  ;  and  the  phrase  first  given  above 
is  as  it  appears  in  Burke.  With  this  ideal  of  '  efficient '  and  non-party 
government  in  view  Chatham  undertook  to  succeed  the  Rockingham 
Whigs,  having  the  cordial  support  of  George  III.,  equally  anxious,  though 
from  rather  different  motives,  to  destroy  the  party  system,  which  the  long 
Whig  administration,  under  his  grandfather  and  great-grandfather,  had 
certainly  done  much  to  bring  into  disrepute. 


214    Lord  Chatham  and  Whig  Opposition 

How  the  attempt  worked,  and  how  significantly  it  failed,  must  be  read  in 
Mr.  Winstanley's  pages,  not  glowing  pages  perhaps  but  all  the  more  seduc- 
tive to  the  historically  minded  from  their  measured  and  equable  manner,  and 
the  determination  to  see  incidents  and  personages  not  in  silhouette  of  black 
and  white  but  in  the  living  round.  The  <  efficient'  Government  could  not, 
even  in  its  formation,  be  restricted  to  efficiency.  Despite  the  author's 
pleading,  it  seems  pretty  clear  that  Chatham's  curious  preference  for  Temple 
was  a  family  one  ;  Temple  showed  sound  sense  in  refusing  to  co-operate 
with  his  brother-in-law  while  differing  from  him  on  the  general  principle, 
and,  in  particular,  on  the  American  question.  The  Treasury  had  therefore 
to  go  to  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  who,  despite  Junius,  had  some  virtues  and 
much  bad  luck,  as  Mr.  Winstanley  points  out,  but  was,  in  respect  of  his 
post,  inefficient,  and  knew  it  (p.  50).  Grafton  brought  Townshend  into  the 
Chancellorship  of  the  Exchequer  against  Chatham's  own  better  judgment. 
Before  long  Grafton  was  searching  for  ministers  in  the  political  ruck  j 
Chatham  himself  shifted  Lord  Edgcumbe  to  make  way  for  Shelley,  'a 
politician  of  little  account'  (p.  75);  when  Lord  Hillborough  was  made 
Colonial  minister  it  was  a  step  both  'unwise  '  and  'disastrous'  (p.  199).  In 
the  end  Grafton  threw  up  the  non-party  game  by  introducing  the  Bedford 
group  into  the  ministry.  Even  if  Chatham's  extraordinary  eclipse  had  not 
occurred,  it  is  hard  to  see  what  other  end  could  have  come  ;  more  probably 
his  active  presence  would  have  precipitated  it.  And  if  '  efficiency  '  in  this 
sense  proved  a  delusion,  no  less  so  did  the  talk  about  measures.  When 
Townshend  took  his  own  desperate  line  on  the  Colonial  question,  and  Lord 
Chancellor  Camden  denounced  his  own  Government  for  its  dealing  with 
Wilkes,  the  brains  of  the  principle  were  out.  The  one  centralising  fact 
behind  all  the  happenings  is  the  masterful  and  adroit  personality  of  George 
III.  forcing  his  determination  to  '  be  a  king.'  The  whole  story,  as  Mr. 
Winstanley  tells  it  with  much  illuminative  material  from  MS.  sources,  is, 
for  the  constitutional  student,  fascinating. 

Working  on  such  a  scale,  too,  the  author  is  able  to  humanise  some  of  the 
leading  figures  ;  to  show  Newcastle  as  a  really  clever  party  politician,  and  to 
bring  out  the  better  qualities  of  the  unfortunate  Grafton.  On  the  other  hand, 
we  have  both  Chatham  and  Burke  stooping  to  purely  factious  action  when  it 
seemed  to  serve  their  opportunity.  Such  personal  analysis  is  very  well  done. 

'Speeden,'  on  p.  406,  is  an  uncommon  form,  for  which  there  is  no  justi- 
fication. I  hope  it  is  not  still  true  of  England  that  it  '  has  never  loved  its 
northern  neighbours'  (p.  6).  W.  M.  MACKENZIE. 

BELL'S  ENGLISH  HISTORY  SOURCE  BOOKS.  Edited  by  S.  E.  Winbolt 
and  Kenneth  Bell.  The  Age  of  Elizabeth  (1547-1603),  selected  by 
Arundell  Estaile,  pp.  viii,  I2O;  Puritanism  and  Liberty  (1603-1660), 
compiled  by  Kenneth  Bell,  pp.  viii,  I2O;  A  Constitution  in  Making 
(1660-1714),  compiled  by  G.  B.  Perrett,  pp.  viii,  I2O  ;  Walpole  and 
Chatham  (1714-1760),  pp.  viii,  I2O.  Cr.  8vo.  G.  Bell  &  Sons.  is. 
net  each. 

WHAT  was  written  ante  (S.H.R.  ix.  443)  in  commendation  of  the  scheme 
of  this  series  is  well  sustained  by  its  execution.     The  extracts  from  con- 


Slater:    The  Poetry  of  Catullus         215 

temporary  documents  and  narratives  are  sufficiently  full  for  each  period  to 
reflect  its  spirit  with  fidelity  :  they  indeed  give  *  the  very  age  and  body  of 
the  time,  his  form  and  pressure '  to  a  degree  that  makes  each  little  green 
volume  not  only  admirable  for  teaching,  but  well  worth  consultation  as  a 
sort  of  collection  of  contemporary  despatches.  Mr.  Kenneth  Bell's  con- 
tribution, for  example,  illustrates  such  diverse  subjects  as  agitation  over 
unemployment  in  1621,  grievances  of  New  England  in  1624,  the  petition 
of  rights  in  1628,  Strafford  in  Ireland  (1634-36),  the  sentence  on  Charles  I. 
and  its  sequel,  Killing  no  Murder.  History  is  made  real  by  such  repre- 
sentative cuttings. 

THE  POETRY  OF  CATULLUS.  By  D.  A.  Slater,  M.A.,  Professor  of  Latin 
in  the  University  College,  Cardiff.  Pp.  30.  Med.  8vo.  Manchester  : 
The  University  Press.  1912.  6d.  net. 

THIS  little  brochure  is  a  reprint  of  a  lecture  delivered  last  February  to  the 
Manchester  Branch  of  the  Classical  Association.  It  does  not  profess  to  be 
an  original  contribution  to  the  subject,  or,  indeed,  to  be  anything  more  than 
an  informal  talk  about  Catullus  and  his  poetry.  But  Mr.  Slater  is  a  man  of 
cultivated  mind,  with  a  keen  appreciation  of  what  is  best  in  ancient  and  in 
modern  literature.  Consequently,  what  he  had  to  say  on  such  an  occasion 
could  hardly  fail  to  be  interesting  and  stimulating.  His  residence  in  Wales 
appears  to  have  given  him  a  bias  in  favour  of  the  rather  fanciful  theory  that 
Catullus  <  was  a  Celt,  or  that  at  least  he  had  Celtic  blood  in  his  veins ' — 
4  sib,'  in  fact,  to  the  clan  of  Cadell.  Curiously  enough,  he  overlooks  the 
far  more  striking  series  of  analogies  to  Robert  Burns  ! 

THE  PAROCHIAL  EXTRACTS  OF  SAINT  GERMAIN-EN-LAYE.  Edited  with 
Notes  and  Appendices  by  C.  E.  Lart.  Vol.  II.,  1703-1720.  Pp.  xii, 
182.  8vo.  London  :  St.  Catherine  Press.  1912.  2 is.  net. 

THIS  second  volume  differs  from  the  first.  The  entries  now  mostly  centre 
round  the  aging  court  of  Marie  d'Este,  titular  Queen  no  longer,  but 
*  Queen  Dowager,'  for,  after  1708,  her  son,  c  James  III.,'  left  St.  Germain 
for  the  wars,  and  never  returned  thither  save  for  a  rare  visit.  It  is  a  sad 
record,  therefore,  of  a  fading  cause.  Among  the  less  notable  documents — 
which  are,  however,  all  valuable  to  genealogists  and  Jacobites — an 
interesting  Declaration  has  appeared.  It  seems  that  on  her  deathbed  in 
1713,  Judith  Collingwood  (Mrs.  Wilkes),  midwife  to  the  Queen,  swore, 
before  the  Duke  of  Berwick  and  other  high  functionaries  of  the  exiled 
court,  { comme  preste  de  paraitre  au  tribunal  de  Dieu,'  that  the  titular 
'James  III.'  was  the  child  born  to  the  Queen  in  London  in  1688.  The 
Queen  died  in  1718,  and  the  sad  coterie,  which  had  become  more  and 
more  Irish  as  the  Catholic  influence  was  more  dominant,  scattered  and 
dispersed,  and  little  was  known  of  the  figures  who  composed  it  until  the 
present  editor  collected  these  archives  and  edited  them  with  pious  care. 

A.  F.  S. 


2i6     The  Book  of  the  Old  Edinburgh  Club 

THE  BOOK  OF  THE  OLD  EDINBURGH  CLUB.     Vol.  IV.     Pp.  x,  203,  32. 

With  23  illustrations.    4to.    Edinburgh  :  Printed  by  T.  &  A.  Constable 

for  the  Members  of  the  Club.     Issued  1912. 

THIS  new  volume  of  the  Old  Edinburgh  Club's  publications  contains 
papers  on  George  Drummond,  an  eighteenth  century  Lord  Provost ;  the 
old  Tolbooth  ;  an  old  Edinburgh  monument  now  in  Perthshire ;  the 
Society  of  Friendly  Contributors  of  Restalrig ;  and  a  further  article  on 
Sculptured  Stones  of  Edinburgh.  The  last  paper  is  a  short  note  of  Mr. 
Oldrieve's  on  Recent  Excavations  and  Researches  at  Holyrood.  Scotland, 
as  well  as  Edinburgh,  owes  so  much  to  Mr.  Oldrieve's  skill  and  care,  that 
any  paper  by  him  is  peculiarly  welcome. 

Among  the  reproductions  is  an  interesting  drawing  of  Jean  Livingston 
on  the  scaffold,  by  Charles  Kirkpatrick  Sharpe.  He  had  intended  to  use  it 
as  a  frontispiece  for  a  tract  on  the  conversion  of  Jean  Livingston.  It  is 
interesting  not  only  in  itself,  but  as  one  of  the  many  instances  in  literature 
and  art  of  odd  pieces  of  work  left  unused  owing  to  abandoned  schemes. 

The  Old  Edinburgh  Club  is  again  to  be  congratulated  on  the  excellence 
of  its  work. 

COLBERT'S  WEST  INDIA  POLICY.     By  Stewart  L.  Mims.     Pp.  xiv,  385. 

8vo.  New  Haven  :  Yale  University  Press.  1912.  8s.  6d.  net. 
THE  author  commenced  this  book  to  show  the  rapid  growth  and  expansion 
of  the  French  West  Indies  during  the  eighteenth  century,  which  had  certain 
economic  effects  on  the  commerce  of  British  North  America.  His  study 
developed  into  the  present  monograph  on  the  policy  of  Colbert,  and  he 
promises  another  for  the  period  of  1683-1715.  It  was  entirely  owing  to 
Colbert's  protection  and  fostering  care  that  the  wonderful  development  of 
Martinique  (founded  in  1635),  Guadaloupe  (founded  the  same  year),  and 
St.  Domingo  came  about,  and  the  writer  has  discovered  much  new  material 
in  France  which  will  be  of  value  to  all  students  of  West  Indian  history. 
He  has  not  been  altogether  fortunate  with  his  rendering  of  French  names, 
but  this  slight  fault  does  not  greatly  mar  an  important  work. 

MEMOIRE  DE  MARIE  CAROLINE  REINE  DE  NAPLES.  Harvard  Historical 
Studies,  XVI.  By  R.  M.  Johnston,  M.A.  Pp.  xvii,  338.  With 
illustrations.  Demy  8vo.  Cambridge  :  Harvard  University  Press. 
1912.  IDS.  6d.  net. 

THIS  book  continues  the  excellent  work  that  is  being  done  by  the  series 
called  the  Harvard  Historical  Studies.  It  is  printed  from  a  MS.  in  the 
Biblioteca  Nazionale  of  Naples,  which  contains,  as  the  editor  points  out,  an 
account  of  the  political  duel  between  the  termagant  queen  and  Lord 
William  Bentinck,  which  ended  in  the  defeat  of  the  former.  The  MS.  is 
not  only  partly  written  by,  but  wholly  inspired  by  the  queen,  and,  ptkce 
justificative  though  it  is,  shows  how  difficult  the  position  of  Bentinck  was 
when  the  queen,  in  spite  of  all  her  protestations  to  the  contrary,  was 
undeniably  carrying  on  secret  correspondence  with  Napoleon,  now  married 
to  her  grand-daughter. 

Another  exceedingly  interesting  part  of  the  book  is  the  account  of  the 


Current  Literature  217 

marriage  of  the  queen's  daughter  to  the  Due  d'Orleans,  and  the  political 
debut  of  the  latter.  The  book  is  ably  edited  by  Professor  Johnston,  who 
knows  the  Napoleonic  period  well. 

A  Short  History  of  Early  England  to  1485,  by  H.  J.  Cape.  (With  six 
maps.  Pp.  ix,  252.  Cr.  8vo.  London:  Methuen  &  Co.,  Ltd.  Price 
2s.  6d.)  This  well-written  condensation  gives  in  trustworthy  and  fairly 
attractive  form  the  substance  of  the  political  events  in  England  from  the 
time  of  Caesar  until  the  death  of  Richard  III.  Its  inclusion  of  a  little  more 
economic  history  than  usual  is  most  obvious  in  its  treatment  of  the  con- 
stantly recurrent  questions  with  Flanders.  One  of  the  maps  shows  the 
chief  battlefields  between  the  English  and  the  Scots.  Planned  on  sound 
lines,  the  little  book  is  equally  sound  in  execution. 

The  Oxford  University  Press  have  now  completed  their  edition  of  the 
novels  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  in  twenty-four  volumes.  These  contain  the 
author's  introductions,  and  also  notes  and  a  glossary  to  each  novel.  In 
addition  there  are  a  very  large  number  of  illustrations.  We  have  already 
welcomed  individual  novels  of  this  series,  and  are  now  glad  to  note  its 
completion.  It  is  an  excellent  set. 

British  Citizenship.  A  discussion  initiated  by  E.  B.  Sargant.  (Pp.  vi,  59. 
Dy.  8vo.  London:  Longmans,  Green  &  Co.  1912.  2s.  6d.)  This  reprint 
from  the  Journal  of  the  Royal  Colonial  Institute  emphasizes  the  fact  that 
*  British  citizen  '  is  not  a  technical  term,  but  has  all  the  vague  and  various 
comprehensiveness  due  to  connection  with  our  vague  and  varied  empire. 
There  are,  however,  both  advantages  and  disadvantages  in  ambiguity,  and  in 
different  sorts  of  citizenship,  municipal,  national,  federal,  and  imperial.  The 
paper  is  a  symposium  of  professors,  ambassadors,  colonial  authorities,  and 
publicists,  and  is  a  profitable  study  of  the  distinction  between  a  citizen  and 
a  subject,  concluding  with  a  motion  for  extending  the  responsibility  for 
common  affairs  of  the  empire  beyond  the  immediate  citizenship  of  the 
United  Kingdom. 

A  School  Atlas  of  Ancient  History.  (33  maps  and  plans,  with  notes  on 
historical  geography.  W.  &  A.  K.  Johnston,  Ltd.  1912.  2s.  net.)  This 
is  a  very  compact,  clear,  and  comprehensive  atlas  of  the  old  world,  although 
the  scale  is  small.  The  summary  of  geography  and  history  contained  in 
the  notes  is  an  admirable  performance. 

Luther s  Werke  in  Auswahl.  Erster  Band.  (Pp.  v,  512.  Cr.  8vo.  Bonn  : 
A.  Marcus  und  E.  Weber's  Verlag.  1912.)  5  works.  This  selection  edited 
by  Otto  Clemen  will  be  a  most  welcome  source  book  of  references  to  the 
course  of  the  great  debate  of  the  Reformation  in  Germany.  The  first  volume 
contains  carefully  annotated  Latin  texts  of  the  'Disputatio'  of  1517  and  the 
4  Resolutiones '  of  1518  concerning  indulgences,  besides  many  sermons  and 
controversial  writings  on  theology,  both  in  Latin  and  the  vernacular,  during 
the  crucial  years  1519  and  1520.  The  book  is  handsomely  got  up,  and  is 
furnished  by  way  of  apt  frontispiece  with  a  facsimile  of  the  articles  of  Wit- 
tenberg in  the  'Disputatio'  of  1517,  which  was  the  first  blast  of  the 
trumpet. 


2l8 


Current  Literature 


The  Rationale  of  Rates,  by  A.  D.  Macbeth  (pp.  132.  Glasgow :  William 
Hodge  &  Co.  1912.  2s.  od.  net),  is  a  well-timed  reprint  in  defence  of 
the  system  of  annual  taxation  in  proportion  to  rent.  Robert  the  Bruce's 
'indenture' of  1327  with  the  community  of  Scotland,  whereby  the  latter 
contracted  to  give  the  king  the  tenth  penny  of  all  their  rents,  is  used  as  a 
historical  illustration  of  the  principle  of  taxation. 

Alexander  Henderson,  the  Covenanter,  by  James  Pr ingle  Thomson, 
with  foreword  by  Lord  Balfour  of  Burleigh  (pp.  160,  with  four  illustra- 
tions. Crown  8vo.  Edinburgh  :  Oliphant,  Anderson  &  Ferrier.  is.  6d. 
net),  is  a  moderately  toned,  and  of  course  presbyterian  and  national,  sketch 
and  estimate  of  the  great  Moderator  of  the  Glasgow  Assembly  of  1638. 

Various  historical  essays  by  John,  third  Marquess  of  Bute,  are  being 
reprinted  in  neat  pocket  volumes  at  sixpence.  The  Early  Days  of  Sir 
William  Wallace  and  David  Duke  of  Rothesay,  both  well-known  studies, 
will  be  welcome  to  many  in  this  cheap  form. 

Early  Christian  Visions  of  the  other  World.  By  J.  A.  Macculloch.  (Pp.  x, 
99.  Cr.  8vo.  Edinburgh:  St.  Giles'  Printing  Co.  1912.  is.  net.)  In 
this  tractate  the  Rev.  Dr.  Macculloch  adds  a  historical  and  theological 
survey  to  a  subject  dealt  with  long  ago  by  Thomas  Wright,  and  more 
recently  by  Mr.  Marcus  Dods,  junior,  in  his  Forerunners  of  Dante. 

British  History  from  George  I.  to  George  V.  (Pp.  vi,  304.  Edinburgh  : 
W.  &  R.  Chambers.  1912.  is.  6d.)  This  is,  as  its  title  bears,  a  *  national ' 
history,  brightly  written,  lavishly  illustrated,  and  likely  to  be  attractive  to 
pupils. 

Scottish  Heraldry  made  Easy,  by  G.  Harvey  Johnston  (Cr.  8vo,  pp.  xvi, 
221,  with  many  illustrations.  Edinburgh:  W.  &  A.  K.  Johnston.  1912. 
5s.  net),  is  a  second  edition  of  a  work  which  we  have  already  reviewed 
(S.H.R.  ii.  212).  The  new  edition  is  enlarged  in  various  directions.  We 
note  with  pleasure  a  list  of  printed  histories  of  Scottish  families.  Short 
bibliographies  of  this  nature  are  of  great  value. 

To  the  Cambridge  County  Geographies  is  now  added  Forfarshire.  By 
Easton  S.  Valentine.  (Pp.  viii,  160.)  Furnished  with  the  usual  wealth  of 
maps,  diagrams,  and  illustrations,  the  book  blends  much  biography,  sociology, 
and  natural  history,  with  local  annals,  in  its  primary  topographical  scheme. 
Since  1901  the  population  of  the  county  has  fallen  by  2663.  Dundee, 
early  a  shipping  and  cloth-making  town,  supplies  the  centre  for  the  brief 
annals,  economic  and  political.  Institutional  history  is  meagre,  and  so  is 
the  literary  biography.  The  historic  rivalry  of  Perth  is  not  noticed. 
Industries  are  well  sketched. 

The  Home  University  Series  wins  no  great  accession  of  credit  from  Mr. 
Hilaire  Belloc's  Warfare  in  England,  which  has  met  with  very  destructive 
criticisms.  His  references  to  William  the  Conqueror's  'castles'  seem  to 
betray  an  inappreciation  of  the  fact  that  the  c  motte,'  not  the  castle,  was 
the  mechanism  by  which  the  conquest  was  accomplished.  As  regards 
Scotland,  perhaps  the  kindest  reviewer  would  suggest  that  chapter  viii., 


Current  Literature  219 

*The  Scotch  Wars,'  should  be  deleted.  Mr.  W.  M.  Mackenzie  has 
demolished  its  central  tenet,  that  the  Eastern  Road  was  without  true 
exception  the  road  of  Anglo-Scottish  war.  There  is  puzzle  in  the  phrase 
(p.  245)  '  excluding  the  seizure  of  the  Scottish  Lowlands  by  Edward  I.  and 
King  John's  raid  nearly  a  century  later.'  Bannockburn  was  not  the  first 
example  of  foot  overthrowing  horse,  as  the  author  of  Scalacronica  knew 
(S.H.R.  iii.  460).  An  unintelligible  but  certainly  ungrammatical  sentence 
(p.  250)  declares  that  Scotland  never  recovered  from  Flodden.  Col.  Elliot 
has  shown  at  least  very  good  grounds  for  a  very  different  opinion  (S.H.R. 
ix.  190). 

We  welcome  M.  J.  A.  Lovat-Fraser's  sketch,  John  Stuart,  Earl  of  Bute 
(cr.  8vo,  pp.  1 08,  Cambridge  University  Press,  1912,  2s.  6d.  net),  not  only 
for  its  survey  of  the  years  1760-65,  in  which  Bute's  brief  and  unpopular 
political  dominance  lay,  but  also  because  it  considerably  rehabilitates  the 
minister  whose  most  grievous  crime  was  probably  less  that  of  being  the  king's 
favourite  than  that  of  being  a  Scot.  Not  even  his  enemies  denied  that  he 
was  a  handsome  fellow  *  and  possessed  a  leg  of  unrivalled  symmetry,'  and 
Mr.  Lovat-Fraser,  without  any  delvings  to  speak  of,  has  unearthed  reasons 
enough  to  conclude  that  the  fierce  political  disparagement  has  unreasonably 
tainted  the  personal  estimate  too. 

The  essay,  though  not  deep,  is  bright,  and  makes  effective  use  of  the 
metrical  and  other  invectives  against  the  Scots  in  general,  with  particular 
point  towards  the  Montagnard  Parvenu,  as  English  art,  with  characteristic 
inappreciation  of  Scottish  ideas  of  the  difference  between  Highland  and 
Lowland,  styled  the  much  lampooned  earl. 

With  a  gorgeous  title,  The  Science  of  History  and  the  Hope  of  Mankind 
(Cr.  8vo.  pp.  vii,  76.  London:  Longmans,  Green  &  Co.  1912.  2s.  6d. 
net),  Professor  Benoy  Kumar  Sarkar  starts  by  profoundly  observing  that 
many  strange  things  have  happened  in  the  history  of  the  world,  and  he 
proceeds  to  trace  among  the  chief  world  forces  the  effect  of  environment 
and  the  influence  of  outside  peoples  and  ideas  on  the  centres  of  civilization. 
He  thinks  that  the  hope  of  the  race  lies  in  the  activities  of  external 
'barbarians'  thus  helping  to  transform  every  successive  age.  The  little 
book,  with  its  subtle,  solemn  and  magniloquent  periods,  is  an  interesting 
reflection  of  how  the  East  regards  the  legions  as  they  thunder  past. 

Mr.  George  Turner's  pamphlet,  The  Ancient  Forestry  and  the  Extinct 
Industries  of  Argyllshire  and  Parts  of  the  Adjacent  Counties  (pp.  35),  usefully 
collects  the  evidences  of  iron-working  in  the  west,  co-ordinating  with  the 
old  slag  mounds  the  indications  of  the  former  prevalence  of  timber  in  the 
localities  where  these  traces  of  early  metal-working  are  found.  Indeed, 
the  main  line  of  the  paper  is  that  the  iron  presupposes  the  timber. 

Charcoal  remains  found  with  the  slag  show  the  greatest  use  of  birch, 
next  to  which  comes  oak,  after  which  comes  ash.  Fir  and  pine  have  not 
been  observed  in  the  oldest  heaps,  but  make  their  appearance  in  the 
eighteenth  century  and  a  little  earlier. 

Among  the  evidences  corroborative  of  the  slag  mounds  themselves,  Mr. 
Turner  adduces  place-names,  some  of  which  are  not  very  persuasive.  But 


220 


Current  Literature 


the  recurrence  practically  over  the  whole  region  dealt  with  of  '  Ceardaich ' 
(Gaelic  for  smithy)  seems  to  be  one  satisfactory  link  in  the  reconstructive 
chain.  Unfortunately,  the  author  has  given  no  references  whatever  to  the 
sources  for  his  many  facts,  beyond  a  vague  allusion  to  '  the  recognised  most 
reliable  authorities.'  His  information  is  extensive,  however,  and  his  study 
of  the  whole  subject  marked  by  obvious  care  as  well  as  knowledge. 

In  the  Proceedings  of  the  Newcastle  Society  of  Antiquaries  (3rd  series, 
Vol.  V.,  No.  1 6,  p.  176)  Mr.  J.  C.  Hodgson  tracks  the  hitherto  unknown 
identity  of  William  Elderton,  the  Elizabethan  ballad-writer.  One  of  his 
pieces  was  *  A  new  Ballad  declaring  the  great  Treason  conspired  against 
the  young  King  of  Scots.'  Elderton  was  known  as  a  drunken  ballad- 
maker  and  attorney  in  London.  Mr.  Hodgson  now  pretty  certainly  equates 
him  with  William  Ilderton,  brother  to  <  one  [Thomas]  Elderton,  a  common 
wryter  of  supplications  abowte  the  Courte  and  Westminster  Hall,'  who 
died  in  1586  and  was  succeeded  by  his  brother  in  lands  at  Ilderton  in 
Northumberland,  on  the  edge  of  Cheviot. 

One  difficulty,  however,  arises  from  the  fact  that  while  in  1586  William, 
the  heir  of  Ilderton,  was  about  forty  years  old,  the  ballads  set  to  the  credit 
of  the  bard  bear  dates  going  back  from  1584  to  1561  and  1559.  One  of 
Elderton's  pieces  assigned  to  1 569  is  c  A  ballad  intituled  Northomberland 
Newes,'  while  another,  undated,  is  styled  c  Newes  from  Northumberland.' 
These  are  significant  of  a  connection  with  the  northern  shire. 

We  may  add  that  Elderton's  or  Ilderton's  ballad  about  the  treason  against 
King  James  is  that  printed  as  '  Bishop  and  Browne '  in  Hale  and  Furnivall's 
edition  of  Percy  s  Folio  M.S.y  ii.  265.  Evidently  from  the  same  hack 
poet's  pen  is  another  piece,  '  Kinge  James  and  Browne,'  also  printed  by 
Hale  and  Furnivall,  i.  135. 

Mr.  J.  C.  Hodgson,  F.S.A.,  of  Alnwick,  has  been  good  enough  to  supply 
the  editor  of  the  Scottish  Historical  Review  with  the  following  note  on  this 
subject : 

The  weak  link  in  my  attempted  identification  of  William  Elderton,  the 
Elizabethan  ballad-writer,  with  William  Ilderton  of  London,  who,  in 
1586,  succeeded  to  lands  at  Ilderton  in  Northumberland,  is  the  discrepancy 
between  the  ascribed  age  of  the  poet  and  the  age  of  the  heir  as  stated  in 
the  inquisition  post-mortem. 

The  evidence  for  the  identification  may  be  shortly  stated  as  follows  : 

The  identity  of  name :  for  in  the  sixteenth  century  the  Northumberland 
surname  was  as  often  spelled  Elderton  as  it  was  Ilderton. 

The  fact  that  at  least  two  of  the  surviving  ballads  refer  to  the  then 
remote  and  poor  county  of  Northumberland. 

The  statement  that  William  Ilderton,  the  heir,  was  brother  of  a  scrivener 
or  writer  of  petitions  named  Elderton,  carrying  on  his  trade  at,  or  near,  the 
High  Courts  of  Justice  at  Westminster. 

The  discrepancy  of  age  may  perhaps  be  met  by  the  following  explanation : 

As  is  known  to  all  students  of  the  medieval  period,  the  inquisition  post- 
mortem was  an  engine  in  the  fiscal  system  of  the  realm  to  inquire  whether 
anything  was  due  to  the  Crown,  or  Royal  Treasury,  on  the  succession  of 


Current  Literature  221 

the  heir  to  his  predecessor's  estate.  During  the  minority  of  the  heir  the 
profits  of  the  estate  belonged  to  the  Crown,  as  did  the  profits  arising  from 
the  sale  of  the  ward's  marriage.  If,  therefore,  the  heir  was  able  to  satisfy 
the  royal  officer  (or  Commissioner  of  Inland  Revenue,  as  we  should  term 
him)  that  he  was  of  full  age,  it  made  not  the  least  difference  to  the  Crown 
if  his  age  was  understated.  Moreover,  the  inquisition  was  taken  in  the 
county  wherein  the  lands  lay,  whereas  the  heir,  as  in  this  case,  might  reside 
elsewhere,  and  the  evidence  offered  to  the  jury  was  repute,  or  common  fame. 

A  modern  illustration,  although  not  in  all  respects  parallel,  is  furnished 
by  the  declarations  made  to  the  Registrar,  or  Surrogate,  for  granting  licence 
for  marriage,  when  the  lady,  for  reasons  best  known  to  herself — or  for  no 
reasons  at  all — gives  her  age  as  twenty-five  years  when  she  is  known  to 
have  seen  thirty  summers.  For  the  Registrar,  it  is  enough  that  she  has 
reached  the  age  when  no  consent  of  parents  or  guardians  is  required  by 
the  law. 

Therefore  it  must,  or  may  be  assumed,  that  William  Ilderton,  the  heir, 
who  was  probably  not  present  at  the  inquest,  was  actually  not  less  than 
five  years  older  than  the  forty  years  reported  to  the  jury. 

There  is  in  the  Upcott  Topographical  Collection  at  the  British  Museum 
a  rare  black  letter  tract  printed  in  London  '  for  Thomas  Gosson,  dwelling 
in  Paul's  Church-yard  next  the  Gate,  the  corner  shop  to  Cheapside,  at  the 
signe  of  the  Goshawke  in  the  sonn,'  entitled  *  A  true  report  of  a  straunge 
and  monsterous  child  born  at  Aberwick  in  the  parish  of  Eglingham  in  the 
Co.  of  Northumberland,  this  fifth  of  January  1580.'  Abberwick  is  only  a 
morning's  walk  from  Ilderton,  and  it  is  possible  the  unbelievable  account  of 
the  monstrosity  may  be  from  Elderton's  pen. 

Aberdeen  University  Library  Bulletin,  No.  4,  October,  1912,  has  a  notice, 
<  Arcades  Ambo,'  of  the  late  John  Fyfe  (1827-1897)  and  of  Dr.  Robert 
Walker  (now  Registrar),  as  Librarians  of  the  University.  An  epigram  is 
worth  noting  :  '  the  Caliph  Omar  can  never  die.'  Glasgow  remembers  the 
proposal  to  sell  the  Hunterian  coins. 

In  a  bulletin  (for  July)  of  the  History  Department  in  Queen's  Univer- 
sity, Kingston,  Canada,  Professor  J.  L.  Morison  estimates  (somewhat  on 
lines  he  has  already  followed  in  our  columns  regarding  Lord  Elgin)  the 
service  to  imperial  constitutionalism  rendered  by  Sir  Charles  Bagot  in 
1842-43,  when,  defiant  of  implied  instructions  from  Westminster,  he  con- 
ceded to  Canada  its  first  instalment  of  autonomy  by  nominating  a  ministry 
which  had  the  Canadian  electorate  at  its  back. 

In  The  Modern  Language  Review  (July)  Professor  Kastner,  assisted  by 
E.  Audra,  makes  an  important  addition  to  Scots  literature  by  editing  two 
eclogues  and  various  fragments,  translations,  and  epigrams  from  unpublished 
manuscripts  of  Drummond  of  Hawthornden.  No  poet's  reputation  for 
original  work  has  suffered  more  in  recent  times  than  Drummond's,  and  it 
is  pleasant  to  find  Dr.  Kastner,  the  critic  best  entitled  to  judge,  expressing 
so  high  a  sense  of  the  literary  value  of  the  new  finds.  Drummond  is  now 
ripe  for  a  greatly  revised  estimate,  and  Dr.  Kastner's  prospective  re-edition 
of  his  poetical  works  cannot  fail  to  start  a  whole  series  of  fresh  standpoints 


222  Current  Literature 


of  criticism,  not  only  on  his  workmanship,  which  probably  will  triumph 
on  any  test,  but  also  on  the  ethics  of  undisclosed  adaptation  and  imita- 
tion, about  which  the  Jacobean  canon  admitted  considerable  license  and 
audacity. 

In  the  English  Historical  Review  for  July  Professor  Raskins  assembles 
the  data  of  many  unedited  charters  illustrative  of  the  history  of  Normandy 
under  Geoffrey  Plantagenet.  Among  his  citations  from  MS.  is  a  poem 
addressed  to  and  singing  the  praises  of  Rouen  during  the  residence  of  the 
Empress  Matilda.  It  contains  a  line  claiming  the  frosty  Scot  among  the 
subjects  of  that  '  imperial J  city  *  Rothoma,'  which,  according  to  its  pane- 
gyrist, resembled  '  Roma '  not  only  in  name  but  in  worth. 
'  Viribus  acta  tuis  devicta  Britannia  servit : 

Et  tumor  Anglicus  et  Scotus  algidus  et  Galo  sevus 

Munia  protensis  manibus  tibi  debita  solvunt.' 

Mr.  Kingsford  presents  much  valuable  fact  from  a  collation  of  an  unpub- 
lished text  of  Hardyng's  Chronicle,  and  throws  a  great  deal  of  light  on  the 
general  sources  used  by  the  author.  The  numerous  references  to  Scottish 
history  may  call  for  further  comment  when  the  second  part  of  the  article 
appears  containing  extracts  from  the  Lansdowne  MS.  204. 

The  Rutland  Magazine  (June)  photographs  groups  of  Anglo-Saxon 
brooches  from  Market  Overton,  and  is  as  usual  rich  in  local  lore.  A  paper 
by  Rev.  D.  S.  Davies  on  village  life  extracts  from  a  Witham-on-the-Hill 
account  this  item  (anno  1554,  which  must  be  an  error) : 

*  Paid  for  horsemeat  (provinder)  at  the  going  out  of  the  Queen  of  Scotts 
at  Grantham  2/4.' 

The  true  date  surely  was  December,  1551,  when  Mary  of  Guise,  'the  olde 
queene  of  Scottes,'  as  Fabyan  styles  her,  was  returning  from  her  visit  to 
France. 

In  the  number  for  July,  a  paper  on  the  Blackfriary  burial  describes 
the  discovery  at  Stamford  of  the  leaden  coffin  of  John  Staunford.  On 
the  breast  of  the  deceased  was  found  a  decayed  parchment,  which  Mr. 
G.  F.  Warner  deciphered  sufficiently  to  identify  it  as  an  indulgence  by 
Boniface  IX.  in  1398,  empowering  Staunford  to  choose  his  own  confessor. 
This  disproved  a  local  opinion  that  the  body  was  that  of  Joan,  the  Fair 
Maid  of  Kent,  mother  of  Richard  II.  Photographs  of  the  coffin  and  the 
defaced  indulgence  add  to  the  interest  of  the  attractive  article. 

Notes  and  Queries  for  Somerset  and  Dorset  (Sept.)  continues  the  interesting 
text  of  the  roll  of  tenantries  of  Sherburne  in  1377.  Some  terms  of  land 
measure  puzzle  a  northern  reader.  One  man  holds  sept  em  statilla  in  la 
Caste/ton  ;  another  has  j  hamam  prati.  The  last  instalment  is  given  of 
Abbot  Monington's  Secretum.  An  entry  from  a  report  on  the  possible 
defences  of  Dorset  in  1588  against  the  expected  Spaniards  contained  the 
interesting  suggestion  that  '  in  the  countrye  are  dyvers  old  intrenched  places 
easye  with  smale  charges  to  be  made  stronge.'  A  note  on  this  remarks 
that  the  proposal  thus  to  dress  up  medieval  earthworks  is  perhaps  without  a 
parallel  in  Dorsetshire  history.  A  more  northerly  parallel,  however,  would 


Current  Literature  223 

be  found  in  the  sixteenth-century  scheme  to  utilize  the  Wall  of  Hadrian  for 
repression  of  the  Scots. 

Berks,  Bucks,  and  Oxon  Archaeological  Journal  (April)  describes  an  excur- 
sion to  White  Horse  Hill,  and  deals  with  the  equine  figure  cut  on  the 
hillside  and  with  its  tradition  and  relative  ceremonies. 

In  the  number  for  October,  Mr.  J.  H.  Round,  in  a  pedigree  paper, 
illustrates  the  use  of  alternative  surnames,  the  family  name  and  the 
manorial,  in  the  eleventh  century.  Other  articles  deal  chiefly  with  church 
subjects,  one  of  them  the  offering  by  Henry  III.  of  <  baudekins,'  or  brocades 
of  gold,  to  Westminster,  out  of  reverence  for  Edward  the  Confessor. 

The  Home  Counties  Magazine  (June)  has  a  good  architectural  paper,  with 
drawings  of  the  Chapel  Royal  of  Dover  Castle.  It  also  illustrates  and 
describes  a  fascinating  restoration — that  of  St.  Alban's  shrine.  Destroyed 
by  authority  in  1539,  its  materials  were  cast  away  as  rubbish,  but  in 
1847  over  2000  pieces  of  Purbeck  marble,  by  chance  unearthed,  were 
very  successfully  put  together  again  by  the  late  Mr.  Micklethwaite, 
architect  to  Westminster  Abbey.  Mr.  Cornelius  Nicholls  gives  an  account 
of  Touching  for  the  King's  Evil,  with  a  plate  of  touch-pieces  and  a  print 
of  that  pious  monarch,  Charles  II.,  performing  the  miraculous  ceremony. 

The  Poetry  Review,  issuing  from  the  St.  Catherine  Press,  Norfolk  Street, 
Strand,  W.C.,  price  6d.  net,  is  a  new  monthly  established  to  print,  criticise, 
and  promote  the  appreciation  of  high-class  poetry. 

In  the  Juridical  Review  for  June  Sir  Philip  Grierson  edits  the  very 
interesting  but  doleful  '  Memorandum  of  the  progress  of  James  Grierson 
of  Dalgoner  when  it  came  to  his  knowledge  that  he  was  proclaimit  rebell 
at  the  Crosse  of  Dumfries,'  I.e.  in  consequence  of  the  Pentland  Rising. 
James  Grierson's  action,  on  his  own  showing,  was  so  compromising  that  he 
could  scarcely  have  expected  to  escape  severe  treatment  as  at  least  a  suspect, 
but  his  sufferings  were  more  than  sufficient  expiation.  He  hesitated  and 
was  lost,  being  indiscreet  enough  to  accompany  the  insurgents  by  riding 
4  a  piece  with  them '  on  their  ill-fated  expedition  after  the  capture  of  Sir 
James  Turner  on  I5th  November,  1666.  The  document  adds  an  intimate 
note  to  the  known  circumstances  of  the  Pentland  Rising.  Mr.  Lovat 
Fraser  sketches  the  career  of  Henry  Erskine  (1746-1817),  a  great  advocate 
and  wit,  to  whom  luck  was  adverse.  In  the  July  number  Sheriff  James 
Ferguson,  K.C.,  writes,  not  very  critically,  on  the  Barony  in  Scotland ; 
and  Mr.  J.  Robertson  Christie  discusses  the  Doctorate  of  Laws  in  Scottish 
Universities. 

In  the  number  for  October,  a  far  from  profound  article  by  Mr.  A. 
Betts  deals  with  Roman  marriages.  Mr.  J.  A.  Lovat  Fraser  sketches 
clearly  and  cleverly  the  impeachment  and  acquittal  of  Henry  Dundas,  Lord 
Melville,  in  1806. 

Old  Lore  Miscellany,  Vol.  V.  Part  III.  (Viking  Club,  July,  1912),  main- 
tains  its  Norse  and  Orcadian  interest.  Notable  items  are  charms  and 
witchcraft  episodes  from  John  o'  Groats  and  an  important  criticism  of 
Dowden's  Bishops  of  Scotland  as  regards  the  Orkney  bishops. 


224  Current  Literature 

The  Saga  Book  of  the  Viking  Club,  Vol.  VII.,  Part  II.,  has  an  experi- 
mental and  very  unsatisfying  derivation  of  Scaldingi  [  =  Vikings]  from  Old 
Saxon  *skalday  a  vessel  propelled  by  punting.  Dr.  A.  Bugge  describes 
Viking  costume  and  furniture.  Dr.  H.  Fett  writes,  with  many  photo- 
graphic reproductions,  on  miniatures  from  fourteenth  century  Icelandic 
manuscripts.  Mr.  W.  F.  Kirby  deals  with  William  Herbert's  poetic 
adaptations  and  translations  from  the  Norse.  Dr.  A.  W.  Br0gger  describes 
a  hoard  of  Anglo-Saxon  silver  coins  from  the  eleventh  century  from 
Ryfylke,  Norway.  He  mentions  that  30,000  English  coins  of  date  980- 
1050  were  known  as  found  in  Scandinavia  up  to  1900.  One  of  the 
Ryfylke  or  Fold0en  coins  bears  the  stamp  LEOM^R  ON  IOD.  It  is  inter- 
preted as  from  the  supposed  Jed  burgh  mint. 

The  Viking  Club's  Extra  Series,  Vol.  III.,  forms  a  handsome  quarto  of 
Essays  on  Questions  connected  with  the  Old  English  Poem  of  Beowulf  by 
Knut  Stjerna:  translated  by  John  R.  Clark  Hall.  (Pp.  xxxv,  271,  with 
many  illustrations  and  two  maps.  Coventry:  published  for  the  Viking 
Club  by  Curtis  &  Beamish,  Ltd.  Price  I2s.  6d.  net.)  There  are  128 
illustrations  of  northern  objects,  such  as  helmets,  swords,  shields,  spears, 
fragments  of  armour,  sculptures,  ornaments,  coins,  rings,  horse  trap- 
pings, etc.,  considered  apposite  to  the  illustration  of  the  deceased  scholar's 
archaeological  commentary  on  the  Anglo-Saxon  poem.  They  are  adduced 
in  support  of  his  very  learned  argument  for  a  complete  identity  of  the 
funeral  customs  in  use  by  the  Swedes  at  the  burial  of  their  king 
and  those  which  the  Geats  followed  in  honour  of  Beowulf,  and  of  his 
inference  that  the  c  Odinshog'  mound  at  Gamla  Upsala  was  the  monument 
of  the  victory  of  the  Swedes  over  the  Geats  or  Gauts  circa  A.D.  500-550, 
while  the  defeated  Geats  raised  a  second  monument  to  their  king  in  the 
shape  of  a  poem,  c  which  has  remained  the  finest  memorial  of  their  lost 
dominion.'  The  rites  of  the  burial  of  Beowulf  are  exhaustively  compared 
with  the  archaeological  data  from  the  grave  mound  at  Gamla  Upsala  with 
results  which  give  remarkable  countenance  to  the  young  student's  con- 
clusions. 

A  less  envious  fate  might  have  allowed  his  positions  to  be  checked  and 
fortified  by  studies  continued  through  a  course  of  ripening  years  and  experi- 
ences. But  Dr.  Stjerna,  born  in  1874,  paid  for  the  brilliancy  of  his  early 
archaeological  distinctions  by  a  premature  death  in  1909  ;  and  his  essays, 
full  though  they  are  of  interpretative  ingenuity,  suffer  from  the  lack  of  a 
sustained  process  of  revision  at  the  author's  own  hand  for  a  number  of  years. 
Yet  in  such  cases  as  his  the  work  is  done  by  an  eager  spirit  pressing  on 
with  unhalting  vigour  to  the  end  of  every  avenue  of  enquiry.  It  is 
astonishing  how  much  can  be  done  in  a  very  little  time  when  a  discoverer 
strikes  a  trail  of  promise.  Stjerna  undoubtedly  attempted  a  daring  archaeo- 
logical flight  in  proposing  to  equate  the  ' Odinshog'  with  Beowulf's  veritable 
grave,  but  it  was  not  quite  a  fiasco.  Dr.  Clark  Hall,  known  as  a  translator 
of  Beowulf,  has  sympathetically  translated  the  commentary,  prefixing  an 
introduction,  in  which  a  generous  yet  critical  exposition  of  Stjerna's  pro- 
position proceeds  upon  an  acceptance  of  his  main  contentions  that  the 
story  bore  on  the  downfall  of  the  Geatic  kingdom,  that  arms  and  armour  of 


Current  Literature  225 

the  poem  suit  that  period,  that  the  Swedish  Ongentheow  was  the  '  Vendel 
Crow'  of  Swedish  tradition,  and  above  all,  that  there  are  fascinating 
parallels  between  the  funeral  in  the  poem  and  the  facts  from  the  grave  in 
the  'Odinshog.'  That  the  final  identification  goes  beyond  the  hope  of  verifi- 
cation may  well  be  the  conclusion  which  cold-blooded  criticism  will  have 
to  draw,  yet  the  annals  of  English  literature  may  reserve  a  corner  to  mark 
the  service  to  Beowulf  rendered  by  Dr.  Stjerna. 

In  the  American  Historical  Review  for  July  Mr.  A.  C.  Coolidge  discusses 
the  European  Re-conquest  of  North  Africa,  questioning  whether  France 
can  demonstrate  her  dominion  over  the  Arabic  civilization.  Mr.  E.  D. 
Adams  reviews  the  negotiations  of  Lord  Ashburton  for  the  treaty  of 
Washington  in  1842.  A  journal  of  July-August,  1812,  of  very  great 
interest,  is  edited,  being  that  of  William  K.  Beall,  assistant  quartermaster- 
general  under  General  Hull,  in  the  enterprise  on  Canada.  Beall,  to  his 
surprise,  found  himself  a  prisoner  on  board  the  schooner  Thames  on  Lake 
Erie,  and  beguiled  the  captivity  by  a  long  diary  of  his  experiences.  Just 
before  the  detention  of  his  ship,  while  sailing  on  Lake  Erie,  he  '  opened  the 
Lady  of  the  Lake,'  from  which  he  transferred  a  quotation.  Considerable 
apprehension  existed  over  the  attitude  of  the  Indians  to  the  American 
captives.  Beall  saw  a  good  deal  of  them,  among  them  the  famous  chief, 
<  the  great  Tecumseh.'  Friction  broke  out  over  the  conditions  made  by 
the  British  officers  on  the  ground  of  the  supposed  danger  from  the  Indians. 
Beall  tells  how  he  let  them  all  see  that  he  cared  little  for  *  tomahawks, 
scalping  knives,  and  frowning  Indians,'  declaring,  with  some  touch  of 
American  rhetoric,  that  he  would  ask  no  favour  from  his  captors.  'No,'  says 
he,  *  rather  should  my  head  stoop  to  the  block  or  dance  upon  a  bloody  pole 
than  stand  uncovered  and  meekly  ask  them  for  a  kindness.'  He  ekes  out 
his  daily  tale  of  minor  things  with  occasional  verses  on  the  young  wife  he 
had  left  behind  him  at  home.  Happily  there  was  no  occasion  for  the 
bloody  pole.  When  the  diary  closes,  General  Brock,  the  British  com- 
mander, '  has  gone  up  by  land  with  400  men,  principally  militia,  to  operate 
against  our  army,'  i.e.  to  drive  the  United  States  forces  into  Detroit  and 
capture  them — General  Hull  being  subsequently  court-martialled  for  his 
bungling,  or  worse,  in  the  campaign.  BealPs  diary,  written  at  the  time 
and  near  the  scene  of  operations,  documents  the  movements  of  1 81 2  in  a 
very  direct  and  pregnant  fashion. 

In  the  same  Review  for  October,  students  of  ecclesiastical  law  in  Scotland 
will  turn  with  well-founded  expectation  of  profit  to  a  paper  by  Mr.  W.  E. 
Lunt.  The  *  Annat,'  one  of  the  strangest  and  most  interesting  survivals  in 
Scotland  from  pre-Reformation  church  law,  has  its  papal  origins  now  very 
clearly  worked  out.  Mr.  Lunt  has  had  the  good  fortune  to  discover  in  the 
register  of  Simon  of  Ghent,  Bishop  of  Salisbury,  the  letter  of  Clement  V., 
dated  i  February,  1306,  ordaining  the  payment  of  papal  annates.  The 
operative  part  of  the  letter  is  quoted  below  : 

'  Clemens  episcopus  servus  servorum  Dei  [to  the  collectors  of  ecclesiastical 
fruits,  etc.,  "  primi  anni  omnium  beneficiorum  ad  presens  in  Anglic  et 
Scotie  regnis  Hibernie  et  Wallie  provinciis  earumque  civitatibus  et  dio- 
cesibus  vacantium,"  etc.]  .  .  .  Quare  nos  .  .  .  fructus  redditus  et  proventus 

P 


226  Current  Literature 

primi  anni  omnium  et  singulorum  beneficiorum  ecclesiasticorum  cum  cura 
et  sine  cura,  etiam  personatum  et  dignitatum  quarumlibet  ecclesiarum 
monasteriorum  prioratuum  et  aliorum  locorum  ecclesiasticorum  tam 
secularium  quam  regularium  exemptorum  et  non  exemptorum,  que  in 
Anglic  et  Scotie  regnis  et  Hybernie  et  Wallie  provinciis  sive  partibus 
eorum  civitatibus  et  diocesibus  vacant  ad  presens,  et  que  usque  ad  trien- 
nium  vacare  contigerit,  [with  some  exceptions]  non  obstante  quod  fructus 
.  .  .  hujus  primi  anni  ex  privilegio  sedis  apostolice  vel  alias  .  .  .  alicui  vel 
aliquibus  deberentur  vel  in  usus  forent  aliquos  convertendi  pro  ipsius  ecclesie 
oneribus  facilius  celebrandis  in  ejus  agendorum  subsidium  auctoritate 
apostolica  per  alias  nostras  certi  tenoris  litteras  duximus  deputandos  .  .  .  Quo 
circa  .  .  .  discretioni  vestre  per  apostolica  scripta  mandamus  quatinus  prefatos 
fructus  .  .  .  per  vos  et  subcollectores  .  .  .  deputandos,  diligenter  colligere  et 
exigere  .  .  .  curetis.' 

Apart  from  this  vital  letter  altogether,  Mr.  Lunt's  paper,  with  its  heavy- 
array  of  documentary  references,  shows  the  considerable  development  of 
the  institution  under  Pope  Clement,  its  originator,  in  opposition  to  the 
earlier  view  that  Pope  John  XXII.  was  its  organizer. 

Other  subjects  in  this  number  are  the  administration  of  American 
archives,  legalized  absolutism  en  route  from  Greece  to  Rome,  and  the 
position  of  nonconformity  under  the  Clarendon  Code  (1661-1665),  which 
so  effectually  nullified  the  promises  of  tolerance  held  out  by  the  Declaration 
of  Breda  of  1660. 

The  Iowa  Journal  for  July  continues  the  history  of  the  Iowa  Code.  The 
number  contains  also  in  translation  a  Dutch  schoolmaster's  diary  of  his 
journey  from  Rotterdam  to  Pella,  Iowa,  in  1849.  The  sailing  ship 
Franziska  left  Rotterdam,  May  3,  and  reached  New  York,  June  13. 
John  Hospers,  the  diarist,  had  little  to  record  ;  a  rough  passage,  several 
funerals  at  sea,  including  that  of  his  own  little  daughter,  and  some  flat 
reflections.  Other  papers  trace  the  adventurous  story  of  emigration  to 
Oregon  in  1843,  deal  with  the  militia  organization  of  Iowa  during  the  civil 
war,  1862-64,  and  describe  'the  assault  upon  Josiah  B.  Grinnell,'  a  Con- 
gressional episode  of  1866  due  to  party  fury  over  the  slave  question. 

In  the  October  number  Mr.  T.  Teakle  describes  John  Brown's  historic 
raid  in  1859  anc^  the  subsequent  controversies  over  the  refusal  of  the 
Governor  of  Iowa  to  surrender  for  trial  in  Virginia  one  of  the  raiders, 
Barclay  Coppoc,  who  had  luckily  escaped  capture,  and  the  'sour  apple-tree ' 
of  his  leader's  fate. 

The  Revue  Historique  (Juillet-Aout)  has  an  article  concerning  the 
beginnings  of  Protestant  reform  at  Bordeaux,  and  of  interest  for  the  career 
of  George  Buchanan.  It  deals  with  an  exceedingly  interesting  group  of 
emancipated  thinkers  at  the  College  of  Guienne,  among  whom  was 
Buchanan,  as  well  as  at  Agen,  where  J.  C.  Scaliger  exercised  great  intel- 
lectual influence.  The  relationships  of  the  many  scholars  noticed  make  the 
career  of  Buchanan  increasingly  intelligible  and  significant  as  one  of  the 
forces  of  the  great  movement  the  group  represents. 

In  the  number  for  September-October  M.  Guyot  traces  the  constitu- 


Current  Literature  227 

tional  transitions  in  France  from  the  Directory  to  the  Consulate,  with  new 
detail  regarding  the  actings  of  Napoleon.  M.  Matter  begins  a  study  of  the 
origins  of  the  Cavour  family,  the  Bensi,  whose  ancestral  domain  was  the 
town  of  Chieri,  near  Turin.  M.  Alazard,  examining  the  insurrection  at 
Lyons  in  1831,  assigns  it  to  economic  causes,  chief  of  which  was  the  silk 
tariff.  A  sympathetic  notice  of  Andrew  Lang  characterizes  his  intellect  as 
more  subtle  than  profound,  more  expansive  than  creative  ;  and  styles  him 
a  poet,  scholar,  humanist,  mythologist,  and  journalist,  a  historian  of  vast 
reading  and  knowledge,  an  indefatigable  worker,  and  a  critic  of  great 
erudition,  whose  eagerness  explains  some  inexactness  of  detail. 

In  the  Nov.-Dec.  number  the  conclusion  of  the  Cavour  article  brings  the 
subject  down  to  Camille  de  Cavour  himself,  tracing  his  characteristics  to 
the  influences  of  his  Benso  ancestry.  M.  Renaudet  begins  a  sketch  of  the 
earlier  years  of  Erasmus,  and  M.  Marx  presents  an  inedited  account  of  the 
death  of  William  the  Conqueror. 

The  October  and  January  numbers  of  the  Revue  d'Histoire  Ecclesiastique 
contain  the  concluding  instalments  of  studies  of  the  Juristic  basis  of  the 
early  persecutions  and  the  early  days  of  Christianity  in  Sweden,  by  MM. 
Callewaert  and  Bril.  M.  Paul  de  Puniet  contributes  to  the  latter  number 
an  article  on  the  traditional  value  of  the  words  of  consecration. 

The  number  for  July  discusses  Tertullian,  Unction  and  Confirmation, 
and  Tithes  of  Ecclesiastical  Property  in  the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries. 

In  the  Archiv  fur  das  Studtum  der  neueren  Sprachen  und  Literaturen  for 
April,  Mr.  Frank  Miller  has  transcribed  and  edited  two  ballads,  'Lord 
Maxwell's  Goodnight '  and  '  Fair  Helen,'  from  the  Glenriddell  Ballad  MS. 
written  by  Captain  Robert  Riddell,  who  died  in  1794.  The  texts  now 
exactly  edited,  as  shewn  alongside  those  in  Scott's  Border  Minstrelsy,  dis- 
close many  minor  divergencies  due  to  editorial  license  a  century  ago. 

In  Archtvum  Franciscanum  Htstoricum  have  lately  been  appearing  several 
interesting  articles  and  documents  relating  to  St.  Clare  and  her  Order,  called 
forth  by  the  seventh  centenary  of  the  foundation  of  the  Poor  Clares.  In  the 
issues  of  April  and  July  last  Father  L.  Oliger  discusses,  from  a  study  of 
early  sources,  the  origin  of  the  rules  of  the  Order.  In  that  of  October  Father 
B.  Bughetti,  in  continuation  of  previous  articles,  gives  some  negative  results 
of  his  researches  into  the  authorship  of  the  Legenda  versificata^  and  the  same 
number  contains  a  discussion,  by  Father  Paschal  Robinson,  of  the  historical 
authenticity  of  the  passage  in  the  Fiorettl  (chapter  xv.)  which  tells  '  how 
Saint  Clare  ate  with  Saint  Francis  and  the  Brothers,  his  companions,  in  St. 
Mary  of  the  Angels.'  Father  Robinson  has  come  to  the  conclusion  that  this 
incident  and  its  picturesque  setting  are  not  historical,  on  the  ground  of  their 
not  being  mentioned  in  the  contemporary  biography  of  St.  Clare,  and  for  the 
further  reason  of  there  being  no  corroboration  in  any  of  the  other  sources. 
It  seems  to  Father  Robinson  '  that,  like  so  many  other  details  in  that  golden 
book,  they  are  purely  fanciful.' 


Notes  and  Replies 

THE  FOUNDATION  OF  NOSTELL  AND  SCONE.  In  my 
notes  on  this  subject  (S.H.R.  vii.  141-159)  I  hesitated  to  interject  a  curious 
charter  which,  if  trustworthy  or  capable  of  chronological  interpretation, 
has  an  important  bearing  on  the  date  of  the  establishment  of  the 
Augustinian  canons  at  Nostell,  and  thereby  on  the  coming  of  the  canons  to 
Scone.  The  Augustinians  of  Nostell,  as  I  endeavoured  to  show,  had 
papal  recognition  early  in  January,  1120.  But  how  long  they  had  been 
settled  there  before  that  time  is  only  a  matter  of  inference,  involving  a 
lengthy  argument  on  the  comparison  of  a  multitude  of  charters  in  order  to 
strike  an  equation  as  to  an  earliest  date.  Chronology  here  is  of  consider- 
able interest  if  the  accuracy  of  the  Scottish  chronicles  is  to  be  maintained 
with  regard  to  the  foundation  of  Scone. 

It  will  be  better  first  to  reproduce  the  cryptic  writing  in  the  hope  that  it 
will  evoke  the  criticism  of  charter  scholars.  It  was  copied  years  ago  by  me 
from  the  Chartulary  of  Nostell  (Cotton  MS.  Vespasian,  E.  xix.  f.  ioib). 

CARTA  TURSTINI  EBORACENSIS  ARCHIEPISCOPI. 

Turstinus  dei  gracia  Eboracensis  archiepiscopus,  toti  clero  et  populo 
Eboracensis  ecclesie  Sancti  Petri,  immo  omnibus  uniuersalis  ecclesie  filiis, 
salutem  et  benedictionem.  Notificamus  uobis  quendam  conuencionem 
factam  in  presencia  nostra  inter  ecclesiam  de  Federstan  et  ecclesiam  sancti 
Osuualdi.  Monachi  namque  de  Caritate  et  sacerdos  de  Federstan,  qui 
calumpniabantur  earn  adiacere  parochie  de  Federstan,  et  canonici  clama- 
uerunt  earn  solutam  et  quietam  ab  omni  consuetudine  et  seruicio,  ita  quod 
canonici  regulariter  deo  ibi  seruiant  et  habeant  cimiterium  ad  opus  suum  et 
seruiencium  suorum  omniumque  iuxta  eos  habitancium  in  terra  que  dicitur 
Nostlet,  et  in  hanc  conuencionem  clamauerunt  clerici  Sancti  Osuualdi 
quietas  omnes  ecclesiasticas  consuetudines  quas  habebant  de  Hardewic 
ecclesie  de  Federstan,  Me  Thoma  archiepiscopo  ij°  et  Rodberto  de  Laceio 
et  Anfrido  et  Bernewino  presbiterps]  et  Rad[ulfo]  clerico  presentibus  et 
confirmantibus,  et  hoc  factum  est  prima  feria  in  dedicacione  ecclesie  Sancti 
Osuualdi.  Teste,  etc. 

While  recognising  the  literary  and  grammatical  difficulties  of  the  text,  as 
well  as  the  indications  that  we  have  it  in  abbreviated  form,  what  historical 
inferences  can  be  drawn  from  the  text  as  it  stands  in  respect  of  the  date  of 
the  dedication  of  the  church  of  Nostell  ?  It  seems  clear  that  the  writing  is 
a  charter  of  Archbishop  Thurstin  in  confirmation  of  a  previous  charter  of 
agreement  made  by  the  intervention  of  Archbishop  Thomas  the  Second  on 


Foundation  of  Nostell  and  Scone        229 

the  Sunday  during  the  solemnities  of  the  dedication  of  St.  Oswald's 
Church,  and  now  embodied  currente  calamo  in  Thurstin's  charter.  If  that 
be  the  case,  the  dedication  took  place  between  1109  and  1114,  while 
Thomas  was  Archbishop,  and  such  event  synchronises  with  the  date  of 
Scone,  the  offshoot  of  Nostell,  as  adumbrated  in  the  chronicles. 

Though  the  inference  may  be  considered  a  little  wild,  I  would  invite  the 
opinion  of  critics  who  can  bring  a  fresh  judgment  to  it,  uninfluenced  by 
the  tangled  history  of  the  institution.  The  charter  appears  to  be  a  sort  of 
palimpsest,  but  which  part  belongs  to  Archbishop  Thurstin,  and  which  to 
Archbishop  Thomas,  his  predecessor  ?  It  may  be  added  that  the  Cluniac 
monks  (monacht  de  Caritate]  of  Pontefract  had  a  joint  interest  in  the  church 
of  Fetherston  with  the  canons  of  Nostell.  JAMES  WILSON. 

Dalston  Vicarage. 

Dr.  Wilson  has  produced  a  real  puzzle.  Those  who,  like  myself,  have 
not  acumen  enough  to  interpret  the  document  for  themselves,  will  readily 
accept  his  explanation,  viz.  that  we  have  to  do  with  a  transaction  approved 
by  Archbishop  Thomas  and  here  confirmed  by  Archbishop  Thurstin.  But 
from  so  confused  a  narrative  it  seems  impossible  to  say  how  much  belongs 
to  the  earlier  and  how  much  to  the  later  archbishop.  And  we  have  it 
distinctly  stated  in  Henry  L's  charter  that  the  Canons  Regular  were  placed 
at  Nostell  by  Archbishop  Thurstin.  Taking  this  as  our  guide  (as  in  the 
circumstances  I  think  we  are  bound  to  do),  it  follows  that  St.  Oswald  and 
his  'clerks'  the  canons  belong  to  the  later  epoch,  and  that  the  transaction 
of  Archbishop  Thomas'  time  must  have  concerned  the  brotherhood  of 
hermits,  who  at  Nostell  (as  at  its  grandchild,  Inchaffray),  preceded  the 
canons  (see  Monasticon,  vi.  89  n.). 

But  a  great  deal  of  undispelled  darkness  remains.  How  do  the  monachi 
de  Caritate  come  in  ?  Were  they  of  the  ancient  house  of  that  name  on 
the  Loire  ?  And  can  no  sidelight  be  obtained  from  that  quarter  ? 

J.  MAITLAND  THOMSON. 

It  seems  to  me  that  this  charter  is  so  imperfect  and  so  badly  transcribed 
that  it  is  not  safe  to  draw  any  conclusion  from  it. 

Before  noo  Robert  de  Lacy  founded  at  Pontefract  a  priory  of  canons 
from  the  house  of  La  Charite  in  France  on  the  Loire.  Close  to  Pontefract, 
at  Nostell,  there  was  then  a  hermitage  ;  and  between  1114  and  1120  Arch- 
bishop Thurstin,  with  the  assistance  of  Ilbert  de  Lacy  and  Robert  his  son, 
founded  a  priory  at  Nostell,  dedicated  to  St.  Oswald,  on  the  site  of  the 
hermitage.  To  that  Radulf  de  Fetherston  gave  ten  acres  and  Robert  de 
Lacy  gave  two  bovates  in  Hardwic.  Ilbert  and  Robert  de  Lacy  were 
expelled  from  the  realm,  and  Pontefract  was  given  to  Hugh  de  la  Val,  who 
granted  the  church  of  Fetherston  to  the  priory  of  St.  Oswald.  These 
grants  were  confirmed  by  Henry  I.  in  his  charter  to  Nostell  in  1121. 

Dr.  Wilson  says  that  Pontefract  and  Nostell  had  a  joint  interest  in  the 
church  of  Fetherston,  and  that  and  the  neighbourhood  of  the  houses  and 
their  adjacent  lands  made  it  difficult  to  avoid  disputes. 

One  of  these  disputes  is  dealt  with  in  this  charter.    Archbishop  Thurstin 


23° 


Notes  and  Replies 


announces  that  the  representatives  of  the  two  priories  and  the  priest  of 
Fedirstan  had  appeared  before  him  and  made  an  agreement  regarding  a 
land  not  named,  possibly  Hardwic,  which  the  priory  of  Pontefract  seems 
to  have  yielded  to  Nostell  on  the  latter  waiving  its  claim  to  church  dues 
in  Hardwic. 

The  Archbishop  Thurstin  says  distinctly  that  this  took  place  in  his 
presence.  It  is  impossible  to  reconcile  that  statement  with  the  following 
words  in  the  charter:  'Me  Thoma  Archiepiscopo  11°  et  Rodberto  de 
Laceio  et  Aufrido  et  Bernewino  presbitero  et  Rad.  Clerico  presentibus  et 
confirmantibus.'  I  suggest  that  the  original  deed  had  '  Me  Th.  Archi- 
episcopo,' and  that  the  transcriber  extended  Th.  as  Thomas  instead  of 
Thurstin.  I  think  it  is  certain  that  Archbishop  Thomas  the  Second,  who 
died  in  1114,  was  dead  before  the  foundation  of  the  priory  of  Nostell, 
while  clearly  this  agreement  was  made  in  the  lifetime  of  his  successor,  after 
the  canons  were  established  there. 

A  later  agreement  made  in  1317  between  the  two  priories  regarding 
land  in  the  parish  of  Fetherston  is  printed  in  a  charter  of  Pontefract  Priory, 
No.  XL  on  page  124  of  volume  v.  of  Dugdale's  Monasticon. 

A.  C.  LAWRIE. 

THE  HONORIFIC  'THE'  (S.H.R.  x.  39).  Sixty-four  years  ago 
a  couple  of  volumes  were  published  by  Blackwoods  entitled  Lays  of  the 
Deer  Forest,  by  John  Sobieski  and  Charles  Edward  Stuart.  The  first 
volume  consists  of  a  collection  of  poems  whereon  I  can  express  no  opinion, 
not  having  read  them;  but  the  second  and  larger  volume  (560  pp.)  contains 
notes  on  the  poems,  plus  notes  upon  the  notes,  and  is  a  delightful  repertory 
of  Highland  lore,  natural  history,  and  incidents  of  wild  sport.  One  of  the 
footnotes  to  these  notes  (page  245)  bears  upon  the  subject  of  Mr.  Dallas's 
interesting  paper.  Bearing  out  as  it  does  his  view  of  the  modern  origin  of 
the  honorific  'the,'  I  transcribe  it :  for  Lays  of  the  Deer  Forest  is  not  a  book 
one  commonly  comes  across. 

c  In  the  modern  confusion  of  all  Highland  usages,  it  has  recently  become 
a  common  error  to  name  the  chieftain  of  the  second  house  of  the  Clan 
Chattan  as  The  Macintosh.  This  new  title  has  been  adopted,  we  suppose, 
in  imitation  of  the  hereditary  patronymic  An  Siosalach — The  Chisholm. 
But  there  is  no  instance  of  an  application  of  the  definite  article  to  any 
Gaelic  name  accompanied  by  the  filiation  Mac  ;  and,  as  a  family  title, 
the  usage,  when  combined  with  the  abstract  construction  of  a  surname 
terminating  in  ach  (as  An  Domhnullach,  An  Leodach,  etc.)  is  confined  to 
the  name  of  Chisholm.  The  reason  for  this  singularity  is  that  this  family 
was  not  originally  a  Gaelic  race,  and  their  name  was  introduced  into  the 
Highlands  at  a  time  when  many  of  the  low-country  appellations,  like  one 
class  of  the  French  and  Anglo-Norman  designations,  were  accompanied  by 
the  definite  article,  as  the  Bruce,  the  Douglas,  the  Wallace,  etc.  The 
Cisolach  or  Chisholms  were  originally  a  branch  of  the  Norman  Sysilts  or 
Cecils,  which  were  early  settled  in  Roxburghshire.  .  .  .  The  termination 
-ach  is  merely  a  relative  final  particle,  as  the  Anglo  -er  and  -ish  in  Warrener, 
English,  etc.,  and  the  French  -ard  in  Clanard,  Bayard,  etc.  So  in  Gaelic 


Notes  and  Replies  231 


the  generic  name  derived  from  Domhnull,  Leod,  Cecil,  etc.,  become  Domh- 
nullach,  Leodach,  Cesolach,  etc.  But  the  latter  having  never  acquired 
the  affiliative  prefix  Mac-  retained  as  its  patronymic  its  original  foreign 
style  of  the  article  — "  an  Siosalach."  This  is  conformable  to  the  usage  of 
the  Gaelic  in  generic  names  formed  by  the  terminative  particle  without 
the  preceding  relative,  as  An  Domhnullach,  An  Leodach,  An  Toiseach, 
etc.,  expressive  of  the  Man,  i.e.  chief— of  the  race  of  Donald  or  Leod  or 
Toiseach.  This,  however,  is  only  an  allusive  form  in  speaking  of  a 
superior,  and,  except  in  the  instance  of  the  Chisholm,  never  was  used  in  a 
patronymical  style,  since  it  is  equally  common  for  describing  any  individual 
of  a  clan  name.  But  while  the  article  is  admissible  in  the  above  construc- 
tion, it  is  utterly  unknown  in  any  designations  commenced  by  the  word 
Mac,  and  to  say  Am  Mac-Domhnull,  Am  Mac-Leod,  Am  Mac-antoisich 
— the  Macdonald,  the  MacLeod  or  the  Macintosh — is  as  burlesque  and 
theatrical  an  absurdity  as  to  speak  of  the  Hamilton  or  the  Atholl,  the 
Norfolk  or  the  Shrewsbury.' 

The  authors  err  in  equating  what  they  call  the  'relative  final  particle' 
in  Gaelic  with  the  English  suffixes  -er  and  -ish.  The  English  suffix  -er  is 
substantival,  denoting  the  agent :  e.g.  Warrener,  one  who  keeps  a  warren. 
The  suffix  -achy  on  the  other  hand,  is  adjectival,  corresponding  to  the 
English  suffixes  -ishy  -ful,  -some,  etc.  It  may  be  recognized  in  some  of  the 
Celtic  place  names  preserved  in  France — Pauillac,  Mugillac,  Callac, 
Pipriac,  etc. 

Monreith.  HERBERT  MAXWELL. 

IS  <0,  KENMURE'S  ON  AND  AWA,  WILLIE,'  A  SONG  OF 
1715?  It  has  generally  been  taken  for  granted  that  the  popular  song  c  O, 
Kenmure's  on  and  awa,  Willie,'  which  Burns  worked  over  and  published 
in  The  Scots  Musical  Museum,  relates  to  William  Gordon,  the  sixth  Viscount 
Kenmure,  commander  of  the  Jacobite  forces  in  the  south  of  Scotland  in 
1715.  Lately,  however,  Mr.  William  Macmath  suggested,  in  The  Scots 
Peerage,  that  the  hero  of  the  song  was  possibly  Robert  Gordon,  the  fourth 
Viscount  Kenmure.  This  daring  soldier  joined  the  Highland  rising  of 
1653,  anc*  organized  levies  in  Galloway  to  fight  for  Charles  II.,  attracting 
recruits  by  exhibiting  at  the  head  of  his  corps  '  a  Rundlet  of  Strong-waters 
.  .  .  which  they  call  Kenmore's  Drum.' 1  In  Mr.  Macmath's  opinion, 
the  *  grave,  full-aged '  gentleman  on  whom  the  command  of  the  Border 
insurgents  was  thrust  in  1715  is  less  likely  than  the  dashing  leader  of  1653 
to  have  inspired  such  a  stirring  lay  as  '  O,  Kenmure's  on  and  awa,  Willie.' 

It  is  certain  that  in  1715  there  existed  in  Galloway  little  of  that  enthu- 
siasm for  the  Stuart  cause  which  in  the  North  prompted  so  many  fine  songs. 
Memories  of  Claverhouse  and  Lag  were  still  fresh  in  the  South- West ;  and, 
as  we  are  informed  by  Peter  Rae  in  his  History  of  the  late  Rebellion  (Dum- 
fries, 1718),  many  of  the  Galloway  farmers  were  so  strongly  Hanoverian  in 
sympathy  that  they  went  to  Dumfries  to  defend  the  town  against  their  own 
lairds. 

That  the  Galloway  song  refers,  not  to  the  rising  of  1715  but  to  that  of 

1  Mercurius  Petition,  No.  1 76. 


232  Notes  and  Replies 

1653  appears  to  have  been  the  tradition  of  the  Kenmure  family.  In 
Ruskin's  Pr&terita  (volume  iii.  section  73)  we  read  :  <  I  was  staying  with 
Arthur  and  Joan  at  Kenmure  Castle  itself  in  the  year  1876,  and  remember 
much  of  its  dear  people  ;  and,  among  the  prettiest  scenes  of  Scottish  gar- 
dens, the  beautiful  trees  on  the  north  of  that  lawn  on  which  the  last  muster 
met  for  King  Charles  ;  "and  you  know,"  says  Joanie,  "the  famous  song 
that  used  to  inspire  them  all,  of  *  Kenmure's  on  and  awa,  Willie.' J: 

FRANK  MILLER. 

SCOTTISH  PILGRIMS  IN  ITALY  (S.H.R.  ix.  387).  A  some- 
what rare  volume,  La  Garfagnana  Illustrata,  by  Doctor  Pellegrino  Paolucci, 
printed  at  Modena  in  1720,  has  the  following  reference  to  the  shrine  of  San 
Pellegrino,  one  of  the  Scottish  Saints  still  reverenced  in  the  Garfagnana  : 

'Sono  io  testimonio  di  veduta,  nell'  anno  1690,  vi  comparvero  dodici 
Signori  Scozzesi,  i  quali  a  ginocchia  ignude  (apparently  they  came  in  kilts) 
e  ginocchioni  in  distanza  della  Chiesa  circa  cento  passi  cantavano  in  un 
istesso  tempo  e  piangevano  dirottamente.  Giunti  alia  Porta  del  Tempio 
seguitarono  ginocchioni,  finche  giunsero  al  Luogo  del  Sacro  Deposito, 
baciando  frequentemente  il  pavimento  e  bagnandolo  di  lagrime. 

*  Al  vedere  quel  loro  Santo  Re  dentro  a'  Cristalli  diedero  in  un  rotto  di 
pianto  si  grande  che  mossero  a  lagrime  tutti  gli  Astanti.  Fecero  la  mattina 
seguente  le  loro  divozioni,  con  esemplarita  incomparable,  e  discorrendo  io 
seco  in  Idioma  Latino,  mi  dissero  che  sospiravano  di  poter  vivere,  e  morire 
in  quel  luogo  santificato  dal  loro  Monarca.  E  che  ogni  anno  sarebbe 
venuta  dalla  Scozia  una  moltitudine  incredibile  a  venerarlo,  ma  che  non 
avevano  di  chi  fidarsi.  E  che  se  fossero  palesati  sarebbero  crudelmente 
giustiziati.' 

This  is  the  account  of  an  eye-witness,  and  of  one  who  wrote  soberly  as 
befitted  a  lawyer  and  a  Sheriff  of  the  district  where  the  shrine  of  his  patron 
lay.  His  words  seem  to  prove  that  much  later  than  one  would  have 
expected,  the  memory  of  San  Pellegrino  survived,  not  only  in  the  Gar- 
fagnana, where  indeed  it  still  lives,1  but  even  in  the  distant  land  of  his 
birth. 

Florence.  J.  WOOD  BROWN. 

BURGH  OF  DUNBAR  CHARTERS.— A  number  of  deeds  belong- 
ing to  the  royal  burgh  of  Dunbar  were  recently  discovered  in  the  office 
of  an  Edinburgh  firm  of  writers.  They  include  charters  by  James  II., 
James  VI.,  deed  of  gift  by  Queen  Mary,  and  various  instruments  of  sasine  ; 
they  are  in  excellent  preservation.  The  Town  Council  of  Dunbar  has 
requested  Dr.  Wallace- James  of  Haddington  to  report  to  them  on  these 
deeds. 

1  The  Garfagnana  is  noted  for  its  rustic  drama  played  in  spring  under  the  shade 
of  the  chestnut  woods.  One  of  these  Maggi  in  my  collection  bears  the  following 
title:  'Maggio  di  San  Pellegrino,  figlio  del  Re  di  Scozia'  (Ottava  edizione, 
Volterra,  Tip.  Sborgi  1892),  and  shows  that  the  legend  of  this  errant  Scot  is  very 
much  alive  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  church  that  bears  his  name  and  offers  his 
body  to  the  reverence  of  the  faithful. 


The 

Scottish   Historical    Review 

VOL.  X.,  No.  39  APRIL  1913 

The  Royal  Scottish  Academy 

IT  is  now  more  than  a  year  since  the  R.S.A.  took  possession  of 
its  new  quarters  on  the  Mound  in  Edinburgh,  an  event  which 
marked  an  epoch  in  its  history,  and  seems  to  invite  some  review 
of  its  origin  and  progress,  some  estimate  of  its  present  work,  and 
perhaps  a  glance  towards  its  future. 

The  student  who  desires  to  follow  the  story  in  detail  will  find 
few  books  to  depend  on,  and  those  few  rather  dull  reading.  The 
Constitution  and  Laws  of  the  Academy  have  been  several  times 
republished,  and  it  prints  a  general  annual  report.  Sir  George 
Harvey's  Notes1  and  Sheriff  Monro's  volume2  deal  with  the 
controversies  which  preceded  its  birth  and  clouded  its  early  youth. 
But  these  books,  while  they  record  the  facts  and  arguments,  have 
unhappily  caught  scarcely  a  spark  of  the  enthusiasm  and  humour 
without  which  the  germination  of  such  an  institution  in  the  cold 
soil  of  Scotland  would  scarcely  have  been  possible. 

The  R.S.A.  is  young  as  academies  go.  The  year  1648  saw 
the  foundation  of  the  French  Academic  des  Beaux  Arts,  1671 
that  of  the  Academic  d' Architecture,  and  1677  that  of  the 
French  School  which  still  occupies  the  Villa  Medici  at  Rome,  all 
during  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.  The  Royal  Academy  of  Arts  in 
London  dates  from  1768.  On  December  7th  of  that  year  the 
project  for  its  formation  was  submitted  to  George  III.  Three 
days  later  he  added  his  signature  with  the  words,  c  I  approve  of 
this  plan,  let  it  be  put  into  execution.' 

1  Notes  of  the  Early  History  of  the  Royal  Scottish  Academy,  Edinburgh,  1873. 

2  Scottish  Art  and  National  Encouragement,  Edinburgh,  1 846. 

S.H.R.  VOL.  X.  Q 


234        Sir  John  Stirling  Maxwell,  Bart. 

It  was  not  till  1808  that  the  first  germ  of  the  R.S.A.  made  its 
appearance,  when  a  group  of  Scottish  artists  prepared  to  hold 
their  first  exhibition  in  Edinburgh.  This  exhibition  was  opened 
in  Core's  Lyceum,  Nicolson  Street,  on  2oth  June,  1808,  and  con- 
tained 178  works  shown  by  27  artists.  It  was  followed  in  1809 
by  another  exhibition,  the  first  of  several  held  in  Raeburn's 
Gallery  in  York  Place1  by  the  '  Associated  Artists/  as  they  now 
called  themselves.  It  included  works  by  Raeburn,  Patrick  and 
Alexander  Nasmyth,  George  Watson,  and  Thomson  of  Dudding- 
ston.  This  venture  prospered  so  well  that  when  it  was  wound 
up  in  1813  there  was  a  large2  fortune  in  its  treasury.  It  is  not 
clear  why  the  Association  was  wound  up.  The  desire  to  seize 
the  spoil  is  given  as  the  reason,  but  the  members  might  have 
divided  the  golden  eggs  without  killing  the  goose.  In  Scotland 
one  would  not  expect  such  a  valuable  bird  to  come  by  an  un- 
timely death  even  at  the  hands  of  artists,  who  are  not  generally 
supposed  to  be  men  of  business.  But  it  did,  although  the 
exhibitions  were  continued  for  three  more  years  under  the  old 
name. 

In  1 8 1 8  a  new  body  comes  on  the  scene,  namely,  the  c  Institu- 
tion for  the  Encouragement  of  the  Fine  Arts,'  called,  for  short, 
the  'Institution,'  and  after  1827,  when  it  received  a  Royal 
Charter,  the  '  Royal  Institution/  This  was  a  voluntary  associa- 
tion of  Scots  gentlemen  who,  on  payment  of  £50,  became  share- 
holders or  life  members.  The  reader  will  instinctively  feel  that 
a  body  with  such  a  name  and  such  a  constitution  never  had  much 
chance  of  success,  even  though  it  included  many  of  the  great 
names  of  Scotland.  Its  aims  were  lofty,  but  vague.  It  began  by 
contemplating  a  series  of  exhibitions  by  the  old  masters,  whose 
works  were  at  this  time  arriving  by  scores  in  Scotland  from  Italy 
and  Flanders.  Exhibitions  of  this  nature  were  actually  held, 
again  in  York  Place,  in  1819  and  1820.  But  in  1821  the  pro- 
gramme was  varied  with  an  exhibition  of  the  works  of  living 
artists,  who  proved  so  much  more  attractive  than  the  old  masters, 
that  the  experiment  was  repeated  every  year  till  1829.  The  Insti- 
tution, remembering  perhaps  the  fate  of  the  earlier  venture,  had 
provided  in  its  rules  that  no  professional  artist  should  take  part  in 
the  management,  although  a  dozen  artists  were  admitted  as 

1  Till  1811  the  number  is  given  as  16,  later  as  32.     The  street  seems  to  have 
been  re-numbered. 

2  Raeburn,  in  a  letter  dated  24th  December,  1822,  says  £$oo  or  £600.     Sir 
George  Harvey  in  his  notes  mentions  £1888  as  the  sum. 


The  Royal  Scottish  Academy  235 

associates  and  five  more  as  honorary  members.  Here  was  the 
making  of  an  easy  quarrel.  Possibly  the  artists  ought  to  have  been 
grateful  for  the  opportunity  given  them  of  showing  their  works. 
But  they  certainly  were  not  content.  They  considered  the  exhibi- 
tions ill-managed,  and  resented  the  fact  that  the  Institution  throve 
on  their  efforts — for  the  exhibitions  were  profitable — while  they 
had  no  say  in  the  selection  or  arrangement  of  the  works  exhibited. 
Lord  Cockburn's  sympathy  certainly  lay  with  the  artists.  He 
said,  speaking  of  the  Institution,  '  Its  vice  was  a  rooted  jealousy 
of  our  living  artists  as  a  body,  by  the  few  who  led  the  Institution. 
These  persons  were  fond  of  art,  but  fonder  of  power,  and  tried 
indirectly  to  kill  all  living  art  and  its  professors  that  ventured  to 
flourish  except  under  their  sunshine.' 

Meanwhile  the  Institution  was  growing  in  importance.  In  1825 
new  galleries  were  prepared  for  it  in  Playfair's  noble  building1  on 
the  Mound,  the  building,  that  is,  next  to  Princes  Street,  which 
continued  to  bear  the  name  of  the  Royal  Institution  until  last 
year  it  became  the  home  of  the  R.S.A. 

The  origin  of  this  building  requires  some  explanation  and  a 
brief  digression.  It  was  not  the  work  of  the  Institution,  but  of  the 
Board  of  Manufactures,  a  public  body  to  which  the  reader  must 
now  be  introduced.  This  Board  dated  from  1727.  It  was  its 
duty  to  administer  for  the  behoof  of  Scots  manufacturers  a  sum 
of  ^2000  a  year,  which  was  assigned  to  Scotland  in  perpetuity 
when  it  became  a  partner  in  the  fiscal  system  of  England  at  the 
time  of  the  Union.  The  Board  seems  from  the  beginning  to 
have  restricted  its  efforts  mainly,  if  not  entirely,  to  the  region  of 
design.  It  began  by  offering  premiums  for  designs,  and  in  1760 
it  started  a  School  of  Design  of  its  own.  This  school  had  a 
marked  influence  in  Scotland,  especially  during  the  headmastership 
of  John  Graham,  who  reigned  nineteen  years,  from  1798  till  1817. 
It  can  fairly  claim  to  have  produced  the  group  of  artists  by  whom 
the  R.S.A.  was  founded.  It  was  the  first  School  of  Art  in  the 
United  Kingdom  run  at  the  public  expense.  But  it  did  not 
absorb  the  whole  income  of  the  Board.  The  rest  was  saved  up. 
The  Royal  Institution  building  was  paid  for  out  of  the  savings. 

It  was  designed  to  fulfil  the  following  purposes  :  The  eastern 
side  contained  the  school  and  the  office  of  the  Board  of  Manufac- 
tures ;  the  western  side,  the  rooms  of  the  Royal  Society,  for 
which  it  paid  rent ;  the  centre,  the  galleries  of  the  Royal  Institu- 
tion, for  which  it  paid  a  rent  of  £380.  The  Royal  Institution 

1  The  engraving  of  this  building  at  page  240  is  from  the  work  of  Mr.  F.  C.  Inglis. 


236         Sir  John  Stirling  Maxwell,  Bart. 

had  at  this  time  133  ordinary  members  besides  the  artist  asso- 
ciates. Several  of  these  also  occupied  seats  at  the  Board  of 
Manufactures,  which  had  no  less  than  twenty-one  members. 
There  was  thus  a  complete  understanding  between  the  two  bodies. 
The  quarrels  which  followed  might  have  been  avoided  if  there 
had  been  more  effective  appeal  from  one  body  to  the  other. 

The  last  four  of  these  exhibitions  of  modern  painting  were  held 
in  the  new  galleries.  The  first,  held  in  1826,  was  financially  a 
conspicuous  success.  It  was  visited  by  some  1 8,000  people,  whose 
shillings  and  season  tickets  brought  in  over  ^900.  But  already 
the  artists  were  chafing  against  these  arrangements,  which,  though 
made  with  the  best  intentions  for  their  benefit,  left  them  without 
any  say  in  the  exhibitions.  The  very  year  the  new  building  was 
finished,  twenty-four  of  them,  including  all  the  associates  of  the 
Royal  Institution,  had  agreed  to  form  themselves  into  an  Academy 
with  an  exhibition  of  their  own.  The  leading  spirits  were  William 
Nicholson,  the  portrait  painter  and  etcher,  and  Thomas  Hamilton, 
the  architect  of  the  High  School.  It  is  impossible  to  doubt  the 
wisdom  of  a  movement  led  by  these  two  men,  though  at  the 
moment  it  must  have  presented  to  many  the  appearance  of  an 
ungrateful  rivalry.  It  certainly  had  to  contend  with  the  hostility 
of  those  who  were  honestly  trying  to  befriend  the  Scots  artists. 
It  was  perhaps  this  disagreeable  circumstance  which  led  to  the 
defection  of  several  artists  who  had  pledged  themselves  to  the 
new  movement.  Nine  of  the  twelve  associates  of  the  Royal 
Institution  returned  to  their  old  allegiance.  They  were  very 
unwisely  rewarded  by  the  Directors  with  commissions  of  £50  and 
upwards.  This  money  burnt  holes  in  their  pockets,  and  in  the 
end  drove  them  back  to  the  young  Academy. 

Meanwhile  the  young  Academy  took  shape.  George  Watson 
was  elected  the  first  president,  and  remained  in  that  post  till  his 
death  in  1837.  In  a  sporting  mood  it  was  decided  to  open  the 
first  exhibition  simultaneously  with  that  of  the  Institution  in  the 
new  building  on  the  Mound.  Two  large  galleries  at  24  Waterloo 
Place1  were  engaged  for  the  purpose.  This  was  February, 
1827.  In  this  first  round  the  Institution  seems  to  have  had  the 
best  of  it.  The  Academy  Exhibition  was  hastily  arranged  and 

1  These  galleries  now  probably  form  part  of  the  North  British  Railway  offices, 
23  Waterloo  Place.  It  is  not  possible  to  trace  the  former  numbering  of  the 
street,  but  in  1853  the  Burgh  Assessment  Roll  shows  that  No.  24  was  on  the 
north  side,  last  of  the  Regent  Arch.  The  N.B.R.  office  contains  rooms  and  a 
staircase  corresponding  to  the  description  given  in  Sir  G.  Harvey's  *  Notes.' 


The  Royal  Scottish  Academy  237 

weak.  In  the  second  round,  1828,  the  Academy  held  its  own. 
In  the  third,  1829,  the  Royal  Institution  was,  as  Sir  George 
Harvey  says,  c  fairly  driven  from  the  field/  This  year  the 
Academy  Exhibition  contained,  besides  the  works  of  its  own 
members,  pictures  from  the  easels  of  John  Linnell,  John  Martin 
and  Francis  Grant,  then  a  young  man  of  26,  as  well  as  a  large 
canvas  by  Etty — 'the  Judith  and  Holophernes '—which  was 
afterwards  purchased  by  the  Academy  and  became  a  sort  of 
guarantee  of  its  permanence,  as  well  as  the  colossal  nest  egg  of  its 
collection.  There  was  also  a  vast  Rubens  lent  by  Lord  Hopetoun. 
This  proved  too  wide  for  the  staircase,  but  by  an  ingenious  con- 
trivance of  Mr.  Hamilton's  it  was  successfully  swung  into  the 
building  through  the  cupola.  Sir  George  Harvey  gives  a  graphic 
description  of  its  perilous  journey.  The  Etty  was  acquired  by  an 
arrangement  which  Sir  George  Harvey  describes  as  most  liberal 
on  the  artist's  part.  At  the  same  time  there  was  evidently  a 
delicious  rashness  about  the  transaction  on  the  Academy's  side. 
The  reader  may  wonder  as  he  gazes  with  cold  eyes  at  the  huge 
canvas  now  hanging  in  the  National  Gallery  whether  the  liberal 
arrangement  did  not  entail  a  payment  quite  as  large  as  the 
picture  deserved.  But  tempora  mutantur.  This  is  not  to  doubt 
the  wisdom  of  the  purchase.  It  was  abundantly  justified  by  the 
instant  result  on  the  Academy's  fortunes.  Etty  was  then  at  the 
zenith  of  his  fame.  He  was  essentially  an  artist's  artist.  The 
purchase  of  this  conspicuous  work,  with  two  wings  to  follow 
nearly  as  large  as  itself,  made  a  great  stir,  and  definitely  established 
friendly  relations  between  the  new  Academy  and  its  elder  sister  in 
London.1 

It  was  during  these  three  years  of  rivalry  that  the  Academy  and 
Institution  both  applied  for  a  Royal  Charter — an  honour  granted 
to  the  Institution,  but  denied,  after  two  years'  hesitation,  to  the 
Academy.  In  spite  of  this  slight  rebuff  every  one  was  impressed 
with  the  success  and  promise  of  the  new  movement,  but  none  so 
much  as  the  artists  who  still  adhered  to  the  Royal  Institution. 
Too  proud  to  remain  longer  under  its  yoke,  and  too  proud  to 
appeal  for  admission  to  the  new  Academy,  they  now  announced 
their  intention  of  forming  an  Academy  of  their  own.  Thanks, 
however,  to  the  good  sense  and  diplomacy  of  Henry  Cock- 
burn,  they  agreed  with  certain  other  artists,  twenty-four  in 
all,  to  petition  the  Academy  for  admission.  The  Academy, 

1  Two  other  large  works  by  Etty,  making  five  in  all,  were  afterwards  purchased 
by  the  Academy,  but  not  till  1832. 


238         Sir  John  Stirling  Maxwell,  Bart. 

owing  to  the  defection  mentioned  above,  had  at  this  time  only- 
fifteen  members.  It  was  thus  invited  to  more  than  double — 
in  fact,  as  it  turned  out,  to  even  treble — its  numbers,  for  the  offer 
was  to  take  all  or  none.  In  this  dilemma  the  Academy  sought 
advice  from  John  Hope,  Solicitor-General  for  Scotland,  who  was 
to  be  succeeded  by  Henry  Cockburn  in  that  office  two  years  later. 
The  decision  was  in  the  end  left  entirely  to  this  pair  of  level- 
headed lawyers.  They  decided  that  the  twenty-four  applicants 
should  all  be  admitted,  bringing  the  number  of  the  academicians 
for  the  moment  up  to  thirty-nine.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  num- 
ber was  actually  forty-three,  as  it  was  afterwards  found  advisable 
to  include  certain  applicants  for  the  rank  of  associates.  But  only 
one  election  was  to  be  made  for  every  three  vacancies  until  the 
number  was  reduced  to  thirty.  The  document,  dated  1829,  in 
which  their  decision  was  given,  is  a  masterpiece  of  commonsense. 
It  contains  some  very  shrewd  advice  designed  to  make  the  new 
arrangement  work  smoothly. 

The  Academy,  now  firmly  established,  continued  its  exhibitions, 
while  those  at  the  Royal  Institution  were  dropped.  In  1834  the 
lease  of  the  Academy's  rooms  expired.  The  lapse  of  five  years 
had  so  far  healed  the  old  disputes  that  application  was  made  to 
the  Royal  Institution  for  the  use  of  the  Galleries  on  the  Mound. 
Lord  Cockburn  was  again  the  adviser,  and  again  good  sense  pre- 
vailed. The  Academy  obtained  a  lease  of  the  Institution  rooms 
for  three  months  in  the  year  for  a  rent  of  one  hundred  guineas, 
an  arrangement  which  lasted  twenty  years.  In  1838  it  obtained 
the  coveted  Royal  Charter,  which  embodied  and  fixed  its  con- 
stitution and  laws.  A  year  earlier  William  Allan  had  succeeded 
George  Watson  as  second  President. 

In  1844  a  new  dispute  arose  which  called  forth  a  series  of 
articles  from  the  pen  of  Sheriff  Monro,  already  mentioned  as  one 
of  the  authorities  on  which  the  historian  of  the  Academy  has  to 
rely.  This  dispute  arose  over  a  picture  painted  by  the  son  of 
Sir  Thomas  Dick  Lauder,  Secretary  to  the  Board  of  Manufactures. 
This  body,  the  reader  will  recollect,  had  built  and  still  owned  the 
Galleries  which  the  Academy  now  rented  from  the  Royal  Institu- 
tion. The  picture,  originally  well  placed  by  the  Hanging  Com- 
mittee, had,  in  response  to  a  protest  from  sixteen  members  of  the 
Academy,  been  transferred  at  the  last  moment  to  a  worse  place, 
but,  unluckily,  not  before  Sir  Thomas  had  seen  it  in  its  first  and 
better  position.  He  complained  of  its  removal  in  a  letter  which 
fills  nearly  two  octavo  pages  of  very  small  type.  The  Academy, 


The  Royal   Scottish  Academy  239 

in  a  reply  equally  long-winded,  maintained  that  Sir  Thomas  had 
no  right  to  enter  the  rooms  before  the  exhibition  was  opened.  Sir 
Thomas,  his  grammar  failing  him  in  his  wrath,  retorted  that  he 
must  most  certainly  visit  the  rooms  since  the  Board  of  Trustees 
could  not  surrender  the  charge  of  the  building  to  a  c  series  of  indi- 
viduals changed  every  year,  and  of  whose  habits  and  even  names 
they  are  ignorant.'  Besides  the  Royal  Society  and  Society  of  Anti- 
quaries never  disputed  his  right  of  entrance,  though  they,  far  from 
being  a  '  series  of  individuals/  consisted  of c  persons  of  the  highest 
consideration.'  And  so  on.  It  was  a  quarrel  between  two  families 
trying  to  live  in  one  house.  The  old-fashioned  country  gentle- 
men and  judges,  who  composed  the  Board  of  Manufactures  and 
Royal  Institution,  with  their  minds  firmly  fixed  on  the  benefits  they 
had  bestowed  on  the  artists,  could  see  them  now  in  no  light  except 
that  of  ungrateful  rebels.  The  artists,  on  the  other  hand,  dimly 
groping  for  freedom,  kept  their  minds  as  firmly  fixed  on  the 
income  derived  by  the  Royal  Institution  from  the  exhibition  of 
their  works,  and  regarded  their  eminent  patrons  as  Israel  regarded 
Pharaoh.  But  the  Board  had  the  whip  hand  and  devised  a  plan 
for  the  punishment  of  its  rebellious  tenants.  The  rooms  were 
offered  to  the  Town  Council  for  the  Torrie  Collection.  The 
exhibition  was  to  be  permanent,  which  meant  that  the  Academy 
must  go. 

It  is  a  singular  fact,  characteristic  perhaps  of  Scotland,  that  the 
Academy,  at  critical  moments  in  its  history,  has  always  had  to 
depend  more  on  its  financial  and  legal  rights  than  on  public 
interest  or  sympathy.  The  Academy  had  no  weapon  which  could 
reach  the  Board  of  Trustees,  but  it  could  and  did  attack  the  same 
men  under  another  name  in  the  Royal  Institution.  The  duel 
thus  became  triangular.  The  Institution  was  threatened  with  an 
action  for  having  purchased  pictures  and  books  with  money 
derived  from  the  Academy  exhibitions, — money  which  ought, 
under  the  agreement,  to  have  been  devoted  to  the  benefit  of 
artists  and  their  families.  At  this  juncture  Lord  Cockburn,  who 
was  the  one  man  of  his  day  to  grasp  the  true  mission  and  possi- 
bilities of  the  Academy,  once  more  came  to  the  rescue.  A 
Government  enquiry  was  ordered  to  be  made  into  the  affairs  of 
the  Royal  Society,  Academy,  and  Board  of  Trustees.  The 
enquiry  was  conducted  by  Mr.  John  Shaw  Lefevre,  who  made  his 
report  to  the  Treasury  in  1847. 

The  arrangements  he  proposed  were  wise  and  generous,  and 
marked  by  a  commonsense  which,  up  to  now,  no  one  except 


240         Sir  John  Stirling  Maxwell,   Bart. 

Lord  Cockburn  and  Mr.  Hope  had  imported  into  this  business. 
His  suggestions  were  carried  out  after  a  few  years'  delay.  A 
new  building  was  constructed  on  the  Mound  behind  that  already 
in  existence,  and  from  the  designs  of  the  same  architect.  The 
Town  Council  gave  the  site  for  £1000  (its  value  being  estimated 
at  £30,000  or  more)  on  the  understanding  that  the  Academy 
should  have  proper  quarters  in  the  new  building.  Parliament 
voted  £30,000,  and  the  Board  of  Trustees  contributed  £23,000 
to  the  cost  of  its  construction.  This  building,  one  of  the  most 
perfect  of  its  kind  in  Europe,1  contained  two  parallel  sets  of 
rooms,  five  in  each  set.  The  western  rooms  were  devoted  to  a 
permanent  exhibition  designed  to  form  a  National  Gallery, 
consisting  of  (i)  the  Collection  belonging  to  the  Academy,  in- 
cluding the  large  canvases  by  Etty  and  other  purchases  and 
bequests,  (2)  the  disputed  pictures  belonging  to  the  Royal  Institu- 
tion, and  (3)  the  Torrie  Collection.  All  these,  with  many  additions, 
are  now  included  in  the  national  collection.  The  five  eastern 
rooms,  together  with  the  Council  room  and  the  Library  at  the  end 
of  the  building,  were  appropriated  for  the  exclusive  use  of  the 
Academy,  and  a  small  room  over  the  portico  was  later  assigned  to 
it  as  a  Life  School.  Most  of  these  arrangements  were  embodied 
in  the  Act  of  Parliament  in  1 8  50.  The  status  of  the  Academy 
was  unfortunately  not  defined  in  that  Act,  but  it  was  clearly  laid 
down  in  the  Treasury  Minutes  under  which  the  various  parts  of 
the  building  were  allocated.  The  foundation  stone  was  laid  by 
the  Prince  Consort  in  1850,  and  the  building  completed  five 
years  later.  Sir  William  Allan  had  died  in  1850,  and  Sir  John 
Watson  Gordon  had  succeeded  him  as  President. 

At  last  the  Academy  was  firmly  planted  on  its  own  legs.  Petty 
and  needless  as  its  early  difficulties  now  appear,  they  were  pro- 
bably inseparable  from  a  new  movement  of  this  kind  in  the 
Scotland  of  that  day.  The  chief  interest  for  the  reader  now  lies 
in  the  fact  that  the  most  formidable  obstacles  the  Academy  had 
to  overcome  were  nearly  all  placed  in  its  way  by  its  best  friends. 
It  would  be  scarcely  fair  to  describe  it  as  a  struggle  of  the  poor 
artist  to  emancipate  himself  from  the  rich  patron,  but  such  in  a 
sense  it  was.  No  one  concerned  seems  at  the  time  to  have 
guessed,  with  the  single  exception  of  Lord  Cockburn,  how  com- 
pletely the  vigour  and  success  of  the  Academy  were  bound  to 
depend  on  its  freedom. 

Now  follow  forty  years  little  marked  by  change.     The  visible 

1  See  Report  of  Museum  Commission  in  Europe.     Boston,  U.S.A.     1905. 


. 


The  Royal  Scottish  Academy  241 


success  of  an  Academy  depends  upon  genius,  and  the  visits  of 
genius  are  fitful.  No  Academy  can  hope  for  an  even  fame.  But 
these  forty  years  were  years  of  steady  growth,  hard  work  and 
considerable  achievement.  The  chair  of  President  was  occupied 
in  turn  by  Sir  George  Harvey,  1864-76;  Sir  Daniel  Macnee, 
1876-82  ;  Sir  William  Fettes  Douglas,  1882-91  ;  and  Sir  George 
Reid,  1891-1902.  Among  the  other  distinguished  painters  on  the 
roll  are  Thomson  of  Duddingston,  Thomas  Duncan,  Horatio 
IVrCulloch,  R.  Scott  Lauder,  David  Scott,  William  Dyce,  Sam 
Bough,  Alexander  Fraser,  J.  C.  Wintour,  Sir  J.  Noel  Paton, 
Erskine  Nicol,  G.  P.  Chalmers,  Robert  Herdman,  W.  M'Taggart : 
among  sculptors,  Patric  Park,  Sir  John  Steell,  W.  Brodie :  among 
architects,  Thomas  Hamilton,  William  Playfair,  and  David  Bryce. 

By  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  provision  made  in 
1850  had  already  become  too  small.  The  various  Institutions 
overhauled  at  that  time  were  still  linked  together  under  the  Board 
of  Trustees,  which  was  landlord  to  all  of  them  if  nothing  else. 
The  Royal  Institution  was  dead.  No  one  knows  when  or  how  it 
died,  but  it  was  no  longer  alive.  Thanks  to  the  quiet  and  timely 
generosity  of  the  late  John  Findlay,  Scotland  now  had  a  National 
Portrait  Gallery.  The  Museum  of  Antiquities,  now  transferred 
to  the  Nation,  was  housed  in  the  same  new  building.  The 
Treasury  and  the  Board  of  Trustees  had  taken  a  modest  part  in 
helping  to  secure  the  site  and  provide  the  endowment.  To  some 
extent  the  pressure  on  the  Mound  buildings  was  thus  relieved, 
but  they  were  still  quite  inadequate  for  the  purposes  they  had 
to  serve.  At  this  time  the  southern  building  still  contained 
the  National  Gallery  and  the  Academy,  both  pressed  for  space. 
The  older  or  northern  building,  which  still  bore  the  name  of  the 
defunct  Royal  Institution,  contained  the  Royal  Society,  the 
School  of  Art,  and  the  Applied  Art  School,  besides  a  musty 
Gallery  of  plaster  casts,  and  the  Office  of  the  Board  of 
Manufactures. 

This  Board  has  a  good  deal  to  answer  for.  The  blame  falls 
not  on  its  members,  but  on  its  constitution.  It  is  a  striking 
proof  that  just  as  the  best  of  constitutions  will  fail  without  good 
men,  so  the  best  of  men  cannot  make  up  for  a  really  rotten  con- 
stitution. The  Board  had  at  this  time  twenty-four  members,  all 
distinguished  and  able  men,  of  whom  it  may  safely  be  said  that 
any  three  of  them,  or  any  one  for  that  matter,  would  have 
admirably  transacted  its  business.  It  had  also  an  attentive  and 
conscientious  Secretary,  with  two  clerks  to  assist  him.  It  was,  in 


242         Sir  John  Stirling  Maxwell,  Bart. 

fact,  much  too  good,  and  quite  unsuited  to  its  purpose.  The 
result  was  perfectly  disastrous.  It  was  like  wrapping  up  a 
cream  cheese  in  a  fur  coat.  True,  one  or  two  members  took  a 
personal  interest  in  details  of  the  work.  The  pictures  in  the 
Galleries  were  consequently  well  hung  so  far  as  the  insufficient 
space  allowed,  and  the  few  purchases  were  wisely  made.  True, 
the  School  of  Applied  Art,  under  the  direct  supervision  of  Sir  R. 
Rowand  Anderson  became  a  practical  School  of  Architecture,  and 
the  main  instrument  in  any  advance  there  has  been  in  building 
design  in  Scotland.  But  the  responsibility  shared  by  so  many 
was  felt  by  none,  and  apart  from  the  points  just  mentioned  the 
administration  of  the  Board  can  only  be  described  as  thoroughly 
bad.  The  School  of  Art  was  moribund,  and,  though  supported 
out  of  National  funds,  had  long  ceased  to  be  national  in  any  other 
sense.  Promising  students  even  from  Edinburgh  preferred  to 
attend  the  newer  and  better  equipped  schools  in  Glasgow  and 
Aberdeen.  The  Academy  Life  School  was  hopelessly  cramped 
in  the  attic  over  the  porch.  The  Royal  Society  complained  that 
it  was  over-rented  and  underpaid.  The  Curators  of  the 
National  Gallery  and  Portrait  Gallery  were  allowed  no  liberty  in 
making  purchases:  indeed  purchases  for  the  National  Gallery 
were  considered  undesirable,  because  it  was  full.  The  funds  of 
the  Board  were  allowed  to  collect  in  order  to  meet  repairs  and 
contingencies.  The  Board  always  felt  poor.  It  never  discovered 
that  it  was  spending  its  money  on  objects  which,  in  Ireland  and 
England,  had  long  been  met  out  of  Parliamentary  grants.  The 
Board  never  thought  of  taking  up  the  cudgels  for  any  of  the 
institutions  under  its  charge,  or  obtaining  for  them  the  same 
grants  which  like  institutions  in  England  and  Ireland  were  receiv- 
ing. On  the  contrary,  it  made  it  its  business  to  protect  the 
Treasury  from  such  applications,  while  it  modestly  devoted  its 
small  income  to  defraying  expenses  which  would  otherwise  have 
fallen  on  the  Exchequer. 

These  shortcomings  were  noticed  by  few — so  much  is  the  work 
of  a  public  department  taken  for  granted — but  they  did  not  escape 
the  keen  eye  of  Mr.  W.  D.  M'Kay,  now  the  respected  secretary 
of  the  Academy,  and  he  took  steps,  as  in  duty  bound,  to  get 
things  put  straight.  In  1902  the  Board's  administration  was 
challenged  in  Parliament.  For  once  the  Scots  members  knew 
and  got  what  they  wanted.  A  committee  was  appointed,  with 
Mr.  Akers  Douglas,  now  Lord  Chilston,  as  chairman,  to  enquire 
into  the  whole  subject.  The  Committee's  report  was  published 


The  Royal  Scottish  Academy  243 

in  1903,  with  the  evidence,  in  case  the  curious  reader  cares  to 
consult  it.  It  reviewed  the  whole  situation.  Its  recommenda- 
tions, which  were  of  a  fairly  obvious  kind,  have  in  most  cases 
been  carried  out.  In  some  respects  they  have  been  improved  upon 
by  the  Scots  Office  and  Parliament. 

From  these  new  arrangements,  which  may  now  be  briefly 
described,  the  Academy  has  derived  great  advantage.  For  this  it 
has  largely  to  thank  its  President,  Sir  James  Guthrie.  This  is  no 
idle  compliment.  The  writer  happened  to  follow  the  negotiations 
sufficiently  closely  to  know  that  the  Academy  would  not  have 
fared  nearly  so  well  as  it  did,  but  for  the  patient  tenacity  and 
sound  judgment  of  the  President.  His  diplomacy  displays  the 
same  qualities  that  impart  force  to  his  portraits,  a  close  knowledge 
of  his  subject,  a  determination  to  stick  to  essentials,  and  a  natural 
dislike  to  over-statement.  That  kind  of  diplomacy  never  asks 
for  too  much,  but  gets  what  it  wants.  Moreover,  Sir  James 
carried  his  colleagues  completely  with  him,  so  there  was  no 
weakness  from  divided  counsels.  The  Academy  is  now  installed 
in  the  northern  or  older  building  on  the  Mound,  which  has  been 
altered  to  suit  its  purpose,  and  is  henceforth  to  be  maintained  at 
the  public  expense.  In  return  the  Academy  has  made  over  to  the 
nation  its  large  and  valuable  collection  of  pictures  and  any  claim 
it  may  have  had  on  those  formerly  belonging  to  the  Royal 
Institution.  These  are  now  merged  in  the  National  Gallery, 
which  occupies  the  whole  of  the  southern  or  newer  building  on 
the  Mound.  This  building  has  been  slightly  altered  in  order  to 
throw  the  two  sets  of  Galleries  into  one.  Inside,  the  building 
preserves  in  the  main  the  scale  and  plan  of  Playfair's  design. 
The  outside  has  scarcely  been  touched.  The  outside  of  the 
northern  building  also  remains  practically  unaltered,  but  inside  it 
has  had  to  undergo  more  drastic  transformation,  being  as  it  stood, 
with  its  small  rooms  at  different  levels,  quite  unfit  for  its  new 
purpose.  The  Academy  Life  School  and  the  Applied  Art  School 
have  been  transferred  to  the  new  Edinburgh  College  of  Art, 
where  the  members  of  the  Academy  still  act  as  visitors  in  the  Life 
School.  The  other  moribund  School  of  Art  on  the  Mound  has 
been  closed.  The  Royal  Society,  with  assistance  from  the  public 
purse,  has  moved  to  new  quarters.  The  Gallery  of  Casts  has  been 
dismantled,  and  those  of  its  contents  worth  keeping  have  gone  to 
the  College  of  Art.  Thus  the  whole  of  the  northern  building  on 
the  Mound  has  been  rendered  free  for  the  use  of  the  Academy. 

There  are  only  two  things  it  is  possible  to  regret  in  these 


244         Sir  John  Stirling  Maxwell,   Bart. 

changes :  one  is  the  displacement  of  the  Applied  Art  School  which 
possessed  an  individuality,  rare  and  much  to  be  prized,  which  it 
can  scarcely  hope  to  preserve  as  part  of  a  larger  institution  ; 
the  other  is  the  alteration  of  the  interior  of  Playfair's  first 
beautiful  building,  a  model  of  ingenuity,  fitness,  and  proportion, 
but  not  suitable  for  its  new  purpose.  The  transformation  has  been 
well  and  carefully  made  by  the  Office  of  Works,  and  it  would  be 
difficult  to  imagine  an  Academy  better  placed*  or  better  housed. 
The  cost  of  these  changes  was  met  partly  from  the  accumulated 
funds  of  the  old  Board  of  Trustees  and  partly  from  the  Treasury. 
A  new  Board  of  Trustees  with  seven  members  now  administers 
what  remains  of  the  old  Board's  funds  and  duties.  This  Board 
still  stands  somewhat  in  the  position  of  a  landlord  to  the  Academy. 
No  rent  is  paid,  but  the  building  is  vested  in  the  Board,  and  the 
Academy  has  not  an  unlimited  right  of  occupation.  This  arrange- 
ment, dear  to  the  official  mind  because  it  multiplies  correspondence 
and  divides  responsibility,  does  not  seem  very  wise  in  view  of 
past  events.  But  since  the  rights  of  the  Academy  are  clearly 
defined,  and  the  President  is  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Trustees, 
there  is  little  occasion  to  apprehend  trouble. 

What  use  is  the  Academy  going  to  make  of  its  new  oppor- 
tunities ?  What  are  the  true  uses  of  an  Academy  ?  What  its 
true  place  in  a  country  like  Scotland  ?  It  will  help  us  to  answer 
these  questions  if  we  remember  that  the  Academy  is  a  two-sided 
thing,  with  public  duties  and  domestic  duties,  which  may,  and 
often  do,  come  into  conflict.  Let  us  consider  the  domestic  side 
first.  Seen  from  this  point  of  view  the  Academy  is  the  home  and 
centre  of  painters,  sculptors  and  architects.  It  has  to  watch  over 
their  interests,  to  take  the  lead  in  their  affairs,  to  keep  their  work 
up  to  the  mark.  It  has  also,  by  its  exhibitions,  to  put  the  public 
in  touch  with  the  best  work  of  the  day,  and  to  bring  new  men 
and  new  ideas  to  the  front  when  they  deserve  it.  This  the  reader 
may  think  is  to  take  a  very  wide  view  of  the  Academy's  domestic 
circle,  but  it  is  the  only  logical  view.  The  Academy  holds  a 
trust  for  every  artist  whose  work  deserves  encouragement.  Its 
obligations  are  by  no  means  limited  to  its  own  members.  Of 
course  the  academicians  may,  and  happily  do,  have  their  own 
corporate  existence  and  a  pension  fund  consecrated  to  their  own 
use.  They  have  their  library  and  offices  and  place  of  meeting. 
But  apart  from  such  ordinary  adjuncts  of  their  public  duty,  it 
cannot  be  too  clearly  pointed  out  that  the  Academy  as  an  insti- 
tution no  more  exists,  or  claims  to  exist,  for  the  benefit  of  the 


The  Royal  Scottish  Academy  245 

academicians,  than  the  British  Museum  exists  for  the  benefit  of 
the  Trustees.     It  belongs  to  the  whole  brotherhood  of  artists. 

But  the  Academy  has  another  duty,  and  a  higher.  It  has  not 
only  to  take  care  of  the  artists.  It  has  to  take  care  of  the  arts. 
How  is  that  to  be  done  ?  Well  for  one  thing  the  Academy  must 
constantly  take  our  bearings  for  us.  It  must  see  how  we  stand 
compared  with  other  countries,  and  when  we  lag  behind  find 
means  to  show  us  what  other  countries  are  doing.  Then  it  must 
in  a  measure  hold  the  balance  between  the  movements  of  the  day, 
since  art  most  often  advances  by  a  series  of  revolts,  and  must 
decide  which  are  to  be  encouraged.  Others  may  forget,  but  it 
must  always  remember  how  the  present  trembles  between  the  past 
and  the  future.  It  must  discard  what  is  antiquated.  It  must 
prize  what  is  scholarly.  It  must  remember  how  the  labour  and 
thought  of  generations  may  go  to  the  making  of  one  fine  design. 
Yet  it  must  discourage  lazy  repetitions,  whether  of  a  man's  own 
work  or  of  other  people's.  Its  eyes  must  be  open  to  new  ideas 
and  new  materials.  And  common-sense  must  not  be  left  out  of 
account.  Too  many  people  think  that  common-sense  ends  where 
art  begins.  They  forget  that  every  great  work  of  art,  whether 
it  be  a  Greek  coin  or  a  thirteenth  century  cathedral  or  a  portrait 
like  the  *  Man  with  Gloves,'  is  built  on  a  solid  foundation  of 
common-sense.  The  question  'why*  is  one  which  an  Academy 
cannot  ask  too  often.  It  is  as  pertinent  to  a  work  of  art 
as  to  an  Act  of  Parliament.  Fitness  can  and  must  always  be 
measured.  Noble  designs  should  be  devoted  to  noble  uses.  Diffi- 
cult though  it  is  to  discriminate  between  what  is  great  and  what  is 
merely  skilful,  the  attempt  must  be  made.  The  limitations  of 
materials  can  be  recognised  and  obeyed.  An  Academy  must  see 
to  this.  Water  colour  must  be  water  colour  ;  oil,  oil ;  marble, 
marble  ;  and  bronze,  bronze.  None  of  these  are  questions  of 
taste.  This  kind  of  control  by  an  Academy  means  business-like 
adherence  to  an  ideal  and  a  plan.  It  is  work  for  scholarly,  level- 
headed men.  There  is  nothing  mysterious  or  fanciful  about  it. 

It  is  doubtful  whether  the  influence  of  an  Academy  can  reach 
much  further  than  this,  but  there  are  other  things  for  which  it 
will  always  be  waiting.  Beauty  of  form  and  colour  and  imagina- 
tion will  appear  only  when  genius  breathes  on  the  work.  The 
Academy  must  keep  a  sharp  look-out  for  the  visits  of  genius.  It 
must  avoid  the  extravagance  of  the  modern  critic  who  finds  so 
little  to  admire  in  the  fine  craftsmanship  of  Alma  Tadema  and 
so  much  in  the  nasty  lispings  of  the  Post  Impressionist.  But 


246        Sir  John  Stirling  Maxwell,   Bart. 

it  must  be  sure  to  welcome  genius  whether  it  comes  visibly 
concentrated  in  some  gifted  individual  or  thinly  diffused,  as  is 
often  its  strange  way,  over  a  rebellious  group  or  a  movement. 
Academies  are  not  always  quick  at  descrying  genius.  If  any 
reader  doubts  this  let  him  call  to  mind  the  work  collected  at  the 
Tate  Gallery  last  summer — the  work  of  Stevens,  Whistler  and 
Legros,  three  men  of  striking  influence,  but  never  made  welcome 
at  Burlington  House.  It  may  be  doubted  at  first  sight  whether 
men  chosen  for  their  artistic  achievements  are  necessarily  fitted  for 
the  discharge  of  these  wide  duties  of  criticism.  The  writer  has 
no  such  misgivings,  believing  that  any  work  of  art  deserving  the 
name  is  a  guarantee  of  strong  character  and  discernment  in  its 
maker,  quite  apart  from  imagination  and  technical  skill. 

Now  it  is  pleasant  to  record  that  the  R.S.A.  shows  every  sign 
of  its  intention  to  work  up  to  the  ideals  sketched  above.  For  the 
discharge  of  duties  so  varied,  and,  in  some  ways,  so  contradictory, 
the  first  need  is  clearly  an  elastic  mind.  This  has  not  always  been 
a  strong  point  in  academies.  Usually  their  constitution  seems 
expressly  designed  to  preclude  that  quality,  especially  when  the 
members  are  of  two  grades  and  the  administration  centres  in  the 
elder.  Men  are  rarely  elected  associates  till  they  are  forty — it 
would  perhaps  be  rash  to  elect  them  younger — and  ten  years  more 
usually  elapse  before  they  become  full  academicians.  This  means 
government  by  the  old  and  crusted.  The  R.S.A.  under  Sir  James 
Guthrie  and  his  distinguished  predecessor,  Sir  George  Reid,  has 
faced  and  in  a  great  measure  overcome  this  defect  by  a  wise  modi- 
fication of  its  constitution.  Academicians  and  associates  who  are, 
from  ill  health  or  any  other  reason,  unable  to  fulfil  their  duties, 
can  now  place  themselves,  or  be  placed,  on  the  retired  list,  and 
their  seats  filled.1  The  number  of  associates  is  no  longer  limited 
to  twenty.  The  Council  which  conducts  the  ordinary  business  of 
the  Academy  still  consists  exclusively  of  academicians,  who  serve 
on  it  in  turn,  but  those  newly  elected  are  placed  at  the  top 
of  the  roaster,  and  the  new  blood  thus  passes  direct  into  the 
Council.  The  Committee  of  Arrangements,  commonly  called  the 
Hanging  Committee,  has  three  associates  among  its  seven  mem- 
bers. The  number  of  works  to  be  sent  in  for  exhibition  is  limited 
to  three  for  members  and  non-members  alike.  Associates  are 
equally  eligible  with  academicians  as  visitors  to  the  Life  School. 
The  younger  members  thus  take  a  fair  share  in  the  leading 
departments  of  work.  The  Royal  Academy  in  London  might  do 

1  Supplementary  Charter  of  1895. 


The  Royal  Scottish  Academy  247 

worse  than  follow  this  example.  The  arrangement  is  found  to  work 
well,  and  no  wonder.  Who  doubts  that  in  some  matters  age  must 
bow  to  youth,  as  in  others,  youth  to  age  ?  A  constitution  which 
forces  youth  and  age  into  antagonism  must  be  radically  wrong. 

Allusion  was  made  above  to  the  need  of  gauging  one  nation's 
work  by  that  of  its  neighbours.  This  need  is  particularly  felt  in  a 
small  country  like  Scotland,  which  can  scarcely  expect  to  excel  in  all 
the  arts  at  one  time,  and  which  has  small  means  of  attracting  the 
work  of  other  countries.  To  meet  this  need  the  President  has 
raised  a  sum  of  over  £10,000  among  the  friends  of  the  R.S.A., 
the  interest  of  which  is  handed  every  year  to  the  Hanging  Com- 
mittee to  be  spent  on  bringing  exhibits  from  foreign  countries. 
The  increased  space  in  the  new  building  afforded  a  good 
opportunity  for  this  new  departure.  It  was  not  lost.  Seizing  on 
sculpture  as  a  weak  point  in  Scots  art,  the  first  exhibition  held 
last  year  was  marked  by  an  admirable  selection  of  French  contem- 
porary sculpture.  This  year's  exhibition  again  contains  some 
sculpture  from  France  and  Belgium,  as  well  as  a  large  number  of 
paintings  and  architectural  drawings  from  those  countries,  a  few 
from  Germany,  Sweden  and  Italy,  and  some  good  work  from 
England.  Altogether,  the  work  of  thirty-seven  foreign  artists,  not 
counting  the  Englishmen,  is  represented.  These  exhibits  were 
not  taken  at  random,  but  carefully  chosen  by  a  travelling  com- 
mittee. 

It  may  be  urged  that  these  strangers  take  up  space  which  would 
otherwise  be  devoted  to  the  work  of  Scots  artists.  This  is  another 
way  of  saying  that  it  raises  the  standard  of  admission.  The  same 
charge  might  be  brought  against  the  method  of  spacing,  which  is 
such  as  to  show  each  picture  or  object  to  full  advantage.  This 
again  raises  the  standard.  But  the  standard  is  not  too  high.  It 
is  higher  than  that  of  the  Royal  Academy  in  London,  which, 
perhaps  wisely,  confines  its  exhibition  almost  entirely  to  the  work 
of  British  artists,  but  which,  most  unwisely,  crowds  every  inch  of 
its  walls,  and  so  causes  an  exhibition,  which  is  perhaps  really  the 
most  interesting  in  Europe,  to  appear  one  of  the  poorest.  The 
standard  is  higher,  so  far  as  painting  is  concerned,  than  that  of  the 
Paris  Salon,  and  well  it  may  be.  Should  it  tend  to  become  too 
high,  and  good  work  be  shut  out,  this  would,  in  the  judgment 
of  the  writer,  be  a  good  reason  for  extending  the  Galleries,  but 
not  for  overcrowding  them,  or  for  excluding  foreign  exhibits — 
assuming  always  that  these  are  carefully  selected  and  individually 
worth  having. 


248         Sir  John  Stirling   Maxwell,  Bart. 

The  R.S.A.  is  much  to  be  congratulated  on  these  two  first 
exhibitions  in  its  new  home.  The  foreign  work,  of  which  so  much 
has  been  said,  occupied  after  all  only  a  fraction  of  the  space. 
Contemporary  Scots  painting  filled  the  bulk  of  the  rooms.  It  was 
here  seen  at  its  best,  and  at  its  best  it  is  now  as  good  as  any  in  the 
world.  The  Exhibition  is  as  large  as  any  mind  can  comfortably 
comprehend,  and  yet  not  large  enough  to  weary  the  visitor.  In 
a  word,  the  scale  appears  ideal  for  the  purpose.  The  rubbish 
which  tires  and  confuses  the  visitor  to  Burlington  House  or  the 
Grand  Palais  being  happily  absent,  the  Academy  escapes  the  ugly 
responsibility  which  falls  on  these  exhibitions  of  encouraging  men 
and  women  to  devote  themselves  to  an  occupation  for  which  they 
are  not  fit. 

This  sketch  would  not  be  complete  without  some  allusion  to 
the  funds  administered  by  the  Academy.  The  Exhibition  fund 
has  already  been  described.  There  is  also  a  small  and  variable 
income  from  the  entrance  fees  of  new  members,  being  £1$  for 
associates  and  another  £10  when  they  become  academicians. 
There  is  a  Pension  fund  derived  from  the  proceeds  of  the  exhibi- 
tions under  an  obligation  laid  on  the  Academy  by  its  first  charter. 
Formerly  all  academicians  and  associates  had  a  claim  on  this 
fund  if  they  cared  to  make  it ;  now  non-resident  members,  that  is, 
those  who  have  lived  three  years  out  of  Scotland,  lose  their  claim, 
though  it  can  be  restored  if  they  return  within  ten  years  and 
there  is  a  vacancy.1  The  number  of  associates  being  now  no  longer 
limited  to  twenty,  they  are  not  all  eligible  for  pensions,  but  as 
vacancies  occur  they  are  added  to  the  pensionable  list  in  order  of 
election.  A  Committee  of  the  Academy  also  administers  the 
Alexander  Nasmyth  fund,  in  which  any  Scots  artist  is  eligible  to 
participate. 

The  relative  numbers  of  painters,  sculptors,  architects  and 
engravers,  who  form  the  Academy,  is  not  fixed  by  Charter.2 
Painters  always  have  predominated  and  probably  always  will  pre- 
dominate, because  their  work  best  lends  itself  to  the  Exhibition, 
which  forms  so  conspicuous  a  part  of  the  Academy's  business.  In 
the  writer's  judgment  a  more  equal  distribution  between  the  three 
principal  arts  would  be  of  advantage,  and  would  greatly  strengthen 
the  Academy's  position  as  a  controlling  factor  in  the  art  of  the 
country. 

1  Supplementary  Charter  of  1891. 

2  In  the  first  Charter  the  number  of  engravers  was  limited,  but  under  a  supple- 
mentary Charter  of  1895  even  this  was  left  open. 


. 


The  Royal  Scottish  Academy  249 


The  future,  so  far  as  painting  is  concerned,  seems  bright.  A 
Scots  school,  distinct  from  every  other,  is  scarcely  a  thing  to  aim 
at,  nor  does  such  a  thing  seem  possible  in  these  days  when  men 
and  pictures  travel  so  much  and  so  fast.  But  we  have  at  this 
moment  more  than  our  share  of  the  world's  distinguished  painters, 
and  truth  and  thoughts  likely  to  live  seem  to  underlie  the  charm 
and  skill  of  their  best  work,  while  our  country,  climate,  traditions 
and  national  turn  of  mind  give  it  a  flavour  and  coherence  of  its 
own.  There  is,  of  course,  the  inevitable  drain  to  London.  We 
have  seen  that  the  Academy  has  wisely  done  what  it  can  to  dis- 
courage it.  But  does  it  really  matter  so  very  much  ?  The  artist 
born  and  trained  in  Scotland  does  not  readily  lose  touch  with  his 
country,  nor  can  he  readily  throw  off  what  he  takes  with  him. 
Wherever  he  lives  he  usually  remains,  and  is  reckoned  a  Scots 
artist  to  the  end  of  his  days. 

The  trouble  is  rather  that  we  have  too  many  painters.  At 
present  sculpture  and  architecture  and  the  applied  arts  really  stand 
in  need  of  more  care  than  painting.  In  spite  of  a  few  notably 
good  living  architects,  and  a  tradition  of  good  and  solid  construc- 
tion which  we  owe  to  the  national  character  and  national  climate, 
the  general  level  of  architectural  design  in  Scotland  is  decidedly 
low,  and  the  standard  of  applied  art  is  even  lower.  Happily  our 
leading  architects  are  of  the  true  brand, — men  whose  influence 
extends,  like  that  of  every  great  man  in  that  profession,  far  beyond 
the  mere  shell  of  a  building,  and  includes  a  wide  region  of  design 
into  which  they  call  sculptor,  craftsman  and  painter  to  help  them. 
Happily  applied  art  already  employs  a  few  good  artists,  though 
not  nearly  enough.  Thus  everything  seems  ready  for  a  transfer  of 
artistic  energy  from  the  overstocked  profession  of  picture- making 
to  architecture  and  the  applied  arts,  and  it  would  appear  to  be  the 
duty  of  the  Academy  to  employ  its  great  influence  in  the  encourage- 
ment of  that  transfer. 

JOHN  STIRLING  MAXWELL. 


The  Influence  of  the  Convention  of  the  Royal 
Burghs  of  Scotland  on  the  Economic 
Development  of  Scotland  before  1707 

THE  seventeenth  century  is  a  time  of  great  change  and 
development  in  the  economic  history  of  Scotland.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  century  her  trade  and  industry  were  practically 
the  same  in  organization  and  in  scope  as  they  had  been  for  the 
two  preceding  centuries — the  break  with  the  middle  ages  was 
only  beginning.  At  the  end  new  industries  were  being  promoted 
and  old  ones  developed  by  individuals  and  by  companies;  the 
great  Darien  failure  was  the  collapse  of  a  modern  scheme,  and  the 
Scottish  merchants  had  begun  that  trade  with  America  which  was 
to  lead  their  successors  to  fortune.  Scotland,  by  the  time  of  the 
union,  had  entered  on  the  paths  which  were  to  lead  her  by 
modern  methods  to  commercial  and  industrial  success,  although 
her  progress  was  for  some  time  still  to  be  slow  and  halting. 

This  great  change  was  the  result  of  the  work  of  several  factors. 
These  were  the  enterprise  of  the  people  and  their  growing  interest 
in  economic  affairs,  the  increase  of  capital,  the  influence  of  new 
ideas  from  England  and  other  countries,  and  the  regulations  and 
encouragement  of  four  agents,  the  crown,  the  privy  council,  the 
parliament  and  the  convention  of  the  burghs.  It  is  of  the  influ- 
ence on  the  economic  development  of  Scotland  of  the  last  of  these 
factors — the  convention  of  the  burghs — that  this  article  treats. 

The  burghs  of  Scotland  have  been  more  alike  in  their  organiza- 
tion and  development  than  those  of  England.  Almost  all  the 
more  important  held  directly  of  the  crown ;  parliament  legislated 
for  them  as  a  whole ;  and  they  had  their  own  burghal  parliament — 
the  convention — to  regulate  their  affairs  and  guard  their  interests. 
This  assembly  apparently  developed  in  the  sixteenth  century  from 
the  Court  of  the  Four  Burghs,  a  judicial  court  presided  over 
by  the  chamberlain.  Towards  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  its 
functions  were  enlarged,  for,  in  1487,  parliament  enacted  that 


Economic  Development  of  Scotland     251 

commissioners  of  all  the  burghs  should  meet  yearly  at  Inver- 
keithing  to  treat  of  the  '  welefare  of  merchandis  the  gude  Rewle 
and  statutis  for  the  commoun  proffit  of  borrowis  and  to  provide 
for  Remede  apoun  the  scaith  and  Inuirs  sustenit  within  burrowis.' 1 
Trade  was  developing  and  industry  increasing.  The  inhabitants 
of  the  royal  burghs  were  the  people  who  were  chiefly  concerned  in 
these  matters,  and  their  shadowy  legal  court  of  the  fourteenth  and 
fifteenth  centuries  became,  in  the  sixteenth,  the  substantial  and 
prosperous  convention  with  solid  commercial  and  industrial  in- 
terests. Statutes  in  1578  and  1581  ratified  and  enlarged  the  act 
of  1487,  and  by  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  constitution  of 
the  convention  was  established  as  it  was  to  remain,  with  few  and 
unimportant  changes,  for  the  next  two  centuries  and  more. 

There  was  as  a  rule  one  general  convention  in  the  year  to 
which  all  royal  burghs  were  bidden  to  send  commissioners.  But 
there  were  also  particular  conventions,  often  two  or  three  in  the 
year.  In  1626,  Edinburgh  was  authorized,  if  matters  of  import- 
ance occurred,  to  summon  the  next  adjacent  burghs  and  others 
most  concerned,  not  fewer  than  ten  or  more  than  twelve  *  that 
course  may  be  taiken  with  a  mutuall  and  vniforme  consent  of  the 
best  expedient  in  all  thinges.'2  Matters  were  often  referred  to 
these  meetings  by  the  larger  body  and  questions  which  required  to 
be  put  before  the  privy  council  or  parliament,  or  on  which  the 
council  asked  for  advice,  were  entrusted  to  their  charge. 

The  conventions  were  held  in  different  towns,  and  the  provost 
of  the  burgh  chosen  presided  at  their  meetings.  The  chamberlain 
ceased  to  attend  early  in  the  sixteenth  century,  so  the  convention 
was  a  democratic  assembly  in  so  far  as  no  king's  officer  or  noble 
was  present,  nor  did  the  burghs  as  a  rule  meet  with  any  interfer- 
ence in  the  management  of  their  affairs.  But  while  the  convention 
was  democratic  in  that  it  was  a  parliament  of  the  commons,  its 
members  were  the  aristocracy  of  their  order.  In  1574  it  was 
ordained  that  no  commission  should  be  given  except  to  'mer- 
chantis  and  trafficquaris,  haifand  thair  remanyng  and  dwelling 
within  burgh,  and  beris  bourdene  with  the  nychtbouris  and  inhabi- 
tantis  thairof,'3  and  this  qualification  was  insisted  upon  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  craftsmen. 

The  limitations  of  the  convention  are  obvious  to  the  modern 
eye.  It  was  an  assembly  of  the  representatives  of  the  royal  burghs 

1  Acts  of  the  Parliament  of  Scotland,  ii.  1 79. 

2  Records  of  the  Convention  of  the  Royal  Burghs  of  Scotland,  iii.  219. 

3  Convention  Records,  i.  25. 


252  Theodora  Keith 

as  distinct  from  the  burghs  of  regality  and  barony ;  and  it  was 
concerned  not  only  in  the  development  of  the  interests  of  its 
members,  but  also  in  the  maintenance  of  their  privileges,  of  which 
the  monopoly  of  foreign  trade  was  the  most  important,  against 
encroachments  of  unfree  burghs  and  unfree  persons.  Then,  too, 
as  its  members  were  merchants,  their  interests  were  more  regarded 
than  those  of  the  craftsmen.  The  convention  made  regulations 
and  enforced  restrictions  in  economic  matters  which  are  now  left 
to  the  control  of  the  individual  producer.  In  the  Dutch  trade 
it  forced  the  merchants  to  trade  with  the  staple  goods  only  at  the 
staple  port,  and  made  many  regulations  for  their  conduct  there. 

But  from  the  standpoint  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  convention 
occupies  a  different  position.  It  represented  only  the  royal  burghs, 
it  is  true,  but  they  were  the  most  important  and  thriving  sections 
of  the  community.  A  body  composed  of  their  members  was  a 
national  authority,  and  its  regulation  of  trade  and  supervision  of 
industry  made  for  uniformity  and  the  predominance  of  national 
over  local  interests.  Also  all  merchants  of  royal  burghs  were 
allowed  to  trade,  and  the  only  restriction  as  to  places  was  in  the 
Dutch  trade;  in  other  trades  any  merchant  could  go  where  he 
wished.  Therefore  the  restrictions  on  the  merchants  in  Scotland 
were  fewer  than  those  imposed  by  the  great  trading  companies  in 
England.  As  Archdeacon  Cunningham  says:  'The  combined 
trading  in  regulated  companies,  which  was  such  a  characteristic 
feature  of  English  commerce,  had  never  become  an  established 
Scots  practice;  Scotland  moved  from  medieval  to  modern  trade 
organization  without  passing  through  this  transitional  form.'1 

The  convention  was  not  only  concerned  with  economic  affairs. 
It  regulated  the  relation  of  the  burghs  to  each  other,  had  much 
to  do  with  their  internal  affairs,  their  municipal  constitutions 
and  the  maintenance  of  their  public  works,  and  was  also  interested 
in  some  miscellaneous  business,  such  as  the  choice  of  a  Latin 
grammar  to  be  used  in  schools,  and  the  reform  of  women's  '  heid 
attyre.' 

Its  attitude  towards  economic  affairs  and  its  relative  importance 
as  compared  with  the  council  and  parliament,  change  in  the  three 
periods  into  which  this  epoch  naturally  falls — the  reigns  of  the 
earlier  Stewarts,  the  interregnum,  and  the  years  between  the 
restoration  and  the  union.  It  is  in  the  first  of  these  three  that 
its  influence  was  greatest,  for  it  was  then  most  in  touch  with  the 

1  Archdeacon  Cunningham's  preface  to  Commercial  Relations  of  England  and  Scor 
land,  1603-1707,  T.  Keith,  p.  xi. 


Economic  Development  of  Scotland      253 

economic  life  of  the  people.  James  VI.  and  Charles  I.  took  great 
interest  in  and  did  much  to  promote  the  economic  interests  of 
their  ancient  kingdom.  They  acted  through  the  privy  council, 
and  parliament,  where  the  burghs  were  represented,  had  little 
influence  during  this  period.  Therefore  the  convention,  as  repre- 
senting the  commercial  and  industrial  part  of  the  community,  was 
important,  and  it  was  consulted  on  every  economic  question  which 
came  before  the  council ;  while  it  exerted  its  powers  independently 
to  secure  uniformity,  maintain  quality,  regulate  trade  and  negotiate 
for  commercial  privileges,  and  to  some  extent  to  develop  industry. 
It  seems  impossible  to  draw  a  line  between  the  powers  of  the 
convention,  the  council,  and  the  parliament  in  regulating  and 
developing  trade  and  industry  beyond  the  very  general  one  that 
the  burghs  did  not  as  a  rule  pass  acts  restricting  or  allowing 
export  or  import  of  commodities  from  abroad.  The  conven- 
tion was  seldom  interfered  with,  but  in  1598  it  was  forced  to 
rescind  an  act  which  it  had  passed  declaring  that  all  burghs  were  to 
punish  their  citizens  who,  in  defiance  of  acts  of  parliament  and  of 
the  burghs,  c  for  thair  particular  gain,  without  respect  of  the  lawis 
of  the  realm,  dewtie  to  thair  native  cuntrey,  and  of  thair  awin  con- 
sciences/1 purchased  licenses  for  transporting  wool.  But  the 
Lords  Auditors  of  the  Exchequer  had  licensed  the  export  of  wool, 
and  so  on  complaint  to  the  council  this  '  pretendit '  act  of  the 
burghs  was  not  allowed.2  In  the  matter  of  the  appointment  of  the 
Conservator  in  Holland  both  burghs  and  king  claimed  the  nomina- 
tion, so  there  were  frequent  disagreements  between  them,  generally 
ending  in  a  compromise.8 

In  industry  the  convention  had  considerable  powers  in  making 
regulations  about  weights  and  measures.  These  powers  dated 
from  an  early  period,  for  James  II.  in  1454  gave  the  Court  of  the 
Four  Burghs  authority  to  give  weights  and  measures  to  the  lieges.4 
The  convention  also  prescribed  the  size  and  shape  of  barrels  for 
fish,  the  method  of  salting  and  packing  fish,  and  the  length  and 
quality  of  cloth.  The  burghs  were  anxious  to  encourage  manu- 
factures, if  the  profit  was  reaped  by  their  own  members,  but  the 
variety  of  their  interests  and  the  difficulty  of  raising  capital  made  it 
difficult  for  them  to  take  any  initiative;  and  their  anxiety  that  all  their 
members  should  obviously  profit  and  profit  alike  made  them  oppose 

1  Convention  Records,  ii.  26-27. 

*  Register  of  the  Scottish  Privy  Council,  First  Series,  v.  477. 

8  See  Scottish  Staple  at  Veere,  Davidson  and  Gray,  pp.  167-210. 

4  Convention  Records,  i.  542-3. 


254 


Theodora  Keith 


individual  efforts  which  generally  took  the  form  of  a  monopoly. 
The  convention  was  more  able  to  enforce  its  regulations  than  the 
parliament  or  the  council,  for  it  had  its  agent  and  its  own  machinery 
for  reaching  and  fining  delinquent  magistrates  who  did  not  put  the 
laws  into  execution  as  they  were  required,  and  at  every  convention 
the  commissioners  of  the  burghs  could  be  reminded  of  their  magis- 
trates' duties.  The  dealings  of  the  commissioners  on  the  subject  of 
the  export  of  'burnecouT  give  an  example  of  their  methods.  As 
this  was  transported  against  acts  of  parliament  to  the  great  hurt  of 
the  lieges,  the  coal  '  decayand  and  growand  skant  daylie '  and  the 
*  cuntrey  apperand  to  be  destitute  of  fewall  in  schort  spaice,'  pro- 
vosts and  baillies  were  ordered  in  1594  to  put  acts  of  parliament 
against  this  export  into  execution  within  their  bounds  under  pain  of 
an  unlaw  of  £20,  and  each  commissioner  was  instructed  to  report 
the  diligence  of  his  burgh  at  the  next  convention.1  The  next  year 
the  act  was  ratified  and  ordained  to  be  put  to  further  execution, 
and  every  burgh  was  to  report  their  diligence  under  pain  of  ^ioo.2 
This  Dysart  and  Culross  failed  to  do,  so  in  1596  they  were  fined 
£100,  to  be  paid  to  the  agent  of  the  burghs,3  and  again  in  1599 
Dysart  was  reprimanded,4  and  in  1 600  was  required  to  raise  letters 
against  their  neighbours  who  transported  coal.5 

As  has  been  said,  one  very  useful  function  of  the  convention 
was  its  attempt  to  secure  uniformity.  In  one  of  the  earliest  con- 
ventions of  which  we  have  a  full  record,  the  commissioners  decreed 
that  all  burghs  must  receive  and  use  the  stone  weight  of  Lanark, 
the  pint  stoup  of  Stirling,  the  firlot  of  Linlithgow,  and  the  ell  of 
Edinburgh.6  In  1592  those  who  had  not  satisfied  the  act  were 
ordered  to  produce  an  attestation  from  the  clerk  of  Linlithgow 
that  they  had  received  their  just  measures;7  and  in  1599  each 
burgh  was  ordered  to  c  controll  ane  other  heirvpoun.'  Linlithgow 
was  told  to  make  a  reasonable  price  in  1612,  as  there  had  been 
many  complaints  of  the  exorbitant  prices  they  asked,8  and  in  1618 
the  prices  of  all  the  measures  were  fixed  by  the  convention.9  At 
almost  every  convention  in  the  late  sixteenth  and  early  seventeenth 
centuries  this  matter  received  attention,  and  parliament  several 
times  re-enacted  earlier  legislation  on  the  same  subject.  In  the 
interests  of  national  uniformity  also  it  was  decreed  in  1552  that 
because  of  the  '  grete  mvrmour  risin  vpoun  the  hale  borrowis  of 
this  realme  in  rasing  of  nouationis  and  exactionis  of  thair  pitte- 

1  Convention  Records,  i.  445-6.         2  Ibid.  i.  464.  *  Ibid.  i.  477-8. 

4Uid.  ii.  45.  &Ibid.  u.  77.  QIbid.  i.  2  (1552). 

7  Ibid.  \.  437-8.  *Ibid.  ii.  353.  *  Ibid.  iii.  71. 


I 


, 


Economic  Development  of  Scotland     255 


customes  of  the  burch,  and  for  stanching  thairof,'  every  burgh 
should  use  the  table  of  the  petty  customs  of  Edinburgh.1 

The  burghs  also  endeavoured  to  secure  that  the  barrels  for 
salmon,  herring,  and  white  fish  should  be  the  same  size  throughout 
the  country,  the  salmon  barrel  to  contain  twelve  gallons  and  the 
others  ten,  and  these  regulations  were  many  times  re-enacted. 
All  these  provisions  were  made  in  order  to  enable  trade  at  home 
and  abroad  to  be  carried  on  more  easily,  and  with  the  same  object 
many  regulations  were  made  for  the  maintenance  of  the  quality  of 
goods,  to  avoid  the  '  evill  brute  and  sclander  rasitt  on  the  haill 
merchantis  of  this  realme  in  France,  Flanderis,  and  vtheris  partis 
bezond  the  see,'  as  was  said  in  regulations  about  the  export  of 
skins.2  As  fish  was  a  very  important  export,  much  attention  was 
paid  to  its  curing  and  packing.  In  1580,  for  eschewing  the  '  greit 
inconveniencis  and  intolerabill  skaith  '  that  *  has  happynit  to  the 
merchandis  and  traffecquaris  of  this  realme,  of  the  new  inventit 
craft  and  falset  committit  and  done  dailie  be  the  cowparis,  pak- 
karis  of  salmound,  throuche  pakking  of  roustie  and  insufficient 
salmound  fische,  quhairthrowch  thair  is  greit  hurt  and  dampnage 
nocht  onlie  sustenit  be  the  byeris  thairof  but  alsua  be  the  selleris 
of  the  samyn,  and  no  less  sclander  sustenit  be  the  haill  natioun 
throuch  defalt  of  the  said  salmon  pakkeris,'  3  regulations  were 
made  that  all  packers  should  be  sworn  to  use  their  office  '  lelelie 
and  trewlie,'  and  to  set  caution  and  surety  in  the  town's  books  to 
pack  only  good  and  sufficient  fish,  to  burn  and  mark  each  barrel 
after  packing  with  their  own  mark,  and  then  to  have  it  burnt  with 
the  town's  mark.  If  they  failed  they  were  to  pay  £10  for  the 
damage  which  the  merchant  sustained  and  £10  penalty  to  the 
town,  and  to  be  for  ever  discharged  from  packing.  In  1609 
gaugers  were  appointed  in  all  burghs  to  see  that  the  regulations 
were  carried  out  and  that  all  barrels  were  of  the  measure  of 
Edinburgh.4  This  apparently  was  not  satisfactory,  for  in  1616  it 
was  ordained  that  Edinburgh  should  make  another  form  of  barrel 
and  send  it  to  all  the  burghs.5  The  privy  council  was  asked  to 
*  interpone  thair  authoritie  thairto,'  and  they  therefore  passed  an 
act  confirming  that  of  the  convention.6  The  care  of  the  fishing 
industry  occupied  much  of  the  time  of  the  convention,  and  it 
would  be  wearisome  to  trace  the  exact  regulations  for  size  of 
barrels,  manner  of  packing  herring,  provision  of  salt,  etc.,  which 


.  2,  II-I2. 

i.  i  oo-  1.  4  Ibid.  ii.  284-5.  b  Ibld- 

*  Privy  Council  Register,  First  Series,  x.  578-9. 


256  Theodora  Keith 

were  laid  down  for  the  coopers,  packers,  and  slayers  of  salmon, 
herring,  and  white  fish,  all  to  remedy  abuses  committed  to  the 
*  gritt  detriment  of  the  merchand  tredders  thairin  and  infamie  of 
the  natioun  abroard  in  forraine  parts.* 

Cloth  was  another  important  export,  and  in  1622  the  council, 
becoming  anxious  about  its  quality,  appealed  to  the  burghs  for 
advice.1  The  commissioners  considered  that  the  Galloway  '  cair- 
sayis '  had  always  been  insufficient  and  unloyal  merchandise,  and 
they  could  not  devise  any  means  for  reforming  the  trade.  But 
plaiding  should  be  sealed  before  being  presented  at  market,  and 
visitors  and  sealers  should  be  appointed  by  the  burghs  nearest  to 
the  markets  to  examine  the  goods.2  But  in  1628  further  com- 
plaints were  made  of  the  c  grit  falsett  that  hes  croppin  in  of  late 
among  the  workers  of  the  said  plaiding/  and  also  of  the  length  of 
the  reel  of  yarn.3  The  remedy  was  said  to  be  that  the  plaiding 
should  be  sold  in  folds,  not  in  rolls,  as  then  it  could  be  properly 
examined,  and  the  burghs  presented  a  petition  to  parliament  in 
1634  about  selling  the  plaiding  in  hard  rolls.4  This  was  referred 
to  the  council,  there  was  much  discussion,  the  council  being  afraid 
of  the  damage  from  the  weather  if  it  was  presented  in  folds,  but 
an  ordinance  enforcing  the  burghs'  wishes  was  finally  made  in 
1635.5 

The  convention  did  more  for  the  regulation  of  old  manufactures 
than  for  the  promotion  of  new.  The  king  and  council  were  much 
interested  in  and  anxious  for  the  development  of  industry,  and 
frequently  tried  to  stir  up  the  burghs  to  a  like  enthusiasm.  At  the 
end  of  the  sixteenth  century  great  efforts  were  made  to  improve 
the  cloth  manufacture,  which,  owing  to  the  '  unskilfulness  of  our 
awin  people '  and  their  c  unwillingness  to  suffer  ony  strangeris  to 
cum  amangis  thame/  was  not  sufficiently  followed  in  the  country. 
The  burghs  promised  to  bring  in  twenty  of  the  hundred  families 
for  whom  liberty  of  settlement  was  given  by  the  council,6  and 
sent  to  Norwich,  the  Low  Countries,  and  France  to  search  for 
workers.7  Those  whom  they  brought  in  1601  were,  however, 
4  separatit  and  hardle  enterteynzit/  the  matter  was  not  so  'cairfulle 
and  dewtiefulle  haldin  hand  to  as  we  hoipit  for/  and  the  burghs 
were  requested  to  '  se  this  mater  of  the  claith  put  to  ane  point.'8 

1  Privy  Council  Register,  First  Series,  xii.  639-40. 

2  Convention  Records,  iii.  136-7.  3  Ibid.  iii.  272. 

4  Acts,  Scotland,  v.  49.  5  Privy  Council  Register,  Second  Series,  v.  526-7. 

8  Ibid.  First  Series,  vi.  123-4.  7  Convention  Records,  ii.  107-9. 

*lbid.  ii.  123. 


1 


Economic  Development  of  Scotland     257 


This  they  did  not  apparently  succeed  in  doing,  for  in  1605  a 
convention  of  estates  declared  that  the  '  airt  of  clotherie '  should 
be  introduced,  and  made  the  first  offer  to  the  burghs,1  who 
answered  that  they  had  already  sustained  great  losses  in  this  enter- 
prise *  throw  thair  awin  inhabillitte  and  iniquitte  of  straingeris,' 
that  there  were  more  workers  in  the  country  than  in  the  burghs, 
and  that  they  could  not  accept  the  burden  on  themselves.2  And 
in  1616,  when  they  were  again  urged  to  undertake  the  cloth 
manufacture,3  their  answer  was  that  c  to  undertak  ony  burdyne  in 
that  mater  . . .  the  Conventioun  planelie  and  flatlie  refuisit.' 4  The 
burghs  in  1632  resolved  to  *  erect  companies  for  the  better 
manadgement  of  trade  and  for  advanceing  of  the  native  com- 
modities/ 5  but  there  is  no  record  of  their  having  done  so,  and 
they  do  not  seem  to  have  had  anything  to  do  with  the  three 
factories  started,  after  the  passing  of  the  acts  of  1641  and  1645, 
at  Bonnington,  Ayr,  and  Newmills  for  producing  cloth.6 

The  burghs  were  not  more  enthusiastic  in  their  attitude 
towards  royal  endeavours  to  promote  fishing.  The  Dutch  had 
long  drawn  prosperity  from  Scottish  waters,  and  Charles,  anxious 
to  drive  them  out  and  rival  them,  made  plans  for  forming  a 
company  to  fish  in  the  waters  round  Britain.  But  before  this 
scheme  was  brought  forward,  the  burghs  had  had  to  defend  their 
privileges  in  the  isles,  which  were  threatened  by  the  proposed 
erection  of  Stornoway  into  a  free  burgh  to  be  planted  by  the  Earl 
of  Seaforth  with  Hollanders  who  were  to  prosecute  the  fishing 
there.  It  was  said  the  Dutch  were  afraid  of  the  results  of 
the  continual  complaints  made  against  them,  by  the  burghs  and 
others,  of  their  presuming  on  the  rights  which  had  been  granted 
to  them,  and  that  they  had  therefore  made  an  arrangement  with 
the  Earl  that  they  might  settle  there  under  his  protection.7  The 
king  ordered  the  burghs  to  be  consulted,8  but  several  Dutch 
families  settled  in  Stornoway  before  the  patent  to  Seaforth  was 
passed.  The  burghs  complained  that  the  Hollanders  were  en- 
grossing all  the  fishing  and,  c  least  it  micht  appeare  that  they 
insist  vpone  the  redres  of  thir  euilles  mor  vpone  ane  naikit  fear 
although  grundit  vpone  iust  reassounes  rather  then  vpone  ane 

1  Privy  Council  Register,  First  Series,  vii.  56.        2  Convention  Records,  ii.  202-3. 

8  Privy  Council  Register,  First  Series,  x.  506-7. 

*Ibid.  x.  572.  5  Convention  Records,  iv.  539. 

6  W.  R.  Scott,  Joint  Stock  Companies  to  1720,  iii.  125. 

7  5.P.  Dom.  :  Charles  /.,  clii.  63. 

*  Privy  Council  Register,  Second  Series,  ii.  336-7. 


258  Theodora  Keith 

desyre  of  resolution  to  improve  that  so  rich  a  commoditie,'1  they 
decided  to  discuss  settling  a  town  themselves  in  the  islands  and 
asking  the  king  to  devolve  the  fishing  into  their  hands,  and 
therefore  offered  to  plant  and  people  Stornoway.2 

The  king  in  the  end  cancelled  Seaforth's  patent.  The  burghs 
then  continued  to  discuss  their  own  proposal  to  take  up  the  fish- 
ing, and  ordained  the  commissioners  to  see  how  many  of  *  thair 
nichtbouris  will  adventure  vpone  the  said  plantatioun  and 
fisching,  and  quhat  soumes  of  money  they  will  imploy  thair- 
vpone.'3  Although  they  were  then  summoned  to  a  meeting  to 
discuss  the  larger  project  of  the  fishing  company  of  Great  Britain,4 
which  they  reported  to  be  '  verie  inconvenient  to  the  estait,'  they 
still  continued  to  talk  over  their  own  undertaking,  wondering 
whether  they  should  admit  nobles  and  gentlemen,  if  not,  whether 
they  should  undertake  it  *  as  they  vse  it  presentlie  be  burgessis  at 
thair  pleasoure,  or  in  ane  cumpanie,' 5  and  if  in  a  company  if  all 
other  burgesses  should  be  debarred,  a  delicate  point  in  such  an 
assembly  as  the  convention.  In  spite  of  their  opposition,  how- 
ever, the  larger  association  was  formed,6  and  the  burghs'  represen- 
tations only  succeeded  in  having  the  fishing  of  the  Firths  of  Forth 
and  Clyde  reserved  for  them.7 

The  opposition  of  the  burghs  to  Seaforth  and  the  Flemings  is 
an  instance  of  the  efforts  of  the  convention  to  protect  the  privi- 
leges and  rights  of  the  burghs,  which  was  one  of  its  principal 
functions.  The  same  attitude  is  shown  in  their  action  towards 
monopolies  ;  they  exerted  themselves  to  maintain  their  own  great 
monopoly,  and  at  the  same  time  to  put  down  all  smaller  ones 
which  might  injure  them  either  as  a  body  or  as  individual  burghs, 
by  raising  the  prices  of  commodities  or  by  limiting  an  undertaking 
from  which  all  might  have  profited.  Joseph  Marjoribanks  and 
others,  burgesses  of  Edinburgh,  entered  into  a  society  for  making 
red  herring  by  a  new  method,  and  they  had  a  controversy  with 
one  Campbell,  who  was  neither  a  merchant  nor  a  trafficker,  but 
had  purchased  a  similar  gift.  The  council  referred  the  matter  to 
the  burghs,  '  who  are  maist  able  to  provide  and  foirsie  how  the 
same  work  may  be  maist  convenientlie  and  commodiouslie  prose- 
quute  and  followit  out.' 8  The  commissioners  declared  the  gifts 

1  Convention  Records,  iii.  291-4. 

2  Privy  Council  Register,  Second  Series,  iii.  479-80. 

3  Convention  Records,  iii.  318-9.  4  Acts,  Scotland,  v.  225. 

5  Convention  Records,  iii.  321-2.  6  W.  R.  Scott,  op.  cit.  ii.  361-8. 

''Privy  Council  Register,  Second  Series,  iv.  555.     8 Ibid.  First  Series,  x.  436-9. 


Economic  Development  of  Scotland      259 

to  be  a  monopoly  and  hurtful  and  prejudicial  to  their  liberties, 
and  Marjoribanks  agreed  to  renounce  his  patent  in  favour  of  the 
burghs.1  Again,  in  the  case  of  David  Nairn,  who  got  a  letter 
from  the  king  authorizing  the  grant  of  a  patent  for  surveying  and 
stamping  barrels  for  fish,2  the  council  delayed  all  meddling  till  the 
burghs  were  heard,  and  as  they  were  opposed  to  such  an  encroach- 
ment on  their  functions,  the  patent  was  not  granted.3  They  had 
also  a  lengthy  controversy  with  Robert  Buchan,  who  secured  a 
patent  for  fishing  for  pearls,  and  was  one  of  the  particular  persons 
who  impaired  their  liberties  by  making  specious  overtures  with 
nothing  in  view  but  his  own  advantage.4 

As  the  council  consulted  the  convention  about  the  cloth  manu- 
facture and  other  industrial  matters,  so  they  asked  their  opinion 
on  questions  relating  to  commerce.  In  1612  some  of  the  com- 
missioners were  invited  to  deliberate  on  changes  in  the  book  of 
rates  ;5  and  a  few  years  later  they  were  invited  to  confer  on  a 
more  important  matter  relating  to  shipping.  James  VI.,  anxious 
for  '  a  full  conform itie  of  seafairing  in  all  his  Majesteis  dominionis,' 
wished  to  forbid  in  Scotland  as  he  had  done  in  England6  the  use 
of  strangers  bottoms.  Some  skippers  were  asked  to  meet  the 
commissioners  of  the  burghs,  as  representing  the  merchants.7 
The  latter  were  opposed  to  any  restraint,  although  they  professed 
themselves  'most  willing  to  prefer  thair  awin  contriemen  and 
schipping  to  any  strangeris  in  the  world,  yea,  ewin  with  evident 
and  seine  loss  of  thair  awin  accordis.'  They  objected  that  other 
kings  would  make  a  like  restraint  and  many  Scots  ships  which 
were  freighted  in  France  would  lose  their  employment.  Dutch 
ships  were  used  for  exporting  herring  from  Scotland  at  cheap 
rates  ; 8  and  also  wainscot,  pitch,  tar,  timber  were  imported  from 
the  east  countries  by  strangers  for  much  lower  freights  than  they 
could  be  by  natives.  In  the  end,  though  contrary  to  the  wishes 
of  the  skippers,  the  restraint  was  made  for  all  but  the  eastern  and 
Norway  trades,  which  the  burghs  insisted  should  be  left  free.9 

1  Convention  Records ,  iii.  26-7. 

z  Privy  Council  Register,  First  Series,  xiii.  843. 

3  Convention  Records,  iii.  161, 196. 

4  Privy  Council  Register,  Second  Series,  iv.  669  (1631). 
blbid.  First  Series,  iv.  741-2. 

6  W.  Cunningham,  Growth  of  English  Industry  and  Commerce,  ii.  210,  note  6. 
''Privy  Council  Register,  First  Series,  xi.  571-2. 

8  Letters  and  State  Papers  of  the  Reign  ofJamet  VI.,  243-5. 

9  Privy  Council  Register,  First  Series,  xii.  107-8;  Convention  Records,  iii.  87-8. 


a6o 


Theodora  Keith 


In  all  questions  relating  to  commerce  on  which  the  burghs  were 
consulted,  and  few  commercial  regulations  were  made  without 
their  opinion  being  taken,  their  policy  was  to  secure  primarily 
cheap  commodities  for  the  consumer  and  manufacturer  and, 
secondarily,  free  trade  for  the  merchant.  To  the  commission 
for  hearing  grievances  set  up  in  I6231  they  complained  of  the 
monopolies  and  restraints  of  import  of  foreign  wares ;  of  the 
transport  of  great  coal,  which  made  coal  rise  in  price  ;  of  the  im- 
position on  foreign  victual,  and  prohibition  of  the  export  of  victual, 
because  the  import  made  food  cheap  and  the  trade  encouraged 
shipping.2  The  nobles  and  gentry  were  on  the  other  side,  and 
the  matters  were  c  verie  contentiouslie  disputed  betwix '  them,  as 
was  the  question  of  the  export  of  wool,  which  the  burghs  declared 
raised  prices  and  threw  people  out  of  work.3  All  these  questions 
were  again  discussed  at  length  in  1626,  the  transport  of  wool, 
sheep,  cattle,  and  coal  being  the  'speciall  poyntis  the  Burrowis 
stoode  at.' 

In  the  actual  carrying  on  of  foreign  trade  the  burghs  were 
more  concerned  with  regulating  the  trade  with  Holland  than  with 
any  other  country.  They  shared  with  the  king  and  council  in 
nominating  the  conservator  and  the  minister,  and  in  fixing  on  the 
town  for  the  staple  port ;  while  much  of  the  time  of  the  convention 
was  spent  in  appointing  factors,  settling  disputes,  and  regulating 
the  consergerie  house.  In  the  French  trade  their  efforts  were 
chiefly  directed  to  maintaining  the  privileges  which  the  Scots  had 
enjoyed  there  and  were  beginning  to  lose,  partly  as  a  consequence 
of  the  change  of  religion  and  the  English  union.  They  sent 
representatives,  c  honest  and  substantious  *  burgesses,  in  1582, 
1587,  1595,  1601,  and  1612*  for  the  '  doungetting  *  of  customs 
and  imposts  and  renewing  the  old  privileges.  In  1605,  as  the 
matter  properly  concerned  them,  they  were  asked  to  choose  two 
persons  to  go  to  France  with  two  Englishmen  to  find  out  about 
the  respective  advantages  of  English  and  Scottish  merchants  there, 
with  a  view  to  commercial  union.5 

The  commissioners  of  the  burghs  who  were  sent  to  treat  for 
union  with  England  were  in  favour  of  free  trade,6  and  when  it 

1  Privy  Council  Register,  First  Series,  xiii.  219-23. 
*Ibid.  xiv.  731-6  ;  Convention  Records,  iii.  147-50. 
8  Privy  Council  Register,  Second  Series,  i.  75-6. 

4  Convention  Records,  i.  127,  270,  457  ;  ii.  39,  104-5,  336-8. 

5  Privy  Council  Register,  First  Series,  vii.  113,  472-3. 

6  Convention  Records,  ii.  182,  189-91. 


, 


Economic  Development  of  Scotland     261 


seemed  unattainable  by  treaty  they  despatched  Andrew  Forret, 
burgess  of  St.  Andrews,  to  court,  where  he  obtained  letters  patent 
from  the  king  giving  certain  privileges  to  Scotsmen  and  Scottish 
ships.1  Trade  with  England  apparently  increased,  and  the  burghs 
found  it  necessary  to  appoint  an  agent  in  London  in  1612,  as 
their  merchants  there  were  *  wondefullie  abuset.' 2  James  had 
already  urged  them  to  do  so  in  I599,3  but  they  then  thought  it 
would  only  be  '  hurtfull  and  chargeabill '  to  them.  They  also 
appointed  agents  in  Spain4  and  in  Lisbon.6  The  trade  to  the 
Baltic,  though  important,  seemed  to  require  little  regulation.  A 
proposal  was  made  to  establish  a  society  by  Scots  merchants 
trading  to  the  east  countries,  but  the  convention,  when  the  council 
referred  the  matter  to  them,  were  not  in  favour  of  further  limita- 
tion. They  declared  it  would  ( rather  tend  to  the  preiudice  of  the 
saids  trafficquers  than  to  anye  advantage.' 6 

The  convention  was  not  an  adventurous  body,  and  its  imagina- 
tion was  not  fired  by  the  glory  and  profit  to  be  found  in  the  west. 
The  Nova  Scotia  project  received  no  encouragement,  nor  even 
notice,  from  this  assembly  of  merchants:  their  horizon  did  not 
extend  beyond  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar  and  the  North  Cape.  After 
all  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  a  corporation  should  see  further 
than  its  members,  and  John  Burnet  was  for  some  time  '  the  sole 
Merchant  of  our  Kingdom  of  Scotland,  that  hath  supplyed  the 
plantacon  of  that  our  colony  of  Virginia/  or  had  traded  with 
America.  Adventure  comes  before  trade,  and  the  younger  sons 
of  Scotland  gave  their  lives  in  continental  wars  instead  of  making 
a  way  for  their  brother  merchants  in  the  west. 

But  on  the  whole,  in  economic  matters,  the  convention  played  a 
very  useful  part  under  James  VI.  and  his  son.  It  tried  to  secure 
national  regulation  rather  than  local,  the  good  of  the  whole  estate 
of  burghs  rather  than  that  of  individual  members.  It  made  and 
enforced  regulations  for  the  maintenance  of  quality  and  uniformity 
in  the  interests  of  the  home  and  foreign  consumer  and  of  the 
merchant  who  supplied  markets  abroad.  It  negotiated  with 
foreign  countries  and  arranged  for  the  care  of  the  interests  of  its 
merchants,  without  restrictions  as  to  persons  or  places,  except  in 
the  Dutch  trade,  where  such  regulations  did  not  as  yet  seem  to  be 
anachronisms.  The  commissioners  did  not  make  enactments  in 
matters  concerning  the  realm,  questions  of  import  and  export, 

ii.  422-3,  iii.  10-11 ;  T.  Keith,  op.  cit.  17-18. 

ii.  379.  *lb\d.  ii.  48-9.  *  Ibid.  ii.  242-3. 

id.  ii.  279-80.         *lbid.  iii.  46- 


262  Theodora  Keith 

rates  and  customs,  but  their  advice  was  asked  and  their  members 
co-opted  by  the  council  to  advise  on  all  questions  affecting  the 
trade  and  industry  of  the  nation. 

During  the  greater  part  of  the  interregnum  the  convention  of 
the  burghs  was  allowed  to  continue  to  exist,  though  with  less 
influence  and  with  fewer  powers  than  it  had  had  earlier.  It  was 
prorogued  in  1650  because  of  the  ciminent  danger  quherin  the 
estat  of  kirk  and  kingdome  within  this  kingdome  at  this  tyme 
standis  through  the  unexpectit  aproches  of  the  Inglish  armies  to 
this  kingdom  both  by  sea  and  land,  threatning  no  les  then  the 
ruyne  of  both,  except  the  Lord  prevent  the  samyn.'1  In  1651 
the  commissioners  did  not  meet,  probably  because  the  English 
army  was  c  ramping  throw  the  kingdome/  but  next  year  they 
assembled,  in  '  obedience  to  the  declaratione  of  the  commissioneris 
of  the  parliament  of  the  Commonwealth  of  England,'  to  elect 
seven  persons  representing  the  burghs  to  attend  the  parliament  of 
England.  In  1653  cit  pleasit  the  Parliament  of  the  Common- 
wealth of  England  to  restoir  the  Convention  of  burrowis,  quhilk 
was  formerlie  obstructed  be  ordour  laitlie  gevin.' 2  Thereafter  the 
convention  was  held  every  year,  but  apparently  with  special  per- 
mission for  each  meeting,  for  none  could  take  place  in  July  1657, 
*  in  respect  no  warrant  could  be  obteaned  from  the  lord  generall 
for  that  effect/ 3  It  had  submitted  early  to  the  new  government. 
Monk  wrote  that  '  all  the  burghs  in  Scotland  (being  incorporated 
into  one  body)  were  the  very  first,  that  owned  us,  and  submitted 
to  us,  and  whose  interest  is  most  agreeable  with  ours,  by  reason  of 
their  trade  and  traffick.'4 

But  the  policy  of  the  interregnum  government  was  on  the 

whole  opposed  to  privilege  and  restriction,  and  both  in  trade  and 

industry  the  convention  and  its  members  had  to  complain  of 

infringements  of  their  liberties.     The  lament  of  the  assembly  of 

1653,   'that  treading  is  now  almost  whollie  takin  out  of  the 

handis  of  free   burgessis  and  gild  bretheren  within  the  saidis 

burrowis  be  such  as  have  no  freedome  within  the  samyn/ 5  was 

repeated  at  almost  every  meeting,  and  the  burghs  were  continually 

urged  to  show  diligence  against  unfree  traders.     The  policy  of 

the  staple  did  not  commend  itself  to  the  English  rulers ;  '  the 

commissioners  ...  at  Dalkeith  had  a  great  mynd  appeirandlie  to 

have  dischargit  both  our  staple  at  Campheir,  and  the  conservator 

1  Convention  Records,  iii.  358.  z  NicolFs  Diary,  115. 

3  Convention  Records,  iii.  443.  4  Thurloe  5.P.,  vi.  529. 

5  Convention  Records,  iii.  368. 


Economic  Development  of  Scotland      263 

of  his  office,  if  we  had  not  cairfullie  and  tymeouslie  adverted 
thairto  by  giving  them  such  satisfactione  as  will  mak  them  (we 
hop)  forbear  any  further  proceiding  in  that  bussiness  till  the 
meiting  of  the  commissioneris  of  both  nationes  at  Londoun.'1 
No  doubt  the  prejudice  against  the  staple  was  partly  political,  for 
the  '  Scots  Staple  Factory  dared  to  furnish  Arms  and  Warlike 
Stores  for  every  Attempt  to  pull  him  (Cromwell)  down.' 2 

The  convention  was  of  distinctly  less  importance  in  this  than 
in  the  previous  period.  It  was  no  longer  an  advisory  body, 
neither  the  council  of  state  in  Scotland  nor  the  united  parliament 
desired  its  opinion.  Nor  did  it  issue  many  regulations,  partly 
because  the  economic  affairs  of  Scotland  were  merged  with  those 
of  England  and  the  united  parliament  legislated  for  both,  and  also 
because,  owing  to  the  desolation  caused  by  the  wars  and  the 
poverty  of  the  country,  there  was  very  little  economic  activity. 
The  commissioners  made  use  of  their  meeting  together  to  lament 
their  condition  and  to  petition  for  relief  and  for  change  in  the 
economic  policy  of  their  rulers. 

The  enforcement  of  the  uniformity  of  weights  and  measures  as 
usual  occupied  some  of  their  attention,  and  they  decided  to  pur- 
chase the  assistance  of  the  council  of  state.3  They  also  drew  up 
a  supplication  to  the  commander-in-chief,  '  desyring  him  to  inter- 
pon  his  authorite  in  causing  the  coall  maisteris  ...  to  furnisch  the 
inhabitantes  of  the  natione  with  coallis '  at  the  price  ordained  by 
earlier  acts  of  privy  council  and  parliament.4  The  council  of  state 
ordered  a  submission  to  be  drawn  up  between  the  coal  masters 
and  the  burghs  on  the  Forth,  which  the  latter  accepted.5  The 
list  of  questions  on  which  the  commissioners  petitioned  the  govern- 
ment for  legislation,  or  for  change  in  existing  regulations,  is  a  long 
one.  They  objected  to  the  impositions  on  coal  and  salt,6  to  the 
restraint  of  the  export  of  wool,  hides,  skins,  etc.,  which  were  to 
be  used  in  manufactories  to  be  set  up  at  home,  declaring  that  their 
principal  trade  was  in  these  commodities,  and  if  it  was  cut  off  they 
would  have  no  money  with  which  to  set  up  industries.7  They 
desired  to  export  coal  and  salt,  and  to  import  French  and  Spanish 
salt,  in  whatever  ships  were  most  convenient,8  and  to  be  allowed 
to  bring  home  ships  bought  from  strangers  without  paying  the 

1  Stir  ling  Records,  1519-1666,  p.  203. 

2  Historical  Account  of  the  Staple  Contract  between  the  Burrows  of  Scotland  and 
Campvere  (1749),  p.  xviii. 

3  Convention  Records,  iii.  447.  *Ibid.  iii.  370.  *  Ibid.  iii.  432. 
6 Ibid.  iii.  493.                                  Ubid.  iii.  391'2-                 *lb'td-  *"•  394- 


264  Theodora  Keith 

twenty  penny  of  excise  and  of  custom  now  exacted  from  them,1 
and  they  did  not  cease  to  lament  the  c  low  conditione  quhairvnto 
the  burrowis  of  this  natione  is  now  redacted,  through  the  long 
continewed  truble  thairm.' 

The  decline  in  the  economic  fortunes  of  the  nation  during  the 
years  1650  to  1660  synchronized  with  and  was  partly  the  occasion 
of  a  decrease  in  the  influence  of  the  convention.  For  when  there 
was  no  money,  old  trades  were  but  feebly  prosecuted  and  no  new 
trades  nor  industries  could  be  started,  and  so  there  was  less 
occasion  for  consultation  and  regulation.  But  in  any  case  the 
spirit  of  the  government  was  opposed  to  particular  restriction  and 
regulation,  and  the  English  council  of  state  by  which  Scotland  was 
ruled  was  not  likely  to  advise  with  or  to  give  power  to  an  entirely 
Scottish  and  democratic  assembly. 

The  interregnum  period  in  Scotland,  by  union  and  intercourse 
with  England  and  freedom  from  restriction,  hastened  the  changes 
in  economic  conditions  which  had  been  beginning  before  the  civil 
war,  and  after  the  restoration  there  was  a  considerable  breaking 
away  from  medieval  conditions.  The  protective  policy  begun  by 
the  acts  of  1641  and  1645  2  was  continued  and  developed.  Privi- 
leges were  offered  and  opportunities  given  for  individuals  and 
companies  to  introduce  new  industries  and  to  carry  on  old,  and 
for  foreign  capital  to  be  brought  in  and  foreign  workpeople  to 
settle.  Under  these  encouragements,  especially  the  Act  for 
Encouraging  Trade  and  Manufactories  of  i68i,3  many  enterprises 
were  started,  and,  by  the  time  of  the  union,  cloth,  linen,  glass, 
sugar,  silk,  rope,  paper,  gunpowder,  and  various  other  works  had 
been  incorporated.4 

In  trade  the  staple  policy  was  becoming  too  restricted,  and 
there  were  many  complaints  of  the  infringements  of  its  regula- 
tions ;  the  inhabitants  of  the  royal  burghs  lost  a  part  of  their 
monopoly  of  foreign  trade  ;  a  beginning  was  made  of  trade  with 
the  plantations  ;  and  at  the  end  of  the  century  the  African  com- 
pany scheme  proved  the  desire  if  not  the  ability  of  Scotland  to 
join  in  the  commercial  competition  of  the  day.  Scottish  trade, 
like  her  industry,  was  becoming  less  narrow  in  organization  and 
in  scope.  It  is  not  easy  to  estimate  the  share  of  the  convention 
of  burghs  in  this  development,  although  it  is  safe  to  assert  that 

1  Convention  Records,  iii.  435-6. 

*4cts,  Scotland,  v.  411-2  ;  vi.  part  i.  367.  3 Ibid.  viii.  348. 

4  For  an  account  of  the  industrial  companies  started  in  Scotland  at  this  time,  see 
W.  R.  Scott,  op.  cit.  iii.  123-195. 


Economic  Development  of  Scotland      265 


it  did  not  take  a  leading  part.  Baillie  gives  the  burghs  credit 
for  very  little  enterprise,  for  he  wrote  in  1661  that  'at  the 
beginning  of  the  Parliament  there  were  many  brave  designs  for 
the  fishing  and  more  use  of  Trade,  but  after  much  toome-talk,  all 
seems  to  be  vanished,  the  burroughs  sticking  absolutely  to  their 
old  job-trot  for  their  own  hurt.'  l  The  convention  was  not  con- 
sulted as  it  had  been  during  the  reigns  of  the  earlier  Stuarts. 
Then  the  king  and  council  endeavoured  to  develop  the  economic 
resources  of  the  country  by  personal  intervention.  Now  parlia- 
ment offered  privileges  for  any  who  wished  to  take  advantage  of 
them.  The  advisory  work  as  to  the  expediency  of  proposed 
legislation,  regulations,  grants  of  patents,  was  to  a  great  extent 
given  over  to  the  councils  or  committees  of  trade,  appointed  by 
parliament  from  their  own  body  and  composed  of  seven  of  each 
estate.  As  the  burgess  interest  was  represented  in  these,  it  was 
no  longer  necessary  to  consult  the  convention  to  find  out  the 
opinion  of  their  class.  The  council  appointed  in  1661  2  had  large 
powers.  It  was  to  establish  companies,  and  grant  privileges  to 
them  and  make  rules  for  them.  It  was  to  '  give  out  orders  and 
directions  to  all  Scots  factors  and  staples  abroad/  and  to  do  all 
necessary  for  the  advance  of  trade.  Thus  some  of  its  functions 
encroached  on  those  of  the  convention  ;  and  it  was  provided  that 
if  any  ground  of  grievance  occurred  between  this  council  and  the 
royal  burghs,  the  privy  council  should  determine  the  matter. 

The  influence  of  the  convention  in  making  and  enforcing  regu- 
lations for  industry  was  less  in  this  than  in  the  earlier  period. 
Then  the  promoters  of  industry  had  been  on  the  whole  individual 
producers  working  at  home,  and  the  regulations  for  their  work 
were  enforced  by  the  magistrates  of  burghs  instructed  by  the 
convention.  But  when  companies  were  promoted  to  carry  on 
industries,  the  supervision  was  often  entrusted  to  the  undertakers, 
and  in  the  case  of  new  industries  there  was  little  supervision  of 
quality  at  all. 

The  convention  was  now  less  representative  of  all  who  were 
engaged  in  trade  and  industry.  The  burghs  of  regality  and 
barony,  some  of  which  had  already  a  considerable  trade,  were 
given  a  share  in  the  privileges  of  the  royal  burghs  in  foreign 
trade  by  act  of  parliament  in  1672  and  by  arrangement  with  the 
royal  burghs  after  i693,3  but  they  did  not  send  commissioners  to 
the  convention.  Then  a  number  of  the  new  manufactories  were 

1  Letters  and  Journals  of  Robert  Balllif,  iii.  469. 

2  Acts,  Scotland,  vii.  273.  3  Davidson  and  Gray,  op.  cit.  2 1 3-5. 

s 


266  Theodora  Keith 

erected  outside  burghs,  at  Newmills,  Gairdin,  Northmills,  and 
several  in  Leith,  and  non-burgesses,  foreigners,  and  others  were 
allowed  to  participate  in  them.  In  this  respect,  it  may  be  noted, 
the  policy  of  the  burghs  was  becoming  more  liberal.  In  1695  an 
overture  for  an  act  was  considered  by  the  committee  of  trade, 
declaring  that  tradesmen  and  merchants,  native  and  foreign, 
should  be  received  as  burgesses  in  royal  burghs  on  certain  pay- 
ments,1 and  next  year  the  convention  recommended  all  burghs  to 
receive  stranger  c  michanicks,'  take  them  in  to  their  incorpora- 
tions, and  '  deal  discreitlie  '  with  them.2 

Under  these  changed  conditions  the  burghs  took  less  share  in 
establishing  manufactories  than  they  had  done  before.  Regula- 
tion of  the  existing  linen  and  woollen  manufactures  to  maintain 
the  quality  seemed  to  them  to  be  the  principal  thing  required  for 
the  advancement  of  those  trades.  They  ordered  the  magistrates 
of  each  burgh  to  put  into  execution  the  acts  of  parliament  about 
bleaching  and  breadth  of  cloth  in  1671  and  1691,3  and  asked  for 
the  help  of  the  privy  council  in  their  efforts  in  1675  and  1692,* 
declaring  the  true  reason  of  the  deficiency  of  the  linen  to  be  that 
the  burghs  had  not  sufficient  jurisdiction  over  the  shires.5  When 
Nicholas  Dupin  secured  the  promise  of  a  patent  for  setting  up 
the  linen  manufactory  in  Scotland,  the  burghs  said  the  only  way  to 
advance  the  trade  was  to  put  the  laws  regarding  it  into  execution, 
and  objected  to  his  projected  monopoly.6  But  acts  of  parliament 
were  passed  in  favour  of  the  company,  one  declaring  that  all 
pieces  exposed  for  sale  were  to  have  a  seal  of  a  royal  burgh,  while 
another  gave  the  company  the  right  of  sealing  its  own  linen.  As 
the  opposition  of  the  commissioners  to  the  patent  was  in  vain, 
the  convention  advised  any  burghs  that  thought  fit  to  join  in 
Dupin's  society.7 

The  policy  of  the  burghs  with  regard  to  the  fishing  trade  was 
much  the  same.  They  declared  in  1 660  c  how  advantagious  it 
wer  to  the  increase  of  tread  and  comoun  weall  of  the  estait  of 
burrowis  with  the  whol  kingdome  that  the  fisching  tread  be 
erected  within  the  samyn,'  but  they  had  no  share  in  the  company 
promoted  in  i67o.8  It  was  granted  the  privilege  of  importing 

1  Parliamentary  Papers,  xv.  60.  2  Convention  Records,  iv.  210. 

*Ibid.  iii.  628,  iv.  145. 

4  Ibid.  iii.  643  ;  Privy  Council  Renter,  Acta,  1692-3,  Feb.  n,  1692. 

5  Convention  Records,  iv.  155.  6  Ibid.  iv.  148-9,  165. 

7  For  the  Scots  Linen  Manufactory,  see  W.  R.  Scott,  op.  cit.  iii.  162-9. 

8  See  W.  R.  Scott,  op.  cit.  ii.  377-8. 


Economic  Development  of  Scotland     267 

commodities  to  be  used  in  fishing  and  in  curing,  and  the  burghs 
petitioned  in  1671  that  its  license  to  import  commodities  to  be 
used  in  fishing  and  curing  should  not  be  used  to  introduce  any 
other  goods.1  But  apparently  the  company,  though  it  did  not  do 
much  to  develop  fishing,  tried  to  make  profit  out  of  this  per- 
mission, for  in  1673  the  burghs  spoke  of  the  great  prejudice 
which  the  kingdom  sustained  by  such  importations.2 

A  few  years  later  the  convention  asked  the  council's  approba- 
tion of  an  act  laying  down  regulations  about  barrels,  etc.,  and 
giving  the  burgh  magistrates  power  to  put  acts  of  parliament  into 
execution.  Then,  inspired  by  accounts  of  the  fishing  company  in 
England,  the  burghs  appointed  a  committee  to  consider  what 
measures  should  be  proposed  for  setting  up  a  fishery,  and  whether 
it  should  be  managed  by  a  joint  stock  of  the  whole  burghs  or 
only  by  those  who  wished  to  be  partners.  But  this,  like  other 
proposals,  came  to  nothing,  and  the  development  of  Scottish 
fisheries  did  not  take  place  until  the  eighteenth  century. 

The  convention  was  not  much  concerned  with  the  woollen 
manufactory,  which  was  now  being  prosecuted  with  considerable 
success.  After  successfully  petitioning  the  Privy  Council  to  pro- 
hibit the  export  of  wool,3  it  urged  each  burgh  to  set  up  a  manu- 
factory of  cloth,4  but  without  result.  The  execution  by  magistrates 
of  regulations  about  the  breadth,  etc.,  of  plaiding  was  desired  by 
the  burghs  in  i6935  and  1702.°  In  connection  with  this  trade  a 
monopoly  granted  for  the  manufacture  of  cards  used  in  cloth 
making  was  a  frequent  cause  of  complaint.  The  import  of  old 
cards  was  prohibited,  and  the  manufacturers,  'that  they  might 
the  more  friely  and  without  Controll  abuse  the  whole  subjects/ 
were  allowed  to  have  waiters  of  their  own  to  seize  any  which 
were  brought  in.  The  burghs  desired  to  continue  to  import 
and  use  old  cards,  in  spite  of  the  assurances  of  the  promoters 
that  the  royal  burghs  '  have  the  greatest  interest  to  support  this/ 
the  new  manufacture  ;  and  they  very  often  petitioned  against 
the  patent  and  against  the  methods  of  maintaining  it,  but  without 
success.7 

The  convention,  as  before,  tried  to  maintain  uniformity  in 
weights  and  measures,  and  complained  in  1671  that  several 
persons  had  tried  to  get  letters  from  His  Majesty  depriving  the 

i  Convention  Records,  iii.  626.  *Lai*g  MSS.,  Div.  ii.  43. 

9 Privy  Council  Register,  Acta,  1696-9,  June  8  and  23,  1699. 

4  Convention  Records,  iv.  287.  5  Parliamentary  Papers,  xiv.  101. 

«  Convention  Records,  iv.  329-30.  ' "Parliamentary  Papers,  xiii.  39  \  2,  3. 


268  Theodora  Keith 

burghs  of  their  privilege  of  regulation  in  their  own  jurisdictions.1 
One  of  these  was  the  Laird  of  Touch,  who  presented  a  patent  for 
the  sole  privilege  of  weights  and  measures  for  thirty-three  years, 
c  in  direct  oppositione  to  the  rightis  and  priviledgis  of  the  royall 
burrowis/ 2 

In  trade  the  convention,  as  before,  was  more  occupied  with 
maintaining  old  privileges  than  in  promoting  new  enterprises,  and 
was  therefore  principally  concerned  with  the  Dutch,  French,  and 
English  trades.  In  the  trade  with  Holland,  although  the  con- 
vention of  1689  suggested  that  they  should  consider  whether  the 
office  of  a  conservator  was  necessary  or  not,3  a  great  deal  of  atten- 
tion was  given  to  the  maintenance  of  the  staple  port,  which  year 
by  year  proved  a  more  difficult  task,  as  more  and  more  merchants 
sailed  to  markets  where  their  affairs  were  less  strictly  supervised 
and  which  suited  them  better,  especially  to  Rotterdam.  During 
the  war  it  was  easier  to  get  convoys  thither,  and  in  1691  the  con- 
servator wrote  that  the  '  bulk  of  the  wholl  trade  .  .  .  runs  to 
Rotterdam/  William  wrote  to  the  burghs  in  1692  that  he  had 
interposed  with  Campvere  to  send  convoys  for  Scots  ships.  He 
recommended  to  them  at  the  same  time  '  the  Improvement  of 
your  meetings  for  the  use  they  were  designed,  to  fall  upon 
effectual  Measures  for  the  Advancement  of  the  Trade  and 
Manufacture  of  the  Kingdom.'  * 

In  1695  the  conservator  said  the  reason  of  the  breaches  of  the 
staple  was  that  the  merchants  declared  they  would  not  take  goods 
out  of  the  country  at  all  if  they  had  to  take  them  to  Campvere, 
and  the  customs  collectors,  rather  than  lose  their  money,  allowed 
them  to  go  without  giving  bond  to  sail  there.5  A  great  part  of 
these,  as  of  the  earlier  records,  is  taken  up  with  complaints  of  the 
merchants,  negotiations  with  Campvere,  and  fresh  regulations  about 
keeping  the  staple  port. 

The  Scottish  nation,  because  of  their  change  in  religion  and  in 
politics,  and  still  more  because  of  Colbert's  protective  system, 
were  losing  their  earlier  privileges  in  France,  not  without  remon- 
strance from  both  council  and  convention,  who  made  numerous 
appeals  to  the  French  government  to  restore  the  Scots  to  their 
ancient  privileges.  Early  in  Charles  II.'s  reign  the  duty  of  fifty 
sous  per  ton  on  every  ship  was  a  fruitful  source  of  complaint,  and 

1  Convention  Records,  iii.  631.  2  Ibid.  iii.  565-6. 

*lbid.  iv.  95.  4S.P.  Scotland,  Warrant  Book  15,  125-6. 

5  Davidson  and  Gray,  op.  at.  233-4  n.,  and  see  pp.  211-51  for  the  breaches  of 
the  staple  port. 


Economic  Development  of  Scotland      269 

from  a  number  of  conventions  letters  were  written  to  Lauderdale, 
asking  him  to  use  his  influence  with  the  king  or  the  French  ambas- 
sador for  the  c  doungetting  *  of  this  impost.  In  1684  Mr.  William 
Aitkman  was  appointed  by  the  burghs  to  go  to  the  English  and 
French  courts  to  negotiate,  '  they  being  resolved  to  be  at  a  finall 
poynt  in  the  said  matter.' l  Their  efforts  were  unavailing,  but 
the  conclusion  of  the  treaty  with  France  in  1697  gave  them  fresh 
hopes,  and  they  begged  the  king  to  allow  one  or  more  of  their 
commissioners  to  represent  the  burghs  at  the  treaty  and  try  to  get 
the  impost  of  fifty  sous,  the  prohibition  of  the  import  of  herrings, 
and  the  impositions  on  Scottish  manufactures  removed.2  William 
had  already  promised  to  recommend  them  particularly  to  the  Earl 
of  Pembroke,  one  of  his  plenipotentiaries.3  Mr.  John  Buchan, 
the  burghs'  agent,  was  appointed  to  go  to  London  in  connection 
with  the  treaty,4  but  Scottish  interests  were  ignored,  and  no  con- 
cessions were  gained,  which  was  one  of  the  accumulation  of 
grievances  against  England. 

As  regards  the  English  trade,  the  convention  played  much  the 
same  part,  petitioning  and  negotiating  in  vain  for  a  return  to  the 
favoured  position  which  the  Scots  merchants  had  enjoyed  after 
the  union  of  1603,  if  not  to  the  complete  freedom  of  trade  of  the 
interregnum.  The  burghs  early  began  to  lament  the  passing  of 
the  navigation  act  as  *  totallie  distructive  to  the  tread  and  navi- 
gations of  this  kingdome.' 5  They  moved  the  Scottish  parliament 
to  put  an  excise  on  commodities  imported  from  England  in  order 
that  the  impositions  on  Scottish  coal,  salt,  cattle,  etc.,  in  England 
might  be  taken  off,6  but  this  retaliation7  had  no  result.  In  1702, 
amongst  the  articles  to  be  delivered  to  the  union  commissioners 
for  consideration  was  the  c  communicatione  of  trade  betwixt  the 
two  kingdoms  of  Scotland  and  England,  and  particularly  to  the 
plantationes  in  the  East  and  West  Indies/  8  The  convention  was 
realizing  the  value  of  the  trade  to  the  west,  although  they  did  not 
take  active  measures  to  promote  it.  Glasgow  represented  in  1691 
that  '  it  is  the  great  concern  of  the  royall  borrows  to  have  ane 
interest  in  forraigne  plantations,'  and  that  there  might  yet  be  con- 
venient places  in  Carolina  or  in  some  of  the  islands,9  but  this 

1  Convention  Records,  iv.  45.  ^Ibld.  248-50. 

9  Privy  Council  Register,  Acta,  1696-9,  March  n,  1697. 

4  Convention  Records,  iv.  262-3. 

*lbid.  iii.  528-9,  547-8,  554-8  ;  Privy  Council  Register,  Third  Series,  i.  89. 

6  Convention  Records,  iii.  564.  7  Acts,  Scotland,  vii.  465-6. 

8  Convention  Records,  iv.  343-4.  ^Ibid.  iv.  133. 


270  Theodora  Keith 

suggestion  does  not  seem  to  have  been  discussed  further.  The 
burghs  decided  to  subscribe  £3000  to  the  African  Company,  each 
burgh  to  pay  its  proportion  according  to  the  tax  roll,  and  Sir  Robert 
Cheisly,  lord  provost  of  Edinburgh,  was  appointed  to  represent 
them  at  the  meetings  of  the  company.1 

In  spite  of  the  desire  of  the  burghs  for  freedom  of  trade  with 
England  and  with  the  plantations,  the  convention  presented  an 
address  to  parliament  opposing  the  union  in  1706.  They  objected 
to  the  parliamentary  union  because  Scottish  laws,  liberties,  trade, 
etc.,  would  be  '  in  danger  of  being  encroached  upon,  altered,  or 
wholly  subverted  by  the  English  in  a  British  parliament/  The 
*  trade  proposed  is  uncertain  involved  and  wholly  precarious, 
especially  when  regulat  as  to  export  and  import  by  the  lawes  of 
England,'  and  *  the  most  considerable  branches  of  our  trade  are 
different  from  that  of  England  and  are  and  may  be  yet  more  dis- 
couraged by  their  lawes/2  This  address  seemed  to  show  clearly 
that  the  trading  interests  of  Scotland  did  not  want  union,  but  in 
fact,  as  Defoe  points  out,  only  twenty-four  burghs  out  of  the 
sixty-six  voted  for  the  address,  twenty-two  were  absent,  and 
twenty  voted  against ;  while  the  richest  and  largest  burghs,  except 
Edinburgh,  did  not  join  in  the  address.8  The  twenty-four  per- 
haps were  alarmed  by  Lord  Belhaven's  rhetorical  prophecy — cthe 
Royal  State  of  Burrows  walking  their  desolate  Streets,  hanging 
down  their  heads  under  Disappointments;  wormed  out  of  all  the 
Branches  of  their  old  Trade,  uncertain  what  hand  to  turn  to, 
necessitate  to  become  Prentices  to  their  unkind  Neighbours;  and 
yet  after  all  finding  their  Trade  so  fortified  by  Companies,  and 
secured  by  Prescriptions,  that  they  despair  of  any  success  therein'* 
— instead  of  attracted  by  the  vision  of  the  commercial  prosperity 
which  eventually  followed  the  union. 

The  history  of  the  convention  before  the  union  shows  that, 
especially  in  the  reigns  of  James  VI.  and  Charles  I.,  it  had  a  share 
in  the  economic  development  of  Scotland.  It  may  not  have  done 
much  for  the  direct  promotion  of  new  industries  and  trades,  but 
in  other  ways  it  played  a  very  useful  part.  It  was  of  value  as 
representing  the  part  of  the  nation  most  directly  interested  in 
economic  matters,  and  in  placing  their  views,  asked  or  unasked, 
before  the  king  and  privy  council,  when  these  were  more  active  in 
encouraging  manufactures  and  commerce  than  was  parliament. 

1  Convention  Records,  iv.  209.  2  Ibid.  iv.  399-402. 

8  Defoe,  History  of  the  Union  of  England  and  Scotland,  36. 

4  Ibid.;  Minutes  of  the  parliament  of  Scotland  with  Observations  thereon,  33. 


Economic  Development  of  Scotland     271 

In  industry  the  convention  stood  for  the  enforcement  of  national 
regulations  and  opposed  the  continuance  of  local  rules.  It  upheld 
its  own  monopoly,  but  it  was  a  national  monopoly,  and  it  opposed 
all  those  granted  to  individuals.  In  trade  its  organization  was 
national,  there  were  no  restrictions  as  to  persons,  and  only  in  the 
Dutch  trade  were  there  any  as  to  places ;  and  it  negotiated  for  privi- 
leges for  its  members.  On  the  whole,  therefore,  it  made  for 
nationalism  and  freedom  from  restriction,  and  by  using  its  advisory, 
regulating,  and  negotiating  powers  wisely,  it  helped  forward  both 
industry  and  trade. 

But  the  convention  was  a  conservative  body,  and  when  after 
the  civil  war  Scottish  trade  and  industry  began  to  grow  along 
more  modern  lines  it  failed  to  develop  with  them.  Unfree  burghs 
took  a  share  of  foreign  trade,  manufacturing  companies  were 
established  outside  the  burghs,  and  the  convention  no  longer 
represented  the  whole  commercial  and  industrial  interests  of  the 
nation.  Parliament  was  more  important,  the  burghs  were  repre- 
sented there  and  in  the  committees  of  trade,  and  the  convention 
as  an  advisory  body  was  less  necessary.  Industry  was  escaping 
from  its  control,  and  municipal  regulation  was  beginning  to  break 
down.  In  trade  the  staple  policy  was  breaking  down,  and  trades 
with  distant  places  did  not  give  such  opportunity  for  negotiations 
and  regulations  as  did  commerce  with  neighbouring  countries. 
But  when  the  union  was  accomplished,  the  Scottish  burghs  had  a 
small  proportion  of  representation,  and  were  no  longer  influential 
as  an  estate,  nor  on  councils  or  committees  of  trade.  The  conven- 
tion was  more  directly  representative  of  the  commercial  and  indus- 
trial part  of  the  nation  than  was  the  Scottish  contingent  at  West- 
minster, and  it  had  therefore  an  opportunity  given  to  it  of 
returning  to  its  old,  or  rather,  of  developing  a  new,  economic 

importance. 

THEODORA  KEITH. 


Original    Charters    of  the    Abbey   of  Cupar, 

1219-1448 

TWO  years  ago  I  communicated  a  charter  of  the  abbot  and 
convent  of  Cupar,1  discovered  by  Mr.  William  Brown, 
secretary  of  the  Surtees  Society,  among  the  Citeaux  deeds  pre- 
served at  Dijon.  By  this  deed,  dated  January,  1219-1220,  Abbot 
Alexander  and  his  convent  entered  into  a  bond  with  the  mother 
house  of  Citeaux  for  the  yearly  payment  at  Troyes  of  thirty  marks 
or  twenty  pounds,  which  King  Alexander  II.,  for  the  good  of  his 
soul,  gave  to  the  monks  of  Citeaux  as  a  procuration  for  the  abbots 
in  attendance  there  on  the  fourth  day  of  the  General  Chapter  of 
the  Order.  My  note  in  the  Review  elicited  from  Mr.  Maitland 
Thomson  an  interesting  letter,  with  which  he  sent  me  transcripts 
of  seven  charters  from  the  muniment  room  of  the  Earl  of  Moray, 
all  touching  on  the  same  transaction  and  explaining  the  provisions 
of  the  Dijon  charter.  Though  anxious  to  recognise  at  once  the 
magnanimity  of  that  generous  scholar,  I  hesitated  to  return  to  the 
subject  of  the  Cupar  obligation  till  Mr.  Brown  had  an  opportunity 
for  further  search  at  Dijon,  then  in  contemplation,  in  the  hope 
that  he  might  meet  with  King  Alexander's  grant  to  the  mother 
house.  I  felt  that  it  would  be  of  the  greatest  interest  if  the  royal 
charter,  originating  the  obligation  to  Citeaux,  could  be  discovered. 
Now  that  Mr.  Brown  has  revisited  Dijon  and  failed  to  find  King 
Alexander's  charter,  there  seems  to  be,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned, 
no  further  reason  for  delay  in  communicating  the  additional 
evidence. 

But  one  advantage  to  our  inquiry  has  resulted  from  Mr. 
Brown's  second  visit  to  Dijon.  As  doubts  had  been  raised  about 
the  genuineness  of  Abbot  Alexander's  charter,  I  asked  him  to 
examine  it  again.  Writing  from  Dijon  on  I5th  May  last,  after 
a  second  inspection  of  the  deed,  Mr.  Brown  says  that  c  the  Cupar 
document  is  undoubtedly  an  original.  Part  of  the  twisted  silk 
cord  for  the  seal  still  exists/  On  the  dorse — '  xxvij  (red)  quod 

1S.H.R.  viii.  172-6. 


Charters  of  the  Abbey  of  Cupar        273 

abbas  et  conuentus  de  Cupro  tenentur  nobis  soluere  xxx  marcas 
annuatim.  xj.  Littera  xj.'  On  the  disputed  point  of  originality 
we  may  without  hesitation  accept  the  opinion  of  an  experienced 
palaeographist  like  Mr.  Brown,  who  twice  examined  the 
document. 

As  the  deeds  now  known  to  us,  touching  the  new  relations 
between  the  abbeys  of  Cupar  and  Citeaux,  form  a  consecutive 
series,  it  may  be  permissible  to  reprint  the  Dijon  charter  as  an 
introduction  to  the  rest : 


TEXT. 

Ego,  frater  Alexander,  dictus 
abbas  de  Cupro  eiusdemque  loci 
conuentus,  omnibus  presentes  lit- 
teras  inspecturis,  notum  facimus 
quod  tenemur  Domui  Cistercii  in 
triginta  marcis  sterlingorum  lega- 
lium  singulis  annis  in  posterum 
in  nundinis  Tresensibus  in  festo 
apostolorum  Petri  et  Pauli  persol- 
uendis,  quas  Vir  Nobilis  Alexander, 
rex  Scocie,  pro  remedio  anime  sue 
et  antecessorum  et  successorum 
suorum,  in  perpetuam  elemosinam 
dicte  Domui  contulit  pro  procu- 
randis1  abbatibus  apud  Cistercium 
quarto  die  Capituli  generalis,  de 
quibus  triginta  marcis  prefatus  Rex 
nobis  ad  uoluntatem  nostram  ple- 
narie  satisfecit.  Quod  ut  ratum  et 
firmum  permaneat  in  posterum  pre- 
sentem  cartam  sigilli  nostri  munimine 
roborauimus.  Actum  anno  gracie 
M°cc°  nonodecimo,  mense  Januario. 


TRANSLATION. 

I,  brother  Alexander,  called  abbot 
of  Cupre,  and  the  convent  of  the 
same  place,  make  known  to  all 
who  shall  see  the  present  letter, 
that  we  are  bound  to  the  House  of 
Citeaux  in  thirty  marks  of  lawful 
money,  to  be  paid  yearly  hereafter 
in  the  fair  of  Troyes  on  the  feast 
of  the  Apostles  Peter  and  Paul, 
which  the  illustrious  Alexander, 
King  of  Scotland,  for  the  relief  of 
his  soul  and  of  the  souls  of  his 
ancestors  and  successors,  bestowed 
on  the  said  House  in  perpetual  alms, 
towards  the  cost  of  maintaining  the 
abbots  at  Citeaux  on  the  fourth 
day  of  the  General  Chapter:  in 
respect  of  which  thirty  marks  the 
said  King,  at  our  desire,  has  given 
us  full  compensation.  That  this 
(obligation)  may  continue  valid  and 
unalterable  hereafter  we  have  con- 
firmed the  present  writing  with  the 
security  of  our  seal.  Done  in  the 
month  of  January  in  the  year  of 
grace  1219. 

When  this  deed  was  first  printed,  Sir  Archibald  Lawrie  called 
attention  to  the  indebtedness  of  the  people  of  Scotland  to  the 

1  Procurare  and  procuratio  are  well-known  technical  terms  in  ecclesiastical  law. 
*  Procurations,'  says  Bishop  Dowden,  *  consisted  originally  in  the  hospitable  enter- 
tainment of  the  bishop  and  his  attendant  train  when  he  came  to  make  his  visitation 
of  the  parish  churches.  In  process  of  time  this  obligation  was  commuted  for  a 
payment  in  money '  (Medieval  Church  of  Scotland,  p.  1 1 8) :  they  were  also  due  to 
archdeacons  when  they  visited.  The  words  have  the  same  signification,  mutatis 
mutandis,  when  applied  to  the  visitation  of  the  abbots  to  the  General  Chapter. 


274 


Rev.  James  Wilson 


house  of  Citeaux  in  the  peculiar  difficulties  which  beset  them  at 
the  period  when  it  was  issued.  *  It  is  not  surprising,'  he  said,1 
*  to  find  a  charter  in  France  which  shews  that  Alexander  II.,  King 
of  Scotland,  helped  his  Scottish  monasteries  by  agreeing  to  provide 
thirty  marks  of  silver  a  year  for  the  expenses  of  the  General 
Council  of  the  Cistercians.'  The  Order  had  in  fact  been 
instrumental  in  helping  the  King  to  fight  the  papal  legate, 
and  it  was  natural  that  the  services  should  be  in  some  way 
recognised. 

In  12 1 8,  when  the  trouble  was  at  its  worst,  the  abbot  of  Cupar 
was  one  of  the  Scottish  abbots  summoned  to  Rome  for  disregarding 
the  legate's  orders,2  but  the  upshot  of  the  negotiation,  little  of 
which  is  actually  told  us,  was  altogether  in  Scotland's  favour. 
The  abbot  of  Cupar's  participation  in  diplomacy  of  this  nature 
enables  us  in  a  measure  to  understand  the  favour  that  King 
Alexander  bestowed  on  that  house.  The  association  of  Cupar 
and  Citeaux  in  the  same  grant  appears  to  predicate  an  alliance  in 
the  same  transaction.  The  next  charter  of  the  series  leaves  little 
doubt  about  it. 


TEXT. 

Alexander,  Dei  gracia,  rex  Scot- 
torum,  omnibus  probis  hominibus 
tocius  terre  sue,  clericis  et  laicis, 
salutem.  Sciant  presentes  et  futuri, 
nos,  consentiente  venerabili  patre 
episcopo  Sancti  Andree,  dedisse,  con- 
cessisse  et  hac  carta  nostra  confirmasse 
Deo  et  ecclesie  Sancte  Marie  de 
Cupro  et  monachis  ibidem  Deo 
seruientibus  ecclesiam  de  Eroline 
cum  omnibus  iustis  pertinentiis  suis. 
Tenendam  in  puram  et  perpetuam 
elemosinam.  Reddendo  inde  annua- 
tim  ex  parte  nostra  capitulo  Cistercii 
ad  procurationem  capituli  generalis 
quarto  die  viginti  libras  sterlingorum. 
Salua  Roberto  de  Haya  tenura 
eiusdem  ecclesie  in  uita  sua.  Testi- 
bus  Willelmo  de  Boscho  cancellario, 
comite  Patricio,  comite  Malcolmo 
de  Fife,  Alano  filio  Rollandi  con- 
stabulario,  Alexandro  vicecomite  de 
Striuelin,  Waltero  de  Lindesei, 


177. 


TRANSLATION. 

Alexander,  by  the  grace  of  God, 
King  of  Scots,  to  all  the  good  men 
of  his  whole  land,  clerical  and  lay, 
greeting.  Know  present  and  future 
that  we,  with  the  consent  of  the 
venerable  father,  the  Bishop  of  St. 
Andrews,  have  given,  granted,  and 
by  this  our  charter  confirmed,  to 
God  and  the  church  of  St.  Mary  of 
Cupre  and  to  the  monks  there 
serving  God,  the  church  of  Eroline 
with  all  its  right  belongings.  To  be 
held  in  pure  and  perpetual  alms.  By 
rendering  thence  yearly  on  our  be- 
half to  the  chapter  of  Citeaux,  for 
the  procuration  of  the  General 
Chapter  on  the  fourth  day,  twenty 
pounds  of  sterlings.  Saving  to  Robert 
of  Hay  the  incumbency  of  the  same 
church  during  his  life.  Witnesses, 
William  of  Bois,  chancellor,  Earl 
Patrick,  Earl  Malcolm  of  Fife,  Alan 
son  of  Rolland,  constable,  Alexander 

*Chron.  de  Mailros,  p.  133. 


Charters  of  the  Abbey  of  Cupar        275 

Johanne  de  Maccuswele,  Thoma  de  sheriffof  Stirling, Walter  of  Lindesay, 
Striuelin  clerico  cancellarii.  Apud  Johnof  Maxwell,  Thomas  of  Stirling, 
Edenburgh  iij.  die  Octobris.1  chancellor's  clerk.  At  Edinburgh, 

third  day  of  October. 

In  the  light  of  the  Dijon  charter  it  may  be  assumed  that  King 
Alexander's  grant  to  Cupar  was  made  on  3rd  October,  1219.  By 
comparison  with  the  copy  in  the  breviate  of  the  ancient  register, 
published  by  the  Grampian  Club,2  it  will  be  seen  how  much  the 
original  adds  to  our  knowledge  of  what  took  place.  If  we  accept 
fifty  marks  as  the  yearly  revenue  of  the  church  of  Airlie,  as  valued 
for  the  purpose  of  taxation  in  the  thirteenth  century,3  the  monks 
of  Citeaux,  as  we  might  expect,  were  about  to  succeed  to  the 
lion's  share.  Twenty  marks  would  be  only  left  to  the  monks  of 
Cupar,  out  of  which  they  would  have  to  provide  for  religious 
ministrations  in  that  church  and  parish.  It  was  stipulated,  how- 
ever, that  the  King's  charter  would  remain  inoperative  till  the  death 
or  cession  of  Robert  of  Hay,  the  existing  parson. 

But  the  monks  of  Cupar  were  not  slow  in  turning  to  the  best 
advantage  the  King's  gift :  they  did  not  wait  till  the  death  of  the 
incumbent.  For  the  appropriation  of  the  revenues  of  the 
church,  the  consent  of  the  Bishop  and  Chapter  of  St.  Andrews 
was  necessary.  Though  the  Bishop's  charter  is  not  forthcoming, 
we  may  be  sure  that  it  had  been  given,  for  it  was  by  virtue  of  his 
sanction  that  the  prior  and  convent  were  enabled  to  act.  The 
charter  of  the  convent  here  printed  presupposes  the  issue  of  the 
Bishop's  charter  of  confirmation. 


TEXT. 

Uniuersis  sancte  matris  ecclesie 
filiis  has  litteras  uisuris  uel  audituris, 
Symon  prior  ecclesie  Sancti  Andree 
et  eiusdem  loci  conventus  eternam  in 
Domino  salutem.  Nouerit  uniuersitas 
uestra  nos  communi  consensu  et 
assensu  capituli  nostri  concessisse  et 
hac  present!  carta  nostra  confirmasse 
donationem  illam  quam  Alexander, 
Dei  gratia,  rex  Scottorum,  et  uener- 
abilis  pater  Willelmus,  Dei  gratia, 
episcopus  Sancti  Andree,  fecerunt 
Deo  et  ecclesie  Beate  Marie  de 


TRANSLATION. 

To  all  the  sons  of  holy  mother 
church  who  shall  see  or  hear  this 
letter,  Symon,  prior  of  the  church  of 
St.  Andrews,  and  the  convent  of  the 
same  place  [send]  eternal  health  in 
the  Lord.  Let  it  be  known  to  all 
of  you  that  we,  by  the  common  con- 
sent and  assent  of  our  chapter,  have 
granted  and  by  this  our  present 
charter  have  confirmed  that  gift 
which  Alexander,  by  the  grace  of 
God,  King  of  Scots,  and  the  vener- 
able father  William,  by  the  grace  of 


1  Cupar  Charters,  div.  iv.  no.  5.     Seal  gone.     The  charter  is  endorsed  :  'De 
Erolin.     Donacio  ecclesie  de  Eroli.' 


*Reg.  of  Cupar  Abbey,  i.  327. 


3  Reg.  de  Dunfermelyn  (Bann.  Club),  210. 


276  Rev.  James  Wilson 

Cupro  et  monachis  ibidem  Deo  God,  Bishop  of  St.  Andrews,  have 
seruientibus  de  ecclesia  de  Erolin.  made  to  God  and  the  church  of  the 
Tenenda  in  puram  et  perpetuam  Blessed  Mary  of  Cupre  and  to  the 
elemosinam.  Saluis  episcopalibus  et  monks  there  serving  God  of  the 
salua  tenura  Roberti  de  Haya  in  vita  church  of  Erolin,  to  hold  in  pure 
sua.  Reddendo  inde  annuatim  capi-  and  perpetual  alms.  Saving  epis- 
tulo  Cistercii  uiginti  libras  sterling-  copal  dues  and  saving  the  incum- 
orum  ad  procurationem  generalis  bency  of  Robert  of  Hay  during  his 
capituli  quarta  die  sicut  in  cards  life.  By  rendering  thence  yearly 
eorum  continetur.  Vt  autem  ista  to  the  chapter  of  Citeaux  twenty 
concessio  robur  perpetue  firmitatis  pounds  of  sterlings  for  the  procura- 
optineat  earn  presentis  pagine  testi-  tion  of  the  General  Chapter  on  the 
monio  et  sigilli  nostri  appositione  fourth  day  as  it  is  contained  in  their 
roborauimus.  Valete.  Teste  toto  charters.  That  this  grant  may 
capitulo  nostro.1  maintain  vigor  and  force  for  ever  we 

have  confirmed  it  by  the  evidence 
of  this  sheet  and  by  the  addition  of 
our  seal.  Farewell.  Our  whole 
chapter  is  witness. 

Though  the  rights  of  Robert  of  Hay,  the  incumbent,  were 
safeguarded  in  all  the  acts  of  the  appropriators,  the  monks  found 
a  way  to  anticipate  the  avoidance  of  the  church  by  entering  into 
relations  with  him  for  the  farming  of  the  revenues  during  his  life. 
In  1 220,  the  year  after  King  Alexander's  grant,  an  agreement  was 
made  between  the  monastery  and  the  incumbent  whereby  the 
monks  took  over  the  whole  revenues  of  the  church  on  condition 
of  allowing  the  incumbent  a  yearly  pension  of  forty  marks  while 
he  lived.  It  was  provided  that  the  monks  should  find  a  suitable 
chaplain  to  minister  to  the  parishioners,  and  should  discharge  all 
the  obligations  due  from  the  church  to  the  Bishop  of  the  diocese. 
Thus,  before  the  monks  of  Cupar  could  receive  any  benefit  from 
the  appropriation  they  had  first  to  pay  forty  marks  as  a  pension 
to  the  incumbent  and  thirty  marks  to  the  monks  of  Citeaux,  pro- 
vide the  stipend  of  a  parochial  chaplain,  and  discharge  all  episcopal 
dues.  If  the  monks  were  not  to  be  considerable  losers  by  the 
transaction,  it  seems  clear  that  the  value  of  the  revenues  of  the 
church  of  Airlie  were  much  in  excess  of  the  amount  stated  in 
the  taxation  given  in  the  Register  of  Dunfermline.  But  there  is 

1  Cupar  Charters,  div.  5,  bundle  2,  no.  50.  Seal  gone  :  the  silk  threads,  red, 
green,  and  yellow,  by  which  it  was  attached,  remain.  Endorsed  :  *  De  Herolin,' 
(and  later)  '  Confirmatio  capituli  Sanctiandree  de  Erolin/  In  the  same  depository, 
div.  5,  bundle  2,  no.  51,  there  is  a  duplicate,  to  which  the  seal  remains  attached 
by  the  ordinary  parchment  tag.  The  only  variations  are  R.  for  Roberti  and  xx  for 
uiginti.  It  is  endorsed  :  l  Conuentus  Sancti  Andree  de  Erolin,'  and,  in  a  later 
hand,  '  Confirmacio  capituli  Sancti  Andree  in  duplici  forma/ 


Charters  of  the  Abbey  of  Cupar        277 

little  doubt  that  the  revenues  were  equal  to  the  new  conditions. 
As  the  church  would  not  become  pensionary  to  Citeaux  till  the 
incumbent's  cession  or  death,  it  may  be  assumed  that  the  arrange- 
ment was  advantageous  to  all  the  parties,  but  especially  to  the 
Cistercian  Order.  The  following  is  the  text  of  the  agreement : 


TEXT. 

CYROGRAPHVM  (upside  down:  top 
cut).  Anno  ab  incarnatione  Domini 
M°CC°XX°  facta  est  hec  conuentio 
inter  dominum  Alexandrum,  abba- 
tern  de  Cupro,  et  eiusdem  loci 
conuentum,  ex  una  parte,  et  domi- 
num Robertum  de  Haya,  ex  alia, 
scilicet,  quod  dictus  Robertus  de 
Haya  dedit  ad  firmam  dicto  abbati  et 
monasterio  de  Cupro  ecclesiam  suam 
de  Erolin  cum  omnibus  pertinentiis 
suis.  Tenendam  omnibus  diebus 
uite  sue.  Reddendo  ei  inde  annua- 
tim  quadraginta  marcas  argenti, 
scilicet,  viginti  marcas  ad  festum 
Sancti  Martini  et  viginti  marcas  ad 
Pentecosten.  Sciendum  uero  est 
quod  dicti  monachi  dederunt  pre- 
manibus  dicto  Roberto  firmam 
quatuor  annorum,  scilicet,  anni 
Domini  millessimi  cc{  vicesimi  primi 
et  vicesimi  secundi  et  vicesimi  tercii 
et  vicesimi  quarti.  Ita  quod  predicti 
monachi  soluere  incipient  firmam 
dicto  Roberto,  anno  M°CC°XXV°  ad 
festum  Sancti  Martini.  Preterea 
prefati  monachi  honestum  prouide- 
bunt  capellanum  qui  honeste  de- 
seruiat  prefate  ecclesie  de  Erolin  et 
episcopo  respondebunt  de  episcopali- 
bus  et  ceteris  eidem  de  jure  pertinen- 
tibus.  Hanc  autem  conuentionem 
bona  fide  et  sine  dolo  tenendam 
dictus  abbas  de  Cupro  pro  se  et  con- 
uentu  suo  coram  domino  Willelmo 
episcopo  Sancti  Andree  firmiter 
promisit,  et  dictus  Robertus  de  Haya 
pro  se  affidauit.  Vt  autem  hec 
conuentio  rata  et  stabilis  permaneat 
dominus  Willelmus  episcopus  Sancti 
Andree  et  magister  Laurencius 


TRANSLATION. 

Chirograph.  In  the  year  from 
the  Incarnation  of  the  Lord,  1220, 
this  agreement  was  made  between 
the  lord  Alexander,  abbot  of  Cupre, 
and  the  convent  of  the  same  place, 
of  the  one  part,  and  '  sir '  Robert  of 
Hay,  of  the  other,  to  wit,  that  the 
said  Robert  of  Hay  gave  at  farm  to 
the  said  abbot  and  monastery  of 
Cupre  his  church  of  Erolin  with  all 
its  belongings,  to  hold  all  the  days 
of  his  life.  By  rendering  thence  to 
him  yearly  forty  marks  of  silver,  to 
wit,  twenty  marks  at  the  feast  of  St. 
Martin  and  twenty  marks  at  Whit- 
suntide. But  be  it  known  that  the 
said  monks  gave  beforehand  to  the 
said  Robert  the  '  farm '  of  four  years, 
to  wit,  of  the  year  of  the  Lord, 
1 22 1,  and  1222,  and  1223,  and 
1224:  so  that  the  aforesaid  monks 
shall  begin  to  pay  the  *  farm '  to  the 
said  Robert  in  the  year  1225  at  the 
feast  of  St.  Martin.  Besides  the 
aforesaid  monks  shall  provide  a  suit- 
able chaplain  who  will  adequately 
serve  the  aforesaid  church  of  Erolin 
and  answer  the  Bishop  for  episcopal 
dues  and  for  other  things  of  right 
belonging  to  the  same.  But  that 
this  agreement  may  continue  in 
good  faith  and  without  fraud  the 
said  abbot  of  Cupre,  for  himself  and 
his  convent,  gave  firm  assurance  in 
the  presence  of  the  lord  William, 
Bishop  of  St.  Andrews,  and  the  said 
Robert  of  Hay  gave  pledge  for  him- 
self. Moreover,  that  this  agreement 
may  abide  sure  and  steadfast,  the 
lord  William,  Bishop  of  St.  Andrews, 
and  master  Laurence,  Archdeacon  of 


278 


Rev.  James  Wilson 


archidiaconus  Sancti  Andree  sigilla 
sua  huic  cyrographo  cum  sigillis 
pertium  apposuerunt.  Hiis  testibus 
Roberto  de  Sancto  Germano, 
magistro  Thoma  de  Tynemuh, 
magistro  Ricardo  de  Doure,  magistro 
Petro  de  Driburc,  domino  Petro  et 
domino  Simone  capellanis,  Johanne 
de  Haya,  Hugone  de  Nidin,  Simone 
de  Nusi,  Willelmo  de  Nidin, 
Mauricio  de  Kindeloch,  Gibun  de 
Haya,  Ricardo  camerario,  Ricardo 
de  Lidel,  Ricardo  de  Tuyford,  et 
multis  aliis.1 


St.  Andrews,  have  set  their  seals, 
with  the  seals  of  the  parties,  to  this 
chirograph.  These  are  the  wit- 
nesses, Robert  of  St.  Germans,  master 
Thomas  of  Tynemouth,  master 
Richard  of  Dovre,  master  Peter  of 
Driburgh,  'sir'  Peter  and  'sir*  Simon 
chaplains,  John  of  Hay,  Hugh  of 
Nidin,  Simon  of  Nusi,  William  of 
Nidin,  Maurice  of  Kinloss,  Gibun  of 
Hay,  Richard  chamberlain,  Richard 
of  Lidel,  Richard  of  Tuyford,  and 
many  others. 


The  lease  of  the  revenues  of  the  church  to  the  monks  of 
Cupar  seems  to  have  remained  in  force  till  the  death  of  Robert 
of  Hay  in  1246.  When  this  event  took  place,  the  Cistercians 
failed  to  agree  on  what  were  the  exact  terms  of  the  royal  grant. 
Two  documents  from  the  Earl  of  Moray's  collection  show  how 
the  dispute  was  settled.  We  may  reverse  the  order,  as  catalogued 
in  the  Earl's  depository,  with  the  view  of  explaining  more  fully 
the  successive  stages  in  the  settlement.  The  mandate  of  the 
Bishop  of  Dunkeld  to  the  English  commissioners,  appointed  to 
adjudicate,  is  of  exceptional  interest. 


TEXT. 

Viris  venerabilibus  et  discretis  de 
Ryeualle,  de  Fontanis,  de  Bello  loco 
Regis  in  Anglia  abbatibus,  in  causa 
que  uertitur  inter  abbatem  et  conuen- 
tum  Cistercienses,  ex  una  parte,  et 
abbatem  et  conuentum  de  Cupro,  ex 
altera,  iudicibus  constitutis,  G[alfre- 
dus],  miseracione  diuina  ecclesie 
Dunkeldensis  minister  humilis,  salu- 
tem  et  sincere  deuotionis  affectum. 
Quoniam  equi  ponderis  esse  uidetur 
scienter  et  prudenter  uel  falsum  pro- 
ferre  uel  ueritatem  reticere,  super 
collacione  ecclesie  de  Erolyn  domui 
de  Cupro  per  dominum  A[lexan- 
drum],  Dei  gracia,  illustrem  regem 


TRANSLATION. 

To  the  venerable  and  distinguished 
men,  the  abbots  of  Rievaulx,  of 
Fountains  [and]  of  Beaulieu  Regis 
in  England,  appointed  judges  in  a 
suit  which  is  moved  between  the 
abbot  and  convent  of  Citeaux,  of  the 
one  part,  and  the  abbot  and  convent 
of  Cupar,  of  the  other,  Geoffrey,  by 
divine  pity  the  lowly  minister  of  the 
church  of  Dunkeld,  greeting  and  the 
sentiment  of  true  respect.  Since  it 
seems  all  one  to  tell  what  is  false  or  to 
conceal  what  is  true,  knowingly  and 
advisedly,  touching  the  bestowal  of 
the  church  of  Erolyn  made  to  the 
house  of  Cupar  by  the  lord  A[lex- 


1  Cupar  Charters,  div.  5,  bundle  2,  no.  58.  Seals  lost,  but  two  tags  remain  and 
a  slit  for  a  third.  Endorsed  :  'Coituentio  (?)  Roberti  de  Haya  de  Erolin,'  (and 
later)  *  Conuentio  inter  abbatem  de  Cupro  et  Robertum  de  Haya  de  ecclesia  de 
Erolin.' 


Charters  of  the  Abbey  of  Cupar        279 


Scocie,  facta,  que  presentes  uidimus 
et  audiuimus  vobis  dignum  duximus 
intimanda.       Cum    bone    memorie 
Alexander,  quondam  abbas  de  Cupro, 
uir  sapiens  et  discretus,  frequenter 
circa  negotia  domini  regis  expedienda 
tarn  apud  curiam  Romanam  quam 
alibi     laborauerat,     idem     dominus 
Rex,  labores  eius  et  sumptus  uolens 
in    aliquo     remunerare,    predictam 
ecclesiam  de  Erolyn,  annuente  vene- 
rabili  patre  Willelmo,  tune  temporis 
episcopo  Sancti  Andree  ob  specialem 
amorem  erga  domum  de  Cupro  con- 
ceptum,  licet  in  eadem  ecclesia  ius 
patronatus  certis  et  rationabilibus  ex 
causis  sibi  uendicaret,  regali  munifi- 
cencia   contulit    domui    de   Cupro, 
saluis  tamen  domui  Cisterciensi  xxd 
libris  per  abbatem  de  Cupro  annuatim 
persoluendis,  sicut  per  instrumenta 
tarn  dicti  regis  quam  episcopi  uobis 
plenius  poterit  constare.    Et  quoniam 
super  premissis  tam  nobis  qui  tune 
temporis   de    consilio   domini    regis 
fuimus  quam  aliis  tam  clericis  quam 
laicis  iuris  prudentibus  et  fide  dignis 
nichil    dubietatis    relinquitur,   vobis 
supplicamus     quatinus    Deum     pre 
oculis  habentes  et  honori   et  fame 
ordinis    uestri    consulentes,    contra 
tenorem  tot  et  tantorum  munimen- 
torum   que    de    dicta  ecclesia   dicti 
monachi    de    Cupro    possident    ad 
tuitionem  cause  sue  satis  sufficien- 
tium  uenire  uel  secus  quam  ordina- 
tum    est    a   tam    discrete    uiro    et 
prudenti,    qualis     extitit     predictus 
W[illelmus],  episcopus  Sancti  An- 
dree, aliquid  ordinare  non  presumatis. 
Quod  si  forte,  quod  absit,  feceritis, 
nimis  euidens  materia  nobis  dabitur 
de    ordine    uestro    obloquendi,   qui 
quondam  prerogatiua  religionis  pre- 
cellere  uidebatur,  cum  causam  istam, 
si  pace  uestra  dici  fas  sit,  cupiditas 
prosequi  uideatur  non  iusticia,  que 
personas    non   respiciens   unicuique 
reddit  quod  suum  est :  maxime  cum 


ander],  by  the  grace  of  God,  the 
illustrious  King  of  Scotland,  we  have 
thought   it    right   to   make   known 
to    you    what    we    personally    saw 
and  heard.     Forasmuch  as  Alexan- 
der, of  pious  memory,  the  late  abbot 
of  Cupre,  a  wise  and  distinguished 
man,  had  often  laboured  to  further 
our  lord  the  King's  business  as  well 
at  the  Court  of  Rome  as  elsewhere, 
the  same   lord   the    King,  wishing 
to    recompense    in    some   way   his 
labours  and  costs,  bestowed  by  his 
royal  bounty  on  the  house  of  Cupre 
the  aforesaid  church  of  Erolyn,  with 
the  consent  of  the  venerable  father, 
William,  then  Bishop  of  St.  Andrews, 
because  of  the  special  affection  he 
entertained  for  the  house  of  Cupre, 
though  he  might  claim  for  himself, 
for  good  and  sound  reasons,  the  right 
of  patronage  in  the  same  church: 
saving,  nevertheless,  twenty  pounds 
to  be  paid  yearly  by  the  abbot  of 
Cupre  to  the  house  of  Citeaux,  as 
will  be  more  fully  proved  to  you  by 
documents  of  the  said  King  as  well 
as  of  the  Bishop.     And  since,  touch- 
ing the  premises,  no  doubt  remains 
to  us  who  were  then  of  the  lord  the 
King's  council  as  to  others,  clerical 
as  well  as  lay,  skilled  in   law  and 
worthy  of  trust,  we  entreat  you  that, 
having  God  before  your  eyes  and 
mindful  of  the  honour  and  reputation 
of  your  Order,  ye  do  not  attempt  to 
go  against  the  purport  of  so  many 
and  so   important   evidences,  more 
than  abundant  for  the  vindication  of 
their  suit,  which  the  said  monks  of 
Cupre  possess  for  the  said  church 
nor  to  determine  anything  otherwise 
than  has  been  determined  by  a  man 
so  distinguished  and  skilful  as  was 
the  aforesaid  William,  Bishop  of  St. 
Andrews.     If  perchance  ye  do  any- 
thing, which  God   forbid!    a  very 
clear  occasion  will  be  given  to  us  to 
speak   evil    of   your   Order   which 


280 


Rev.  James  Wilson 


Cistercienses  in  dicta  ecclesia  de 
Erolyn,  exceptis  predictis  xxu  libris 
nullum  ius  de  iure  sibi  debeant  uel 
possint  uendicare.  Dominus  autem 
episcopus  Sancti  Andree,  ad  quern 
de  iure  spectare  deberet  eiusdem 
ecclesie  collacio  si  nostris  adherere 
uoluerit  consiliis,  ius  suum  peni- 
tus  prosequetur,  si  ordinatio  pre- 
decessoris  sui  in  aliquo  commutetur. 
Litteras  autem  has  testimoniales 
tradidimus  domino  abbati  et  con- 
uentui  de  Cupro  sigillo  nostro  sing- 
natas  (wV),  ut  si  aliquando  de  eiusdem 
ecclesie  collacione  orta  fuerit  con- 
tencio,  per  has  patentes  rei  ueritas 
innotescat.  Reddite  literas.  Valete.1 


formerly  seemed  to  excel  in  religious 
pre-eminence,  since  that  suit,  if 
it  can  be  said  without  offence  to 
you,  greed  seems  to  carry  on,  not 
justice,  which  without  respect  of 
persons  renders  to  each  what  is  his 
own :  especially  since  the  monks  of 
Citeaux  have  not  of  right  nor  can 
they  claim  any  right  in  the  said 
church  of  Erolyn,  except  the  afore- 
said twenty  pounds.  But  the  lord 
Bishop  of  St.  Andrews,  to  whom  of 
right  the  collation  of  the  same  church 
ought  to  belong  if  he  will  give  heed 
to  our  advice,  will  press  his  right  to 
the  uttermost  if  the  ordination  of  his 
predecessor  be  in  any  way  changed. 
This  letter  testimonial,  however,  we 
have  delivered  to  the  lord  abbot  and 
convent  of  Cupre  sealed  with  our 
seal,  so  that  if  at  any  time  a  dispute 
should  arise,  touching  the  collation 
of  the  same  church,  the  truth  should 
become  known  by  these  patents. 
Return  the  letter.  Farewell. 

It  is  not  quite  clear  on  what  authority  the  Bishop  of  Dunkeld 
intervened,  as  Airlie  appears  to  have  been  in  the  diocese  of 
St.  Andrews,  but  the  tone  of  the  writing,  prejudging  the 
cause,  seems  unjustifiable.  His  evidence  would  be  of  course 
valuable  to  the  adjudicators,  the  English  abbots  of  Rievaulx, 
Fountains,  and  Beaulieu  in  Hampshire,  seeing  that  he  had  been 
one  of  the  King's  council  who  was  present  in  1219  when  the 
grant  of  the  church  was  made  to  the  monks  of  Cupar  :  and,  if 
we  accept  his  statement,  that  he  was  acquainted  with  other 
evidences,  not  now  forthcoming,  necessary  for  the  legal  appro- 
priation of  the  revenues,  the  letter  also  confirms  the  suggestion 
already  made  that  King  Alexander  was  under  some  obligation 
to  the  abbot  of  Cupar  to  account  for  the  grant  at  this  particular 
date.  Bishop  Geoffrey  explains  the  cause  of  the  royal  favour 
when  he  states  that  Abbot  Alexander  was  frequently  employed 
in  advancing  the  King's  interests  at  the  Court  of  Rome  and 
elsewhere. 

1  Cupar  Charters,  div.  v.  no.  52.  Fragment  of  seal.  Endorsed  :  '  Memorandum 
quod  nullum  jus  habet  abbas  Cisterciensis  in  ecclesia  de  Erolyn  nisi  tantum 
xx  librarum  annuatim.' 


Charters  of  the  Abbey  of  Cupar        281 

The  procedure  in  the  grant  of  a  parish  church  to  a  religious 
house  is  sufficiently  well  known.  The  Bishop  of  the  diocese,  in 
which  the  church  was  situated,  had  the  determining  voice  in 
the  terms  of  the  appropriation,  no  matter  who  was  the  grantor, 
king,  or  subject.  It  was  his  duty  to  see  that  the  parishioners 
did  not  suffer  by  the  transaction.  When  a  church  was  bestowed 
by  the  patron  on  cloistered  monks  like  the  Cistercians,  it  was 
a  common  practice  for  the  Bishop  to  reserve  to  himself  and 
his  successors  the  ius  patronatus  or  right  of  presentation  to  the 
benefice,  and  to  set  out  the  amount  and  sources  of  the  stipend 
that  the  appropriators  were  obliged  to  pay  to  the  incumbent. 
This  transaction  was  known  as  the  ordination  or  taxation  of  the 
vicarage.  The  rest  of  the  original  revenues  was  distributed 
according  to  the  dispositions  of  the  grantor.  No  appropriation 
could  take  place  without  the  Bishop's  consent :  he  could  sanction 
the  transference  of  the  advowson  or  reserve  it  to  himself:  his  first 
duty  in  respect  of  the  revenues  was  to  protect  the  parishioners. 

In  the  case  of  the  church  of  Airlie,  Bishop  William  of  St. 
Andrews  appears  to  have  reserved  the  right  of  presentation  as 
the  condition  of  his  sanction  of  the  appropriation.  As  Bishop 
William  and  Abbot  Alexander  were  dead1  before  the  revenues  of 
the  church  came  up  for  distribution,  that  is,  as  soon  as  the  church 
became  void  of  a  parson,  it  was  easy  for  a  dispute  to  arise  with 
regard  to  a  transaction  which  had  taken  place  so  many  years 
before.  The  exact  year  of  the  voidance  of  the  benefice  is  not 
known,  but  it  could  not  have  been  long  before  1246.  It  would 
appear  that  Bishop  David  of  St.  Andrews  was  somewhat  slack  in 
looking  after  the  rights  of  his  See :  he  was  at  least  indifferent  to 
the  representations  of  his  neighbour  of  Dunkeld :  perhaps  he 
grudged  the  labour  of  investigating  the  acts  of  his  predecessor 
with  regard  to  the  church  of  Airlie  :  but  Bishop  Geoffrey  was 
resolved  to  set  the  world  right  by  safeguarding  the  interests 
of  all  the  parties  concerned. 

The  award  of  the  English  Commissioners,  if  the  dispute  was 
ever  adjudicated  by  them,  is  not  forthcoming.  It  is  very  difficult 
to  imagine  that  Cistercian  abbots,  with  the  prestige  of  those  of 
Rievaulx,  Fountains,  and  Beaulieu,  could  undertake  their  com- 
mission in  the  face  of  a  communication  like  that  of  Bishop 
Geoffrey.  But  as  the  medieval  period  is  full  of  surprises,  it  may 

1  Bishop  William  Malvoisine  died  on  9th  July,  1238  (Dowden,  The  Bishops  oj 
Scotland,  p.  13),  and  Abbot  Alexander  resigned  the  abbey  of  Cupar  in  1240 
(Chron.  de  Mailros,  p.  150),  but  he  must  have  died  before  1246. 

T 


282 


Rev.  James  Wilson 


happen  that  they  had  done  so  and  communicated  their  verdict  to 
Abbot  Matthew  of  Melrose,  who  brought  it  to  practical  issue. 
The  end  of  this  stage  of  the  dispute  is  declared  in  the  following 
document: 


TEXT. 

Vniuersis  presentes  litteras  in- 
specturis,  Frater  M[attheus],  dictus 
abbas  de  Melros,  salutem  in  Domino. 
Vniuersitati  vestre  notum  facimus 
quod  cum  controuersia  esset  inter 
venerabiles  abbatem  et  conuentum 
Cistercii,  ex  vna  parte,  et  abbatem 
et  conuentum  de  Cupro,  ex  altera, 
super  eo  quod  dicti  Cistercienses 
dicebant  ecclesiam  de  Erolim  eis 
totaliter  datam  a  domino  rege  Scocie, 
illis  de  Cupro  contrarium  asseren- 
tibus  et  dicentibus  quod  predict! 
Cistercienses  nichil  amplius  habe- 
bant  in  predicta  ecclesia  quam 
viginti  libras  annui  redditus  ster- 
lingorum  :  tandem  predicta  contro- 
uersia terminata  est  in  hunc  modum, 
videlicet,  quod  predict!  abbas  et  con- 
uentus  de  Cupro  debent  soluere 
predictis  Cisterciensibus  in  nundinis 
Trecensibus,  in  festo  apostolorum 
Petri  et  Pauli  uel  in  sequent!  primo 
capitulo  generali  viginti  marcas  ster- 
lingorum  pro  dampnis  et  expensis  : 
pro  qua  solutione  facienda  nos  et 
domum  nostram  dictis  Cistercien- 
sibus obligamus :  et  ipsi  predicti 
Cistercienses  quittauerunt  dictam 
querelam  imperpetuum  supradictis 
Cuprensibus :  ita  dum  taxat  quod 
predicti  Cuprenses  soluent  annuatim 
sicut  antea  facere  consueuerant  Cis- 
tercio  viginti  libras  sterlingorum, 
omnibus  instrumentis  super  hoc 
negocio  confectis  in  suo  robore  per- 
manentibus.  In  testimonium  autem 
omnium  predictorum  et  confirma- 
tionem  nos,  predictus  abbas  de 
Melros,  vna  cum  predicto  domino 
abbate  Cistercii  impressionem  sigil- 
lorum  nostrorum  presentibus  litteris 


TRANSLATION. 

To  all  who  shall  see  the  present 
letter,  Brother  M[atthew],  called 
abbot  of  Melros,  greeting  in  the 
Lord.  We  make  known  to  all  of 
you  that  whereas  there  was  a  dispute 
between  the  venerable  abbot  and 
convent  of  Citeaux,  of  the  one  part, 
and  the  abbot  and  convent  of  Cupre, 
of  the  other,  because  the  said  monks 
of  Citeaux  alleged  that  the  church 
of  Erolim  was  wholly  given  to  them 
by  [our]  lord  the  King  of  Scotland, 
those  of  Cupre  asserting  the  contrary 
and  alleging  that  the  aforesaid  monks 
of  Citeaux  had  nothing  more  in  the 
aforesaid  church  than  twenty  pounds 
sterling  of  yearly  rent.  At  length 
the  aforesaid  dispute  was  ended  in 
this  manner,  namely,  that  the  afore- 
said abbot  and  convent  of  Cupre 
ought  to  pay  to  the  aforesaid  monks 
of  Citeaux,  in  the  fair  of  Treves,  on 
the  feast  of  the  Apostles  Peter  and 
Paul  or  in  the  first  General  Chapter 
following,  twenty  marks  sterling  for 
losses  and  expenses :  for  the  making 
of  which  payment  we  oblige  our- 
selves and  our  house  to  the  said 
monks  of  Citeaux  :  and  they,  the 
aforesaid  monks  of  Citeaux,  shall 
relinquish  for  ever  the  said  suit  at 
the  above-named  monks  of  Cupre : 
so  that  the  aforesaid  monks  of  Cupre 
shall  merely  pay  yearly,  as  they  have 
been  accustomed  to  do  heretofore, 
twenty  pounds  of  sterlings,  all  the 
documents  made  touching  this  matter 
continuing  in  their  full  force.  In 
witness  and  confirmation  of  all  the 
aforesaid,  we  the  aforesaid  abbot  of 
Melros,  together  with  the  aforesaid 
lord  abbot  of  Citeaux,  have  caused 


Charters  of  the  Abbey  of  Cupar        283 


fecimus  apponi.  Actum  anno  Domini 
M  •  cc  •  quadragesimo  sexto  tempore 
capituli  generalis.1 


the  print  of  our  seals  to  be  affixed  to 
the  present  letter.  Done  in  the  year 
of  the  Lord  1246,  in  the  time  of  the 
General  Chapter. 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  advowson  of  the  church  or  the 
provision  for  the  maintenance  of  the  incumbent  is  not  mentioned 
in  the  award.  These  would  naturally  come  in  the  ordination  of 
the  vicarage  by  the  Bishop  of  St.  Andrews,  one  of  the  documents 
in  the  history  of  the  appropriation  of  the  church  of  Airlie  which 
has  not  yet  been  found.  The  subsequent  history  of  the  parish 
church  2  is  so  interesting  that  one  would  like  to  see  the  terms  of 
the  ordination.  Our  knowledge  of  the  ecclesiastical  law  of  Scot- 
land in  such  matters  at  that  period  would  be  immensely  advanced 
by  the  discovery  of  the  document. 

The  monks  of  Cupar  continued  to  pay  the  yearly  pension  of 
twenty  pounds  out  of  the  revenues  of  the  church  of  Airlie  for 
nearly  two  centuries.  Early  in  the  fifteenth  century,  however, 
the  house  had  fallen  into  arrears,  but  by  the  kindly  offices  of  the 
abbot  of  Balmerino  in  140  8,  a  composition  of  forty  golden  francs  was 
accepted  by  the  monks  of  Citeaux  in  full  satisfaction  for  the  debt, 
and  a  new  settlement  was  arrived  at  whereby  half  of  the  statutory 
yearly  pension  was  remitted  for  the  twenty  years  then  ensuing, 
the  term  of  payment  remaining  as  before.  The  following  is  the 
text  of  the  acquittance,  embodying  the  terms  of  the  new  agreement : 


TEXT. 

Nos,  frater  Johannes,  abbas  Cis- 
tercii,  notum  facimus  vniuersis  quod 
cum  venerabiles  et  in  Christo  dilec- 
tissimi  coabbas  noster  et  conuentus 
monasterii  de  Cupro,  nostri  Cister- 
ciensis  ordinis,  Sanctiandree  diocesis, 
nobis  nostroque  Cisterciensi  monas- 
terio  teneantur  in  viginti  libris 
legalium  sterlingorum  annui  et  per- 
petui  redditus  in  nundinis  Trecen- 
sibus  in  festo  apostolorum  Petri  et 
Pauli  vel  in  sequenti  proximo  nostri 
ordinis  capitulo  generali  persoluendis, 
de  et  pro  quibus  xx  libris  annui 
redditus  multa  nobis  debebantur  arre- 


TRANSLATION. 

We,  brother  John,  abbot  of  Cit- 
eaux, make  known  to  all,  that 
whereas  the  venerable  and  most 
beloved  in  Christ,  our  fellow-abbot 
and  the  convent  of  the  monastery 
of  Cupre,  of  our  Cistercian  Order, 
of  the  diocese  of  St.  Andrews,  are 
obliged  to  us  and  our  monastery  of 
Citeaux  in  the  payment  of  twenty 
pounds  of  lawful  sterling  money  of 
yearly  and  perpetual  rent,  in  the  fair  of 
Treves,  on  the  feast  of  the  Apostles 
Peter  and  Paul  or  in  the  next 
Chapter  General  of  our  order  follow- 
ing :  of  and  for  which  twenty  pounds 


,1 


1  Cupar  Charters,  div.  v.  no.  49.     Seal  of  Citeaux  a  fragment :  seal  of  Melrose 
entire.     Endorsed  :  *  Declaracio  contencionis  inter  Cistertium  et  Cuprum  propter 
ecclesiam  de  Erolyn.' 

2  See  Regis ter  of  Cupar  Abbey  (Grampian  Club),  s.v.  Airlie. 


284 


Rev.  James  Wilson 


of  yearly  rent  many  arrears  were  due 
to  us  :  having  heard  with  sympa- 
thetic ears  of  the  woful  plight  of 
the  aforesaid  monastery  of  Cupre 
made  known  to  us  orderly  and  faith- 
fully by  our  venerable  fellow-abbot 
of  Balmorynach,  we  with  pious  in- 
tent have  surrendered  and  forgiven, 
and  by  the  purport  of  the  same 
presents  do  surrender  and  fully  for- 
give whatsoever  was  due  to  us  and 
our  monastery  of  Citeaux  already 
mentioned,  of  and  for  any  past  time 
whatsoever  up  to  the  present  date, 
by  reason  of  the  rent  of  the  twenty 
pounds  before  alluded  to :  in  con- 
sideration, however,  of  a  sum  of  forty 
golden  francs  of  the  coin  of  our  lord 
the  King  of  France  :  which  sum  of 
forty  francs  we  have  wholly  and  in 
ready  money  received  from  our  same 
fellow-abbot  of  Balmorynach  :  and 
of  which  xl  francs  and  for  all  the 
said  arrears  we  undertake  by  the 
presents  to  cause  the  aforesaid  monks 
of  Cupre  and  him  (the  Abbot)  of 
Balmorynach  to  be  held  quiet  in  our 
name  and  in  that  of  our  convent  and 
monastery  of  Citeaux  for  ever.  In 
augmentation  of  our  favour,  more- 
over, we  grant  by  the  tenor  of  this 
letter  to  the  same  monks  of  Cupre, 
that  of  the  aforesaid  twenty  pounds, 
as  previously  explained,  due  yearly  to 
us  by  them,  they  shall  pay  only  to 
us,  throughout  the  twenty  years  im- 
mediately following  this  day,  ten 
pounds  in  lawful  sterling  money  in 
each  of  the  said  twenty  years,  for- 
giving by  the  title  and  purport  of  the 
same  presents  the  remaining  ten 
pounds  in  each  of  the  said  twenty 
years,  the  term  by  favour  continuing 
precisely  as  above.  Given  at  Dijon 
by  the  addition  of  our  seal  on  ijth 
July,  1408. 

1Cupar  Charters,  div.  iv.  no.  41.     Seal  gone.     Endorsed  :  '  Quitancia  domini 
Cistercii  per  abbatem  de  Balmorinach  optenta  et  impetrata.' 


ragia  :  compassiuis  auribus  audita 
predicti  monasterii  de  Cupro  lamen- 
tabili  desolacione  per  venerabilem 
coabbatem  nostrum  de  Balmorynach 
seriatim  et  fideliter  nobis  exposita, 
quicquid  racione  pretacti  redditus 
viginti  librarum  nobis  et  iam  dicto 
nostro  Cisterciensi  monasterio  de  et 
pro  quocunque  lapso  tempore  debe- 
batur  usque  ad  datam  presencium, 
pietatis  intuitu,  quittauimus  et  re- 
misimus  ac  earundem  presencium 
tenore  quittamus  et  remittimus 
plenarie.  Mediante  tamen  somma 
quadraginta  francorum  auri  de 
cugno  regis  Francie  domini  nostri: 
quam  sommam  xl  francorum  inte- 
graliter  et  in  numerata  pecunia  re- 
cepimus  ab  eodem  coabbate  nostro 
de  Balmorynach,  et  de  quibus  xl 
francis  ac  pro  dictis  arreragiis  quibus- 
cunque  predictos  Cuprenses  ac  ipsum 
de  Balmorynach  nostro  nostrique 
conuentus  et  monasterii  Cisterciensis 
nomine  quittos  teneri  facere  perpetuo 
promittimus  per  presentes.  Nostram 
insuper  ampliando  graciam  eisdem 
Cuprensibus  harum  serie  concedimus 
ut  de  predictis  xx  libris,  ut  pre- 
mittitur,  nobis  annuatim  per  eos 
debitis,  per  immediate  sequentes 
hanc  diem  viginti  annos,  quolibet 
dictorum  viginti  annorum  decem 
libras  legalium  sterlingorum  nobis 
tantum  soluant :  reliquas  decem  libras 
anno  quolibet  dictorum  viginti  an- 
norum durante  termino  duntaxat 
graciose  quo  supra  nomine  et  harun- 
dem  tenore  presencium  remittentes. 
Datum  Diuione  sub  appensione 
sigilli  nostri  xvij  die  mensis  lulii 
anno  Domini  millesimo  quadringen- 
tesimo  octauo.1 


Charters  of  the  Abbey  of  Cupar        285 

^  But  the  whirligig  of  fortune  brought  another  change  at  the 
Chapter  General  held  in  the  September  of  1448.  The  piti- 
able condition  of  the  monks  of  Cupar,  caused  by  dangers  and 
losses  of  various  descriptions,  was  laid  before  the  business 
committee  of  the  Chapter,  and  a  scheme  was  agreed  upon  for 
the  entire  redemption  of  the  pension  by  the  payment  of  a  lump 
sum  of  four  hundred  golden  crowns  by  the  monks  of  Cupar  to 
the  mother  house.  The  complete  remission,  under  the  great  seal 
of  the  abbey  of  Citeaux  and  that  of  the  capitular  assessors,  is  as 
follows : 


TEXT. 

Nos,  Frater  Johannes,  abbas  Cis- 
tercii,  ceterique  diffinitores1  capituli 
generalis,  Cisterciensis  ordinis,  no- 
turn  facimus  vniuersis,  quod  anno 
Domini  millesimo  cccc°xlviij°,  in 
eodem  capitulo  die  xiiij  mensis  Sep- 
tembris  apud  Cistercium  celebrate, 
facta  fuit  quedam  diffinitio,  cuius 
tenor  subsequitur  in  hiis  uerbis : 

Presens  generale  capitulum,  be- 
nigniter  attendens  paupertatem  mo- 
nasterii  de  Cupro  in  Scocia,  quan- 
tisque  et  crebris  agittetur  periculis  et 
perditionibus  tarn  propter  undositates 
marinas  quam  propter  insidias  inimi- 
corum  interpositas,  summam  siue 
redditum  viginti  librarum  monete 
Scocie,  pro  et  de  qua  somma  dictum 
monasterium  tenebatur  et  in  per- 
petuum  obligabatur  capitulo  generali, 
remittit  et  quittat  ipsum  capitulum 
eidem  monasterio  ipsumque  eximit 
a  solucione  dicti  annui  redditus  vi- 
ginti librarum  pro  futuris  et  per- 
petuis  temporibus.  Ita  tamen  quod 
abbas  et  conuentus  dicti  monasterii 
de  Cupro  pro  redempcione  predict! 
redditus  domino  Cisterciensi  seu  pro- 


TRANSLATION. 

We,  brother  John,  abbot  of  Cit" 
eaux,  and  the  other  assessors  of  the 
General  Chapter  of  the  Cistercian 
Order,  make  known  to  all,  that  in 
the  year  of  the  Lord  1448,  in  the 
same  chapter  celebrated  at  Citeaux 
on  the  fourteenth  day  of  the  month 
of  September,  was  made  a  certain 
'definition,'  the  purport  of  which 
follows  in  these  words: 

The  present  general  chapter,  giv- 
ing gracious  heed  to  the  poor  estate 
of  the  monastery  of  Cupre  in  Scot- 
land and  by  how  many  and  frequent 
dangers  and  losses  it  is  troubled,  as 
well  by  reason  of  stormy  seas  as  by  the 
snares  of  enemies  between  us  and 
them — the  said  chapter  forgives  and 
acquits  to  the  same  monastery  the 
sum  or  render  of  twenty  pounds  of 
Scottish  money,  for  and  of  which 
sum  the  said  monastery  was  bound 
and  for  ever  engaged  to  the  General 
Chapter,  and  frees  it  from  the  pay- 
ment of  the  said  yearly  render  of 
twenty  pounds  for  all  time  to  come. 
So,  nevertheless,  that  the  abbot  and 
convent  of  the  said  monastery  of 


1  A  diffinitio  was  in  the  nature  of  a  statute  or  bye-law  for  the  regulation  of 
Cistercian  affairs.  The  diffinitores  were  a  council  of  abbots,  selected  by  the  abbot 
of  Citeaux,  in  whose  hand  was  the  power  of  the  General  Chapter  for  the  making 
of  statutes  and  the  defining  of  all  disputed  matters  of  discipline,  when  that  body 
was  out  of  session.  They  formed  a  consultative  committee  to  the  Superior  of  the 
Order.  For  lack  of  a  better  word,  I  have  given  assessors  as  the  equivalent.  For 
the  mode  of  their  election,  see  Cistercian  Statutes  (ed.  J.  T.  Fowler),  p.  51. 


286         Charters  of  the  Abbey  of  Cupar 

curator!  aut  certo  mandate  suo  som-  Cupre,  for  the  redemption  of  the 
mam  quadringentarum  coronarum  aforesaid  rent,  shall  pay  and  transfer 
auri,  boni  auri  et  legitimi  ponderis,  or  cause  to  be  paid  and  transferred, 
infra  festum  Natiuitatis  Dominice  faithfully  and  wholly,  in  the  town 
proxime  venturum  fideliter  et  inte-  of  Bruges,  to  the  superior  of  Citeaux 
graliter  in  villa  Brugensi1  persoluent  or  his  proctor  or  by  his  definite 
et  consignabunt  seu  persolui  facient  order,  a  sum  of  four  hundred  golden 
et  consignari.  Datum  sub  sigillo  crowns,  of  good  gold  and  lawful 
diffinitorum  dicti  capituli,  anno,  die,  weight,  within  the  feast  of  the  Na- 
meuse  et  loco  supradictis.  tivity  of  our  Lord  next  to  come. 

-  Et  ad  maiorem  premissorum  firmi-  Given  under  the  seal  of  the  assessors 
tatem  et  securitatem,  nos,  abbas  of  the  said  chapter  in  the  year,  day, 
Cisterciensis  antedictus,  sigillum  month,  and  place  abovesaid. 
nostrum  maius,  vna  cum  predicto  And  for  the  greater  security  and 
sigillo  diffinitorum,  presentibus  duxi-  guarantee  of  the  premises,  we,  the 
mus  apponendum.  Datum  ut  supra.2  abbot  of  Citeaux  beforesaid,  have 

caused  our  greater  seal,  together  with 
the  aforesaid  seal  of  the  assessors,  to 
be  affixed  to  the  presents.  Given  as 
above. 

From  that  day  the  house  of  Cupar  was  sole  possessor  of  the 
rectorial  revenues  of  the  church  of  Airlie.  It  will  be  admitted 
that  the  vicissitudes  of  the  appropriation  add  considerably  to  our 
knowledge  of  the  history  of  that  monastery.  No  exception  will 
be  taken  to  my  purpose  that  attention  should  be  wholly  confined 
to  the  new  evidences  from  the  Earl  of  Moray's  collection  of 
charters.  Printed  evidences  are  accessible  to  all  and  called  for  no 
mention  in  this  discussion.  Students  of  Scottish  history,  but 
more  especially  those  interested  in  the  history  of  Forfarshire,  are 
under  great  obligation  to  the  Earl  for  allowing  these  charters  to 
be  made  public.  My  personal  indebtedness  to  Mr.  Maitland 
Thomson  has  been  already  acknowledged. 

JAMES  WILSON. 

1  The  mention  of  this  town,  where  payment  was  to  be  made,  favours  my 
previous  suggestion  (S.H.R.  vii.  176)  that  the  commercial  intercourse  of  Scotland 
with  Flanders  had  something  to  do  with  the  fixing  of  Troyes  as  the  original  place 
of  payment.    The  Scottish  abbots,  as  it  would  seem,  approached  Citeaux  from  the 
north-west,  travelling  by  Bruges  and  Troyes. 

2  Cupar  Charters,  div.   v.    no.   78.      Signature,   *  Prater  Guil[ie]l[m]us  abbas 
Igniaci.'     Two   seals.     Both    broken.     Endorsed  :    *  Littera  perpetue    quittantie 
abbatis  Cistercii  et  capituli  generalis  annue  pensionis  xx  librarum/     The  only 
other  deeds  in  the  Earl's  collection,  in  which  Airlie  is  mentioned,  are  Testifications 
by  Archbishops  of  St.  Andrews,  in  1479  anc*   X532  respectively,  that  the  abbey 
of  Cupar  was  not  bound  to  contribute  to  the  caritativum  subsidium  levied  by  the 
Archbishop. 


Arthur  Johnston  in  his  Poems 

THANKS  to  a  harmless  egotism,  some  poets  have  anticipated 
and  indulged  the  desire  of  posterity  to  know  something  of 
their  lives  and  personal  characteristics.  The  biography  of  Horace 
has  been  compiled  in  a  series  of  selections  from  his  verse ;  and 
Ovid  has  almost  spared  us  the  trouble  of  gathering  and  piecing 
together.  Arthur  Johnston,  a  disciple  of  Ovid  in  the  art  of  Latin 
elegiac  verse,  has  been  almost  as  obliging.  His  biographers, 
though  they  have  spared  no  pains,  have  little  to  add  to  what  may 
be  gathered  from  his  writings ;  and  it  is  only  from  these  that  we 
can  form  a  true  idea  of  his  character.  Nowadays,  however,  his 
volumes  lie  unvisited  except  by  the  rare  antiquary  or  the  library 
moth.  Yet  the  personal  poems  contain  the  preservative  of  human 
interest ;  and  they  are  worth  knowing,  if  only  because  they  offer 
the  relief  of  a  broad  and  kindly  humanity  to  the  picture  of 
Scotland  in  days  when  it  was  a  wild  of  theological  and  political 
savagery. 

Arthur  Johnston  was  born,  as  nearly  as  may  be  conjectured, 
in  1577,  and  was  a  Johnston  of  that  Ilk  in  the  parish  of 
Leslie  in  Aberdeen,  his  father  being  laird  of  Johnston.1  The 
fifth  son  of  a  large  family,  he  had  to  make  his  own  way  in 
the  world ;  and  after  an  education  at  Kintore  and  Aberdeen, 
he  betook  himself  to  the  Continent.  At  Heidelberg  he  con- 
tinued his  studies,  and  in  brief  space  rose  to  the  rank  of 
professor.  Soon  after  he  removed  to  Sedan,  where  the  Due  de 
Bouillon  was  fostering  a  new  University.  Johnston  was  called  to 
the  chair  of  Logic  and  Metaphysics  and  remained  there  for  nearly 
twenty  years.  During  the  first  six  of  these  he  visited  Italy  twice, 
and  on  the  second  occasion  came  away  with  the  degree  of  Doctor 
of  Medicine.  That  he  kept  his  chair  in  Sedan  and  studied  medicine 

1  As  he  says  in  his  poem,  De  Loco  Suo  Natali : 

Clara  Maroneis  evasit  Mantua  cunis 
Me  mea  natalis  nobilitabit  humus. 


288 


T.  D.  Robb 


in  Italy  part  of  the  time  seems  to  need  explanation,  though  the 
matter  has  not  troubled  any  of  his  biographers.  Probably,  like 
Scottish  professors  in  the  eighteenth  century — Adam  Fergusson, 
for  example — professors  at  a  French  University  might  desert  their 
posts  when  they  chose,  by  simply  securing  a  cheap  locum  tenens 
during  their  absence. 

His  degree  immediately  gained  him  an  extra  chair  at  Sedan. 
Retaining  his  position  in  Logic,  he  become  professor  of  Physic. 
For  years  thereafter  his  life  seems  to  have  been  one  of  ordinary 
academic  routine ;  nor  is  it  until  nearly  the  end  of  his  residence 
abroad,  when  he  would  be  over  forty,  that  we  find  him  making 
his  first  appearance  as  an  author.  The  last  trace  of  him  in  the 
records  of  Sedan  is  dated  1619;  but  whether  he  left  that  University 
then,  one  cannot  tell.  He  remained  on  the  Continent  other  three 
years,  and  may  have  returned  to  Heidelberg.  The  probability  of 
this  conjecture  depends  on  two  facts:  that  his  poems  on  the 
troubles  of  the  Palatinate  were  printed  there,  and  that  soon  after 
the  capture  of  the  city  by  Tilly  we  find  him  back  in  Scotland, 
enrolled  as  a  citizen  of  Aberdeen. 

During  his  residence  at  Sedan,  Johnston  was  on  terms  of 
intimate  friendship  with  Andrew  Melvill  and  Daniel  Tilenus ;  the 
one  exiled  from  Scotland  for  his  hostility  towards  episcopacy,  the 
other — a  Silesian  divine  of  Arminian  principles — being  a  strong 
counter  charm  to  such  an  influence.  Johnston  himself  may  have 
acted  as  moderator  to  their  assembly,  when  all  three  foregathered. 
As  we  see  in  many  of  his  writings  he  was,  like  the  humanists 
in  general,  rather  indifferent  to  theological  polemics ;  if  he  did 
ever  take  a  side,  it  was  only  later,  in  Scotland,  when  the  intolerable 
intolerance  of  Presbytery  threatened  his  personal  freedom.  On 
such  occasions,  as  we  shall  see  in  his  Apologia  Piscatoris^  he  could 
speak  in  unequivocal  accents,  a  sturdy  latitudinarian. 

For  some  time  after  his  return  to  Scotland  we  know  nothing 
certain  of  him.  Sir  William  Geddes  conjectures  that  his  poems  in 
support  of  the  Princess  Palatine — James's  daughter  Elizabeth — 
may  have  proved  a  passport  to  courtly  circles  in  London ;  and 
thinks  that  it  was  about  this  time  he  gained  his  title  of  Medicus 
Regius.  But  even  if  this  were  so — and  it  is  very  probable — there 
was  nothing  to  keep  him  in  England.  As  we  know  from  one  of 
his  lighter  poems,  the  title  was  long  an  empty  one.  The  post 
was  a  successorship,  and,  as  Johnston  complains  in  thisjeu  d*  esprit 
— a  poem  rather  serious  in  tone  to  be  quite  successful  as  such — 
the  royal  physicians  one  and  all  gave  promise  of  longer  life  than 


Arthur  Johnston  in  his  Poems          289 

was  convenient  for  him.  His  circumstances  did  not  permit  him 
to  be  an  idler,  so  in  all  probability  he  soon  went  north,  and  there 
settled  on  a  farm  'at  the  back  of  Benachie.'  None  of  his 
biographers  refer  to  this  episode  of  his  life;  but  that  there  was  a 
farming  period  is  evident  from  several  of  his  poems. 

He  does  not  seem  to  have  found  the  life  altogether  congenial. 
Yet  he  produced  then  much  more  and  much  better  verse  than  he 
had  done  during  his  professorial  period.  In  due  course  he  pub- 
lished several  volumes  of  sacred  and  of  secular  verse.  The  most 
notable  was  a  complete  Latin  version  of  the  Psalms.  By  this 
time  he  had  formed  an  acquaintance  with  some  of  the  leading  men 
of  the  time ;  whether  by  correspondence  or  by  frequent  visits  to 
Aberdeen,  it  is  impossible  to  say.  But  his  circumstances  may 
have  changed  and  he  may  have  removed  to  the  city.  He  can 
hardly  have  remained  the  busy  farmer  he  pictures  himself  in  his 
Epistle  to  Dr.  Robert  Baron;  for  we  next  find  him  appointed 
Rector  of  the  University  and  King's  College  of  Aberdeen. 
According  to  Irvine,  the  position  was  a  sinecure ;  Geddes,  with 
more  reason,  makes  it  out  to  have  been  sufficiently  arduous. 

The  next  certainty  is  the  last.  In  1641  he  went  to  Oxford  to 
visit  a  daughter  who  had  married  a  clergyman  of  the  English 
Episcopal  Church.  There  he  fell  ill,  and  died. 

This  is  all,  or  nearly  all,  we  know  of  the  life  of  Arthur  Johnston. 
Add  to  it  a  few  details  of  genealogy;  the  complete  list  of  his 
works,  with  dates  of  publication  ;  the  fact  that  he  was  twice 
married,  first  to  a  Belgian  lady  and  next  to  a  Scottish ;  and  the 
sum  is  complete.  It  was  the  humdrum  life  of  a  scholar  who 
shunned  the  strife  of  politics  and  theology.  A  lawsuit  or  two 
about  property  flushed  it  with  what  would  seem  to  have  been 
enormous  excitement,  which  found  vent  in  over-heated  verse. 
An  incident  of  travel,  when  he  was  robbed  of  some  clothes  by  the 
crew  of  the  ship  he  sailed  in,  is  made  the  occasion  of  a  blistering 
satire  on  sailors  in  general.  Probably,  on  these  occasions,  the 
poems  were  more  to  him  than  the  events  that  called  them  forth. 

The  poems  of  Johnston  that  are  still  worth  reading  relate 
almost  entirely  to  his  life  in  Scotland,  and  are  not  very  numerous. 
The  translation  of  the  Psalms  may  now  be  regarded  as  a  mere 
literary  tour  de  force ;  and  much  of  the  secular  verse  can  only 
reward  the  curious  antiquary.  Yet,  though  few  have  the  qualities 
of  permanent  literature,  the  sum  of  the  lines  of  those  few  is  quite 
as  large  as  the  residuum  of  many  an  unforgotten  poet  whose  work 
has  been  sifted  by  the  centuries.  A  reader  who  is  versed  only  in 


290 


T.  D.  Robb 


modern  literature  may  not  think  them  poetry  at  all,  may  say  that 
they  are  only  good  talk  metred.  But  in  ancient  times,  and  even 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  the  functions  of  verse  and  prose  were 
not  so  distinctly  differentiated  as  they  have  been  since.  The  verse 
of  Johnston  that  may  still  rank  as  literature  is  good  talk,  in 
metre,  and  satisfies  the  old  definition  of  poetry.1  Sometimes  it 
even  satisfies  the  narrower  modern  conception.  The  following 
poems  are  presented  only  in  translation  ;  yet  they  suggest  a 
personality  that  helps  to  mellow  the  usual  picture  of  those  times. 
Let  us  take  first  the  Epistle  to  Dr.  Robert  Baron,  the  most 
distinguished  of  the  famous  group  of  divines,  known  as  the 
Aberdeen  Doctors,  who  were  celebrated  by  Clarendon  as  resisting 
the  Covenant.  It  was  sent  with  some  poems ;  and,  while  inviting 
the  severest  criticism,  apologises  for  the  shortcomings  of  the  work 
by  explaining  the  conditions  of  the  author's  life.  As  we  read  we 
are  reminded  of  the  words  of  Macaulay  in  the  first  chapter  of  his 
History :  '  Scotsmen  whose  dwellings  and  whose  food  were  as 
wretched  as  those  of  the  Icelanders  of  our  time  wrote  Latin  verse 
with  more  than  the  delicacy  of  Vida.'  The  historian  was  thinking 
particularly  of  Buchanan,  but  it  will  be  seen  that  he  might  equally 
well  have  had  in  mind  the  circumstances  in  which  Johnston  strove 
to  *  guard  the  fire  within  *  and  cultivate  the  art  he  loved. 

To  ROBERT  BARON. 

From  Gadie's  banks  I  send  this  little  book — 
Gadie  that  lies,  as  Gades  2  lay  of  yore, 
Remote  from  life.     I  send  it  sad  at  heart, 
Knowing  you'll  trace  the  bumpkin  on  each  page. 
But  marvel  not  that,  living  far  from  Town, 
I  miss  the  quickened  life  that  flowers  in  art. 
Think  of  me  farming  on  a  wretched  croft 
Whose  rocky  knolls  sparely  permit  the  plough, 
And  think  what  I  was  once,  a  man  of  books, 
Living  to  emulate  the  sires  of  song. 

The  hand  that  held  the  pen  now  holds  the  plough, 
And  oxen  have  the  place  of  Pegasus. 
These  are  my  tilling-team.     I  follow  them 
Bent  o'er  the  plough-tail,  staring  on  the  ground, 
And  leaning  hard  to  drive  the  coulter  deep. 

1  irdvra  /aerpoi/  e^ovra  Xdyov,  to  quote  the  definition  of  Gorgias,  in  Plato's 
dialogue. 

2  The  use  of  the  word  Gadiacis  suggests  that  the  poet  meant  a  play  on  the  word, 
Gades  or  Cadiz  being  on  the  outskirts  of  Roman  civilization. 


Arthur  Johnston  in  his  Poems  291 

Sometimes  I  ply  the  goad,  often  I  chant, 
Sing-song,  to  teach  the  inharmonious  brutes 
To  step  in  rhythmic  motion.     Or,  again, 
I  delve,  I  harrow,  trench  in  desperate  dargs 
Soil  rough  and  stubborn  as  it  came  from  God. 
Here  one  part  is  all  stones,  one  must  be  drained, 
And  one  cries  out  for  irrigating  streams, — 
A  triple  toil.     Woe  worth  the  weary  flail, 
Woe  worth  the  spade  !     My  aching  arms  and  feet 
Throb,  even  as  I  write,  anathemas. 

Myself,  half-naked,  three-pronged  graip  in  hand, 

Must  trench  the  mire,  and  spread  with  foul  manure. 

In  Spring,  a  Sower  I  go  forth  to  sow  ; 

In  Autumn,  see  me  reaping  hook  in  hand  ! 

My  harvest  brings  a  three-fold  care.     One  part 

Goes  to  the  kiln  for  drying ;  one  to  the  quern 

For  bruising ;  and  a  third,  the  precious  flax, 

Must  in  the  stream  be  steeped.     But,  twixt  those  cares, — 

Those  of  the  Spring  and  Fall — in  Summer  hours 

I  dig  for  fodder  for  the  winter  fire. 

Deep  down  I  delve, — ay,  down  so  deep  I  go 

That  fancy,  or  my  very  eyes,  behold 

The  under-world  of  Shades.     And  they,  methinks 

I  hear  them  cry,  *  That's  Johnston  !  Poor  old  slave  !' 

Care  follows  care,  as  on  a  stormy  sea 

Billow  on  billow  rolls  in  endless  wrath. 

Scarce  in  the  dead  of  night  my  eyes  are  closed 

When  sings  the  bird  of  dawn.     I  rouse  myself, 

And  wrap  in  shaggy  comfort  back  and  foot, 

Then  break  my  fast  on  what  would  break  your  heart, — 

Parsnip l  and  water  !     I  die  a  thousand  deaths ! 

Nor  does  the  underworld  my  fancy  haunts 

Hold  such  a  luckless,  miserable  soul. 

I  am  not  what  I  was.     My  looks  would  scare 
My  lady  mother  and  my  peasant  nurse ; 
And  even  myself  am  frightened  to  behold 
Hair  gray  with  dust,  a  countenance  begrimed, 
And  feet  and  legs  all  filth.     My  neck  is  bowed, 
And,  from  a  ploughman  habit,  I  fix  my  gaze 
Ever  upon  the  ground  like  any  ox. 
Temples  and  brow  are  shaggy,  and  my  breast 
A  fell  of  hair:  my  beard  is  coarse,  unkempt; 
My  hands  are  horny,  and  my  once  soft  skin 
Is  tough  as  leather  with  the  sun  and  frost. 

1  Rapa.     This  is  usually  translated  turnip,  but  the  turnip  was  not  then  known 
in  Scotland.     A  point  for  antiquaries. 


292  T.  D.  Robb 

Such  loss  of  comeliness  one  might  endure  : 
The  outer  husk  were  little  if  the  mind 
Knew  no  decay.     But  mind  and  body  pair : 
My  wits  grow  clownish  and  my  manners  coarse, 
Fit  only  for  this  highland  wilderness 
Where  learning,  wit,  and  every  kind  of  grace 
Of  noble  intellect  are  all  to  seek. 

Of  bullocks,  oxen,  ploughs,  I  think  and  talk ; 

Yet  I  discourse  in  clownish  syllables 

So  awkwardly  that  men  in  funeral  march 

Might  drop  the  coffin,  if  they  overheard, 

To  hold  their  sides  for  laughter.     Latin  now 

Is  foreign  speech,  and  all  the  skill  is  lost 

That  once  I  had  to  strike  Apollo's  lyre. 

If  aught  remains  of  my  Latinity, 

'Tis  but  the  lees  and  smells  of  squalid  life. 

Perhaps  you  doubt.     Well,  take  this  little  book 

And  find  corroboration.     Read  it  through, — 

If  conscience  pardons  the  expense  of  time — 

And  let  your  quill  strike  through  each  faulty  phrase  ; 

And  spare  not ;  for  by  your  arbitrament 

Each  word  shall  stand  or  fall.     Yet,  while  you  rub 

My  wretched  parchment  to  a  palimpsest, 

Join  me  in  prayer  to  Apollo.     Do  I  crave 

Redundant  harvests  such  as  sickles  reap 

In  Araby  the  Blest,  or  that  my  fields 

Employ  a  hundred  ploughs  ?     Nay,  'tis  not  wealth, 

'Tis  life  I  long  for :  to  be  once  again 

A  citizen,  not  a  savage,  on  the  earth ; 

To  leave  the  plough,  to  abandon  Gadie's  banks 

And  outer  darkness — this  I  crave,  no  more. 

A  picture  of  a  farmer  poet  naturally  suggests  the  thought  of 
Robert  Burns,  but  in  this  connection  it  would  be  idle  to  pursue 
the  parallel  of  comparison  and  contrast.  Johnston,  as  he  figures 
himself  here,  is  rather  more  suggestive  of  William  Wilkie,  professor, 
farmer,  and  poet,  once  famous  among  his  patriotic  countrymen 
as  the  Scottish  Homer,  on  account  of  his  now  long-forgotten 
Epigoniad.  Known  as  '  Potato  Wilkie  '  because  of  his  ardour  in 
cultivating  the  then  little-known  vegetable,  he  drudged  on  his 
little  farm,  an  uncouth,  unkempt,  shabby  scarecrow,  while  he 
recited  the  Greek  poets  or  went  metring  verse  of  his  own  in 
ardent  emulation. 

Perhaps  Johnston's  disgust  with  his  lot  is  overdrawn.  No 
doubt  he  felt  the  difficulties  of  the  double  life,  and  longed  for 


Arthur  Johnston  in  his  Poems          293 

greater  leisure  to  pursue  his  art ;  yet  elsewhere  he  pictures  him- 
self as  contented  enough  with  country  life.  There  is  a  certain 
poem,  addressed  to  the  Chancellor,  Hay  of  Kinnoul,  in  which  he 
inveighs  against  some  one  who  seems  to  have  tried  to  oust  him 
from  his  acres.1  There  he  speaks  of  his  farm  as  a  place  he  had 
chosen  for  pleasant  retirement  <  after  a  thousand  toils.' 

Hie  posui  fixique  larem :  post  mille  labores 
Spes  erat  hie  molli  posse  quiete  frui. 

It  is  Goldsmith's  vision  of  what  Sweet  Auburn  might  have  been 
to  him,  his  'long  vexations  past.'  Only,  instead  of  the  idle 
evening  hour  when  he  should  draw  the  villagers  round  the  fire  to 
listen  to  his  recollections  of  his  wandering  life,  Johnston  had  a 
vision  of  leisure  made  pleasant  by  poetic  pains. 

Spes  erat  et  patriae  laudes,  in  rupe  remota, 
Pangere,  Grampigenas  et  celebrare  duces. 

Manual  labour  was  to  Johnston  what  it  was  later  to  Thoreau,  the 
price  one  pays  to  be  permitted  to  live ;  and  to  live  meant  to  him, 
as  to  Thoreau,  to  give  oneself  to  the  art  of  literature.  Johnston, 
however,  had  a  family,  and,  as  is  evident  from  several  of  his 
poems,  was  proud  of  the  size  of  it.  He  had,  therefore,  to  pay 
also  for  their  privilege  to  live : 

Non  sibi  sed  soboli  vixit, 
as  he  tells  us. 

Yet,  withal,  he  must  have  had  some  time  to  himself  on  his  little 
estate ;  and  that  not  merely  for  verse-making  but  for  another  art 
which  he  seems  to  have  loved  quite  as  well.  A  Fishers  Apology 
is  a  complaint  against  those  who  would  interfere  with  his  angling 
on  Sundays,  and  it  is  one  of  his  most  spirited  compositions. 
Besides  a  reasoned  defence  of  Sunday  fishing,  it  contains  an 
enthusiastic  description  of  the  art  he  practised.  In  some  passages 
it  sings  of  the  angler's  delights  in  a  strain  that  would  have  warmed 
old  Izaak  Walton's  heart.  The  lover  of  the  lore  of  fishing  might 
well  look  it  up ;  for  not  only  does  it  rehearse  the  pleasures  of  the 

1  This  poem  should  interest  the  historical  student,  as  illustrating  the  methods  by 
which  a  claimant  in  those  days  sometimes  sought  to  assert  his  alleged  right. 
Johnston  speaks  of  his  rival  as  a  man  of  violence,  who  plundered  his  farm,  carried 
off  his  cattle,  and  went  about  with  a  gun,  ready  to  shoot  him  at  sight — a  '  Wild 
West '  picture.  It  is  a  pity  that  we  do  not  know  the  whole  story  :  probably 
Johnston  found  protection  in  the  Chancellor,  who  was  his  kinsman,  or  we  should 
have  heard  more  of  it. 


294 


T.  D.   Robb 


art,  it  also  contains  much  interesting  information  about  the  devices 
of  the  Scottish  sportsman  in  the  seventeenth  century.  Here  is 
the  first  part  of  the  poem  : 


A  FISHER'S  APOLOGY. 

Why  vex  your  soul,  sir  Parson  ?     Wherefore  fret 

To  see  me  on  a  Sunday  cast  my  net  ? 

I  am  no  Jew,  but  Japhet's  offspring  free : 

The  fourth  command  was  never  meant  for  me. 

I  know  God's  law  is  just,  but  cannot  find 

He  looks  on  mortals  with  a  crabbed  mind. 

The  Seventh  day  is  sacred ;  but  does  this 

Mean  to  the  active  world  paralysis  ? 

That  foolish  thought  Christ  flouted  when  He  healed 

The  withered  hand,  or  in  the  ripened  field 

Heartened  the  hungry  Twelve  to  pluck  the  corn. 

The  Pharisee  still  lives,  and  thinks  no  scorn 

To  be  no  wiser  for  the  Master's  voice. 

The  Christian  day  I  honour,  and  rejoice 

To  see  the  tired  ox  and  tired  hind 

Neglect  the  plough  and  harrow ;  for  I  find 

Monday  still  serves  for  them.     But  woe  to  him, 

That  fisher  who,  when  waters  are  in  trim, 

Lets  slip  the  occasion ;  for  not  fleeter  flies 

The  orient  blast  than  from  our  heedless  eyes 

Rare  opportunity.     Here,  by  this  pool, 

Must  I  then  play  the  Puritanic  fool, 

Neglecting  net  and  rod  because  'tis  Sunday  ? 

The  fish  are  here, — it  may  be  but  for  one  day. 

There  leaps  a  lusty  salmon,  twenty  pound ! 

To-morrow,  if  I  let  the  clock  go  round, 

He'll  haunt  the  higher  stream.     Come,  where's  my  rod  ? 

It  cannot  be  that  I  was  meant  by  God 

To  pasture  flocks  for  others  to  devour. 

This  thought  too  weighs  with  me :  by  some  strange  power 

The  fish  seem  Presbyterian,  and  betray 

Fearless  presumption  on  the  sacred  day ; 

Then,  Presbyterian  Gadie,  let  me  seek 

Thy  waters  this  best  day  of  all  the  week ! 

Men  are  but  mocked,  if  nets  must  idle  lie 

While  all  this  gleaming  wealth  fleets  safely  by. 

To  net  a  pool  is  not  a  toil  profane. 
Consult  the  classics :  in  that  largest  reign 
Of  mind,  no  thought  lies  clearer :  o'er  &  o'er 
The  ancients  call  it  sport  and  nothing  more. 


Arthur  Johnston  in  his  Poems          295 

The  huntsman  toils,  I  grant,  the  fowler,  too, 
The  while  they  thrid  their  way  the  forest  through : 
My  easy  art  no  Scripture  may  attaint, 
But  bless  it  as  refreshment  for  a  saint. 

Here  ends  the  first  counterblast  to  the  decree  of  Presbytery.  To 
the  austere  Puritan  it  must  have  read  as  desperate  flippancy.  To 
flout  the  fourth  *  command '  and  bid  him  consult  his  classics,  as  if 
those  godless  pagans  were  to  be  regarded  as  doctors  of  the 
Christian  law!  And  truly  nothing  is  quainter  at  times  than  the 
eclecticism  of  the  humanists,  when  they  entered  into  disputation 
with  men  whose  doctrines  were  almost  entirely  drawn  from  the 
Old  Testament. 

Johnston,  probably  for  artistic  relief,  now  interpolates  into  his 
argument  a  lively  sketch  of  a  day's  salmon  fishing.  Here  is  the 
first  part  of  it : 

Perched  on  a  lofty  rock  I  scan  the  stream ; 

And  there — and  there — the  silver  corslets  gleam 

Of  salmon.     'Tis  the  noble  annual  rent 

To  Benachie  from  the  far  Ocean  sent 

To  pay  the  little  lending  to  his  tide. 

And  these  live  pools  are  mine, — my  acres  wide 

With  harvest !     And,  as  some  misty  Autumn  morn 

The  farmer,  pacing  past  the  heavy  corn, 

Knows  that  the  time  has  come,  and,  filled  with  fears 

Of  ruinous  rains,  is  restless  till  he  hears 

The  reaping-hooks  a-swishing ;  so  my  soul 

Trusts  not  to-morrow  with  the  shifting  shoal 

This  is  my  harvest.     With  a  joyous  shout 

I  hail  the  hinds :  '  Get  fishing-tackle  out, 

And  launch  at  once.'     There's  no  delay,  no  shirking  ; 

For  they,  too,  never  think  they're  working 

When  busy  after  salmon.     The  rapid  oar 

Tosses  the  tide,  while,  moving  from  the  shore 

And  circling  back,  the  boat  pays  out  its  trawl,— 

Nets,  floats  and  sinking  stones.     At  length  they  haul 

The  bulging  bag-net  in ;  then,  back  to  land, 

They  fling  the  floundering  prey  upon  the  sand, 

To  sob  for  water  in  the  starving  air. 

Brief  agony !     My  lads  with  eager  care 

Kill,  dress,  and  salt  them;  and  I  think  no  wrong 

To  hear  the  humming  of  a  harvest-song. 

Net-fishing  o'er,  we  seek  for  further  prey 
With  lying  angle-craft.     Our  baits  betray 
The  simpletons.     Fools  of  a  faith  too  blind, 
They  think,  like  men,  that  Providence  designed 


296  T.  D.  Robb 

All  toothsome  things  for  tasting.     Or  we  try, 

For  lack  of  bait,  the  falsehood  of  a  fly, — 

Some  snip  of  garish  plumage,  to  beguile 

The  youthful  grilse,  quick-eyed  for  flaunting  style. 

With  a  rush  he  leaps  at  the  lure.     I  strike,  and  a  thrill 

Tells  me  his  victim  is  victor,  stuck  fast  in  his  gill. 

A  moment's  amaze  and  he's  off.     I  let  the  line  out, 

And  the  poor  wretch  flees  with  it  headlong,  ever  in  doubt : 

Up  the  stream,  down  the  stream,  now  he  is  dashing  across, 

Scouring  the  waters  at  random,  still  at  a  loss. 

Now  he  wheels  like  a  circling  storm,  till  his  panic  strength 

Ebbs ;  suddenly  he  gasps,  exhausted ;  at  length 

He  shakes  his  gullet  empty.     The  agony  o'er, 

Slowly  we  hale  the  weary  hero  ashore. 

This  suggests  that  in  Johnston  we  have  the  Scottish  Izaak  Walton ; 
or  rather — since  the  Compleat  Angler  did  not  appear  till  1653 — that 
in  Walton  we  have  the  English  Arthur  Johnston.  Further  proof 
lies  in  the  sequel,  wherein  Johnston  enters  lovingly  into  the  many 
fisher's  wiles  he  practised.  Sometimes  he  lashed  the  waters  with 
the  sling-net  (funda) ;  sometimes  he  tried  the  dart  (Scotch  leister) ; 
sometimes  he  lured  the  fish  into  the  osier  hand-net ;  sometimes  he 
condescended  to  use  the  midnight  torch ;  or,  again,  he  laid  down 
cruives  that  were  'filled  and  peopled  like  the  Trojan  horse.' 
Again,  he  tells  us  of  a  weird  device  to  frighten  the  salmon  from 
their  course  and  make  them  run  into  crates  cunningly  set  for 
them.  This  was  to  deposit  the  skull  of  a  horse  and  its  white 
bones  in  the  run  of  the  fish.  They  dash  aside  in  terror  and  enter 
the  trap. 

The  lines  that  follow  this  Waltonian  excursus  are  rather  sur- 
prising, coming  as  they  do  from  the  poet  who  earned  a  pietistic 
reputation  with  posterity  by  his  Latin  version  of  the  Psalms. 
Even  if  there  is  any  fault  in  Sunday  fishing — so  he  is  pleased  to 
say,  resuming  his  argument — his  family  amply  atone  for  it,  the 
whole  crowd  of  them  (turbo).  Like  many  a  paterfamilias  of  later 
times,  the  poet  thinks  he  does  his  Sunday  duty  by  sending  ru's 
family  to  Kirk. 

Templa  frequentantes  pro  me  cum  conjuge  nati 
Tura  propinarunt  plurima,  plura  dabunt. 

Perhaps  the  paterfamilias  of  this  type  was  not  so  common  then : 
at  any  rate,  Johnston  seems  certain  that  such  reasoning  will  not 
convince  his  persecutors,  and  proceeds  to  contest  the  theological 


Arthur  Johnston  in  his  Poems  297 

objections  with  serious  Scriptural  and  historical  arguments.  We 
need  not  follow  these.  But,  before  concluding,  he  condescends  to 
what  generally  proves  the  most  telling  appeal  in  all  such  matters, 
—the  business  argument.  The  prohibition,  he  points  out,  is  bad 
for  the  staple  trade  of  Aberdeen.  This  argument  he  clinches  with 
an  appeal  to  those  who  prefer  the  good  wine  of  the  Continent  to 
the  local  barley-bree,  since  wine  came  chiefly  in  exchange  for  fish. 
This,  of  course,  is  flippancy  again  ;  but  the  point  is  worth  referring 
to  for  a  line  that  should  delight  the  antiquary : 

Quis  bibat  ingrato^  quos  praebet  Scotia,  fumos  ? 

Here,  as  Sir  William  Geddes  suggests  in  a  footnote  to  the  text,  is 
a  suggestion  that  < peat-reek '  is  of  so  old  a  date  for  whisky. 

But  that  by  the  way.  Throughout  the  poem  we  have  con- 
stantly recurrent  proof  that  Johnston,  while  willing  and  able  to 
argue  with  Presbytery,  viewed  the  whole  agitation  with  a  good- 
humoured  contempt  he  hardly  cared  to  disguise. 

These  two  poems,  To  Robert  Baron  and  A  Fisher's  Apology,  have 
an  interest  that  is  both  personal  and  antiquarian.  The  Epistle  to 
David  Wedderburn,  on  the  other  hand,  is  almost  purely  personal ; 
and  it  is  probably  the  poem  that,  of  all  his  works,  has  most  charm. 
David  Wedderburn,  Rector  of  the  Grammar  School  of  Aberdeen, 
had  been  the  poet's  bosom  friend  in  boyhood.  The  poem  appeared 
first  in  Johnston's  Parerga  (1632),  and,  if  it  was  written  not  long 
before  that,  the  author  would  be  a  little  over  fifty  at  the  time. 
In  those  days  that  was  nearer  the  foot  of  the  hill  than  it  is  now, 
and  Johnston  at  the  outset  dwells  on  the  changes  time  has  wrought 
upon  him  in  body  and  mind.  Then  follows,  in  the  manner  of  the 
times,  an  array,  which  one  would  now  call  pedantic,  of  classical 
parallel  instances  of  pupils  who  had  grown  greater  than  their 
tutors.  In  their  own  case,  says  Johnston,  it  did  not  weaken 
friendship.  The  next  passage  forms  a  delightful  companion  idyl 
to  We  Puoa  hae  run  about  the  braes,  and  is  enriched  by  memories  of 
youthful  enthusiasm,  youthful  pedantry,  and  youthful  ambition. 

But  the  idyllic  days  ran  their  course.  The  youthful  dreamers 
were  rudely  awakened  by  the  voice  of  worldly  wisdom.  They 
had  quaffed  the  finest  cup  that  life  has  to  offer,  that  of  high- 
hearted visionary  youth ;  they  had  drained  it.  *  Seas  between  us 
braid  ha'e  roared  since  Auld  Lang  Syne.'  Thus  Burns,  and  thus 
Arthur  Johnston  before  him. 

The  poet  then  proceeds  to  recite  those  details  of  his  life  abroad 
which  have  helped  his  biographers  to  fill  out  their  meagre  sketches. 

u 


298  Arthur  Johnston  in  his  Poems 

Finally,  he  reverts  to  the  theme  of  the  prelude,  old  age.  By  this 
time  he  seems  to  have  written  himself  into  a  better  humour ;  and, 
though  still  sighing  over  the  thefts  of  Time,  he  seeks  consolation 
in  reflecting  that  Youth  has  not  everything  to  boast  of.  Old  age 
has  its  compensations.  These  he  notes  in  a  series  of  epigrams 
that  are  in  his  best  light  vein. 

Such  are  a  few  of  the  poems  in  which  Arthur  Johnston  reveals 
his  personality.  '  There  is  no  need,'  says  Samuel  Johnson,  '  to 
criticise  a  book  that  nobody  reads ' ;  and,  if  there  were  any  truth 
in  the  remark,  it  might  be  extended  to  men  long  since  dead  and 
forgotten.  But  it  is  occasionally  the  duty  of  criticism  to  dust  old 
books  and  reveal  their  hidden  worth :  and  it  is  equally  incumbent 
upon  us  to  revive  the  memories  of  men  whose  quiet  virtues  make 
no  noise  in  the  great  babel  of  fame.  Great  warriors,  master 
statesmen,  angry  dogmatists,  and  sowers  of  sedition  print  them- 
selves with  emphasis  upon  the  pages  of  history,  but  the  best  life 
of  a  nation  often  flows  in  kindly  and  unobtrusive  men.  These 
make  the  finest  humanity  of  the  past,  and  it  is  bad  history  to  ignore 
them.  If  only  the  men  of  Johnston's  stamp  were  better  known, 
the  times  in  which  they  lived  might  not  wear  so  gloomy  and 
savage  an  aspect  as  they  sometimes  do.  No  period  of  Scottish 
history  stands  in  greater  need  of  such  relief  than  those  days  of  the 
conflict  of  Crown  and  Presbytery ;  and  it  is  as  a  contribution  to 
the  pleasanter  tones  of  the  picture  that  these  few  hints  of  Arthur 
Johnston's  genial  and  humane  personality  are  offered. 

T.  D.  ROBB. 


The  Castle  Campbell  Inventory  : 

AN  INVENTORY  OF  ARCHIBALD,  JTH  EARL  OF  ARGYLL'S  CASTLE  OF 
CAMPBELL  (formerly  called  Castle  Gloume),  in  the  Shire  of  Clack- 
manan,  taken  on  21  February,  1595.  Transcribed  from  the  original, 
preserved  in  the  Argyll  Charter  Chest. 

THE  following  inventory  is  one  of  a  class  of  documents  of  considerable 
^^    interest.     It  is  here  printed  in  full. 

The  writer  of  this  article  visited  the  fine  old  ruin  a  few  years  ago. 
It  still  stands  in  a  spot  of  enormous  natural  strength  above  the  town  of 
Doller,  and  he  has  seldom  seen  even  in  foreign  climes  a  more  splendid 
situation.  He  was  pleased  to  see  that  the  present  owner  of  the  Castle  had 
roofed  and  restored  one  or  two  rooms  of  the  Keep,  where  the  caretaker 
told  him  an  artist  or  two  occasionally  came  to  live  in  the  summer  months. 
The  vast  extent  of  the  Castle,  which  was  constantly  in  use  till  it  was 
besieged  and  burnt  during  the  Montrose  wars,  is  most  impressive.  Much 
of  its  strength  is  due  to  the  fact  that  it  is  perched  on  a  tongue  of  land, 
with  precipitous  sides  sloping  down  to  the  two  gorges,  each  carved  out  by 
a  foaming  burn,  which  unite  immediately  below  it. 

Enormous  numbers  of  documents  are  dated  at  this  Castle  by  the  suc- 
cessive Earls  of  Argyll  for  many  generations.  They  used  it  when  they 
came  to  the  Lowlands  as  their  chief  strength,  which  is  such  that,  except  by 
starvation  or  treachery,  it  must  have  been  well  nigh  impregnable. 

One  of  the  chief  attractions  is  the  woods  of  natural  growth,  which  cling 
to  the  steep  sides  of  the  gorge  below.  Behind  it  rise  steeply  the  grass- 
covered  slopes  of  the  Ochils,  so  that  on  this  side  there  is  no  view.  In  the 
Middle  Ages  these  slopes  were  probably  covered  with  copse  woods,  which 
supplied  the  Castle  with  fuel.  The  Earl's  vassals  dwelling  in  Doller  and 
the  plains  below  had  most  curious  services  in  kind  to  pay,  such  as  carrying 
wine,  etc.,  from  the  *  Pow  of  Alloway,'  and,  as  usual,  serving  him  under 
his  banner  when  he  happened  to  be  at  the  king's  wars.  At  Flodden  great 
numbers  of  these  vassals  followed  the  banner  of  Archibald,  2nd  Earl  of 
Argyll,  to  that  fatal  battle,  where  he  himself  with  many  of  his  kindred  fell. 
During  their  residence  at  this  Castle,  the  Argylls  became  benefactors  to 
the  neighbouring  Abbey  of  Culross,  with  whose  Abbots  they  frequently 
entered  into  transactions,  and  a  few  years  ago,  during  the  restoration  of  the 
Abbey  Church  (now  used  by  the  Established  Church),  the  presence  of 
certain  tombs  of  Campbells  of  Argyll  is  naturally  thus  explained  by  the 
architect,  Sir  Rowand  Anderson. 


3oo  Niall  D.   Campbell 


The  lands  of  Campbell,  alias  Doller  and  Gloume,  must  not  be  confused 
with  the  neighbouring  lands  of  Tillicoultrie,  or  the  lands  forming  the 
Barony  of  Menstrie  which  for  many  generations  had  been  held  by  the 
Campbell  chiefs. 

So  far  as  the  writer  can  as  yet  discover  from  the  writs  in  the  Argyll 
Charter  Chest,  Doller  or  Glum  was  part  of  the  appanage  of  the  three 
Stewart  heiresses,  Margaret,  Isobel  and  Marioun,  daughters  of  Iain 
Stewart,  Lord  of  Lome,  who  respectively  married  Colin  Campbell,  ist  of 
Glenurquhy  ;  Colin  ist  Earl  of  Argyll,  great  nephew  to  Glenurquhy  ;  and 
Archibald  alias  Celestine  alias  Gillespick  Campbell  ist  of  Otter,  who  was 
Glenurquhy's  youngest  brother. 

On  2  April,  1465,  sasine  of  the  £10  lands  of  Doller  and  Gloum  was 
granted  in  three  separate  thirds,  viz.  a  third  to  Duncan  Campbell,  son  and 
heir  of  the  said  Sir  Colin  Campbell  of  Glenurquhy ;  a  third  to  Isobel 
Countess  of  Argyll ;  a  third  to  her  sister,  Marioun  Stewart.  (Argyll 
Charters.) 

Consolidation  set  in  as  on  4  Feb.,  1481,  Glenurchye  resigned  his  third  in 
favour  of  Colin  ist  Earl  of  Argyll,  whose  son  Archibald  2nd  Earl,  had 
sasine  there  on  24  May,  1493. 

On  3  February,  1489-90,  the  Earl  had  obtained  an  Act  of  Parliament 
changing  the  name  of  his  stronghold  of  Castle  Gloom  to  Castle  Campbell, 
which  he  appears  to  have  thought  a  more  pleasing  designation.  (Acts 
Par/.  Scot.  ii.  222.) 

On  31  Jan.,  1493-4,  Sir  Duncan  Campbell  2nd  of  Glenurquhay,  and 
Lady  Isobel  Stewart,  Countess  of  Argyll,  resigned  their  thirds  of  Campbell, 
alias  Doller  or  Glume,  into  the  hands  of  George,  Bishop  of  Dunkeld,  in 
favour  of  the  said  Archibald  2nd  Earl  of  Argyll,  done  in  the  Chapter 
House  of  Dunkeld  Cathedral. 

The  Bishops  of  Dunkeld  were  all  this  time  the  Superiors  of  the  lands 
which  continued  to  be  for  centuries  called  in  all  writs  '  the  ecclesiastical 
Lands  of  Doller  or  Glume.' 

On  31  January,  1493-4,  the  Bishop  gave  the  Earl  a  feu  charter  of  the 
said  lands,  with  a  remainder  to  a  number  of  the  Earls  heirs  male  in  entail. 
To  be  held  of  the  Bishops  of  Dunkeld  for  ever,  and  the  Reddendo  was  16 
marks,  and  for  failure  to  pay  there  was  a  penalty  of  half  a  merk  per  day  for 
the  repair  of  Dunkeld  Cathedral.  For  which  payment  the  Earl  and 
Glenurquhay  respectively  pledged  their  lands  of  Menstre  in  Clackmannan, 
and  Glenurquhay  in  the  Barony  of  Lochow.  There  is  also  a  curious 
stipulation  by  this  Bishop  that  if  heirs  male  should  exclude  nearer  heirs 
female,  that  the  latter  should  be  recompensed  either  in  lands  or  other  goods, 
or  that  they  should  'tocher'  them  on  their  marriage  according  to  the 
modification  (viz.  calculation)  of  the  Bishop.  (Argyll  Charters.) 

Succeeding  Bishops  of  Dunkeld  in  turn  duly  infefted  all  the  succeeding 
Earls,  till  Disestablishment  of  the  old  order  took  place,  and  from  the  loth 
Earl  onwards  the  lands  held  direct  of  the  Crown.  It  was  not  till  about 
1830  that  these  ancient  possessions  were  sold  by  the  spendthrift  George 
6th  Duke  of  Argyll. 


The  Castle  Campbell  Inventory          301 

INVENTORY. 

The  Inventar  of  ye  Inspreich  and  geir  fand  and  sichtit  In  ye  place 
of  Campbell  ye  xxi  day  of  Februar  jm  vc  fourscoir  feftein  (1595) 
be  gawin  zeirs  allexander  in  blairhill,  Mr  James  Kirk  notaries, 
William  Menteth  of  powmawth  miln,  Jon  patoun  of  hilfutt, 
William  Cunninghame  in  ye  ...  Jon  patoun  in  middiltoun. 
Alexander  Kirk  in  blairhill,  William  Nutoune  in  mainesof  dowlor, 
Jon  Smyth  in  dowlor,  Duncan  drysdaill,  Thomas  Allexander. 

Imprimis  sicktit  in  ye  wardrup  above  ye  hall  fourtein  feddir  bedds  and 
sextein  feder  boustares 

Item  ane  coffer  ther  contenand  ten  hieland  cadders  (?) 

Item  sewin  wowin  scotts  coverings  auld  and  new. 

Item  aucht  auld  coverings  of  arras  work. 

Item  ane  grit  scotts  kist  unlokit  yrin  sex  pair  of  auld  walkit  blancatts 
and  sex  pair  of  new  walkit  blancatts. 

Item  yrin  nyne  pair  of  quhyt  hieland  plaidds. 

Item  ane  coffer  not  lokit  wae  and  keyis  yrin. 

Fywe  pair  auld  linnen  scheitts  and  tua  pair  auld  scheitts  of  tuill.  Item 
mair  ane  pair  of  holland  lynnen  scheitts.  Item  yrin  thre  bordclayts  of 
lynnen  qr  of  ane  is  auld. 

Item  yrin  tua  dairk  bordclayts.  Item  fyve  damas  scheitts  haill.  Item 
ane  handen  buirdclayt. 

Item  ane  coffer  with  ane  lok  wtout  ane  key. 

Item  ane  bed  of  rasor  work  contenand  thrie  peice  of  courtenes,  thrie 
paires  with  ruif  and  heid. 

Item  ane  lynnein  bed  bandit  with  rasor  work. 

Item  thrie  peice  of  lynnein  courteines  bandit  with  rasor  work.  Item 
tua  pares  of  arras  work. 

Item  thrie  peice  of  courteines  of  blew  mccaij  (?) 

Item  thrie  pares  of  grein  damas.  Item  thrie  piece  of  courteines  of 
champit  sey.  Item  thrie  lang  paire  of  lycht  grein  damas.  Item  tua  peice 
of  courteines  of  grein  sey.  Item  ane  lang  paire  of  reid  fleming  broudent 
with  blak  and  yellow.1  Item  tua  peice  of  courteines  of  worsett  reid  and 
quhyt  chexit.  Item  ane  lang  paire  of  reid  cryp.  Item  R  .  .  reid  grew- 
grane  (?)  cuirteinis  and  ane  auld  ruiff  yrte. 

Item  ane  lang  paire  of  figuirt  crip  reid  and  quhytt. 

Item  tua  peice  of  courteines  chanxit  reid  and  quhytt. 

Item  tua  paire  of  blak  taffatie  funzeit  (?)  with  blak  silk.  Item  ane  grein 
pladin  cannabic 

Item  ane  auld  reid  worsett  cannabic.  Item  ane  auld  broun  cannabic  of 
plading.  Item  ane  grein  say  cannabic  till  ane  redill.  Item  tua  auld  ruiffes 
of  bedds  of  reid  worsett.  Item  ane  fyne  cramoisie  velvett  mess  clayth 
brouderit  wit  gold.2  Item  thrie  auld  grein  counter  claythes  for  chalmeris. 

1  These  were  therefore  of  the  family  colours. 

2  A  Mass  vestment  apparently,  as  the  Castle  certainly  had  formerly  a  Chapel 
attached  to  it,  but  as  no  mention  is  made  of  it,  probably  it  had  been  profaned 
before  this  date. 


302  Niall  D.  Campbell 

Item  in  ye  wardrup  ane  bordclayth  for  ye  hie  buird  wowin  upone  ye 
thrade.  Item  thrie  auld  buirdclayths  for  chalmeris  wowin  upoune  ye 
thrade. 

Item  ane  buirdclayt  of  arras  work  for  ye  buird  in  ye  lottar  chalmer. 
Item  ane  grit  clayt  wowin  upone  ye  thrade.  Item  sex  todds  ?  witout 
coewaires.  Item  sewin  cussones  of  blak  gowgrany  (?)  Item  ane  burdclayt 
wowin  upone  thrame.  Item  ane  dowson  of  auld  cussones  of  auld  cryp. 
Item  tua  auld  sewit  cussones.  Item  ane  cheir  coverit  wit  reid  crammasie 
velvet  Item  ane  faldane  cheir  coverit  wit  quhyt  damas.  Item  ane  uthyr 
falden  cheir  coverit  wit  Irische  werk.  Item  thrie  faldane  cheirs  bandit  wit 
leddir.  Item  thrie  faldane  stolls  sewit  wit  worsett.  Item  tua  bayche3 
stolls  coverit  wit  dene  velvott.  Item  thrie  peice  of  auld  mess  clayt 4  Item 
ane  croslatt5  of  pruiff  wit  heid  peice,  thrie  gantelatts  and  pertinentis. 
Item  thrie  bed  rodds  of  Irne.  Item  ane  glass  plattones,  coverit  wit  wands  6. 
Item  fywe  wattir  potts  of  tin.  Item  ane  mekill  brasin  pott.  Item  fyes(?) 
fyve  pares.  Item  ane  brasin  wattir  fatt.  Item  tua  tin  quart  .... 
Item  thrie  tin  plattones  witout  heids.  Item  tua  tin  chandclares.  Item  tua 
auld  chandlares  of  quhyt  Irne.  Item  aucht  tin  litle  pleatis.  Item  ten  tin 
.  .  .  Item  tua  dowsane  and  tua  of  small  tin  sasers.  Item  thrie  auld 
litle  potts  of  Irne.  Item  ane  uthyr  tin  ...  ? 

Item  ye  tymber  of  ane  grit  standard  bed.  Item  ye  tymber  of  ane  litle 
canobie  bed  all  of  warstett. 

Item  tua  peice  of  quhaill  bain.  Item  tua  mekle  bredds  of  vindoks7. 
Item  ye  bak  of  ane  cupbuird.  Item  thrie  dealls  upone  treisles. 

Item  ane  tapestrie  of  arras  work. 

Item  in  ye  litle  galrie  In  ye  hed  of  ye  new  work  therin  nathing,  dosit 
wit  ane  key  be  ane  shott. 

Item  ye  hauch  chalmer  abone  ye  grein  chalmer  ane  dor  wit  ane  portell 
and  tua  bedds  standine  ane  privie  dor  wit  bands  and  snek8. 

Item  ye  commoune  chalmer  abone  my  lordis  uttir  chalmer  with  lok  and 
dor  yrin  sex  beddis  bund  and  auld  Irne  chymnay. 

Item  ye  grein  chalmer  wit  dor,  lok  and  key,  ane  portall  dor  wit  snek  and 
bands.  Item  sevin  peice  of  grein  tapestrie  bandit  wit  rasor  work.  Item 
tua  featheard  bedds  wit  thrie  rodds  of  Irne.  Item  ane  buird  of  cyper  ane 
with  ane  comptour  clayth  yrone  wowin  upoune  ye  thrame  (frame  or  thrade 
perhaps  ?)  Item  ane  cheir.  Item  ane  gowind  (?)  Irne  chymney  9. 

Item  ye  laiche  galrie  in  ye  new  work  ane  dor  wit  key,  lok  and  bands. 
Item  thairin  ane  standard  bed. 

Item  ye  galrie  in  ye  end  of  ye  pantrie  wit  dor  lok  and  key  and  ane 
ruinated  bed. 

Item  my  lords  Inner  cabnatt  wit  ane  dor  and  ane  press  amrie 10  and  lang 
settill  affixit  thereto. 

Item  in  my  lordis  Inner  bed  chalmer  sex  peice  of  hingand1QA  tapestrie. 

3  Beech  wood  ?  4  Old  Mass  vestments.  5  Corslet  of  armour. 

6  Glass  with  wicker-work  protecting  it.  7  Window  frames  perhaps  ? 

8  Snek  is  a  bolt,  and  is  still  in  use  in  the  North.  *  Going  or  in  use  perhaps  (?) 

10  Aumbry  or  small  cupboard.  10AHanging  tapestry. 


The  Castle  Campbell  Inventory         303 

Item  ane  standard  bed  wit  ane  palne  ?  lyand  therinto  and  thrie  rodds  of 
Irne.  Item  ane  ruinated  bed.  Item  ane  buird  tua  furmes  ane  Irne 
chymnay. 

Item  in  my  lordis  uttir  chalmer  four  peice  of  hingand  tapestrie,  ane 
faldand  comptar  buird  wit  tua  lang  furmes 

Ane  grit  seatt  at  ye  heid  of  ye  buird.  Item  ane  cheir.  Item  ane  schoirt 
furme.  Item  ane  sconce,  ane  capbuird. 

Item  ane  Irne  chymnay. 

Item.  In  ye  hall  ane  hie  buird  wit  ane  for  service,  thrie  syd  buirds  wit 
fixit  syd  furmes  and  tua  louss  heid  furmes.  Item  ane  grit  vine  chymnay. 
Item  ane  . 

Item  ane  capbuird  wit  dores,  postell,  bands,  and  sneks. 

Item  ye  uppermaist  kitchin  chalmer  wit  tua  bedds  witout  beddrwmes  (sic) 

Item  ye  chalmer  abone  ye  kitchin  wit  tua  standard  bedds  ane  furme,  ane 
dor  and  lok  witout  key. 

Item  ye  pantrie  wit  ane  buird  ane  amrie 

Item  ye  gairdre  in  amiss  tua  buirds  ane  dor  ane  lok  and  key  therin. 

Item  ye  kitchin  wit  tua  buirds,  tua  standand  raks  ane  mashay  fatt,  wit 
dor  and  lok  witout  key. 

Item  ye  slesche  (?  flesche)  landing  ane  dor,  ane  lok,  witout  key.  Item 
ane  buird.  Item  sex  stands  broken  and  haill  with  cleiks  of  Irne. 

Item  ye  aill  seller  wit  dor,  lok  witout  key,  tua  deills  upone  treasles,  ye 
steppis  of  ane  auld  maskin  fatt. 

Item  tua  lairdnor  lokit  wit  wolts 

Item  in  ye  lang  traviss  ane  dressing  buird  and  elevin  barrells,  ane  fatt, 
ane  gyll. 

Item  in  ye  litle  sellar  under  ye  kitchin,  wit  dor  lok  and  key,  thre 
punzeons,  ane  barrell. 

Item  ye  wolt  In  ye  heid  of  ye  towir  ane  butter  croyche,  dores  and  vin- 
doks. 

Item  ye  Inner  chalmer  in  ye  heid  of  ye  new  werk  ane  lekt  ?  camp  bed. 

Item  in  ye  wttir  chalmer  of  ye  tour  ane  brew  land  ?  ane  buird,  ane  stray 
cheir.  Item  tua  stane  weychts  of  leid,  ane  Irisch  u  weycht,  ye  uthyr  irne  ? 
weycht. 

Item  for  small  veychts  wit  ringis.  Item  ane  pair  of  wey  buiks.  Item 
ane  kist  wit  certane  compt  buiks  therein.  Item  ane  pair  of  grit  Irnes  wit 
sewin  schankills 12. 

Item  ane  rowinate  bed.  Item  ane  .  .  tting  buird.  Item  ane  auld 
Irne  chymney.  Item  cheis  shelf.  Item  ane  brewing  spult. 

Item  in  ye  Inner  heiche  tyll  chalmer  In  ye  galrie  thereof  ane  standand 
bed. 

Item  in  ye  Inner  tyll  chalmer  ane  standand  bed  wit  ane  paleiss  therin, 
thrie  Irne  rodds  ane  chymney,  ane  buird,  ane  furme.  Item  tua  glas  in  ye 
windoks. 

11  Some  Highland  measure,  in  which  sense  the  word  Irish  should  always  be 
taken  in  old  MS.  of  this  kind. 

12  Shackles  for  prisoners,  for  which  there   is  plenty  of  accommodation   still 
visible  at  the  Castle.     The  dungeons  there  have  rows  of  raised  stone  beds. 


3°4 


Niall  D.  Campbell 


Item  ye  utter  heiche  yllit  chalmer  tua  standand  bedds  ane  irne  chymnay, 
ane  furme,  ane  grit  lok  witout  ane  key. 

Item  ye  utter  laiche  tyll  chalmer  tua  standand  bedds,  ane  buird,  tua 
furmes,  ane  cheir  wit  ane  Irne  chymnay. 

Item  ye  Inner  layche  tyll  chalmer  ane  standand  bed,  ane  buird.  Item 
ane  grit  flanders  kist  of  aik  fast  lokit  and  bandit.  Item  ane  grit  lettron  of 
aik  lokit,  bondit  and  fast.  Item  ane  coffer  bandit  and  lokit  ane  Irne 
chymnay  &  thre  rodds  of  Irne. 

Item  ye  laiche  volt  in  ye  ground  of  ye  new  vork  tua  standand  bedds,  ane 
Irne  chymnay,  ane  buird. 

Item  in  ye  towir  hall  tua  standand  bedds ;  ane  grit  girnell  kist,  ane 
buird,  tua  furmes,  ane  vine  chymnay,  ane  capbuird. 

Item  ye  girnell  hous  ane  mekle  girnell  kist,  ane  pair  of  kairt  quheills  and 
stoks.  Item  ane  irne  zett  upoun  ye  tour  and  ye  lok  of  ye  vines  upoun  ye 
Irne  zett  in  ye  passage  to  ye  zaird. 

Signed.  Wm  Menteith ». 

Duncane  Drysdaill  Gavinus  Alexander  notarius  ac  testis 

Thomas  Alexander  witnes.  in  praemissis  requisitus. 

William  Cunynghame  witnes.      Mr  James  Kirk  witnes. 

Jhon  patoun  witnes. 

The  original  Inventory  covers  six  pages  or  paper  in  a  difficult  hand- 
writing. It  is  probable  that  all  the  articles  named  were  lost  in  the  fire 
when  Montrose's  forces  burnt  the  Castle. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  Iron  chimneys,  viz.  grates,  were  quite  numerous, 
and  that  there  was  plenty  of  valuable  tapestry  and  arras  work.  Table 
covers  are  always  called  *  buird  clayts,'  and  tables  themselves  are  always 
buirds,  and  we  read  of  the  '  hie  buird '  on  high  table,  where  the  Earl  sat  in 
a  '  grit  seatt.'  The  item  of  tua  deills  or  tresles  sounds  alarming,  but  refers 
to  a  rough  table.  It  is  curious  that  so  little  armour  is  mentioned,  and  no 
cannon  or  guns  are  named.  The  mention  of  *  the  new  work '  is  apparently 
the  wing  nearest  to  Doller  which  was  built  by  either  the  5th  or  6th  Earls, 
uncle  and  father  respectively  to  the  youthful  yth  Earl,  in  whose  time  this 
paper  was  written. 

A  list  of  the  different  parts  of  Castle  named  in  the  above  Inventory  may 
be  made  out  as  follows  : 


1.  The  Wardrup  above  the  hall 

which  seems  to  have  been  a 
store  room. 

2.  The  little  Galrie  in  the  head  of 

the  new  work. 

3.  The  High  Chamber  above  the 

green  chamber. 


4.  The   Common   Chamber   above 

the  Earl's  outer  chamber. 

5.  The  Green  Chamber. 

6.  The  laiche  (low)  galrie. 

7.  My  Lord's  inner  cabinet. 

8.  My  Lord's  inner  bedchamber. 

9.  My  Lord's  outer  chamber. 


13  He  was  Captain  of  Castle  Campbell,  as  appears  from  other  papers  of  the 
period.  During  the  absence  of  the  Earls  from  any  of  their  Castles,  they  had 
always  a  Captain  to  guard  it,  and  in  many  cases,  such  as  at  the  Castles  of  Carrick, 
Dunoon,  Innischonnell,  Dunstaffhage,  the  office  was  heritably  transmitted  from 
father  to  son  for  centuries. 


The  Castle  Campbell  Inventory          305 


II. 

12. 

I3- 
H- 
15- 
16. 
17. 
18. 
19. 
20. 

21. 

22. 


The  Great  Hall,  where  meals 

were  taken. 

The  uppermost  kitchen  chamber. 
The  chamber  above  the  kitchen. 
The  Pantry. 

The  gairdre,  whatever  that  was. 
The  kitchen. 
The  slesche  landing. 
The  Aill  Cellar. 

iTwo  Larders. 

The  LongTraviss(viz.  passage). 
Little  cellar  under  the  kitchen. 
The  vault  in   the   head    of  the 
Tower. 


The  inner  chamber  in  the  head 

of  the  new  work. 
The    outer    chamber    of    the 

Tower. 

25.  The*  inner  heiche  tyll  chamber' 

with  a  galrie  in  it. 

26.  The  Inner  tyll  chamber. 

27.  The  *  utter  heiche  yllit '  cham- 

ber. 

28.  The  utter  laiche  tyll  chamber. 
The  Inner  layche  tyll  chamber. 
The  laiche  volt  in  the  ground 

of  the  new  work. 

31.  The  Tower  Hall. 

32.  The  Girnell  House. 

NIALL  D.  CAMPBELL. 


23- 
24. 


29. 
30- 


Reviews  of  Books 

SCOTLAND  AND  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION.  By  Henry  W.  Meikle,  M.A., 
D.Litt.,  Lecturer  in  Scottish  History  in  the  University  of  Edinburgh. 
Pp.  xix,  317.  Demy  8vo.  Glasgow:  James  MacLehose  &  Sons. 
1912.  i  os.  net. 

THIS  is  a  most  excellent  piece  of  work  and  a  valuable  contribution  to 
national  history.  Dr.  Meikle  writes  from  a  wide  knowledge  of  both  sides 
of  his  subject ;  his  judgment  is  sound  and  trustworthy  ;  his  sense  of 
proportion  is  just ;  and  his  style  is  straightforward  and  clear  and  pleasant  to 
read.  He  is  familiar  with  the  printed  sources,  he  has  read  a  large  amount 
of  MS.  material  both  in  Great  Britain  and  in  France,  and  he  has  worked 
industriously  through  an  enormous  quantity  of  the  pamphlet  and  periodical 
literature  of  the  period. 

Dr.  Meikle  deals  in  ten  chapters  with  the  years  1782-1802,  and  adds  a 
rapid  sketch  of  the  thirty  years  which  had  still  to  elapse  before  the  passing 
of  the  first  Reform  Act.  After  tracing  the  '  signs  of  political  awakening ' 
from  the  years  when  the  spirit  of  liberty  began  to  *  take  a  northward  turn,' 
he  proceeds  to  deal  with  burgh  and  ecclesiastical  reform.  The  constitution 
of  Scottish  burghs  had  long  required  the  most  careful  investigation.  A 
Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  reported  in  1793  that  in  thirteen 
burghs  'the  majority  of  the  Council  either  may  or  must  be  continued  with- 
out change  or  re-election' ;  that  in  thirty-four  burghs  'the  Council,  or  a 
part  of  the  Council,  elect  the  majority  of  the  new  Council  without  there 
being  any  restrictions  against  their  re-electing  themselves';  that  in  one 
burgh  one-half,  and  in  other  two  burghs  one  less  than  one-half,  of  the 
Council  is  continued,  and  may  re-elect  a  majority  of  the  old  Council.  Only 
in  four  burghs  (Aberdeen,  Kirkcaldy,  Cupar,  and  Dunfermline)  was  it 
necessary  that  '  a  majority  of  the  Councillors  for  the  ensuing  year  must  be 
different  persons.'  Since  the  attacks  on  municipal  corporations  by  Crom- 
well, Charles  II.  and  James  II.,  there  had  been  great  disinclination  to  inter- 
fere with  the  sanctity  of  charters,  but  the  existing  situation  in  Scotland 
was  indefensible,  even  by  Dundas.  Yet,  as  Dr.  Meikle  remarks,  Pitt 
*  could  hardly  be  expected  to  inquire  into  a  system  which  enabled  his  friend 
and  colleague  to  place  at  his  disposal,  with  unfailing  regularity,  thirty-nine 
out  of  the  forty-five  votes  of  the  Scottish  members.'  Thus  the  golden 
opportunity  was  missed,  and  the  ideals  of  the  French  Revolution  found 
willing  sympathisers  in  Scotsmen,  who  knew  that  in  Scotland  everything  was 
not  for  the  best  in  the  best  of  all  possible  constitutions.  Some  of  these 
sympathisers  were  afterwards  driven  to  take  the  view  that  'any  change,  at 


Meikle:  Scotland  and  the  French  Revolution  307 

any  time,  for  any  purpose  is  much  to  be  deprecated,'  and  this  sentence 
certainly  represents  the  attitude  of  the  Government. 

^  Dr.  Meikle  has  printed,  in  a  valuable  Appendix,  the  Minutes  of  the  first 
Convention  of  the  Friends  of  the  People  in  Scotland  in  Dec.  1792.  They 
are  from  the  report  of  a  spy,  who  was  not  likely  to  soften  any  dangerous 
expression,  and  yet  it  is  impossible  to  find  in  them  anything  to  justify  the 
panic  which  seized  the  authorities  or  the  shameful  treatment  of  Thomas 
Muir.  From  these  unhappy  memories  Dr.  Meikle  turns  to  the  French 
projects  of  invasion  and  the  Scottish  Militia  Act  of  1797,  which  led  to 
further  troubles  and  to  the  prosecution  of  the  United  Scotsmen  for  a  con- 
spiracy 4  on  so  small  a  scale  that  it  might  well  have  been  treated  as  venial.' 
His  chapter  on  the  Church  and  the  French  Revolution  is  interesting  and 
suggestive.  We  look  forward  to  more  work  in  Scottish  History  from  Dr. 
Meikle's  pen. 

ROBERT  S.  RAIT. 

GREATER  ROME  AND  GREATER  BRITAIN.  By  Sir  C.  P.  Lucas,  K.C.B., 
K.C.M.G.  Pp.  viii,  184.  8vo.  Oxford:  Clarendon  Press.  1912. 
35.  6d.  net. 

THERE  has  been  a  tendency  in  these  islands,  both  on  the  part  of  public 
opinion  and  on  that  of  its  intellectual  leaders,  to  treat  imperial  problems 
with  apathy  or  studied  neglect.  One  of  the  most  hopeful  signs  of  the 
times  is  that  a  revival  of  interest  in  imperial  questions  is  being  accompanied 
by  the  growth  of  an  influential  school  of  political  thinkers  inspired  by  the 
conscious  mission  of  directing  attention  to  the  problems  involved  in  our 
imperial  future.  Above  all,  it  realises  that  the  future  of  the  Empire 
depends  on  the  intelligent  interest  displayed  in  imperial  problems  by  the 
individual  citizens  of  its  constituent  parts.  *  It  is,  therefore,  a  very  great 
and  real  mistake,'  says  Sir  C.  P.  Lucas, c  to  regard  the  future  of  the  Empire 
as  depending  in  the  main  upon  Ministers  and  Government  offices.  It 
depends  in  an  increasing  degree,  as  distance  diminishes  and  knowledge 
grows,  upon  the  individual  citizens.'  In  assisting  these  individual  citizens 
to  think  imperially  and  in  directing  their  attention  to  the  problems  at  issue 
his  book  will  prove  of  inestimable  value. 

Sir  Charles  Lucas  is  in  a  position  to  speak  with  authority  on  Greater 
Britain,  and  his  great  knowledge  is  reinforced  by  clear  thinking  and  its 
complement,  a  clear  and  attractive  style.  By  means  of  a  comparison  with 
the  greatest  imperial  achievement  of  antiquity  he  is  able  to  bring  into  relief 
the  conditions  and  structure  of  the  British  Empire  and  to  direct  attention 
to  some  of  the  problems  which  its  citizens  must  inevitably  face.  Greater 
Rome  is  used  as  a  foil  to  Greater  Britain,  and  it  would  be  hardly  fair  to 
criticise  omissions  in  an  account  which  aims  at  analysing  the  New  Empire 
rather  than  at  describing  the  Old.  Perhaps  some  mention  might  have  been 
made  of  the  control  exercised  by  the  armies  of  Rome  over  the  occupancy 
of  the  imperial  throne.  It  is  in  part  responsible  for  the  association  of  the 
word  imperialism  with  militarism  in  its  worst  form. 

Roughly,  the  first  half  of  the  book  consists  of  a  survey  of  the  factors  con- 
ditioning the  growth  of  the  two  empires.  The  British  Empire  is  the  result 
largely  of  individual  initiative ;  its  growth  has  not  been  conditioned  by  a 


308    Lucas  :   Greater  Rome  and  Greater  Britain 

centralisation  of  authority  or  by  geographical  continuity.  The  Roman 
Empire,  on  the  other  hand,  was  the  creation  of  the  State  in  a  sense  in  which 
the  British  was  not ;  there  is  nothing,  for  instance,  in  the  history  of  the 
ancient  empire  to  correspond  with  the  part  played  by  the  great  chartered 
companies.  Very  interesting  are  the  observations  made  on  the  effect  of 
environment  on  the  character  of  the  settlers  and  consequently  on  that  of 
the  empire.  The  Romans  were  not  adventurous  settlers  in  spacious  back- 
woods; they  advanced  in  compact  bodies,  carried  Rome  with  them  into 
the  provinces,  and  Romanised  the  natives  of  the  country  occupied.  But  in 
the  case  of  the  Dominions,  British  settlers  scattered  themselves  in  wide 
spaces.  Their  environment,  combined  with  their  remoteness  from  the 
mother  country,  profoundly  modified  their  individual  and  national  characters. 
In  the  one  case  native  subjects  were  stamped  with  Roman  characteristics, 
in  the  other  the  racial  characteristics  of  British-born  settlers  were  changed 
by  their  new  environment. 

The  advance  of  science  too  has  changed  the  conditions  which  mould 
imperial  policy.  In  part  it  has  enabled  us  to  do  the  same  kind  of  work  as 
the  Romans,  but  on  a  vastly  different  scale,  e.g.  the  Assouan  dam  or  the 
irrigation  works  in  India.  In  another  department  it  has  set  itself  a  task 
entirely  new  in  kind,  and  medical  research  hopes  to  reclaim  for  settlement 
lands  at  present  uninhabitable  by  white  men.  The  facility  of  communica- 
tion, always  a  first  consideration  for  imperial  states,  is  yet  another  sphere  in 
which  science  is  profoundly  modifying  the  conditions,  and  a  very  good 
point  is  the  reminder  that  the  British  Empire  assumed  its  present  form  at  a 
time  when  the  possibilities  of  communication  were  less  developed.  The 
result  has  been  that  the  members  of  the  great  family,  now  brought  into 
daily  contact  with  each  other,  possess  independent  individualities  developed 
during  the  period  of  their  remoteness  from  the  Mother  Country  and  each 
other.  Class,  colour,  and  race  represent  problems  with  which  Rome, 
except  in  a  very  minor  degree,  was  unfamiliar.  The  very  complicated 
nature  of  the  questions  which  these  cross  divisions  raise  for  modern  im- 
perialism is  clearly  explained,  and  the  possible  dangers  arising  from  lines  of 
cleavage,  which  run  counter  to  the  other  lines  of  division  in  the  Empire, 
are  illustrated  with  salutary  frankness. 

The  second  half  of  the  book  examines  the  structure  of  the  two  empires, 
and  rightly  emphasises  the  unique  character  of  the  British  Empire.  The 
Roman  Empire  was  a  unit  with  a  centralised  authority;  the  British  Empire 
is  not  merely  two,  but  many  empires  in  one.  The  first  fundamental  divi- 
sion comes,  of  course,  between  the  Dominions  and  the  Dependencies,  but 
the  Dependencies  are  themselves  a  group  of  nations  differing  in  individuality, 
in  national  character,  and  in  their  private  interests.  Again  Rome  stood 
alone,  she  possessed  an  imperial  monopoly.  Mole  ruit  sua ;  the  causes  of 
her  decay  were  internal.  The  British  Empire  has  no  military  frontier,  but 
many  rivals.  Finally,  the  two  great  exponents  of  a  constructive  policy 
adopted  very  different  methods.  The  Roman's  maxim  was  a  corollary  to 
his  centralisation  of  authority,  divide  et  impera.  The  British  constructive 
policy,  on  the  other  hand,  has  shown  a  tendency  to  build  up  a  series  of 
large  independent  units. 


Lucas  :  Greater  Rome  and  Greater  Britain    iog 

§3  y 
For  the  future  Sir  Charles  Lucas  is  hopeful.  He  realises  that  a  policy 
inspired  by  a  sound  conservatism  is  the  only  road  to  success.  Panaceas 
produce  little  but  harm ;  there  can  be  no  solution  of  all  imperial  diffi- 
culties by  cut  and  dried  schemes  of  statecraft.  The  fate  of  the  Empire 
depends  ultimately  on  the  commonsense,  patriotism,  and  intelligence  of 
its  citizens. 

In  the  long  run,  by  the  intelligence  of  our  public  opinion  our  Empire 
stands  or  falls,  and  in  placing  the  fruits  of  his  special  knowledge  and  pro- 
found reflection  in  the  hands  of  the  private  citizen  Sir  Charles  Lucas  has 
earned  the  gratitude  of  all  imperialists.  No  summary  can  adequately  con- 
vey the  educational  value  of  a  book  whose  every  page  stimulates  the  reader 
Pto  profitable  trains  of  thought. 
There  is,  however,  one  deficiency  in  his  presentment  of  imperial  pro- 
blems. On  the  questions  arising  out  of  the  relations  between  the  Mother 
Country  and  the  Dominions  the  book  is  wholly  admirable,  but  the  Depen- 
dencies are  less  faithfully  dealt  with.  There  is  no  mention,  for  instance, 
of  the  possibility  that  political  changes  in  the  Oriental  world  outside  the 
Empire  may  produce  some  effect,  prejudicial  or  otherwise,  on  the  relations 
between  ourselves  and  the  inhabitants  of  our  Oriental  Dependencies.  In 
India  Sir  Charles  Lucas  anticipates  no  radical  change  of  our  policy  of 
government.  While  most  imperialists  would  agree  that  any  advance  must 
be  cautious  and  conservative,  at  the  same  time  changes  are  actually  taking 
place  with  great  rapidity,  and  few  deny  that  the  ultimate  goal  is  towards 
the  creation  of  self-governing  nationalities.  Here,  in  fact,  we  have  attacked 
a  bigger  task  than  the  Romans  ever  attempted,  and  that  with  an  alien  race. 
The  Romans  created  an  administrative  machine  at  a  sacrifice  recognised  by 
few  except  idealists  like  Cicero.  Even  in  the  rule  of  an  alien  conquest  we 
can  make  the  proud  boast  that  while  creating  the  benefits  of  efficient 
government  our  policy  has  not  been  one  of  exercising  a  purely  selfish  con- 
trol over  an  administrative  machine.  But  big  stakes  involve  big  risks.  The 
aspirations  of  races  as  yet  immature  in  ability  for  self-government  have  com- 
bined with  the  too  hasty  idealism  of  generous  inexperience  in  certain  quarters 
at  home  to  aggravate  our  difficulties.  Here,  too,  an  educated  public  opinion 
is  the  only  safeguard.  Unfortunately,  however,  while  the  ignorance  of 
public  opinion  increases  the  difficulties  abroad,  the  ingenuity  of  the  Oriental 
agitator  and  the  gullible  ignorance  of  his  dupes  render  the  information 
of  public  opinion  a  matter  fraught  with  dangerous  possibilities. 

W.  R.  HALLIDAY. 

LA  MAGIE  ET  LA  SORCELLERIE  EN  FRANCE.  Par  Th.  de  Cauzons.  Vol. 
I.  Origine  de  la  Sorcellerie.  Ce  qu'on  racontait  des  sorcieres.  Opinions 
diverses  a  leur  sujet.  Pp.  xv,  426.  5  francs.  Vol.  II.  Poursuite  et 
chatiment  de  la  Magie  jusqu'a  la  Reforme  Protestante.  Le  Proces  des 
Templiers.  Mission  et  proces  de  Jeanne  d'Arc.  Pp.  xxii,  521.  5  francs. 
Vol.  III.  La  Sorcellerie  de  la  Reforme  a  la  Revolution.  Les  couvents 
poss£de"s.  La  Franc- Ma?onnerie.  Le  Magn£tisme  animal.  Pp.  viii, 
550.  5  francs.  Vol.  IV.  La  Magie  Contemporaine.  Les  Transfor- 
mations du  Magnetisme  Psychoses  et  Nevrose.  Les  Esprits  des  Vivants. 


310     La  Magie  et  la  Sorcellerie  en  France 

Les  Esprits  des  Morts.  Le  Diable  de  nos  jours.  Le  Merveilleux 
populaire.  Pp.  viii,  724.  /  francs.  Paris :  Libraire  Dorbon-Aine. 
[1911]. 

OCCULT  study  derives  material  aid  from  this  effort  of  a  French  scholar, 
whose  volumes  claim  to  be  a  full  survey  of  the  story  of  and  the  belief  in 
Magic  and  Sorcery,  with  all  their  ramifications  of  witchcraft  and  demono- 
logy — from  their  semi-religious  origins  in  the  East  down  to  the  latest  phases 
of  European  semi-scientific  theory,  pathological  explanation,  and  widespread 
survival  of  credulity.  A  truly  great  survey  in  many  ways  it  is,  although 
the  contrast  which  it  necessarily  challenges  with  the  works  of  earlier 
scholars  may  leave  room  for  a  critical  opinion  on  the  relative  standards  of 
research,  and  the  absolute  balance  of  advantage  between  the  older  and 
newer  methods.  The  former  method  lay  in  an  agnostic  or  materialist 
handling ;  the  latter  is  the  more  receptive,  less  scornfully  incredulous,  scrutiny 
of  an  enquirer,  who  seeks  in  modern  psychology,  as  exhibited  in  many 
forms  of  mental  alienation,  as  well  as  in  the  constant  attitude  of  ignorant 
popular  wonder,  the  clues  to  phenomena  which  have  left  so  vast  a  labyrinth 
of  perplexing  memories  running  unbroken  through  the  entire  known  history 
of  mankind.  The  enquiry  was  worthy  of  a  profound  historical  spirit,  the 
better  fitted  for  the  task  by  previous  study  of  medical  science  directed  to 
phenomena  of  insanity  and  its  borderland. 

M.  de  Cauzons'  elaborate  treatise  offers  a  comprehensive  and  systematic 
historical  review  of  the  whole  of  the  vast  theme.  The  first  volume  skims 
lightly  over  the  origins  and  antiquity  of  magic,  and  sets  to  its  real  task  in  a 
description  of  the  medieval  beliefs  in  sorcery,  the  powers  of  demons  and 
sorcerers,  the  witch-Sabbath,  and  the  attitude  of  the  Church  towards  the 
belief  in  the  various  phenomena,  including  the  modes  by  which  the  powers 
of  evil  could  be  defeated.  The  fluctuation  of  ecclesiastical  opinion  is 
illustrated  by  the  early  Christian  view  that  the  pagan  gods  were  demons,  by 
the  later  phase  under  which  the  trend  of  authority  was  towards  condemning 
credulity  in  sorcery,  by  the  growth  of  the  faith  in  it  during  the  eleventh  and 
the  thirteenth  centuries,  and  by  the  sustained  outburst  of  persecution  of  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  to  which  there  have  succeeded  two  cen- 
turies of  humanitarian  and  rationalistic  revulsion  and  reaction.  The  Devil 
of  the  middle  ages  was  the  sum  of  the  powers  noxious  to  man.  Rome 
to-day  holds  that  the  Devil  can  intervene,  but  that  it  is  grave  sin  to  invoke 
him,  and  that  most  of  the  alleged  forms  of  his  manifestation  are  either  fables 
or  pathogenic  illusions. 

The  second  volume  attempts  to  follow  magic  through  its  strange  course 
among  the  Romans,  the  Jews,  and  the  Gauls,  and  thereafter  throughout 
France  from  about  the  year  looo  down  to  1431,  when  Joan  of  Arc,  as  a 
misbelieving  idolater,  an  invoker  of  devils,  an  apostate,  schismatic,  and 
heretic,  was  burnt  and  her  ashes  cast  into  the  Seine.  The  large  body  of 
instances  from  Roman  history  and  the  numerous  chapters  of  Roman  law 
against  sorcerers  as  public  enemies  are  enough  to  demonstrate  that  the 
Empire  was  the  transmitting  medium  of  oriental  magic  and  imagination. 
Features  of  this  book  are  the  painful  revival  of  faith  in  the  devil  and  his 
iniquities  in  the  age  of  the  pious  King  Louis,  leading  up  to  the  terrible 


, 


La  Magie  et  la  Sorcellerie  en  France     311 

process  of  the  Templars,  whose  alleged  « Baphometic '  baptism  was  a  type 
destined  to  be  dominating  in  later  centuries  of  the  sordid  and  cruel  story  of 
witch  prosecution.  Even  thus  early  the  horrible  kiss  of  homage  appears  in 
the  series  of  malpractices  laid  to  the  charge  of  the  maligned  Order.  Baptism 
and  homage  are,  like  the  distorted  confession  and  mass  to  the  Devil,  essen- 
tially parodies  of  the  orthodox  Christian  observances.  They  are  simple 
perversions,  the  supplanting  of  God  by  the  Devil :  it  is  equally  the  essence 
of  the  theory  in  the  latest  witch  prosecutions.  Regarding  the  Maid,  M.  de 
Cauzons'  attitude  is  that  of  one  who  tells  the  story  ;  his  task  as  historian,  he 
elusively  declares,  does  not  require  him  to  decide  between  theories  of  inspira- 
tion of  her  'voices,'  as  to  whether  she  was  a  spiritualist  medium,  and 
whether  the  voices  were  objective  or  subjective. 

Volume  III.  describes  the  process  against  the  Dominicans  of  Berne  in 
1507,  and  generally  the  great  prosecutions  of  witches  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  especially  those  before  trois  juges  terribles  :  (i)  Nicolas  Remy, 
I57^-i59I>  a  high  authority  on  Demonolatry  and  author  of  a  classic  work 
on  that  theme  ;  (2)  Henri  Boquet,  contemporary  of  Remy,  and,  like  him, 
author  of  a  Discours  execrable  des  sorciers ;  and  (3)  De  Lancre,  like  the  other 
two,  not  only  judge  but  author.  The  work  of  De  Lancre,  I'Inconstance  des 
demons,  is  drawn  upon  for  a  great  collection  of  the  evidence  disclosed  by 
prosecutions  in  the  region  round  Bayonne  and  Bordeaux.  That  Pro- 
testantism favoured  the  beliefs  which  culminated  in  persecution  of  wizards 
and  witches  is  well  known,  in  spite  of  some  noted  examples  of  scepticism  in 
that  age.  M.  de  Cauzons  has  found  the  chief  sceptic,  Montaigne,  among 
the  Catholics,  though  others,  such  as  Jean  Bodin  and  Martin  Del  Rio,  are 
still  associated  with  essential  credulity.  Among  the  Protestants,  Luther  was, 
of  course,  notorious  for  his  adherence  to  the  old  tenets  on  demonology,  while 
Melancthon,  Jean  de  Munster,  Witekind,  and  Calvin  equally  failed  to  see 
the  higher  light  and  to  recognise  *  demonopathy '  in  its  true  character. 
What  is  called  the  '  grand  siecle '  unfortunately  achieved  a  sad  eminence 
as  the  age  of  witchcraft  persecutions.  The  age  of  philosophy,  which 
followed,  bringing  humanity  and  reason  into  line,  slowly  extinguished  the 
fires.  In  this  epoch  the  clerical  antagonism  to  Freemasonry  was  a  phase — 
a  little  difficult  to  appreciate  to-day — of  the  persistent  attribution  of  its 
mysteries  to  satanic  auspices.  The  eighteenth  century  welcomed  ideas  of 
magnetism  and  somnambulism,  the  precursors  of  modern  spiritualism,  as 
offering  some  countenance  of  scientific  system  to  explanations  of  pheno- 
mena previously  regarded  as  due  to  diabolic  possession. 

Volume  IV.  rounds  off  the  prolonged  survey  with  an  examination  of 
contemporary  magic,  tracing  the  transformations  of  opinion  from  magnetism 
to  neurotic  telepathy  as  the  causes  of  phenomena,  and  finally  summing  up 
the  modern  standpoint  in  the  doctrine  that  the  friends  of  the  Devil  have 
lost  a  little  ground  in  our  day  in  consequence  of  the  study  of  nervous  and 
mental  maladies.  But  how  grimly  the  old  positions  are  still  held  is  evinced 
in  every  circle  of  civilization  by  thousandfold  survivals  of  the  marvellous  in 
the  folk-creed  and  in  the  vagaries  of  faith-healing  and  its  analogues. 

Standpoint  and  temperament  necessarily  affect  the  judgment  to  be  passed 
on  M.  de  Cauzons'  tendencies  of  thought.  He  did  not  start,  as  one  would 


312     La  Magie  et  la  Sorcellerie  en  France 

have  expected,  from  Professor  Frazer's  Golden  Bough,  of  which  he  has  made 
virtually  no  use.  The  present  reviewer  cannot  conceal  his  view  that  M.  de 
Cauzons'  opinions  are  too  indefinite,  that  they  lack  firmness  and  bold- 
ness, and  leave  the  author  open  to  the  imputation  of  admitting  possible 
credibility  at  continually  recurring  points  when  the  day  for  indefiniteness 
has  long  gone  past.  His  zeal  to  preserve  the  open  mind  at  any  hazard 
concedes  far  more  than  the  most  moderate  rationalism  could  patiently 
tolerate.  It  is  difficult,  however,  to  fathom  his  individual  conclusion,  and 
perhaps  the  rationalist  would  too  hastily  foreclose  some  forms  of  the  ques- 
tion. But  as  regards  the  workmanship  of  these  volumes,  it  is  not  difficult 
to  determine  that  in  at  least  one  vital  respect  they  fall  short  not  only  of  the 
range  of  scholarship  displayed  by  Professor  Frazer  or  by  the  late  Professor 
Lecky,  but  also  of  the  wonderful  variety  and  profundity  of  the  late  Henry 
Charles  Lea's  studies  of  witchcraft  in  his  various  works  on  the  Inquisition. 
Mr.  Lea's  contributions  were  based  on  direct  first-hand  documentary  autho- 
rity, and  on  rare  contemporary  texts  in  print.  M.  de  Cauzons'  citations 
are  chiefly  from  the  works  of  generalization,  and  are  rarely  primary  :  his 
survey,  valuable  as  it  is,  fails  in  a  certain  vital  want  of  familiarity  with  the 
crude  material.  He  is  no  master  of  the  minor  curiosa  of  his  literature. 
From  this  it  comes  that  he  seldom  shows  that  actuality  in  the  touch  which 
is  distinctive  both  of  Lecky  and  Lea.  The  many  cases  of  exposure,  the 
discoveries  of  fraud,  are  seldom  dwelt  on,  probably  because  often  there  is 
some  controversial  dubiety  about  the  detections  themselves  ;  yet  it  is  discon- 
certing to  note  that  on  the  famous  Berne  episode  the  scandal  of  direct 
imposition  alleged  by  contemporaries  is  left  in  the  background. 

Yet,  after  all  deduction  has  been  made  for  deficiencies  of  method  and 
equipment  for  a  stupendous  task  of  human  history,  M.  de  Cauzons'  work 
must  be  assured  a  place  of  a  respectable  order  of  service  for  reference  upon 
numerous  types  of  magic — necromancy,  oculomancy,  hippomancy,  arith- 
mancy,  geomancy,  and  chiromancy ;  and  upon  the  far  prehistoric  story  of 
charm  and  talisman  ;  the  practice  of  envoutement  or  bewitching  by  wax 
effigy ;  the  toad  as  a  familiar  demon ;  the  forms  of  exorcism  ;  and  the 
barbarities  of  torture  and  the  stake — all  presented  by  the  author  in  great 
profusion,  but,  alas,  unprovided  with  any  index.  One  feature,  not  the  least 
noteworthy  of  the  laborious  and  deeply  interesting  book,  is  the  fact  that  a 
Scottish  reader  can  scarcely  fail  to  observe  how  relatively  little  in  the  entire 
volume  there  is  which  might  not  have  been  written  of  Scottish  witchcraft. 
In  our  continent  magic,  in  its  phases  of  wizardry  and  witchcraft,  was  only 
in  very  slight  degree  local  in  its  characteristics ;  it  was  a  European  creed. 
Hence  M.  de  Cauzons,  who  does  not  mention  Burns,  has  nevertheless  in 
his  exposition  written  what  some  Burns  scholar  may  some  day  discover  to 
be  the  best  apparatus  criticus  yet  forthcoming  for  the  needed  commentary  on 
Tarn  o  Shanter. 

GEO.  NEILSON. 


Poole  :  Exchequer  in  the  Twelfth  Century    3 1 3 

THE  EXCHEQUER  IN  THE  TWELFTH  CENTURY.  The  Ford  Lectures  for 
1911.  By  Reginald  L.  Poole,  M.A.,  LL.D.  Pp.  xi,  195.  Demy  8vo. 
Oxford  :  Clarendon  Press.  1912.  6s.  6d.  net. 

THE  Exchequer,  with  its  methods  and  machinery  and  its  wonderful  wealth 
of  records,  lies  at  the  centre  of  every  problem  of  English  life  and  institu- 
tions in  the  Middle  Ages.  A  full  understanding  of  the  Dialogus  de  Scaccario 
is  perhaps  the  most  essential  factor  in  the  equipment  of  the  researcher 
among  medieval  sources.  A  treatise  of  convenient  size,  embodying  the 
results  of  recent  discussions  into  the  origin  and  arrangements  of  the  English 
Exchequer,  has  been  much  needed ;  and  Mr.  Lane  Pool's  business-like 
volume  of  less  than  200  pages  may  be  accepted,  almost  without  reservation, 
as  adequately  filling  the  gap.  The  author  writes  with  scholarly  reserve  and 
severely  excludes  all  embroideries  or  matters  that  are  of  even  doubtful 
relevancy.  Many  of  his  grateful  readers  will  wish  that  he  had  allowed 
himself  a  somewhat  freer  hand,  for  the  vigorous  compression  of  his  carefully 
collected  material  makes  it  harder  to  appreciate  the  full  bearings  of  some  of 
his  conclusions.  A  little  more  atmosphere  surrounding  the  clearly  outlined 
objects  described  would  help  the  reader's  historic  imagination.  Mr.  Lane 
Poole,  however,  keeps  to  the  solid  ground  of  facts,  and  attempts  no  flights 
into  the  regions  of  misty  speculation. 

On  the  perpetually  recurring  question  as  to  whether  the  Exchequer  over 
which  Roger  of  Salisbury  presided  was  of  Anglo-Saxon  or  Norman  origin, 
Mr.  Lane  Poole  has  something  definite  to  say.  The  answer  must  obviously 
depend  on  what  is  meant  by  the  Exchequer,  and  the  definition  is  perhaps 
not  so  free  from  doubt  as  is  here  assumed.  The  word  Exchequer  is  used 
not  incorrectly  to  describe  a  system  of  reckoning  or  audit,  an  apparatus,  a 
staff  of  auditors,  a  room  where  the  audit  is  conducted,  and  (in  later  days)  an 
administrative  department,  a  court  of  law,  and  a  repository  for  writs. 
Then,  again,  difference  of  opinion  is  possible  as  to  the  essential  features  of 
the  apparatus,  or  of  the  method  of  calculating  as  the  case  may  be.  To 
earlier  commentators  it  has  thus  seemed  possible  to  maintain  that  the 
problem  was  a  complicated  one,  and  that  '  the  Exchequer '  contained  both 
Anglo-Saxon  and  Norman  elements.  Mr.  Lane  Poole  brushes  aside  these 
complications  :  for  him  the  Exchequer  is  primarily  a  mere  apparatus,  a  table 
on  which  calculations  are  made  with  counters,  and  that  table  is  simply  a 
modified  abacus.  It  follows  that  when  the  abacus  is  shown  to  have  been 
introduced  from  Normandy,  the  origin  of  the  Exchequer  is  wholly 
Norman. 

There  are  one  or  two  obscure  problems  on  which,  in  spite  of  the  admir- 
able thoroughness  of  his  method,  Mr.  Lane  Poole  does  not  appear  to  have 
said  the  last  word.  He  does  not  give  an  exhaustive  account,  for  example, 
of  the  items  that  made  up  the  firma  comltatus ;  nor  does  his  analysis  of  the 
different  methods  of  reckoning  payments  at  the  Exchequer  of  Receipt  seem 
to  probe  to  the  root  of  the  matter.  No  reference  is  made  in  discussing  the 
origin  of  the  phrase  'Pipe  Rolls'  (p.  150)  to  a  rival  theory  suggested  by 
Mr.  Pike,  nor  in  the  commentary  on  the  judicial  reforms  of  1178  (p.  180) 
to  an  opinion  of  the  same  authority  with  which  Mr.  Lane  Poole  seems  to 
be  substantially  in  accord.  These,  however,  are  trivial  matters. 

x 


314       Hardy:    Roman  Laws  and  Charters 

Mr.  Lane  Poole  has  put  a  new  and  valuable  tool  into  the  hands  of 
students  of  medieval  England. 

WM.  S.  MCKECHNIE. 

ROMAN  LAWS  AND  CHARTERS  TRANSLATED,  WITH  INTRODUCTION  AND 
NOTES.  By  E.  G.  Hardy,  M.A.,  D.Litt.,  Fellow  and  Tutor  of  Jesus 
College,  Oxford.  Pp.  v,  159.  Demy  8vo.  Oxford:  Clarendon 
Press.  1912.  i  os.  6d.  net. 

LITTLE  more  than  a  year  ago  we  noticed  favourably  Dr.  Hardy's  Six 
Roman  Laws,  and  expressed  the  hope  that  he  would  soon  be  able  to  carry 
out  his  expressed  intention  of  presenting  a  further  series  of  similar  docu- 
ments in  an  equally  attractive  and  workmanlike  dress.  He  has  fulfilled  his 
promise  with  commendable  speed  and  with  characteristic  care  and  thorough- 
ness. The  Clarendon  Press  now  publish  both  sets  of  selections,  paged 
separately  but  bound  as  a  single  volume.  From  the  fact  that  the  Monu- 
mentum  Ancyranum  is  not  included,  we  draw  the  welcome  inference  that 
the  series  is  to  be  still  further  extended. 

Three  of  the  five  documents  comprised  in  the  new  group  are  municipal 
charters  from  Spain.  The  first  of  these  is  a  copy,  made  apparently  in 
Flavian  times,  of  the  original  charter  granted  to  the  Colonia  Genetiva 
Julia  on  its  establishment  by  the  dictator,  Julius  Caesar.  Fragmentary  as 
it  is,  it  throws  a  clear  light  on  some  important  details  of  administrative  and 
judicial  procedure.  The  next  two  documents,  the  Lex  Salpensana  and  the 
Lex  Malacitanct)  are  unfortunately  also  very  incomplete.  They  contain 
regulations  for  the  municipal  government  and  constitution  of  the  two  towns 
concerned,  and  they  evidently  represent  what  was  a  stereotyped  form  of 
lex  data  in  the  beginning  of  Domitian's  reign,  the  period  to  which  they  both 
belong.  The  two  fragments  thus  supplement  one  another,  and,  taken 
together,  they  form  a  valuable  contribution  to  our  knowledge  of  the  muni- 
cipal organisation  of  the  Empire.  The  young  student  could  hardly  have 
more  instructive  texts  set  before  him  to  work  upon.  The  two  remaining 
documents  take  us  back  to  Claudius,  and  both  are  full  of  interesting  points, 
the  last  particularly  so.  It  is  the  famous  oration  delivered  to  the  Senate 
by  the  Emperor  on  the  question  of  admitting  certain  Gaulish  chiefs  to 
senatorial  privileges.  A  comparison  of  the  actual  text  of  the  speech  with 
the  account  of  it  given  by  Tacitus,  is  illuminating;  and  here,  as  elsewhere, 
Dr.  Hardy  proves  himself  a  cautious  and  trustworthy  guide.  We  wish 
him  all  success  in  his  further  efforts  to  make  a  little  smoother  the  road  that 
leads  to  learning. 

GEORGE  MACDONALD. 

THE  FIRST  TWELVE  CENTURIES  OF  BRITISH  HISTORY.  By  J.  W. 
Jeudwine,  LL.B.  Pp.  lix,  436.  With  Maps.  Medium  8vo.  Lon- 
don: Longmans,  Green  &  Co.  1912.  I2s.  6d.  net. 

ACCORDING  to  the  author,  many  partial  judgments  and  one-sided  views 
have  resulted  from  the  failure  to  perceive  the  essential  unity  of  British 
history.  The  stories  of  England,  Scotland,  Ireland,  and  Wales  have  many 
points  in  common,  and  the  similarities  are  great  enough  not  only  to  justify, 


First  Twelve  Centuries  of  British  History  315 

but  to  demand,  their  treatment  as  a  connected  whole.  Mr.  Jeudwine  is  of 
opinion  that  many  historians  have  continued  to  view  their  subject  *  through 
the  spectacles  of  the  twelfth-century  English  Benedictines '  (Intro,  xlvi), 
and  he  proposes  to  correct  this  limited  outlook  by  the  citation  of  other 
authorities,  notably  the  Irish  Annals  and  the  Norse  Sagas. 

The  idea  is  daring,  but  the  author  has  not  succeeded  in  developing  it 
successfully.  He  does  not  produce  arguments  of  sufficient  weight  to  justify 
his  main  thesis.  Even  according  to  himself  the  principal  points  overlooked 
by  the  monastic  chroniclers  are  the  magnitude  and  reality  of  the  Norse 
attack  and  the  prevalence  of  '  tribal '  organisation  ;  surely  a  common  sub- 
jection to  the  assaults  of  the  Vikings,  and  a  common  'tribal'  system,  can 
hardly  be  made  the  groundwork  of  a  connected  treatment  of  the  British 
Isles.  On  such  a  basis,  one  might  set  out  to  write  a  history  of  the  greater 
part  of  Europe,  with  portions  of  America  and  Asia.  And  in  any  case  the 
'  tribe '  on  which  Mr.  Jeudwine  lays  such  stress  is  (as  he  notices  himself, 
p.  250)  a  quantity  which  varies  with  time  and  place.  The  author  usually 
speaks  of  the  ' tribe '  as  expressing  personal  relationship  mainly  ;  he  says 
little  of  the  process  by  which  territorial  proximity  supplanted  the  tie  of  the 
kin,  and  accepts  without  comment  the  idea  of  joint  ownership  and  frequent 
redivision  of  land  (p.  226).  His  tendency  is  to  treat  as  'tribal'  in  a 
primitive  sense  a  society  which  had  passed  beyond  that  stage,  and  to  ignore 
the  differences  in  development  which  soon  presented  themselves. 

The  case  for  a  connected  treatment,  then,  is  hardly  made  out,  and  the 
author  makes  no  attempt  to  meet  the  obvious  objection  of  racial  distinction. 
Indeed,  he  dismisses  out  of  hand  all  ethnological  questions  prior  to  the 
ninth  century  (p.  34  n.),  but  he  hazards  the  conjecture  (p.  23)  that  the 
Scots  were  Scandinavian  in  origin.  Such  a  thesis  as  that  of  Mr.  Jeudwine 
is  very  difficult  to  handle.  It  requires  an  expert  knowledge  of  the  histories 
of  at  least  six  different  countries,  and  this  the  author  does  not  possess.  He 
has  studied  the  original  authorities,  but  his  introductory  chapter  does  not 
inspire  confidence.  He  has  used  the  'Rolls  Series'  and  'Bonn's  Anti- 
quarian Library ' ;  but,  except  as  regards  the  Sagas,  little  attempt  has  been 
made  to  bring  the  authorities  up  to  date.  There  is  no  mention  of  Plummer's 
edition  of '  The  Chronicle,'  for  example,  and  Saxo  Grammaticus  and  Adam 
of  Bremen  are  quoted  at  second-hand.  But  it  is  not  only  in  his  choice  of 
sources  that  the  author  is  at  fault ;  such  as  they  are  he  has  treated  them 
honestly,  but  his  critical  apparatus  is  defective.  He  is  apparently  unaware 
of  all  the  work  already  done  upon  the  very  authorities  which  he  uses,  and 
one  seeks  in  vain  for  any  reference  to  Zimmer,  Liebermann,  Maitland,  or 
Professor  Vinogradoff. 

The  result  is  inevitable ;  a  few  old  stories  have  been  successfully 
exploded,  but  many  others  have  been  accepted  as  sober  history.  The 
author  repeatedly  recounts  as  actual  events  incidents  which  belong  to 
recognised  '  Saga-formulae.'  Apart  from  such  errors  of  judgment,  there 
are  numerous  mistakes  in  fact,  especially  as  regards  Scottish  history.  The 
appendices  are  not  fortunate.  One  contains  an  inaccurate  version  ot 
Alfred's  treaty  with  Guthrum.  This  is  still  dated  878,  though  more  than 
fifty  years  ago  Dr.  Reinhold  Schmid  proved  it  to  be  an  arrangement  made 


316  First  Twelve  Centuries  of  British  History 

in  885  or  thereabouts,  and  not  the  famous  Peace  of  Wedmore.  Another 
appendix  is  devoted  to  proving  (by  the  author's  experience  in  N.  Carolina) 
the  possibility  of  St.  Olaf  's  feat  at  London  Bridge  ;  no  attempt  is  made  to 
prove  that  St.  Olaf  was  there  at  all,  the  story  from  the  '  Heimskringla ' 
being  accepted,  despite  all  its  inconsistencies. 

The  book  contains  some  very  interesting  reproductions  of  mediaeval 
maps,  and  a  few  good  points  are  made — the  importance  of  the  *  Dane  *  as 
a  trader  is  well  explained.  But,  on  the  whole,  a  very  great  deal  of  honest 
labour  has  been  expended  to  comparatively  little  purpose. 

J.  D.  MACKIE. 

IN  BYWAYS  OF  SCOTTISH  HISTORY.  By  Louis  A.  Barbe",  B.A.,  Officier 
d'Academie.  Pp.  vii,  371.  8vo.  Glasgow:  Blackie  &  Son.  IDS.  6d. 
net. 

WE  learn  from  the  preface  that  several  of  the  twenty  essays  in  this  volume 
have  appeared  in  the  Glasgow  Herald  and  the  Evening  Times.  M.  Barbe 
might  have  avoided  some  misconception  had  he  stated  the  time  and  place 
of  their  original  appearance.  Some  of  what  is  now  published  has  been  long 
ago  anticipated,  and  some  long  ago  superseded.  The  author  is  quite  aware 
of  this,  but  he  does  not  make  it  clear.  Statements  in  the  paper  on  Master 
Randolph?!  Fantasie  have  been  out  of  date  since  that  poem  was  printed 
with  Dr.  Cranstoun's  notes  by  The  Scottish  Text  Society  twenty  years 
ago.  M.  Barb6  should  have  expressly  stated  this  with  particulars.  He  only 
makes  an  obscure  allusion  to  it  in  a  footnote.  He  plainly  owes  the  bulk  of 
his  most  important  essay  to  Dr.  George  Neilson's  Anglicus  Caudatus,  pub- 
lished in  the  Transactions  of  the  Glasgow  Archaeological  Society  for  1895, 
and  as  a  book  in  1 896.  But  he  makes  no  mention  of  that  treatise,  and  he 
is  probably  unconscious  that  the  vague  statement  in  his  preface  that  he  is 
indebted  to  Dr.  Neilson  *  for  several  illustrative  passages '  is  inadequate  and 
misleading.  Such  inadvertencies  are  apt  to  shake  the  interested  reader's 
confidence  in  M.  Barb6's  bibliographical  methods,  notwithstanding  the  fact 
that  he  conscientiously  verifies  his  quotations,  and  is  even  sometimes  at  the 
superfluous  pains  to  re-translate  them. 

Passing  from  such  ungrateful  regards,  it  must  be  said  that  M.  Barb£ 
is  an  enthusiastic  student  of  Scottish  history.  He  has  brought  together 
a  good  deal  of  interesting  information,  some  of  it  valuable,  whether  or  not 
it  be  the  fruit  of  original  research  or  the  most  recent  scholarship.  The 
period  with  which  he  is  chiefly  concerned  is  in  the  sixteenth  and  early 
seventeenth  centuries,  and  for  its  study  he  has  the  advantage  that  many  of 
the  records  of  its  most  interesting  events  and  personages  are  in  his  native 
language.  Half  his  papers  deal  with  Queen  Mary  (the  Morton  portrait  of 
whom  is  a  frontispiece  to  the  book),  with  her  son,  and  with  her  four  Maids 
of  Honour  of  romantic  tradition.  He  points  out  the  mythical  character  of 
the  Mary  Carmichael  and  Mary  Hamilton  of  the  popular  ballad.  He 
sometimes  accepts  the  authority  of,  and  again  attributes  falsehood  to,  John 
Knox's  History  of  the  Reformation.  He  records  two  bold  resolutions  of 
James  VI.,  to  set  himself  to  the  'sorely  needed  task'  of  controlling  the 
Scottish  clergy,  and  to  employ  only  such  ministers  of  State  as  he  could 


Barbe:    In  Byways  of  Scottish  History     317 

hang.  He  recalls  that  in  <  The  Old  Scottish  Army '  shooting  was  ordered 
to  be  practised  every  Sunday,  golf  and  football  <  cried  down  '  so  that  every 
man  from  twelve  to  fifty  years  of  age  might  be  trained  to  arms,  and 
defaulters  from  drill  fined  not  less  than  twopence  for  drink  to  the  punctual 
attenders. 

«  Thu  <L°ng-Tai1'  Myth  is  a  study  of  the  widespread  belief  among  their 
French  and  Scottish  enemies  that  Englishmen  had  tails.  It  had  its  origin 
in  the  legend  that  after  S.  Augustine's  landing  in  England  the  people  of  a 
certain  village  mocked  the  holy  man  and  his  followers,  fastening  to  their 
clothes  the  tails  of  ray-fish,  or  skate  ;  and  that,  for  this  sacrilegious  outrage, 
the  posterity  of  these  wretches  were  condemned  to  be  born  with  tails. 
In  the  local  dialect  these  tails  were  called  'mughel,'  their  wearers  <mug- 
glmgs,  and  their  town  <  Mugglington.'  This  curious  tale  is  traced  through 
many  ages,  and  many  variants  of  locality,  personage  and  circumstance. 
We  are  told  that  the  modern  map  of  England  knows  no  Mugglington,  and 
our  author  cannot  indicate  its  situation.  A  celebrated  chronicler  has, 
however,  placed  Mugglington,  or  Muggleton,  near  Rochester,  in  Kent,  on 
whose  shore  S.  Augustine  landed,  and  has  recorded  another  event  in  its 
history  later  than  the  episode  of  the  tails,  and  perhaps  destined  to  a  fame  as 
enduring. 

ANDREW  MARSHALL. 

THE  AGRARIAN  PROBLEM  IN  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY.  By  R.  H. 
Tawney.  Pp.  xii,  464.  With  six  Maps  in  colour.  Medium  8vo. 
London  :  Longmans,  Green  &  Co.  1912.  9$.  net. 

THE  sixteenth  century  saw  those  great  changes  in  English  agrarian  life 
which  converted  a  land  where  the  soil  was  principally  worked  by  small 
holders,  who  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  were  consolidating  and 
increasing  their  holdings  and  sharing  the  profits  of  their  enterprise,  into  a 
country  of  great  landlords,  pocketing  the  proceeds  of  improvements.  Mr. 
Tawney  gives  a  most  interesting  account  of  the  state  of  English  rural  life 
at  the  beginning  of  this  period,  of  the  causes,  process,  and  results  of  the 
change,  of  the  attitude  of  the  government  towards  it,  and  of  its  effects  on 
the  life  of  the  English  peasantry.  The  enclosures  of  the  sixteenth  century 
were  denounced  by  divines,  pamphleteers,  and  members  of  Parliament  as 
the  cause  of  agrarian  discontent  and  disturbance  and  of  rural  depopulation, 
while  the  peasants  themselves  suffered  severely.  For,  whether  they  were 
made  to  convert  land  that  had  been  tilled  into  pasture,  or  to  make  small 
farms  into  large  arable  holdings,  enclosures  very  often  meant  the  eviction  of 
those  customary  tenants  who  could  not  show  excellent  legal  reasons  for 
remaining,  and  they  also  often  involved  appropriation  of  the  commons. 

The  principal  causes  of  the  change  were  the  breakdown  of  the  feudal 
spirit,  which  had  made  the  number  of  dependants  important ;  and  the 
introduction  of  commercialisation  into  agrarian  life  by  the  profit  to  be 
found  in  sheep  farming  and  by  the  depreciation  in  the  value  of  money,  due 
to  the  influx  of  silver. 

The  new  system  may  have  brought  a  greater  pecuniary  return  from  the 
soil,  but,  as  Mr.  Tawney's  imaginary  peasant  says,  *  our  wasteful  husbandry 


318  Agrarian  Problem  in  the  Sixteenth  Century 

feeds  many  households  where  your  economical  methods  would  feed  few. 
In  our  unenclosed  village  there  are  few  rich,  but  there  are  few  destitute.' 
Mr.  Tawney's  patient  research,  and  the  insight   and   sympathy  with 
which  he  treats  his  subject,  make  this  a  memorable  and  a  valuable  book. 

THEODORA  KEITH. 

EUSEBIANA  :  ESSAYS  ON  THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  HISTORY  OF  EUSEBIUS 
BISHOP  OF  CAESAREA.  By  Hugh  Jackson  Lawlor,  D.D.  Pp.  viii,  303. 
Demy  8vo.  Oxford  :  Clarendon  Press.  1912.  ias.  6d.  net 

DR.  LAWLOR  has  done  a  good  service  to  students  in  bringing  together  in 
this  volume  a  series  of  Essays,  dealing  with  various  questions  raised  by  the 
Ecclisiastical  History  of  Eusebius.  We  can  only  note  here  one  or  two 
points  in  these  Essays  as  illustrating  their  rich  contents,  and  the  light 
which,  both  directly  and  indirectly,  they  throw  upon  the  early  history  of 
the  Church.  Thus  in  his  opening  Essay,  which  is  devoted  to  *  The 
Hypomnemata  of  Hegesippus,'  Dr.  Lawlor  by  showing  that,  with  the 
exception  of  certain  passages  in  the  fifth  Memoir,  these  Memoirs  were 
primarily  designed  as  an  apology  for  the  Faith  against  unbelievers,  rather 
than  as  a  systematic  history,  is  able  to  vindicate  for  Eusebius  the  proud 
title  of  being  the  '  Father  of  Church  History.'  On  the  other  hand,  the 
assigning  to  Hegesippus  of  certain  statements  regarding  the  Apostle  John, 
cited  by  Eusebius  without  direct  mention  of  their  author,  supplies  us  with 
our  earliest  evidence  on  such  burning  questions  as  the  Domitianic  date  and 
the  Apostolic  authorship  of  the  Apocalypse.  A  needed  warning  against 
identifying  Montanism  wholly  with  the  teaching  enforced  in  Tertullian's 
tracts  is  effected  by  recalling  the  beginnings  of  the  movement  in  Phrygia, 
where  "the  sect  which  was  commonly  known  as  'the  heresy  of  the 
Phrygians '  must  have  included  among  its  members  a  large  number — per- 
haps the  majority — of  the  Christians  of  Phrygia"  (p.  134).  The  elaborate 
examination  of  the  literary  genesis  and  development  of  Eusebius'  great 
work  in  the  closing  Essay  leads  Dr.  Lawlor  to  the  interesting  conclusion 
that  it  must  have  been  issued  in  no  fewer  than  four  editions,  differing 
in  various  particulars.  These,  as  has  already  been  stated,  are  merely 
indications  of  what  the  student  may  look  for  in  Dr.  Lawlor's  Essays,  but 
they  will  have  served  their  purpose  if  they  lead  him  to  make  acquaintance 
for  himself  with  this  erudite  and  scholarly  volume. 

GEORGE  MILLIGAN. 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  ENGLISH  CONSTITUTION.  By  George  Burton  Adams, 
Professor  of  History  in  Yale  College.  Pp.  xiv,  378.  8vo.  New 
Haven:  Yale  University  Press.  1912.  ios.net. 

PROFESSOR  G.  B.  ADAMS,  whose  contributions  to  history  are  widely 
appreciated  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  has  written  a  stimulating  mono- 
graph on  the  genesis  of  what  he  estimates  to  be  the  essence  of  the  British 
Constitution.  This  essence,  in  his  view,  lies  in  the  principle  of  a  limited 
Monarchy,  which  is  the  outcome  of  an  absolute  Monarchy  established  by 
the  Normans  in  England,  and  afterwards  modified  by  the  action  of  feudalism, 
the  vital  principle  of  which  he  finds  in  'the  feudal  contract '  between  lord 


Adams  :   Origin  of  the  English  Constitution  319 

and  vassal.  It  is  to  Magna  Carta  (on  the  feudal  and  contractual  basis  of 
which  he  equally  insists)  that  he  traces  the  first  effectual  application  of  this 
contractual  conception  to  the  work  of  limiting  the  feudal  Monarchy. 
When  John  granted  the  Great  Charter  he  recognized  the  existence  of  a 
body  of  laws  to  which  the  Crown  must  bow,  and  agreed  to  accept 
machinery  for  enforcing  these  laws  upon  a  recalcitrant  King.  This  body 
of  laws  formed  a  restraining  medium  which  gradually  changed  its  character 
in  succeeding  reigns,  as  the  original  feudal  nature  of  the  rights  in  question 
gave  way  to  a  truly  national  conception  of  laws,  protecting  all  classes  of 
citizens.  One  of  the  most  valuable  chapters  of  the  book  takes  the  form  of 
a  commentary  on  Magna  Carta,  which  calls  for  the  consideration  of  future 
writers  on  that  much-discussed  document. 

Prof.  Adams'  argument  necessitates  a  more  restricted  estimate  of  the 
essentials  of  the  Constitution  and  of  the  directions  of  its  development  than 
many  historians  will  be  ready  to  concede.  In  support  of  the  position  con- 
sistently maintained  against  Prof.  Maitland,  Mr.  Adams  not  only  refuses  to 
admit  the  presence  of  genuine  feudal  phenomena  in  England  prior  to  1066, 
but  is  led  to  reduce  to  vanishing  point  the  influence  of  the  entire  Anglo- 
Saxon  contribution  to  the  later  Constitution. 

Mr.  Adams'  important  monograph,  which  can  hardly  be  read  without 
profit  either  by  those  who  agree  or  by  those  who  dissent,  has  a  twofold 
value.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  a  contribution  to  Political  Science.  The 
author,  writing  for  a  generation  which,  too  often,  cannot  see  the  wood  for 
the  trees,  does  not  shrink  from  formulating  broad  philosophical  theories  of 
constitutional  development,  which  compel  his  readers  to  re-examine 
accepted  estimates,  and,  if  they  do  not  always  convince,  are  likely  to 
strengthen  convictions  they  are  unable  to  shake.  His  generalizations 
indeed  raise  deep  problems  which  cannot  here  be  entered  on,  as  they  would 
require  many  pages  to  discuss.  The  work  is  valuable  in  the  second  place 
for  its  searching  analysis  of  a  number  of  documents  of  crucial  importance, 
and  for  a  penetrating  discussion  of  numerous  technical  details  of  medieval 
procedure.  The  treatment  of  Henry  I.'s  writ  regarding  the  local  courts, 
and  of  Henry  II.'s  prohibition  of  pleas  as  to  land  being  tried  without  a  royal 
writ  are  particularly  admirable  ;  a  clear  exposition,  although  making  no 
claim  to  originality,  is  given  of  the  relations  between  writs  of  right  and 
writs  praecipe  ;  and  fresli  light  is  thrown  in  the  course  of  a  courteous 
refutation  of  Prof.  Maitland's  theories,  upon  the  restriction  of  private  war 
and  other  limitations  of  the  rights  of  feudal  vassals  in  England  (pp.  186- 
193).  Portions  of  the  text  and  various  appendixes  have  already  appeared  in 
the  pages  of  the  American  Historical  Review  and  elsewhere,  but  it  is  matter 
for  congratulation  that  they  have  now  been  brought  together  and  placed  at 
the  service  of  students  in  their  present  convenient  form. 

WM.  S.  McKECHNiE. 


320  The  French  Revolution 

FoUQUIER-TlNVILLE,    AcCUSATEUR     PUBLIC    DU    TRIBUNAL    RfiVOLUTION- 

NAIRE.    Par  Alphonse  Dunoyer.    Pp.  470.    Paris  :  Perrin  et  Cie.    1913. 
5fr. 

BLEUS,  BLANCS  ET  ROUGES.  R£crrs  D'HISTOIRE  REVOLUTIONNAIRE.  Par 
G.  Lenotre.  Pp.  xxiv,  389.  Paris:  Perrin  et  Cie.  1912.  5  fr. 

BOOKS  on  the  French  Revolution  and  its  Napoleonic  sequel  continue  to 
multiply  in  unprecedented  fashion.  M.  Dunoyer  indicates  that  the 
'Accusateur  Public'  has  already  been  sufficiently  studied  in  his  official 
capacity,  and  it  is  Fouquier's  '  proces '  which  is  now  specially  given  in  con- 
densed detail  with  a  minimum  of  comment  and  argument.  The  question 
of  Fouquier's  guilt  is  of  course  raised,  but  it  seems  none  too  decidedly  that 
the  Accusateur's  plea  that  he  was  but  the  servant  of  the  Committees  is  set 
aside,  though  it  is  pointed  out  he  overstepped  his  authority.  In  other 
aspects  Fouquier  remains  as  incorrupt  and  passionately  consistent  as 
Robespierre  himself. 

M.  Lenotre  is  well  known  for  his  revolutionary  studies.  In  point  of 
style  and  management  of  the  subject,  his  volume  outshines  the  other, 
though  he  deals  with  the  Revolution  in  obscurer  aspects,  as  manifested  on 
the  rim  of  the  recalcitrant  provinces.  But  it  is  once  more  the  case  of  the 
abuse  of  a  little  brief  authority,  but  studied  as  much  from  the  sufferers' 
point  of  view  as  that  of  the  oppressors'.  The  section  entitled  '  Mademoiselle 
de  la  Chauviniere '  seems  something  of  a  misnomer,  since  the  father  is  more 
in  the  *  recit '  than  the  daughter,  whose  domestic  crime,  committed  in  the 
Imperial  period,  cannot  be  organically  connected  with  the  father's  earlier 
political  divagations.  M.  Lenotre's  narratives  (which  are  highly  but  com- 
mendably  '  documented ')  are  all  steeped  in  gloom,  saving  the  last  relating 
to  a  revolutionary  changeling  round  whom  gathered  a  litigation  involving 
probably  more  documents  than  in  the  Tichborne  case. 

A.  R.  COWAN. 

PART  OF  THE  OPUS  TERTIUM  OF  ROGER  BACON  INCLUDING  A  FRAG- 
MENT NOW  PRINTED  FOR  THE  FIRST  TIME.  Edited  by  A.  G.  Little. 
Pp.  xlviii,  92.  8vo.  Aberdeen  :  University  Press.  1912.  iOs.6d.net. 

THIS  book  forms  Volume  IV.  of  the  publications  of  the  British  Society  of 
Franciscan  Studies,  and  continues  the  unpublished  texts  of  Roger  Bacon's 
works  contained  in  Volume  III.  of  the  same  series.  In  Volume  III. 
Canon  H.  Rashdall  edited  the  hitherto  unprinted  Compendium  Studii 
Theologiae,  and  here  Mr.  A.  G.  Little  rescues  from  oblivion  a  previously 
unknown  portion  of  the  Opus  Tertlum.  The  Introduction  contains  a 
critical  discussion  of  the  question  whether  the  newly  discovered  fragment 
fits  on  immediately  to  the  end  of  the  fragment  printed  by  Professor  Brewer. 
This  is  followed  by  a  Summary  of  the  contents  of  the  book.  The  manu- 
script containing  the  fragment  now  printed  is  preserved  among  the  MSS. 
of  Winchester  College  Library  (Winchester  College  MS.  39),  and  dates 
from  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century.  In  view  of  the  celebration  next 
year  of  the  seventh  centenary  of  Roger  Bacon's  birth,  Mr.  Little  has  per- 


Opus  Tertium  of  Roger  Bacon          321 

formed  an  opportune  service  by  his  erudite  editing  of  this  portion  of  the 
Opus  Tertium. 

On  page  xviii  of  his  Introduction  the  editor  represents  Roger  Bacon  as 
saying,  with  reference  to  the  works  of  geometry,  arithmetic  and  music,  that 
in  them  is  nothing  magical  in  reality  but  only  in  appearance.'     On  turn- 
ing to  the  text  we  find  that  the  actual  words  are— <et  ibi  nichil  secundum 
ventatem  est  magicum,  nee  secundum  apparentiam.' 

The  publication  is  proof  in  itself  that  interest  in  the  work  *  of  the 
greatest  champion  of  experimental  science  in  the  Middle  Ages '  is  increasing, 
as  it  is  bound  to  do,  when  the  modernity  of  many  of  his  researches  and 
views  becomes  known. 

JOHN  EDWARDS. 

THE  JOURNAL  OF  JOHN  STEVENS,  CONTAINING  A  ERIEF  ACCOUNT  OF  THE 
WAR  IN  IRELAND,  1689-1691.  Edited  by  the  Rev.  Robert  H.  Murray, 
Litt.D.  Pp.  Ixiii,  241.  With  two  maps.  Med.  8vo.  Clarendon 
Press.  1912. 

DR.  MURRAY  has  produced  a  very  careful  edition  of  John  Stevens'  Journal, 
which  is  a  useful  authority  for  the  War  in  Ireland  during  the  troublous 
times  of  the  Revolution.  The  narrative,  which  begins  with  King  James' 
escape  from  Rochester,  concludes  very  abruptly  in  the  middle  of  an  account 
of  the  battle  of  Aughrim ;  for  the  intervening  two  and  a  half  years  it  is, 
though  it  was  evidently  written  up  at  a  later  period,  the  diary  of  a  faithful 
eyewitness.  The  present  editor  has  furnished  an  excellent  introduction, 
which,  besides  emphasising  the  salient  points  brought  out  by  the  Journal^ 
contains  a  biography  of  the  author,  and  a  section  upon  the  main  authorities 
for  the  period.  Copious  notes  form  a  valuable  commentary  upon  the  text, 
and  a  full  bibliography  completes  a  scholarly  piece  of  work. 

The  Journal  itself,  with  its  egotistical  accounts  of  campaigns  and  battles, 
its  list  of  places  visited  and  miles  marched,  its  moralisings  over  victory  and 
defeat,  at  once  invites  comparison  with  the  many  other  records  compiled  by 
seventeenth-century  soldiers.  From  these,  however,  it  differs  in  one  obvious 
particular — Stevens,  despite  previous  experience  in  Portugal,  seems  to  have 
remained  in  military  matters  somewhat  of  an  amateur.  Courage  in  action 
he  did  not  lack  (p.  209),  but  he  is  constantly  complaining  of  hunger,  sore 
feet,  and  bad  quarters.  One  of  his  grumbles  (p.  116)  reveals  the  curious 
fact  that  a  marching  army  was  usually  brought  into  line  even  when  halted 
for  a  brief  rest.  It  was  exceptional  to  allow  troops  to  halt  in  column  on 
the  road. 

The  Journal  then  is  not  the  work  of  a  professional  soldier,  but  of  an 
amateur  who  naturally  did  not  know  the  exact  plans  of  the  generals 
at  the  time,  and  who  does  not  seem  to  have  examined  them  very  carefully 
afterwards.  The  narrative  is,  in  consequence,  at  times  surprisingly  vague 
in  its  accounts  of  campaigns,  the  more  that  Stevens  prided  himself  on 
describing  only  that  which  he  had  himself  seen. 

On  the  other  hand  it  is,  in  its  general  effect,  very  instructive,  revealing, 
as  it  does,  the  hopelessness  of  the  Jacobite  cause.  Some  of  the  pessimism 
is  doubtless  due  to  the  fact  that  Stevens  wrote  after  the  event,  but  the 


322     Murray  :  The  Journal  of  John  Stevens 

evidence  for  dissension  and  bad  organisation  seems  complete,  while  the 
frequent  mention  of  false  alarms  proves  that  the  whole  army  was  in  a  state 
of  *  nerves '  all  along.  But  the  editor  might  perhaps  have  pointed  out  that 
many  of  the  *  Williamites '  were  by  no  means  confident  of  the  result.  The 
mortality  in  the  English  camp  during  the  campaign  of  1689  was  appalling 
(p.  96  n.),  and  the  French  victory  off  Beachy  Head  rendered  William's 
position  in  Ireland  most  precarious.  Scotsmen  will  find  rather  odd  the 
reference  to  *  Lord '  Dundee  (p.  207  n.),  and  it  is  perhaps  worth  while 
remarking  that  'Dumbarton's  Regiment'  (p.  118  and  n.)  was  the  famous 
corps  which,  under  the  title  of  the  Royal  Scots,  became  the  first  regiment 
of  the  Line. 

J.  D.  MACKIE. 

PAUL  THE  FIRST  OF  RUSSIA,  THE  SON  OF  CATHERINE  THE  GREAT.  By 
K.  Waliszewski.  Pp.  v,  494.  With  Portrait.  8vo.  London : 
William  Heinemann.  1912.  155.  net. 

IN  this  book  the  Polish  historian  traces  in  his  usual  narrative  manner  the 
five  brief  years  in  which  the  Emperor  Paul  tried  to  undo  the  work  of  his 
mother,  the  great  Catherine  II.,  years  which  were  regarded  as  years  of 
terror  by  the  higher  classes  of  his  subjects.  His  despotism,  which  aimed  at 
being  benevolent,  became  unbearable,  owing  to  the  feeling  of  uncertainty 
it  caused  among  the  nobles  living  under  fear  of  immediate  and  sudden 
banishment,  and  led  to  the  murder  of  the  Emperor  by  a  court  camarilla. 
The  changing  foreign  policy  of  the  Tsar  and  his  vacillations  in  regard  to 
Napoleon  are  well  considered,  and  his  relations  with  his  wife,  Mile. 
Nelidoff,  and  Princess  Gagarine,  accurately  narrated.  A  considerable 
portion  of  the  book  is  taken  up  with  the  question  whether  Paul  was  mad  or 
not.  Kept  within  due  bounds  during  his  mother's  life,  few  suspected  his 
madness  till  he  came  to  the  throne,  but  it  would  seem  that  his  Absolutism 
and  extraordinary  conflicting  orders  prove  him  to  have  become  mad  before 
the  end  of  his  reign. 

The  author  is  interesting  on  the  subject  of  the  position  of  the  heir- 
apparent  (Alexander  I.).  He  is  cleared  of  the  murder,  but  not  of  the  con- 
spiracy which  led  to  it,  and  some  letters  from  his  young  wife  show  the 
terror  the  Tsar  inspired.  The  account  of  the  murder  and  the  c  one  mad 
moment'  in  which  the  Empress-widow  thought  of  following  the  example 
of  Catherine  II.  is  full  of  vivid  writing. 

A.  FRANCIS  STEUART. 

THE  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CALVIN.  By  L.  Penning.  Translated  from 
the  Dutch  by  Rev.  B.  S.  Bermington,  B.A.  Pp.  vi,  392.  With 
Twelve  Full  Page  Plates.  Demy  8vo.  London  :  Kegan  Paul,  Trench, 
Triibner  &  Co.,  Ltd.  1912.  los.  6d.  net. 

THIS  is  not  so  much  a  life  of  Calvin  from  a  historical  point  of  view  as 
a  popular  sketch  of  his  career  from  a  rabidly  Protestant  standpoint.  The 
strict  despotism  the  great  Reformer  established  at  Geneva  is  called  at  one 
place  a  c  Protestant  Sparta,'  yet  later  this  tyranny  is  styled  '  the  genial 
direction  '  of  Calvin.  The  book  admits  that  Calvin  '  desired  Servet's  death,* 
but  excuses  it  as  being  (as  it  was)  '  the  error  of  the  age  in  which  Calvin 


Penning  :    The  Life  and  Times  of  Calvin  323 

lived,'  and  adds  'that  the  bearers  of  the  most  venerable  names  in  the 
Protestant  world  rejoiced '  with  the  comment,  and  we  think  this  further 
quotation  sufficient  :  '  It  was  the  Roman  Catholic  leaven  in  the  Protestant 
dough.'  We  cannot  commend  the  English  of  the  translator ;  he  has  no 
system  about  names,  some  being  in  the  English,  some  in  the  German  form. 
Nor  do  we  think  he  should  have  passed  the  phrase  that  John  Knox  was 
'  sent  to  the  gallows  and  sighed  in  slavery  for  two  years.' 

A  SERVICE  BOOK  OF  ENGLISH  HISTORY  FOR  THE  USE  OF  SCHOOLS.  Vol.  I., 
597-1603.  Edited  by  Arthur  D.  Innes,  M.A.  Pp.  viii,  383.  With 
numerous  Illustrations.  Post  8vo.  Cambridge  :  University  Press.  1912. 
45.  6d. 

THIS  is  an  excellent  illustrated  collection  of  extracts  (rendered  into  English 
when  necessary)  illustrating  the  history  of  England  from  Saxon  to  the  last 
year  of  Tudor  times.  The  selection  is  made  with  great  discretion.  Bede, 
the  Old  English  Chronicle,  Chaucer,  Ordericus  Vitalis,  Giraldus  Cam- 
brensis,  the  Rolls  Series,  Hall's  Chronicle,  et  hoc  genus  omne^  all  figure, 
and  in  exactly  the  right  extracts.  Scotland  is  not  neglected.  The  Lanercost 
Chronicle  is  drawn  on  for  Wallace's  Insurrection  ;  John  Knox  supplies 
many  passages,  and,  as  the  Editor  points  out,  records  two  Scottish  disasters 
as  victories  of  the  Reformation  ;  Pitscottie  gives  the  murder  of  Cardinal 
Beaton,  and  from  Sir  James  Melville's  Memoirs  is  his  wonderful  interview 
with  Queen  Elizabeth. 

LINGARD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND.  Newly  abridged  and  brought  down  to 
the  Accession  of  King  George  V.  by  Dom  Henry  Norbert  Birt,  O.S.B. 
Pp.  x,  651.  With  seven  Maps.  Post  8vo.  London  :  G.  Bell  &  Sons. 
1912.  35.  6d. 

ABBOT  ,GASQUET'S  preface  to  this  excellent  little  book  shows  the  scope  of  the 
abridged  history  before  us.  It  is  intended  for  the  use  of  schools,  and  (in  a 
way)  to  supersede  the  epitome  made  in  1854  by  Mr.  James  Burke.  The 
work  of  the  Catholic  historian  has  been  re-edited  and  brought  up  to  date. 
We  have  read  the  chapter  on  Henry  VIII.  with  especial  care,  and  it  is 
striking  to  see  how  wonderfully  fair  the  historian  was  to  all  parties  in  that 
difficult  reign. 

THE  PERSONALITY  OF  NAPOLEON.  The  Lowell  Lectures  delivered  at 
Boston  in  February-March,  1912.  By  J.  Holland  Rose,  Litt.D.  Pp. 
307.  With  three  Maps  and  Plans.  Crown  8vo.  London:  G.  Bell 
&  Sons.  1912.  5s.  net. 

THE  Lowell  lectures  have  now  appeared  in  book  form,  and,  save  for  certain 
irregularities  in  the  French  names,  make  a  very  pleasing  volume.  Dr. 
Holland  Rose  considers  Napoleon's  constant  reiteration  that  he  was  'the 
man  of  Destiny'  was  more  a  pose  than  anything  else,  for  no  man  was  so 
deliberately  calculating.  His  Italian  temperament,  however,  sometimes 
made  his  impetuosity  defeat  his  calculations.  The  writer  fully  shows  his 
greatness  as  a  soldier,  a  law-giver,  and  as  (what  he  aspired  to  be)  the  world- 
ruler.  He  condones  his  divorce  from  Josephine  and  excuses  his  harshness 


324    Economic   Beginnings  of  the  Far  West 

to  Elizabeth  Paterson.     He  points  out  that  no  parvenu  has  ever  advanced 
his  own  family  more,  and  that  Napoleon  did  this  to  his  own  harm. 
It  is  a  valuable  study  of  one  of  the  world's  most  extraordinary  men. 

ECONOMIC  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  FAR  WEST  :  How  WE  WON  THE  LAND 
BEYOND  THE  MISSISSIPPI.  By  Katharine  Coman.  2  vols.  Vol.  I., 
xix,  418,  Vol.  II.,  ix,  450,  with  many  Illustrations.  Post  8vo.  New 
York  :  Macmillan  &  Co.  1912.  175.  net. 

THESE  volumes  are  a  well  written  and  excellently  illustrated  account  of 
how  the  Far  West  was  settled.  The  first  volume  deals  with  explorers  and 
colonizers,  and  the  second  with  American  settlers.  Both  are  equally 
interesting,  and  a  work  which  includes  the  beginnings  of  California,  with 
the  *  diggings,'  and  the  beginnings  of  Utah,  with  the  Mormons,  as  well  as 
Oregon  and  the  North- West,  cannot  be  without  incident ;  and  this  book 
tells  what  it  sets  out  to  tell. 

Smuggling  in  the  American  Colonies  at  the  Outbreak  of  the  Revolution.  By 
Wm.  S.  M'Clellan.  (Pp.  xx,  105.  8vo.  New  York  :  Printed  for  De- 
partment of  Political  Science  of  Williams  College  by  Moffat,  Yard,  &  Co. 
1912.  $1.00  net.)  Is  an  able  essay  referring  specially  to  the  West  Indian 
trade. 

We  have  received  the  fourth  volume  of  The  Correspondence  of  Jonathan 
Swift)  1727-1733.  (Pp.  xvi,  487.  With  seven  Illustrations.  Demy  8vo. 
London  :  G.  Bell  &  Sons.  1913.  ios.  6d.  net.)  Dr.  Elrington  Ball  edits 
this  volume  with  the  same  care  as  all  its  predecessors,  and  gives  in  an 
appendix  all  the  really  known  facts  of  the  relations  between  Swift  and 
Stella. 

The  Maryland  Historical  Magazine,  in  its  issues  for  June  and  September, 
devotes  many  pages  to  a  record  of  Maryland's  part  in  'the  last  inter- 
colonial war,'  the  French  and  Indian  war  of  1753-55,  when  the  American 
British  colonial  force  was  under  the  command  of  Governor — and  General — 
Horatio  Sharpe,  prior  to  the  arrival  of  General  Braddock  with  a  force  from 
Great  Britain,  which  marched  to  disaster  in  the  valley  of  the  Ohio.  Other 
contents  include  effusive  correspondence  of  a  noted  divine,  Jonathan 
Boucher,  during  his  residence  in  Virginia,  1762-64.  There  are  also  land- 
notes,  1634-55  ;  vestry  proceedings,  1722-62 ;  and  memoranda  on  a  Mary- 
land troop,  the  Home  Guard  of  Frederick  at  the  outbreak  of  the  civil  war 
in  1 86 1.  In  the  vestry  proceedings  there  are  given  forms  of  oaths  of 
abjuration,  allegiance,  and  abhorrence.  The  last  declares  detestation  of 
*  that  damnable  Doctrine  and  Position  that  Princes  excommunicated  or 
deprived  by  the  Pope  or  any  authority  of  the  See  of  Rome  may  be  Deposed 
or  murdered  by  their  subjects  or  any  other  whatsoever.' 

Analecta  Bollandiana  (torn.  XXXI.,  fasc.  IV.)  has  an  article  trying  to 
clarify  the  date  and  circumstances  of  the  journey  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi 
to  Syria  circa  1219.  There  is  edited  an  interesting  fragment  of  a  late 
thirteenth  century  MS.  on  the  translation  of  St.  Hugh  of  Lincoln.  It  has 
the  story  more  fully  told  elsewhere  of  Henry  I.  in  a  storm  and  of  his 
prayer,  successful  through  the  merits  of  Hugh. 


Communications  and  Notes 

THE  EARLY  HISTORY  OF  GALLOWAY.  In  reviewing  the 
Report  of  the  Royal  Commission  on  Ancient,  etc.,  Monuments  of  Scot- 
land dealing  with  Wigtownshire,  my  esteemed  friend,  Sir  Archibald 
Lawrie,  pays  a  just  tribute  to  the  devotion  and  acumen  with  which  our 
secretary,  Mr.  A.  O.  Curie,  has  discharged  his  task  of  survey  ;  but  Sir 
Archibald  also  takes  him  to  task  for  accepting  *the  old,  oft-repeated  and 
only  half  accurate  stories  of  tribes  and  missionaries,  and  kings  ancient  and 
modern.' 

Let  Sir  Archibald  put  the  saddle  on  the  right  horse.  It  was  I,  and  not 
Mr.  Curie,  who  wrote  the  historical  sketch  forming  Part  I.  of  the  Intro- 
duction to  the  Report,  and  in  doing  so  endeavoured  to  condense  into  a 
plausible  sketch  the  breccia  of  legend  and  chronicle  wherein  the  early  history 
of  Galloway  is  entombed. 

Sir  Archibald  probably  is  too  lenient  in  pronouncing  my  sketch  to  be 
'only  half  accurate.'  Relying,  as  one  must  in  this  matter,  upon  state- 
ments chiefly  of  the  ut  dicitur  class,  I  should  be  quite  content  if  50  per 
cent,  of  my  conclusions  could  be  accepted  as  trustworthy ;  but  why  does 
my  critic  charge  me  with  repeating  half  accurate  stories  of  '  kings  ancient 
and  modern '  ?  In  dealing  with  modern  kings  nothing  short  of  historical 
accuracy  should  be  condoned  ;  but  the  latest  king  referred  to  in  my  sketch 
is  Alexander  II.  (1214-1249). 

One  gross  blunder,  at  least,  I  own  to.  By  a  schoolboy's  lapsus  calami  I 
have  made  Tacitus  responsible  for  the  tribes  Selgovae  and  Novantae,  whom 
that  historian  never  mentions.  It  was  Ptolemy,  of  course,  writing  70  years 
after  Tacitus,  who  located  them  in  the  south-west  of  northern  Britain,  or 
rather  in  the  north-west,  owing  to  the  distortion  of  his  survey,  which  placed 
the  Mull  of  Galloway  in  the  position  of  Cape  Wrath. 

Another  palpable  blunder  occurs  on  page  xx  of  my  introduction,  whereby 
Alan  Lord  of  Galloway,  who  is  rightly  stated  at  the  top  of  the  page  to  have 
succeeded  Roland  in  1199,  is  made  at  the  bottom  of  the  page  to  die  in  the 
same  year.  He  died  in  1234.  My  attention  has  been  called  to  a  third 
blunder.  William  the  Lion  was  taken  prisoner  in  1174,  not  1173  as 
stated  in  the  text. 

As  Sir  Archibald  Lawrie  has  not  mentioned  in  his  review  the  statements 
to  which  he  takes  specific  objection,  I  have  no  wish  to  enter  upon  speculative 
controversy ;  only  this  I  would  submit,  that  nearly  all  my  statements  are 
expressed  tentatively.  The  right  of  the  Galloway  Picts  to  form  the  advanced 
guard  of  the  Scottish  army  in  1138  'appears  to  have  been  conferred  on 
them  by  Kenneth  Mac  Alpin '  :  the  Selgovae  are  referred  to  as  'probably 
inhabiting  the  shores  of  Sol  way  ' :  it  is  *  uncertain  how  and  in  what 


326          The  Early  History  of  Galloway 

degree '  the  Galwegian  Picts  became  subject  to  Northumbria,  and  so  on. 
It  is  difficult  to  see  how  terms  less  dogmatic  could  have  been  employed. 
Almost  the  only  point  whereon  I  ventured  to  write  positively  was  in 
differing  from  Dr.  Skene,  who  founded  certain  conclusions  upon  '  the 
remains  of  numerous  Roman  camps  and  stations  which  are  still  to  be  seen 
in  Galloway '  (Celtic  Scotland,  i.  44),  and  I  so  ventured  because,  as  may  be 
ascertained  from  Mr.  Curie's  survey,  such  remains  existed  entirely  in 
the  imagination  of  Dr.  Skene's  informants. 

Monreith.  HERBERT  MAXWELL. 

A  SCOTS  DICTIONARY.  The  time  seems  to  be  near  when  it 
will  be  possible  to  undertake  the  preparation  of  a  Scots  Dictionary  on 
scientific  lines.  Dr.  Macbain's  Gaelic  Dictionary  offers  the  model  that 
might  be  followed,  a  book  where  origins  are  investigated  with  the  resources 
of  philology.  Jamieson's  Scottish  Dictionary  was  a  fine  performance  for  its 
day  ;  but  its  historical  account  of  the  Anglian  dialect  and  its  handling  of 
etymologies  left  something  to  be  desired  even  in  1808,  the  date  of  the  first 
issue,  and  must  now  give  way  to  a  fresh  statement  in  harmony  with  the 
work  that  has  been  done  during  the  last  hundred  years.  The  Anglian,  or 
North-English,  dialect  was  spoken  over  an  area  stretching  from  the  Humber 
to  Aberdeen,  so  that  one  finds,  as  in  Mr.  Malham-Dembleby's  recent 
volume  of  Yorkshire  tales  and  ballads,  a  remarkable  similarity  between  the 
vocabulary  used  in  the  dales  watered  by  the  Ouse  and  its  tributaries  and 
that  employed  in  Burns  and  in  Mr.  Murray's  Hamewith. 

Within  this  large  area  of  Northern  Britain  influences  have  been  at  work 
tending  to  separate  it  into  districts,  distinguished  from  each  other  partly  by 
words  endemic  in  particular  regions,  these  words  being  enclosed  in  a 
vocabulary  epidemic  in  the  whole  area,  partly  by  peculiarities  of  pronuncia- 
tion. Barbour's  'Inglis'  in  his  Bruce  represents  the  classical  or  literary 
Anglian  speech,  but  not  the  Aberdeenshire  dialect,  with  its  local  stigmata. 

As  regards  the  first  stage  in  the  compilation  of  a  dictionary,  the  collec- 
tion of  words,  an  extensive  verbarium  already  exists.  Not  to  mention 
formal  glossaries,  like  Dr.  Metcalfe's  recension  of  Jamieson  and  Mr. 
Warrack's  Scots  Dialect  Dictionary,  there  are  the  invaluable  series  of  word- 
lists  appended  to  the  various  volumes  issued  by  the  Scottish  Text  Society— 
the  glossaries  to  such  writers  as  Allan  Ramsay,  Fergusson,  Burns,  Miss 
Ferrier,  Gait,  Scott,  Wilson,  Hogg,  Thorn,  Mr.  Charles  Murray,  etc. — that 
have  been  or  might  easily  be  compiled,  and  the  splendid  collections  of  words 
in  actual  use,  but  nowhere  listed,  that  are  being  made  by  the  Scottish 
Branch  of  the  English  Association.  Manifestly  the  first  step  in  the  forma- 
tion of  a  worthy  Scots  Dictionary  would  be  the  reduction  of  this  wealth  of 
material  to  order.  The  alphabetical  arrangement  of  the  words  and  the 
determination  of  the  authority  for  them  would  provide  occupation  for  one 
group  of  scholars. 

The  questions  of  orthography  and  pronunciation  would  prove  more 
troublesome,  and  here  a  different  type  of  worker  would  be  necessary.  The 
trained  phoneticians  would  have  to  be  called  on,  and  fortunately  Scotland 
already  possesses  a  small  group  of  these.  A  good  specimen  of  the  kind  of 
help  to  be  got  from  them  is  supplied  in  Mr.  William  Grant's  Pronunciation 
of  English  in  Scotland,  published  by  the  Cambridge  University  Press.  Mr. 


A  Scots  Dictionary  327 

Grant  is  lecturer  on  phonetics  in  Aberdeen,  and  as  Convener  of  the  Scottish 
Dialects  Committee  has  done  splendid  service  in  guiding  the  sweeping  up 
of  the  detritus  of  the  old  vernacular,  once  the  classic  tongue  of  Scotland. 
In  his  book  he  treats  what  he  calls  Standard  Scottish,  the  speech  of  the 
educated  middle  classes  in  Scotland,  in  its  three  varieties— the  oratorical, 
the  careful  conversational  or  reading,  and  the  familiar  everyday  style.  Mr. 
Grant  is  aware  that  in  different  parts  of  Scotland  this  standard  speech  will 
reveal  local  peculiarities,  but  there  is  a  common  stratum  underneath  the  varia- 
tions. The  method  he  uses  with  so  much  skill  would  have  to  be  pursued  with 
regard  to  the  dialectal  variations  in,  say,  Ayrshire,  Forfarshire,  Aberdeen- 
shire,  in  order  to  represent  the  subject  fully  for  dictionary  purposes.  On 
the  phoneticians,  indeed,  there  would  fall  a  very  heavy  burden,  but  the 
quality  of  Mr.  Grant's  book  shows  that  in  Scotland  we  should  have  help. 
The  grammar  would  offer  comparatively  few  difficulties.  Grigor's 
examination  of  the  Buchan  dialect,  Murray's  investigation  of  the  South- 
Western  speech  of  Scotland,  Gregory  Smith's  work  on  Middle  Scots, 
Wright's  Dialect  Dictionary  and  Dialect  Grammar,  the  whole  body  of 
grammatical  research  carried  on  at  home  and  on  the  Continent  into  Old 
and  Middle  English  and  the  allied  tongues  form  a  broad,  firm  foundation 
for  the  preparation  of  a  grammar  of  Scots. 

One  department  of  the  grammatical  work — phonology — would  give  scope 
for  fresh  research.  In  his  Memories  of  Two  Cities  the  late  Professor  Masson 
doubts  whether  it  is  possible  to  explain  the  change  in  the  North-Eastern 
dialect  in  such  words  as  spoon — speen,  what— fat,  but  the  first  change  is 
undoubtedly  Teutonic  in  its  history,  and  the  second  is  probably  Gaelic. 
English  moon  is  Anglo-Saxon  mona,  Gothic  mena,  and  the  *-sound  cor- 
responding to  the  English  oo-sound  is  very  common  in  Danish.  As  regards 
the  wh-f  change,  English  whisk  is  Gaelic  fusgan,  Whithorn  is  in  Gaelic 
Futerna,  and  the  same  change  may  be  noted  within  Gaelic  itself.  So  the 
close  vowels  of  Buchan,  as  contrasted  with  the  open  vowels  of  Ayrshire, 
answer  to  the  distinction  between  the  two  main  dialects  of  Gaelic,  the 
North  and  the  South,  the  former  being  marked  by  close,  the  latter  by  open 
vowels.  Again,  the  strong  r-sound  in  Scotland  is  partly  due  to  Gaelic,  and 
the  North-Eastern  habit  of  forming  diminutives  by  adding  ie,  as  in  *a 
peerie  wee  bit  o'  a  mannikinie,'  has  been  at  least  helped  by  Gaelic.  When 
Gaelic  words  ending  in  an  pass  into  English,  the  ending  becomes  ie,  so 
that  <  Corbie  Wallie '  need  not  mean  '  the  Raven's  Well,'  but  rather  *  the 
well  by  the  cattle-fold '  (Gaelic  corbari) ;  so  c  Kettybrewster '  is  <  the 
broken  fold '  (Gaelic  brisde  and  cuitari).  On  the  other  hand,  the  cutting 
off  of  an  initial  w,  as  in  'ood  for  wood,  'ouk  for  week,  etc.,  is  Scandinavian, 
and  the  breaking  in  such  words  as  gya  (gave),  gyaun  (going),  is  a  well- 
known  phenomenon  in  the  Teutonic  tongues.  These  examples  will  show 
that  the  investigation  of  the  origins  of  our  vernacular  peculiarities  is  quite  a 
hopeful  task. 

There  remains  the  matter  of  etymology — a  very  ticklish  business.  Place- 
names  have  been  examined  with  capital  results  by  such  investigators  as 
Cameron,  Henderson,  Kennedy,  Macbain,  Watson,  and  it  is  likely  that  the 
explanation  of  Celtic  mythology  will  show  more  light  on  this  fascinating 
subject.  In  his  Celtic  Dragon  Myth,  the  late  Dr.  Henderson  refers  to  Dr. 


3a8  The  Word  'Whig' 

Macbain's  explanation  of  Ben  Nevis  as  the  hill  of  the  nymph  Nebestis, 
and  to  the  Gaelic  name  of  Aberdeen,  Obair-dhea  V«,  as  meaning  the  estuary 
of  the  nymph  Devona,  which  would  explain  the  Aberdeen  name  Devanha. 

In  tracing  the  origin  of  the  main  vocabulary  of  Scots,  great  help  would 
be  got  from  recent  works  on  Gaelic,  Old  French,  Norse,  Dutch,  and 
Anglo-Saxon.  In  some  districts  the  Gaelic  influence  is  very  strong ;  thus 
ablach,  bourach,  clossach,  connach,  clyack,  all  common  in  Aberdeenshire,  are 
pure  Gaelic.  Clyack,  the  last  sheaf  cut  in  harvest,  suggests  Gaelic  caileag,  girl, 
for  it  is  also  called  *  the  maiden,'  but  the  true  derivation  seems  to  be  Gaelic 
gleac,  a  fight,  since  the  first  harvesters  to  have  clyack  raised  a  shout  of 
triumph  ;  Mr.  Charles  Murray,  it  is  noteworthy,  spells  the  word  as  glyack. 

The  time  is  ripe  for  the  patriotic  task  of  making  a  scientific  examination 
of  the  vernacular  of  Scotland.  It  is  a  hopeful  undertaking,  but  obviously  a 
large  one,  and  would  require  the  services  of  a  group  of  workers  under 
competent  editors.  A.  M.  WILLIAMS. 

THE  WORD  'WHIG.'  Having  had  recently  to  investigate  the 
early  history  of  the  term  Tory,  for  the  Oxford  English  Dictionary,  I  have 
also  looked  at  our  material  for  the  word  Whig.  The  two  words  occur 
often  together  in  quotations  after  1679.  But  I  find  that  for  the  original 
Scottish  sense  of  Whig,  before  that  date,  our  materials  are  very  meagre.  I 
know,  of  course,  the  quotation  from  Bishop  Burnet,  in  which  Whig  is  stated 
to  be  shortened  from  Whigamore  or  Whiggamer,  and  that  from  Wodrow,  in 
which  it  is  conjecturally  identified  with  whig  in  the  sense  of  whey  or  sour 
milk,  both  given  by  Dr.  Jamieson — and  both  needing  strict  investigation. 

But  of  contemporary  uses,  I  have  only  one  from  the  London  Gazette, 
No.  121,  of  1667,  stating  that  *  yesterday  we  were  informed  that  the 
Whigs  had  privately  in  the  night  stollen  down  the  heads  of  4  of  the  Rebels 
that  were  set  up  in  Glasgow ' — I  suppose  after  the  Pentland  Rising.  Then 
there  is  the  letter  printed  in  the  Lander  dale  Papers,  vol.  iii.,  p.  163, 
dated  I  April,  1679,  giving  an  account  of  the  fight  at  Lesmahago,  in 
which  *  the  Whiggs '  appear  six  times. 

There  must  be  more  references  to  the  Whigs  before  1700,  and  some 
even  before  1667  ;  and  I  shall  be  glad  if  readers  of  the  Scottish  Historical 
Review  will  send  us  quotations,  with  exact  reference  to  book  or  manu- 
script, for  any  seventeenth  century  passages  in  which  whig,  whigs,  or 
whiggamores  are  mentioned.  Contemporary  passages  drawing  attention  to 
the  name  or  giving  its  supposed  origin,  if  any  such  can  be  found,  will  be 
specially  valuable. 

For  Tory  in  its  original  sense  ot  an  Irish  outlaw,  living  as  a  brigand  or 
freebooter,  there  is  abundant  material,  clearly  showing  the  origin  of  the 
term  ;  it  is  much  to  be  desired  that  the  origin  and  early  history  of  Whig 
could  be  made  equally  clear  and  certain.  I  hope  that  every  one  who  can 
contribute  to  such  a  result  will  kindly  communicate  with  me. 

Oxford.  JAMES  A.  H.  MURRAY. 

ROBERTSON  OF  CULTS  (Aberdeenshire).  In  the  pedigree  of 
Major  Thomas  Robertson  of  Cults  about  1690,  it  is  stated  that  he  was  the 
seventh  in  descent  from  Struan.  Can  this  be  confirmed  ? 

Widmerpool  Hall,  Nottinghamshire.  G.  C.  ROBERTSON. 


The 

Scottish   Historical   Review 

VOL.  X.,  No.  40  JULY  1913 

Some  Seventeenth  Century  Diaries  and  Memoirs1 

ONE  question  which  every  student  of  the  seventeenth  century 
has  to  consider  is  the  value  of  Diaries,  Autobiographies  and 
Memoirs  as  materials  for  the  history  of  that  period.  For  there  is 
no  century  which  is  richer  in  personal  memorials  of  this  kind. 
Those  who  first  wrote  its  history  depended  too  much  on  these 
materials.  Clarendon  and  Burnet  were,  for  a  time,  too  implicitly 
trusted  and  their  views  too  readily  adopted.  A  reaction  followed. 
When  their  accounts  of  public  affairs  were  tested  by  other 
evidence  their  prejudices,  their  errors,  and  the  limitations  of  their 
knowledge  became  apparent,  and  they  lost  their  credit.  Memoir 
writers  and  autobiographers  in  general  were  discredited  with  them, 
and  the  reaction  went  too  far.  At  present  the  tendency  is  to 
study  history  too  exclusively  in  State  papers,  and  to  disregard 
unduly  the  evidence  which  contemporaries  have  left  us  in  their 
written  recollections. 

My  aim  is  to  redress  the  balance,  and  to  show  that  sources  of 
this  kind  supply  the  historian  with  evidence  which  is  essential  for 
the  understanding  of  the  time,  and  cannot  be  obtained  from  any 
other  sources.  Having  examined  elsewhere  the  historical  value 
of  the  greater  memoirs,2  I  shall  confine  myself  here  to  the  lesser, 

irThis  paper  was  originally  written  as  part  of  a  course  of  lectures  on  the 
authorities  for  seventeenth  century  history. 

2  Articles  on  Clarendon's  «  History  of  the  Rebellion,'  English  Historical  Review, 
xix.  26,  246,  464  ;  *  Memoirs  of  Sir  Richard  Bulstrode,'  ib.  x.  266  ;  Introduction 
to  Clarke  and  Foxcroft's  Life  of  Burnet,  1907  ;  Introductions  to  the  Life  of 
Colonel  Hutchinson,  1885,  the  Lives  of  the  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Newcastle,  1886, 
and  the  Memoirs  of  Edmund  Ludlow,  1894. 

S.H.R.  VOL.  X.  Y 


33o  C.   H.   Firth 

and    try  briefly  to  classify  them,   to   characterise   them,   and   to 
illustrate  their  value. 

1  take  Diaries,  Autobiographies  and  Memoirs  together,  because 
these  three  varieties  of  composition  are  so  closely  connected  that 
it  is  difficult  to  separate  them.     One  naturally  and  imperceptibly 
develops  into  the  other.     The  Diary  is  the  simplest  form  of  which 
the  other  two  forms  seem   to   be   later  developments.     In    the 
Diary  a  man  sets  down  for  his  own  eye  a  record  of  his  daily 
doings.     The  Autobiography  is  a  more  formal  composition,  in 
which  a  man  sets  down  the  events  of  his  life  for  the  information 
of  others — generally  for  the  small  circle  of  his  own  family.     It 
develops  into  a  Memoir  when  the  man  himself  ceases  to  be  the 
centre  of  the  story,  and,  instead  of  relating  his  own  fortunes, 
undertakes  to  relate  what  he  knew  and  what  he  saw  of  the  events 
of  his  time  for  the  information  of  the  world  in  general.     Editors 
and  authors  alike  give  these  titles  indifferently  to  their  productions, 
yet  there  is  a  real  distinction  between  the  three  things,  though  the 
boundaries  are  not  always  clearly  defined  or  always  observed. 

Take  first  the  Diaries.  A  certain  number  of  them  are  almost 
entirely  impersonal.  The  authors  are  merely  compilers  and  col- 
lectors of  information  about  public  affairs.  Of  this  nature  is 
Narcissus  Luttrell's  Diary,  which  covers  the  period  from  1678  to 
I7I4.1  Luttrell  never  mentions  himself;  he  simply  jots  down 
information  about  public  affairs  gleaned  from  newspapers,  news- 
letters, and  perhaps  the  gossip  of  the  coffee-houses,  and  arranges 
these  items  in  chronological  order.  Macaulay  found  it  useful, 
but  it  is  utterly  unreadable,  however  valuable  it  may  be  to  the 
historian  of  the  period. 

Nehemiah  Wellington's  Diary,  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  or 
'  Historical  Notices  of  the  Reign  of  Charles  I.,'  as  the  editor  terms 
it,  is  somewhat  similar,  but  differently  arranged.  He  collected 
from  newspapers  and  pamphlets  accounts  of  a  certain  number  of 
events  which  happened  between  1630  and  1646,  arranging  his 
extracts  for  the  most  part  not  chronologically  but  in  subjects. 
Here  again  the  personal  element  is  almost  entirely  absent,  except 
in  a  few  reflections.2 

Whitelocke's  Memorials  shows  how  a  Diary  of  this  primitive 
kind  might  develop  into  an  autobiography  or  a  memoir.  The 

1Six  volumes,  Oxford,  1857. 

2  Edited  by  R.  Webb,  1869.     Wellington  also  left  an  autobiographical  record 
which  has  never  been  published,  though  a  few  extracts  are  given  in  Mr.  Webb's 
preface. 


Some  Seventeenth  Century  Diaries       331 

great  bulk  of  it  consists  of  extracts  from  newspapers  and  similar 
sources,  sometimes  quoted  at  length,  sometimes  abridged  and 
summarised.  A  thin  thread  of  autobiography  and  personal 
reminiscences  binds  the  whole  collection  together,  and  gives  it 
whatever  unity  it  possesses.  The  fact  is,  Whitelocke  had  written 
an  autobiography  which  he  called  Annals  of  his  life,  full  of 
personal  details  but  containing  comparatively  little  about  public 
affairs.  It  has  never  been  published,  but  fragments  of  it  are 
inserted  here  and  there  in  the  Memorials.1  It  seems  to  me  that 
he  intended  to  work  up  this  earlier  autobiography  into  Memoirs, 
and  collected  all  these  miscellaneous  notes  on  public  affairs  in 
order  to  expand  his  reminiscences  into  a  '  History  of  my  own 
Time/  which  was  left  unfinished. 

Sir  John  Bramston's  Autobiography  is  an  example  of  the 
reverse  process.  In  the  seventy-second  year  of  his  age — that  is, 
about  the  year  1683 — feeling  himself  on  the  brink  of  the  grave, 
4  and  calling  to  remembrance  the  years  past,  and  how  he  had  spent 
his  time,'  he  took  up  his  pen  to  recount  his  recollections.  c  That 
posterity  therefore  (I  mean  my  own  descendants)  may  know 
something  of  my  father  and  myself,  besides  our  names  in  the 
pedigree  or  line  of  descent,  I  have  set  down  some  things,  though 
few,  done  by  myself,  not  unworthy,  many  things  by  my  father 
worthy  both  of  their  knowledge  and  imitation/ 

Bramston  lived  many  years  after  this,  dying  in  1700  in  the 
eighty-ninth  year  of  his  age.  His  Autobiography  becomes  there- 
fore, in  the  latter  part  of  it,  a  Diary,  illustrating  once  more  the 
close  connection  between  the  two  forms  of  composition  and 
the  impossibility  of  separating  them.  It  was  published  by 
the  Camden  Society  in  1845. 

Like  Bramston,  Sir  John  Reresby  begins  the  volume  styled  his 
Memoirs  with  an  account  of  his  family  and  a  sketch  of  his  early 
life.  He  was  born  in  1634,  but  from  1660,  or  thereabouts,  to  his 
death  in  1689,  the  book  takes  the  form  of  a  diary  rather  than  a 
collection  of  reminiscences.  As  it  continues  the  entries  become 
more  and  more  frequent ;  instead  of  a  note  made  once  a  month, 
or  once  a  fortnight,  he  gives  us  the  last  few  months  of  his  life 
a  regular  journal  of  events  day  by  day. 

Evelyn's  famous  Diary  to  some  extent  resembles  Reresby  s. 
He  begins  like  an  autobiographer  of  the  ordinary  kind  with  an 
account  of  his  birth  and  his  family,  and  a  few  reminiscences  of  his 
youth.  In  1631,  when  he  was  eleven  years  old,  he  tells  us  c  In 
!See,  for  instance,  vol.  i.  pp.  3°>  l89i  ed-  l853- 


332  C.   H.   Firth 

imitation  of  what  I  had  seen  my  father  do,  I  began  to  observe 
matters  more  punctually,  which  I  did  use  to  set  down  in  a  blank 
almanac/  It  is  evident  that  from  1641  to  1647,  whilst  he  was 
travelling  abroad,  Evelyn  kept  a  full  journal  of  all  that  he  did 
and  saw.  The  published  Diary  which  we  know  is  apparently 
a  compilation  from  these  entries  in  almanacs  and  other  memoranda. 
The  MS.  from  which  { the  journal/  as  the  original  editor  terms  it, 
was  printed  by  William  Bray,  consists  of  a  small  4to  volume  of 
700  pages,  beginning  in  1641  and  ending  in  1697,  and  of  a 
smaller  book,  carrying  the  narrative  down  to  Feb.,  1706,  when 
Evelyn  died.  It  appears  to  be  a  selection  from  his  memo- 
randa, made  by  himself  at  some  later  date,  rather  than  an  exact 
reproduction  of  what  he  wrote  from  day  to  day.  But  the  original 
is  in  private  hands,  and  without  consulting  the  MS.  it  is  impossible 
to  be  certain  how  it  was  put  together.  It  is  not  such  good 
evidence  for  dates  and  other  details  as  the  Diary  of  Pepys. 

In  another  way  there  is  a  great  difference  between  these  two 
diarists.  Pepys  puts  down  everything  ;  Evelyn  selects.  Evelyn's 
Diary  deals  chiefly  with  the  outer  life  :  that  of  Pepys  records  the 
feelings  and  ideas  of  the  writer  about  everything,  whether 
important  or  trivial.  Evelyn's  compilation  was  intended  for  a 
limited  publicity  :  as  a  memorial  for  his  descendants  to  read. 
The  Diary  of  Pepys  consists  of  confessions,  intended  for  his  own 
eye,  concealed  by  means  of  a  cipher  from  those  of  others.1 

It  is  this  very  peculiarity  which  makes  the  account  of  the  first 
ten  years  of  Charles  II.,  contained  in  the  Diary  of  Pepys,  of  such 
incomparable  value.  It  is  so  careless,  spontaneous,  and  free  a 
record  of  impressions  and  incidents  that  no  other  diary  can 
approach  it  in  vividness  and  interest.  There  is  no  side  of  the 
political,  social,  and  intellectual  life  of  the  period  upon  which  it 
does  not  supply  information  of  the  utmost  value.  Pepys  was 
interested  in  everything  and  records  everything.  The  laborious 
and  capable  official  who,  by  industry,  ability,  and  honesty,  rose 
from  the  lowest  post  in  the  Admiralty  to  be  for  twenty  years  its 
chief  administrator  had  all  the  tastes  of  an  idler.  '  Mighty  merry 
we  were  till  about  n  or  12  at  night,'  says  an  entry  in  his  Diary, 
*  and  I  did  as  I  love  to  do,  enjoy  myself  in  my  pleasure,  as  being 
the  height  of  what  we  take  pains  for,  and  can  hope  for  in  this 
world,  and  therefore  to  be  enjoyed  while  we  are  young  and 
capable  of  these  joys '  (March  28,  1668).  If  he  had  not  possessed 
this  temper  and  held  this  philosophy,  if  he  had  been  more  wrapped 
1The  best  edition  is  that  by  H.  B.  Wheatley,  10  vols.,  1893-1899. 


Some  Seventeenth  Century  Diaries       333 

up  in  his  business,  and  less  open  to  all  the  temptations  of  all 
pleasures  and  all  vanities,  he  would  have  been  a  better  man 
morally,  but  his  Diary  would  have  been  less  valuable  as  an 
historical  authority. 

On  May  31,  1669,  Pepys  writes  in  his  Diary,  <  Thence  to  the 
World's  End,  a  drinking  house  by  the  Park,  and  there  merry, 
and  so  home  late/  There  the  Diary  closes,  with  only  a  brief 
explanation  of  the  causes  of  its  conclusion.  <  Thus  ends  all  that  I 
doubt  I  shall  ever  be  able  to  do  with  my  own  eyes  in  the  keeping 
of  my  Journal,  I  being  not  able  to  do  it  any  longer,  having  done 
now  so  long  as  to  undo  my  eyes  almost  every  time  that  I  take  a 
pen  in  hand  ;  and  therefore  whatever  comes  of  it,  I  must  forbear : 
and  therefore  resolve  from  this  time  forward  to  have  it  kept  by 
my  people  in  long-hand,  and  must  therefore  be  contented  to  set 
down  no  more  than  is  fit  for  them  and  all  the  world  to  know/ 

If  Pepys  did  have  a  journal  in  long-hand,  written  for  him  by  an 
amanuensis,  it  seems  to  have  perished.  There  is  a  journal  of 
his  voyage  to  Tangiers  in  1683,  when  he  went  there  to  super- 
intend its  evacuation  and  the  destruction  of  the  harbour  works. 
Though  it  is  not  unamusing,  it  has  not  the  careless  frankness  of 
the  Diary.  His  eyesight  must  have  been  better,  or  his  optician 
more  skilful,  for  it  is  written  in  short-hand,  like  the  Diary.  Perhaps 
he  was  more  cautious  as  to  what  he  put  down,  perhaps  age  had 
made  him  wiser,  and  he  had  turned  over  a  new  leaf.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  say,  but  it  is  always  with  a  certain  shock  of  surprise  and 
amusement  that  one  finds  Evelyn  describing  our  friend  in  his  old 
age  as  c  that  austere  moralist,  Mr.  Pepys.' 

Different  in  its  origin  from  any  of  the  diaries  yet  discussed  is 
Swift's  Journal  to  Stella.  It  covers  the  critical  period  of  Queen 
Anne's  reign,  1710-1713.  Its  form  is  that  of  a  series  of  some 
sixty  letters  written  to  two  ladies,  Esther  Johnson  and  her  com- 
panion Rebecca  Dingley,  to  inform  them  in  Dublin  of  what  he 
was  doing  in  London.  Each  letter  contains  an  account  of  his  life 
in  London  for  a  week  or  a  fortnight  in  the  form  of  a  diary  of  his 
proceedings  each  day.  For  the  literary  history  of  the  time  it  is 
invaluable,  and  hardly  less  for  the  political  and  the  social.  We 
see  in  its  pages  Harley  and  St.  John  in  their  hours  of  ease,  and 
can  trace  the  progress  of  the  split  which  finally  alienated  the  two 
Tory  leaders  from  each  other.  Swift's  circle  of  friends  is  not  so 
wide  as  that  of  Pepys  ;  he  does  not  know  the  court  of  Queen 
Anne  as  well  as  Pepys  knew  that  of  Charles  II.  ;  he  has  little  but 
hearsay  to  repeat  about  the  Queen.  Yet  she  too  passes  over  the 


334  C.   H.   Firth 

stage — going  a-hunting  in  a  chaise  with  one  horse,  which  she 
drives  herself,  c  and  drives  furiously  like  Jehu,  and  is  a  mighty 
hunter  like  Nimrod.'  Swift  wrote  simply  for  his  two  friends 
as  Pepys  wrote  simply  for  himself,  and  there  were  many  auto- 
biographers  who  wrote  merely  to  tell  the  story  of  their  lives 
to  their  children  and  grandchildren.  But  often  the  motive  for 
writing  was  more  complex  ;  some  were  inspired  to  record  their 
experiences  by  the  example  of  authors  they  read,  and  consciously 
imitated  particular  literary  models. 

One  evidently  derived  his  inspiration  from  the  romancers — 
perhaps  from  Barclay's  Argents,  or  the  old  Greek  romance  of 
Theagenes  and  Charicleay  perhaps  from  French  or  classical  models. 
Born  in  1603,  Sir  Kenelm  Digby  died  on  1665,  but  the 
volume  published  in  1827  as  his  <  Private  Memoirs'  relates 
only  one  episode  in  his  earlier  life.  He  undertook  to  recount  the 
romance  of  his  own  life — his  love  for  Venetia  Stanley.  *  I  will 
set  down  in  the  best  manner  I  can  the  beginning,  progress,  and 
consummation  of  that  excellent  love,  which  only  makes  me  believe 
that  our  pilgrimage  in  this  world  is  not  indifferently  laid  upon  all 
persons  for  a  curse.'  He  sets  it  down  on  paper  '  to  teach  the 
world  anew  what  it  hath  long  forgotten,  the  mystery  of  loving 
with  honour  and  constancy/  .  .  .  and  to  show,  by  a  modern 
instance,  how  passion,  *  meeting  with  heroical  souls,  produced 
heroical  and  worthy  effects.'  Throughout  his  pages,  Digby  him- 
self masquerades  under  the  name  of  Theagenes,  Venetia  Stanley 
as  Stelliana,  and  other  characters  bear  equally  fantastic  titles. 
The  book  hardly  fulfils  the  promise  with  which  its  author  sets 
out ;  the  narrative  is  involved  and  circuitous,  fact  is  continually 
wrapped  up  in  fiction,  movement  lost  in  disquisitions  and  conver- 
sations. It  is  romance,  with  a  realistic  basis  of  autobiography 
underneath  it,  but  contains  little  of  value  either  for  the  social  or 
political  historian. 

In  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury's  life  of  himself,  the  influence  of 
the  romances  of  chivalry  is  visible.1  He  had  an  ancestor,  Sir 
Richard  Herbert,  who  was  an  c  incomparable  hero.'  At  the  battle 
of  Banbury  in  1469,  Sir  Richard  '  twice  passed  through  a  great 
army  of  northern  men  alone,  with  his  poleaxe  in  his  hand,  and 
returned  without  any  mortal  hurt,  which  is  more  than  is  famed  of 
Amadis  de  Gaul,  or  the  Knight  of  the  Sun.'  Emulating  this 
ancestor,  Lord  Herbert,  in  his  famous  fight  in  Scotland  Yard, 

1The  best  edition  is  that  of  1876,  edited  by  Sidney  Lee.     The  life  was  first 
published  in  1764. 


Some  Seventeenth  Century  Diaries       335 

with  nothing  but  a  broken  sword  in  his  hand,  routed  Sir  John 
Ayres  and  four  ruffians  who  assailed   him.     '  I  think/  he  says, 

*  I  shall  not  speak  vaingloriously  of  myself  if  I  say,  that  no  man 
hath  understood  the  use  of  his  weapon  better  than  I  did,  or  hath 
more  dexterously  prevailed  himself  thereof  on  all  occasions.'    His 
oath  as  a  Knight  of  the  Bath  bound  him  to  right  '  gentlewomen 
that  shall  be  wronged  in  their  honour,  if  they  demand  assistance,' 
and  for  this  cause  alone  he  sent  four  challenges,  besides  many  for 
other  reasons.     Many  feats  of  valour  he  performed  in  the  Low 
Countries,  and  at  the  siege  of  Juliers,  and  of  some  he  is  silent. 

*  I  could  relate  divers  things  of  note  concerning  myself  during  the 
siege  ;  but  do  forbear,  lest  I  should  relate  too  much  of  vanity.' 
But  he  does  tell  us  that  Maurice  of  Nassau,  Spinola,  and  the 
Duke  of  Savoy,  the  three  great  captains  of  his  day,  esteemed  and 
honoured  him,  that  three  queens  distinguished  him  by  unusual 
favour,  that  one  great  lady  kept  his  miniature  in  her  cabinet,  and 
that  another  wore  it  in  her  bosom.     And  he  does  relate  '  some 
things  concerning  myself,  which  though  they  may  seem   scarce 
credible  yet,  before  God,  are  true.'    He  grew  two  inches  in  height 
when  he  was  middle-aged.     '  I  had  and  still  have  a  pulse  on  the 
crown  of  my  head.'     Further,  'it  is  well  known  to  those  that 
wait    in    my    chamber,    that    the    shirts,    waistcoats,    and   other 
garments  1  wear  next  my  body,  are  sweet  beyond  what  either 
easily  can  be  believed  or  hath  been  observed  in  any  else — which 
sometimes  also  was  found  to  be  in  my  breath  above  others,  before 
I  used  to  take  tobacco.'     Moreover,  his  moral  nature  was  as  sweet 
as  his  physical  :  no  man  was  more  forgiving  when  it  was  com- 
patible with  honour  ;  when  he  was  a  boy  he  freely  confessed  his 
faults  whenever  he  was  charged  with  them,  choosing  rather  to 
suffer  correction  than  to  stain  his  mind  with  telling  a  lie.     'I  can 
affirm  to  all  the  world  truly  that  from  my  first  infancy  to  this 
hour  I  told  not  willingly  anything  that  was  false.'    It  was  natural, 
therefore,  that  he  should  spend  his  leisure,  during  his  embassy  in 
France,  in  writing  a  treatise  on  the  nature  of  Truth,  and  on  the 
distinction  between  probable,  possible,  and  false  revelations,  and 
that,  having  completed  it,  he  should  be  directed  by  a  sign  from 
heaven  to  publish  it. 

The  Diary  of  Sir  Henry  Slingsby  *  is  a  complete  contrast  to 

Lord  Herbert's  Autobiography.     He  was  a  Yorkshire  baronet 

who  had  fought  for  Charles  I.  during  the  Civil  War,  and  died  for 

Charles  II.  on  the  scaffold  in  1658.     It  is  not  really  a  Diary,  but 

1  Edited  by  D.  Parsons,  1836. 


336  C.   H.   Firth 

rather  a  collection  of  notes  and  reflections  written  down  from  time 
to  time,  and  it  contains  reminiscences  of  Charles  I.,  a  sketch  of 
the  campaigns  in  the  north  of  England,  and  brief  narratives  of  the 
battles  of  Marston  Moor  and  Naseby.  These  are  prefaced  by  an 
account  of  his  own  life  for  three  or  four  years  before  the  war  began, 
containing  details  about  his  family  and  his  servants,  his  building 
and  his  farming,  and  common  things  of  daily  occurrence.  It  was 
not  vanity  which  led  him  to  record  things  which  others  might  have 
thought  unimportant,  but  the  example  of  one  of  his  favourite 
authors.  '  I  followed/  he  says,  '  the  advice  of  Michael  de 
Montaigne,  to  set  down  in  this  book  such  accidents  as  befall  me, 
not  that  I  make  a  study  of  it,  but  rather  a  recreation  at  vacant 
times,  without  observing  any  time,  method,  or  order  in  my 
writing/  We  might  have  had  some  record  of  Slingsby's  military 
services  if  he  had  never  read  Montaigne,  but  we  should  not 
have  had  this  picture  of  the  life  of  an  English  country 
gentleman. 

Foreign  literary  influence  is  also  visible  in  the  Autobiography  of 
Sir  Simonds  D'Ewes.1  He  refers  more  than  once  in  it  to  the 
example  which  he  had  before  him  in  the  life  of  Thuanus  or 
De  Thou,  whose  Historia  sui  Temporis  (1544-1607)  appeared 
in  1620. 

'  Because  I  find/  he  says,  c  that  both  Josephus  and  Thuanus, 
men  admirably  learned,  in  the  historical  narration  of  their  own 
lives,  do  largely  set  down  their  descents  and  extractions,  I  shall 
in  this  place  shortly  discourse  of  my  own/  and  so,  after  thank- 
ing God  that  he  is  well  descended,  he  devotes  twenty  pages 
to  his  pedigree.  Again,  because  c  Monsieur  de  Thou  doth  fre- 
quently insert  in  the  books  of  his  life  the  verses  he  made/  D'Ewes 
inserts  a  number  of  copies  of  Greek  and  Latin  verses  he  wrote 
whilst  he  was  at  school.  £  None  of  them/  he  boasts,  c  except  the 
Greek  Sapphics,  were  very  troublesome  or  difficult  to  me/ 
Fortunately  his  judicious  editor  leaves  them  out.  Finally,  he 
inserts  amongst  the  recollections  of  his  boyhood,  accounts  of  a 
number  of  public  occurrences  which  happened  during  that  period 
of  his  life.  *  I  have  interlaced  them  with  the  narration  of  my  own 
life/  he  says,  '  in  imitation  of  that  unmatched  historian,  De 
Thou/ 

D'Ewes  was  born  in  1602  and  died  in  1650,  but  unluckily  his 
life  of  himself  ends  in  1636.  It  is  a  very  valuable  authority  upon 
many  different  subjects  ;  the  account  of  his  education  at  school, 
Edited  by  J.  O.  Halliwell,  1845. 


Some  Seventeenth  Century  Diaries       337 

at  Cambridge,  and  at  the  Inns  of  Court,  would  alone  make  it  worth 
reading.  But  he  gives  us  much  besides  this.  No  one  represents 
better  the  opinion  of  the  average  educated  Puritan  on  the  religious 
questions  of  the  day  and  the  political  questions  so  closely  con- 
nected with  them.  In  his  pages  we  see  reflected  as  in  a  glass  the 
changes  of  feeling  which  the  success  or  failure  of  the  Protestant 
cause  excited  amongst  his  party  during  the  Thirty  Years'  War. 
Besides  this  we  have  a  description  of  his  daily  life,  of  his  manage- 
ment of  his  household,  of  his  domestic  felicities  and  infelicities,  of 
his  ideas  and  his  studies.  One  of  the  most  eager  antiquarians  in 
an  age  when  antiquarians  were  many,  he  tells  us  with  special  satis- 
faction that  it  was  on  Wednesday,  Oct.  12,  1631,  'I  began  my 
search  in  that  august  and  rare  record  called  Domesday,  in  the  Tally 
Office  of  the  Exchequer/  and  how  much  he  transcribed  from  it. 
And  he  relates  with  the  same  exactness  the  progress  of  his  various 
researches  in  the  Tower  and  elsewhere.  With  equal  particu- 
larity he  inserts  a  letter  to  his  wife,  *  the  only  lines  I  sent 
her  in  my  wooing  time/  to  prove  his  ability  in  that  kind  of 
composition. 

Yet  another  type  of  mixed  Autobiography  and  Diary  is  repre- 
sented by  Anthony  Wood's  life  of  himself.  He  compiled  two  auto- 
biographies-— one  written  in  the  first  person,  carrying  his  story  down 
to  March,  1660  ;  another  written  in  the  third  person,  carrying  it 
down  to  1672.  Besides  this  he  kept  a  series  of  journals  in  the 
form  of  notes  in  a  set  of  interleaved  almanacs  extending  from 
1657  to  1695.  The  autobiography  was  printed  by  Hearne  in 
1730,  and  in  two  editions,  in  1813  and  1848,  by  Dr.  Bliss.  The 
last  edition,  by  Mr.  Andrew  Clark,  incorporates  the  journal  with 
the  autobiography,  and  is  styled  The  Life  and  Times  of  Anthony 
Wood,  Related  by  Himself}  In  this  way  Wood's  autobiography 
has  been  converted  into  a  Diary  again. 

The  autobiography  gives  us  a  vivid  picture  of  the  development 
of  Wood's  interest  in  English  history  and  antiquities.  It  was 
about  1652  that  he  was  first  admitted  to  read  in  the  Bodleian, 
'  which  he  took  to  be  the  greatest  happiness  in  his  life,  and  into 
which  he  never  entered  without  great  veneration.'  In  1653  he 
lighted  upon  William  Burton's  Description  of  Leicestershire, 
Gwillim's  Display  of  Heraldry,  and  similar  books  on  antiquarian 
subjects  to  which  he  felt  irresistibly  attracted.  '  He  perceived  it 
was  his  natural  genie  and  could  not  avoid  it.'  His  mother  and 
his  brother  pressed  him  in  vain  to  take  to  studies  which 
1  Published  by  the  Oxford  Historical  Society  in  five  volumes,  1891-1900. 


338  C.   H.   Firth 

paid  better,  but  he  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  them.  Yet  he  c  could 
never  give  a  reason  why  he  should  delight  in  those  studies  more 
than  others,  so  prevalent  was  nature  mixed  with  a  generosity  of 
mind,  and  a  hatred  to  all  that  was  servile,  sneaking,  or  advanta- 
geous for  lucre's  sake/  Henceforth  the  real  events  of  his  life 
were  not  outward  accidents,  but  acquisitions  of  fresh  know- 
ledge as  new  books  or  manuscripts  fell  into  his  clutches.  '  This 
summer/  he  notes  in  1656,  'came  to  Oxon  the  Antiquities  of 
Warwickshire,  written  by  William  Dugdale,  and  adorned  with  many 
cuts.  This  being  accounted  the  best  book  of  its  kind  that  hitherto 
was  made  extant,  my  pen  cannot  enough  describe  how  A.  Wood's 
tender  affections  and  insatiable  desire  of  knowledge  were  ravished 
and  melted  down  by  the  reading  of  that  book.  What  with  music 
and  rare  books  that  he  found  in  the  public  library,  his  life,  at  this 
time  and  after,  was  a  perfect  Elysium.' 

Wood's  book  is  valuable  not  only  for  the  portrait  of  the  man  and 
for  its  innumerable  notes  on  the  literary  history  of  the  period,  but 
because  it  gives  as  vivid  a  picture  of  University  life  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  seventeenth  century  as  Pepys  does  of  London  life.  It 
is  full  of  little  stories  which  illustrate  the  social  life  of  the 
University,  and  the  manners  and  morals  of  graduates  and  under- 
graduates. Take,  for  instance,  the  story  of  the  proctor  who  fell 
off  his  horse  and  broke  his  neck,  being  drunk ;  or  that  of c  the  hand- 
some maid  living  in  Cat  Street,'  who  being  deeply  in  love  with  a 
junior  fellow  of  New  College  poisoned  herself  with  ratsbane. 
'  This  is  mentioned,'  says  Wood,  '  because  it  made  a  great  wonder 
that  a  maid  should  be  in  love  with  such  a  person  as  he,  who 
had  a  curld  shagpate,  was  squint-eyed  and  purblind,  and  much 
deformed  with  the  small  pox.'  The  decay  of  learning  and  the 
corruption  of  manners  are  frequently  lamented  by  Wood.  It 
is  clear,  if  we  accept  his  evidence,  that  the  University  was  better 
governed  in  Cromwell's  time  than  it  was  under  the  later  Stuarts. 
Multitudes  of  alehouses,  extravagance  in  apparel,  disrespect  to 
seniors  and  other  evil  signs  marked  the  decadence  of  University 
discipline.  He  noted  the  growth  of  a  party  he  termed  c  the  bib- 
bing and  pot  party,'  who  controlled  all  the  elections  and  appointed 
unfit  men  to  University  offices  because  of  their  social  gifts,  and 
set  aside  sober  scholars.  Patronage  corrupted  the  colleges. 
1  Now,'  he  says  in  1671,  'noblemen's  sons  are  created  artium 
magistri  for  nothing,  get  fellowships  and  canonries  for  nothing, 
and  deprive  others  more  deserving  of  their  bread.' 

We  possess  many  other  diaries  of  scholars  and  antiquaries — 


Some  Seventeenth  Century  Diaries       339 

Thoresby,  De  la  Pryme,  Dugdale 1 — but  none  throw  so  much  light 
on  the  life  of  the  time  as  Wood's. 

There  is  another  class  of  diaries  and  autobiographies  which 
should  be  taken  together — viz.  the  religious  autobiographies,  of 
which  many  examples  of  every  kind  exist.  In  one  way  their 
authors  resemble  the  antiquarians — *  the  moving  incident  is 
not  their  trade '  ;  external  events  are  less  important  than  internal. 
One  of  the  extremest  representatives  of  this  type  is  Bunyan's  Grace 
Abounding,  published  in  1666.  Bunyan  had  been  a  soldier,  but 
the  external  events  of  his  life  are  so  vaguely  alluded  to  that  his 
biographers  have  been  left  in  doubt  whether  he  served  in  the 
King's  or  the  Parliament's  army.  What  concerned  him  was  the 
civil  war  within  himself,  not  that  which  shook  England.  Instead 
of  battles  and  marches  he  related  the  trials  and  troubles  of  his  soul, 
describing  every  turn  in  the  conflict  with  the  minuteness  with  which 
a  military  historian  recounts  a  campaign,  *  till  the  Lord  through 
Christ  did  deliver  him  from  all  his  guilt  and  terror  that  lay  upon 
him.' 

Many  Quakers  set  down  their  spiritual  experience  for  the  benefit 
of  their  brethren,  for  instance  George  Fox  and  Thomas  Ellwood. 
They  state  their  motives  for  writing  with  great  definiteness  : 

*  That  all  may  know  the  dealings  of  the  Lord  with  me,  and  the 
various  exercises,  trials  and  troubles,  through  which  he  led  me,  in 
order  to  prepare  and  fit  me  for  the  work,  unto  which  he  had 
appointed  me  ;  and  may  thereby  be  drawn  to  admire  and  glorify 
his  infinite  wisdom  and  goodness  ;  I  think  fit  (before  I  proceed 
to  set  forth  my  publick  travels  in  the  service  of  truth)  briefly  to 
mention  how  it  was  with  me  in  my  youth  ;  and  how  the  work  of 
the  Lord  was  begun,  and  gradually  carried  on  in  me,  even  from 
my  childhood/ 2 

'Although  my  station/  says  Ellwood,  cnot  being  so  eminent 
either  in  the  church  of  Christ  or  in  the  world  as  others  who  have 
moved  in  higher  orbs,  may  not  afford  such  considerable  remarks 
as  theirs,  yet  inasmuch  as  in  the  course  of  my  travels  through  this 
vale  of  tears  I  have  passed  through  various  and  some  uncommon 
exercises,  which  the  Lord  hath  been  graciously  pleased  to  support 
me  under  and  conduct  me  through,  I  hold  it  a  matter,  excusable 

1  Diary  of  Ralph  Thoresby,  edited  by  Joseph  Hunter,  1830  ;  Diary  of  Abraham 
de  la   Pryme,  Surtees    Society,   1870;   Life,  Diary  and  Correspondence  of  Sir  W. 
Dugdale,  edited  by  William  Hamper,  1820. 

2  The  first  edition  of  Fox's  Journal  was  published  in  1694.     The  original  text, 
edited  by  Norman  Penney,  was  published  by  the  Cambridge  University  Press  in 
1911. 


34° 


C.  H.  Firth 


at  least,  if  not  commendable,  to  give  the  world  some  little  account 
of  my  life.'1 

The  lives  of  master  and  disciple  supplement  each  other.  Fox 
begins,  like  Bunyan,  with  the  record  of  his  spiritual  troubles. 
*  I  was  often  under  great  temptations  :  I  fasted  much  and  walked 
abroad  in  solitary  places  many  days,  and  often  took  my  Bible  and 
went  and  sat  in  hollow  trees  and  lonesome  places  till  night  came 
on  ;  and  frequently,  in  the  night,  walked  mournfully  about  by 
myself;  for  I  was  a  man  of  sorrows  in  the  times  of  the  first 
workings  of  the  Lord  in  me/  Then  it  became  clear  to  him  that 
he  was  charged  to  preach  certain  truths,  and  he  went  about 
preaching  them,  and  became  familiar  with  every  kind  of  physical 
suffering.  He  was  beaten  and  imprisoned,  and  bore  all  with 
cheerful  pertinacity.  '  Here  is  my  hair,  here  is  my  cheek,  here  is 
my  back/  he  would  sometimes  say  to  those  who  threatened  him ; 
at  other  times  something  in  his  look  stopped  those  who  sought 
his  life,  and  pistols  levelled  at  him  missed  fire  or  knives  were 
dropped.  '  Do  not  pierce  me  so  with  thy  eyes/  said  one  man  to 
him.  Everywhere  Fox  argued  as  well  as  preached,  argued  with 
preachers  of  every  kind — Presbyterians,  Baptists,  Ranters,  parsons, 
and  also  with  officers  and  magistrates.  He  began  by  going  into 
churches  and  saying,  '  Come  down  thou  deceiver/  to  the 
preacher  ;  afterwards,  his  disputations  were  more  orderly.  Every- 
where the  result  was  the  same  :  the  antagonist  was  vanquished  ; 
'  His  mouth  was  soon  stopped/  or  '  He  could  not  open  his  mouth  ' 
are  the  usual  phrases.  Of  one  adversary  he  says,  '  His  face  swelled 
and  was  red  like  a  turkey  ;  his  lips  moved  and  he  mumbled 
something  ;  the  people  thought  he  would  have  fallen  down/  So 
Fox  travelled  all  over  England,  and  wherever  he  came  c  priests  and 
professors/  that  is  orthodox  Puritan  ministers  and  their  flocks, 
trembled  at  his  preaching.  '  It  shook  the  earthly  and  airy  spirit  in 
which  they  held  their  profession  of  religion  and  worship,  so  that 
it  was  a  dreadful  thing  to  them  when  it  was  told  them  '  The  man 
in  leather  breeches  is  come/ 

Ellwood,  on  the  other  hand,  had  no  touch  of  the  prophet  about 
him.  In  his  childhood  he  tells  us  he  was  'waggish'  and  'full  of 
spirits '  (c  few  boys  in  the  school  wore  out  more  birch  than  I ')  ; 
at  the  moment  when  his  autobiography  begins  he  was  a  very  sober, 
well-conducted  young  man  of  eighteen  or  nineteen.  The  preach- 
ing of  the  Quakers  cast  a  spell  over  him  ;  with  quiet  fervour  and 

lThe  History  of  the  Life  of  Thomas  Ellwood  was  first  published  in  1714.  The 
most  convenient  is  that  by  Henry  Morley  in  1885. 


Some  Seventeenth  Century  Diaries       341 

invincible  patience  he  began  to  put  in  practice  the  principles  they 
taught.  First  he  came  into  collision  with  his  father,  who  objected 
to  be  addressed  with  c  thee '  and  '  thou,'  and  was  enraged  when 
his  son  insisted  on  wearing  his  hat  at  meals.  c  Sirrah,  if  ever  I 
hear  you  say  c  thou '  or  c  thee '  to  me  again,  I'll  strike  your  teeth 
down  your  throat,'  said  Mr.  Ellwood.  ...  c  If  you  cannot  come 
to  dinner  without  your  hive  on  your  head,  take  your  dinner 
somewhere  else.'  Later  came  more  serious  troubles — assaults  and 
imprisonments.  Ellwood  gives  an  admirable  account  of  life  in 
Bridewell  and  Newgate.  The  recollections  of  the  Quakers  afford 
ample  materials  for  the  history  of  prisons  in  the  seventeenth  century. 

Sometimes  in  the  lives  of  the  Quakers  we  get  glimpses  of  great 
men  and  great  events.  Fox's  Journal  brings  Cromwell  before  us  ; 
in  Ellwood' s  Life  Milton  appears  for  a  moment ;  the  story  of  a 
sailor  who  served  under  Blake  before  he  was  converted  supplies  us 
with  one  of  the  best  accounts  of  the  battle  of  Santa  Cruz.  But  in 
general  the  special  merit  of  the  lives  of  the  Quakers  is  that  they 
introduce  us  to  a  wider  circle  than  the  memoirs  of  courtiers  and 
noblemen  :  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men  appear  in  their  pages ; 
a  picture  of  the  middle  classes  and  the  people  could  be  put 
together  from  them. 

One  class  was  particularly  given  to  writing  diaries  or  auto- 
biographies, namely,  the  Nonconformist  clergy.  The  early  part 
of  Baxter's  life  of  himself  is  excellent ;  later  the  author  loses 
himself  in  a  morass  of  ecclesiastical  controversy  which  few  readers 
can  struggle  through.1  Edmund  Calamy's  life  is  also  excellent, 
but  a  little  too  much  limited  by  his  professional  interests.2  There 
are  several  minor  lives,  such  as  those  of  Adam  Martindale3  and 
Oliver  Heywood,4  which  afford  evidence  for  social  history,  and 
not  merely  materials  for  the  historians  of  Nonconformity. 

There  is  yet  another  class  of  Autobiographies  of  which  some- 
thing must  be  said — those  written  by  seventeenth  century  women. 
The  English  women  of  the  seventeenth  century  did  not  write  long 
stories  about  affairs  of  state  in  which  their  personal  adventures 
formed  but  a  small  part ;  they  were  not  like  Madame  de  Motte- 
ville  or  Madame  de  Boigne.  Their  memoirs  are  more  purely 
memoirs  of  themselves — domestic  chronicles,  which  incidentally 

1  Reliquiae  Baxterianae,  edited  by  Matthew  Sylvester,  1698. 

2  A  Historical  Account  of  my  own  Life,  by  Edmund  Calamy.     Edited  by  J.  T. 
Rutt,  1830. 

3  Edited  by  Richard  Parkinson  for  the  Chatham  Society  in  1845. 

4  Edited  by  J.  H.  Turner,  3  vols.  1882. 


342  C.   H.   Firth 

throw  some  light  on  the  time,  but  aim  at  narrating  their  personal 
history,  and  are  valuable  for  the  picture  they  give  of  daily  life  and 
the  illustrations  they  afford  of  contemporary  customs  and  modes 
of  thinking.  While  some  of  the  ladies  are  charming,  several  are  very 
edifying.  Alice  Thornton's  autobiography  belongs  to  the  class  of 
religious  autobiographies.1  She  begins  by  saying  that  it  is  the  duty 
of  every  true  Christian  to  remember  and  take  notice  of  all  God's 
gracious  acts  of  providence  and  merciful  dealings  with  them,  and 
sets  down  those  which  have  happened  to  herself.  The  first  section 
is  headed  *  Upon  my  deliverance  from  a  fall  when  I  was  three 
years  old,  when  I  cut  a  great  wound  in  my  forehead  of  above  an 
inch  long.'  The  next  is  an  accident  which  happened  when  at 
the  age  of  four,  *  a  surfeit  by  eating  some  beef  which  was  not 
well  boiled.'  She  records  forty  years  of  her  own  life  in  this 
fashion  with  appropriate  reflections,  sometimes  supplying  some 
atoms  of  useful  information  about  household  management  or 
country  life,  but  in  the  main  somewhat  tedious  and  unprofitable. 
Mary  Boyle,  afterwards  Countess  of  Warwick,  is  another  edifying 
lady.  The  chaplain  who  preached  her  funeral  sermon  entitled  it 
Eureka  or  the  Vertuous  Woman  Found.  But  her  autobiography 2  is 
much  more  interesting  than  Mrs.  Thornton's.  During  the  early 
part  of  her  life  she  was  a  mere  worldling.  Her  father,  the  Earl  of 
Cork,  was  rich,  '  and  the  report  that  he  could  give  me  a  very 
great  fortune  made  him  have  for  me  many  very  great  and  con- 
siderable offers,  both  of  persons  of  great  birth  and  fortune  ;  but  I 
still  continued  to  have  an  aversion  to  marriage,  living  so  much  at 
my  ease  that  I  was  unwilling  to  close  with  any  offered  match.' 
Moreover,  her  friendship  with  a  Maid  of  Honour  led  Mary  Boyle 
into  evil  ways  :  c  her  having  so  brought  me  to  be  very  vain  and 
foolish,  enticeing  me  to  spend  (as  she  did)  my  time  in  seeing  and 
reading  plays  and  romances,  and  in  exquisite  and  curious  dress- 
ing.' At  last  she  met  Charles  Rich,  second  son  to  the  Earl  of 
Warwick.  He  became  i  a  most  diligent  gallant  to  me,  seeking 
by  a  most  humble  and  respectful  address  to  gain  my  heart.'  So 
she  goes  on  to  relate  with  brevity,  and  yet  with  some  interesting 
detail,  the  story  of  her  courtship  and  marriage.  Mrs.  Thornton 
omits  this  part  of  her  career  :  her  marriage,  it  is  evident,  was  a 
marriage  of  reason — to  be  included  in  a  list  of  providences, 
because  Mr.  Thornton  was  c  a  godly  sober  and  discreet  person,' 
but  she  says  much  more  about  her  settlement  than  her  courtship. 

1  Surtees  Society,  1875. 

2  Edited  by  T.  Crofton  Croker,  for  the  Percy  Society,  1848. 


Some  Seventeenth  Century  Diaries       343 

Fortunately  Mrs.  Thornton  is  exceptional ;  in  the  Auto- 
biographies of  all  the  other  ladies  there  is  always  a  place  for 
romance.  Anne  Murray,  afterwards  Anne  Lady  Halkett,1  was 
much  perplexed  by  many  entanglements,  and  tells  us  all  about 
her  various  wooers.  She  describes  their  conversations,  their 
meetings  and  their  partings  with  precision  and  picturesqueness. 

1  What  he  said  was  handsome  and  short,  but  much  disordered, 
for  he  looked  as  pale  as  death,  and  his  hands  trembled  when  he 
took  mine  to  lead  me,  and  with  a  great  sigh  he  said,  '  If  I  loved 
you  less,  I  could  say  more.'  I  told  him  I  could  not  but  think 
myself  much  obleeged  to  him  for  his  good  opinion  of  me/  The 
course  of  their  love  did  not  run  smooth  ;  relations  intervened  to 
separate  them,  and  about  two  years  after  they  first  met  she 
suddenly  heard  he  had  married  someone  else.  '  I  was  alone  in 
my  sister's  chamber  when  I  read  the  letter,  and  flinging  myself 
down  upon  her  bed  I  said,  '  Is  this  the  man  for  whom  I  have 
suffered  so  much  ?  Since  he  has  made  himself  unworthy  my  love, 
he  is  unworthy  of  my  anger  or  concern,'  and  rising  immediately  I 
went  out  into  the  next  room  to  my  supper,  as  unconcernedly  as  if 
I  had  never  had  any  interest  in  him,  nor  had  ever  lost  it.' 

Mrs.  Hutchinson,  in  her  life  of  Col.  Hutchinson,  relates 
with  similar  frankness,  but  less  fulness,  how  the  acquaintance 
between  herself  and  her  husband  began.  He  saw  some  of  her 
books,  and  heard  how  reserved  and  studious  she  was,  and  at  last 
heard  a  song  that  she  had  written  which  seemed  to  him  to  contain 
'  something  of  rationality  beyond  the  customary  reach  of  a  she 
wit.'  When  he  enquired  he  heard  much  of  her  perfections,  but 
was  told  c  she  shuns  the  company  of  men  as  the  plague.'  This 
attracted  him  more  than  all  else,  and  he  was  filled  with  thoughts 
how  he  should  attain  the  sight  and  knowledge  of  her.  At  last 
they  met  :  *  his  heart,  being  prepossessed  with  his  own  fancy,  was 
not  free  to  discern  how  little  there  was  in  her  to  answer  so  great 
an  expectation.  She  was  not  ugly  in  a  careless  riding  habit,  she 
had  a  melancholy  negligence  both  of  herself  and  others,  as  if  she 
neither  affected  to  please  others,  nor  took  notice  of  anything 
before  her  ;  yet  in  spite  of  all  her  indifferency  she  was  surprised 
with  some  unusual  liking  in  her  soul  when  she  saw  this  gentle- 
man.' Mrs.  Hutchinson  does  not  report  conversations  with 
her  admirer  as  Anne  Murray  does,  nor  describe  the  various 
incidents  of  the  wooing.  '  I  shall  pass  by  all  the  little  amorous 
relations,  which  if  I  would  take  the  pains  to  relate  would  make  a 
1  Edited  by  J.  G.  Nichols,  Camden  Society,  1875. 


344  C.   H.   Firth 

true  history  of  a  more  handsome  management  of  love  than  the 
best  romances  describe  ;  but  these  are  to  be  forgotten  as  the 
vanities  of  youth,  not  worthy  of  mention  among  the  greater 
transactions  of  his  life/ 

This  distinction  between  *  vanities '  and  '  great  transactions ' 
helps  to  explain  why  the  men  who  wrote  their  own  lives 
say  so  little  of  the  domestic  or  sentimental  side  of  them. 
Ludlow,  for  instance,  in  the  three  volumes  he  wrote  on  his  career 
hardly  ever  mentions  his  wife.  She  crops  up  suddenly  in  an 
account  of  the  sale  of  the  Church  lands  by  the  Commonwealth 
<  wherein  I  employed  that  portion  I  had  received  with  my 
wife.'  Clarendon  is  only  a  little  more  communicative  about 
his  marriages.  {  Mr.  Hyde  returned  again  to  his  studies  at  the 
Middle  Temple,  having  it  still  in  his  resolution  to  dedicate  himself 
to  the  profession  of  the  law,  without  declining  the  politer  learning, 
to  which  his  humour  and  his  conversation  kept  him  always  very 
indulgent ;  and  to  lay  some  obligation  upon  himself  to  be  fixed  to 
that  course  of  life  (i.e.  the  law)  he  inclined  to  a  proposition  of 
marriage,  which  having  no  other  passion  in  it  than  an  appetite  to 
a  convenient  estate,  succeeded  not.' 

About  a  couple  of  years  later,  with  the  same  object  of  forcing 
himself  to  stick  to  the  law  *  to  call  home  all  straggling  and 
wandering  appetites  which  naturally  produce  irresolution  and 
inconstancy  in  the  mind,  he  married  a  young  lady  very  fair 
and  beautiful.' 

The  lady  died  within  a  year,  and  three  years  later  the  widower 
married  again,  partly  to  please  his  father  and  partly  because, 
though  he  had  already  begun  to  practise  at  the  Bar,  '  he  was  not 
so  confident  of  himself  that  he  should  not  start  aside,'  and 
*  thought  it  necessary  to  lay  some  obligation  upon  himself.'  The 
remedy  was  effective  :  c  from  the  time  of  his  marriage  he  laid 
aside  all  other  thoughts  but  of  his  profession.' 

These  instances  will  serve  to  illustrate  the  difference  between  the 
point  of  view  of  the  men  and  women  of  the  seventeenth  century 
when  they  wrote  their  Diaries  and  Autobiographies.  English- 
women of  that  time  had  a  narrower  range  of  interests,  and  alike  by 
custom  and  by  law  their  freedom  of  action  was  more  restricted  than 
it  is  now.  But  if  they  have  little  to  tell  us  about  matters  of  state 
we  should  know  very  little  about  matters  of  the  house  and  domestic 
life  in  general  without  their  evidence.  They  supply  the  historian 
with  a  fresh  set  of  facts  ;  social  facts  which  are  as  essential  to  him 
as  political  facts.  They  give  him  also  a  new  side  of  life,  and  new 


Some  Seventeenth  Century  Diaries       345 

aspects  of  characters — both  essential  to  any  one  who  wishes  to 
understand  the  life  of  a  period  and  to  c  see  it  whole/ 

All  autobiographers  have  a  certain  amount  of  vanity.  If  they 
did  not  think  they  were  in  some  way  remarkable  persons  they 
would  scarcely  take  the  trouble  to  record  what  one  of  them  has  styled 
'  my  trivial  life  and  misfortunes/  Mrs.  Hutchinson  tells  us  that  be- 
fore she  was  born  her  mother  dreamt  she  was  walking  in  the  garden 
with  her  father,  and  that  a  star  came  down  into  her  hand.  *  My 
father  told  her  her  dream  signified  she  should  have  a  daughter 
of  some  extraordinary  eminence.'  The  Duchess  of  Newcastle 
frankly  admits  her  own  vanity,  nearly  as  often  as  she  displays  it. 
c  But  I  hope,'  she  concludes,  c  my  readers  will  not  think  me  vain 
for  writing  my  own  life,  since  there  have  been  many  that  have 
done  the  like,  as  Caesar,  Ovid  and  many  more,  both  men  and 
women,  and  I  know  no  reason  I  may  not  do  it  as  well  as  they  : 
but  I  verily  believe  some  censuring  readers  will  scornfully  say, 
why  hath  this  lady  writ  her  own  life  ?  since  none  cares  to  know 
whose  daughter  she  was,  or  whose  wife  she  is,  or  how  she  was 
bred,  or  what  fortunes  she  had,  or  how  she  loved,  or  what  humour 
or  disposition  she  was  of.  I  answer  that  it  is  true,  'tis  to  no  pur- 
pose to  the  readers,  but  it  is  to  the  authoress,  because  I  write  it 
for  my  own  sake  not  theirs.' 

The  excuse  is  good.  Those  autobiographies  are  most  valu- 
able for  historical  purposes  in  which  the  authors  describe  them- 
selves, not  those  in  which  they  relate  public  affairs.  Types 
of  character  are  indispensable  to  the  historian  as  facts  :  it  is  not 
enough  for  him  to  know  when  such  and  such  a  thing  took  place  ; 
he  must  also  understand  what  manner  of  men  they  were  who  did 
the  things  recorded.  Appreciation  of  the  characters  of  the  men 
of  a  particular  period  helps  to  appreciate  their  motives  and  to 
explain  their  actions.  Therefore  the  value  of  an  autobiography 
does  not  depend  upon  the  extent  to  which  its  author  was  con- 
cerned in  great  affairs.  The  more  it  deals  with  such  affairs  the 
more  treacherous  it  is  as  historical  evidence.  For  the  natural 
vanity  which  leads  the  author  to  record  his  own  life  leads  him  to 
overestimate  his  influence  on  affairs,  and  a  foible  which  is  harmless 
when  he  is  dealing  with  domestic  matters  becomes  dangerous 
when  it  tends  to  confuse  the  causes  of  public  events  or  to  misre- 
present the  motives  of  statesmen. 

It  is  this  foible  which  Swift  attacks  in  Burnet's  History  of  My 
Own  Time.  c  His  vanity,'  says  Swift,  c  runs  intolerably  through 
the  whole  book,  affecting  to  have  been  of  consequence  at  19  years 


346       Some  Seventeenth  Century  Diaries 

old,  and  while  he  was  a  little  Scotch  parson  of  40  pounds  a  year.' 
In  order  to  ridicule  Burnet  and  similar  writers  Swift  wrote  the 
Memoirs  of  P.  P.  Clerk  of  this  Parish.  The  satirical  advertise- 
ment prefixed  explains  its  purpose.  c  The  original  of  the  follow- 
ing extraordinary  treatise  consisted  of  2  large  volumes  in  folio, 
which  might  justly  be  entitled  'The  importance  of  a  man  to 
himself  ;  but  as  it  can  be  of  very  little  use  to  anybody  besides, 
I  have  contented  myself  to  give  only  this  short  abstract  of  it,  as 
a  taste  of  the  true  spirit  of  modern  memoir  writers '  ( Works, 
viii.  1 68). 

C.  H.  FIRTH. 


Four  Representative  Documents  of  Scottish 

History 1 

'TPHERE  are  two  ways  in  which  we  can  measure  the  course  a 
JL  nation  has  run  from  its  emergence  into  history.  We  may 
trace  its  course  in  the  material  imprints  it  has  left  behind  it  in 
the  land  where  it  has  had  its  habitation.  When  we  think  of  the 
monastic  huts  of  St.  Columba,  composed  of  wattles  and  clay,  and 
of  the  magnificent  ecclesiastical  edifices  which  arose  in  the  reign  of 
David  I.,  we  have  brought  home  to  us  with  the  vividness  of 
picture  the  length  the  nation  had  come  during  the  intervening 
centuries.  In  the  contrast  between  a  modern  Clyde  steamer  and 
the  skiff  made  of  wickerwork  which  brought  St.  Columba  from 
Ireland  to  lona,  we  have  a  commentary  on  the  development  of  a 
nation's  life  which  appeals  to  every  mind.  So,  if  we  look  at  the 
framework  of  society  in  the  successive  periods  of  the  national 
history  ;  if  we  compare,  for  example,  the  social  order  as  it  existed 
in  the  reign  of  David  I.  with  the  social  order  of  to-day,  we  take 
in  with  all  fulness  what  progress  means. 

The  development  of  a  nation,  as  indicated  by  these  palpable 
reminders,  lies  patent  before  us  on  the  page  of  history.  But 
there  is  another  way  of  regarding  the  national  development  which 
is  not  so  visibly  evident,  which  is  apt  to  be  overlooked,  and  which, 
nevertheless,  is  of  greater  moment,  as  revealing  the  deepest 
springs  of  national  life.  What  were  the  conceptions  of  man's 
relations  to  his  fellows,  to  life  itself,  to  the  general  scheme  of 
things,  which  dominated  the  mind  of  the  nation  at  the  different 
periods  of  its  history  ?  It  is  only  with  these  conceptions  in  our 
minds  that  we  can  adequately  interpret  the  outward  and  visible 
signs  of  a  nation's  life  at  any  given  period.  Behind  the  social 
order,  behind  the  forms  of  government,  which  meet  our  eye, 
these  conceptions  are  the  impelling  and  directing  forces  that 
brought  them  to  birth.  They  inspire  and  regulate  the  policies  of 

1  Opening  Lecture  to  the  Class  of  Ancient  (Scottish)  History  in  the  University 
of  Edinburgh,  9th  October,  1912. 


348  Prof.   Hume  Brown 

statesmen  ;  they  make  what  is  called  public  opinion,  and  they 
determine  the  ideals  to  be  found  in  all  art  and  literature.  '  Our 
culture/  as  Emerson  says,  c  is  the  predominance  of  an  idea  which 
draws  after  it  the  whole  train  of  cities  or  institutions/  In  the 
study  of  any  period  of  history,  therefore,  the  primary  condition 
for  the  understanding  of  it  is  an  acquaintance  with  the  mental 
attitude  of  the  community  to  those  ultimate  questions  which  men 
have  continued  to  ask  from  the  beginning.  It  is  by  their  respective 
attitudes  towards  these  questions  that  one  age  is  essentially 
distinguished  from  another.  In  the  history  of  Christian  Europe 
we  distinguish  between  the  early  Middle  Age,  the  later  Middle 
Age,  and  the  Modern  Age,  and  we  make  the  distinction  because 
these  periods  are  respectively  characterised  by  the  different 
constructions  they  have  put  upon  the  meaning  and  aim  of  the 
life  allotted  to  man. 

If  the  study  of  history  has  any  ultimate  aim,  it  must  be  the 
interpretation  of  these  fundamental  conceptions  as  they  have 
found  expression  in  the  forms  of  society  which  men  have 
fashioned  for  themselves — in  the  great  movements  which  have  im- 
plied new  departures  in  the  history  of  humanity.  The  largest 
gain  we  can  derive  from  the  study  of  history  is  the  apprehension 
of  the  action  and  reaction  of  ideal  conceptions  and  their  practical 
application  to  the  natural  needs  of  everyday  life.  One  of  the 
great  masters  of  history  has  said  that  the  highest  result  of  its 
study  is  the  acquired  ability  to  appreciate  the  differences  between 
times  and  countries,  nations  and  races.  And  if  Bacon's  saying  be 
true  that  c  histories  make  men  wise,'  it  must  be  from  this  under- 
standing of  it  that  wisdom  must  come. 

But  how  shall  we  most  directly  lay  hold  of  those  fundamental 
conceptions  that  determine  the  actions  of  communities  at  the 
different  stages  of  their  history  ?  In  a  mere  narrative  of  what  any 
nation  has  accomplished  we  are  apt  to  miss  the  deepest  forces  that 
have  impelled  it  along  the  course  it  has  followed.  We  may  have 
the  closest  acquaintance  with  its  successive  forms  of  government, 
with  its  revolutions,  with  its  achievements  in  arts,  with  its  social 
conditions  at  any  period  of  its  history,  and  yet  never  realise  the 
underlying  ideas  of  which  they  are  the  visible  expression.  We 
are  interested  in  these  things  for  themselves  and  take  them  as 
ultimate  facts  while  their  explanation  and  real  significance 
escape  us. 

There  is  one  means  at  our  command  which  more  directly  than 
any  other  puts  us  in  contact  with  any  age  that  we  may  choose  to 


Four  Representative  Documents         349 

make  our  special  study.  By  the  period  when  a  people  has  arrived 
at  self-consciousness  (and  it  is  only  at  this  period  that  it  becomes 
the  subject  of  history  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word)  it  usually 
finds  expression  in  some  form  of  literature  which  embodies  what 
are  its  animating  ideals  and  aspirations.  And  in  every  subsequent 
period  of  its  history  it  finds  similar  expression  for  its  changing 
conceptions  of  its  own  highest  interests  and  of  the  means  by  which 
these  interests  are  most  adequately  realised.  In  the  case  of  every 
historic  nation  we  have  a  succession  of  these  memorials  which  are 
the  permanent  expression  of  the  deepest  thoughts  and  feelings  of 
the  age  that  produced  them.  In  the  case  of  Scotland  we  have  a 
series  of  literary  monuments,  dating  from  the  beginning  of  her 
history,  which  mark  the  successive  stages  of  her  development  with 
a  clearness  of  definition  that  enables  us  to  distinguish  the  one 
from  the  other  with  all  desirable  precision.  Let  us  look  at  these 
successive  productions  as  they  appear  at  the  different  periods  of 
our  national  history,  noting  them  only  as  they  represent  the 
deepest  convictions  and  the  highest  conceptions  of  the  generations 
that  have  created  the  Scottish  people  as  they  exist  to-day. 

For  our  present  object  the  first  of  these  productions  is  of 
special  importance,  inasmuch  as  the  express  intention  of  its  author 
was  to  convey  to  his  contemporaries  precisely  what  we  are  in  search 
of — the  highest  ideals  then  conceivable  of  human  life  and  destiny. 
It  is  the  Life  of  St.  Columba  by  Adamnan,  the  first  literary  whole 
that  directly  bears  on  the  history  of  Scotland.  The  date  of  its 
composition  is  about  the  close  of  the  seventh  century,  and  it  is  the 
product  of  that  type  of  Christianity  which  Columba  had  brought 
from  Ireland  to  lona,  thence  disseminated  throughout  the  country 
to  the  north  of  the  Forth.  In  the  character  and  action  and 
teaching  of  Columba  were  embodied  for  Adamnan  the  ideal  man  in 
the  sight  of  his  fellows  and  of  his  Creator.  A  biography,  as  we 
now  understand  that  form  of  literature,  would  in  Adamnan's  eyes, 
we  may  imagine,  have  been  a  profanation  of  the  sanctity  which 
was  the  enveloping  halo  of  Columba  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave. 
What  he  does  present  to  us  is  a  figure  created  by  the  popular 
imagination  during  the  century  that  elapsed  between  the  death  of 
the  saint  and  the  date  when  he  addressed  himself  to  commemorate 
him.  And  what  is  the  type  of  human  character  and  what  the  view 
of  the  nature  of  things  that  Adamnan  puts  before  us  as  represent- 
ing the  highest  conceptions  then  attainable  by  man  ?  Columba's 
pre-eminent  claim  on  our  admiration  and  reverence,  according 
to  Adamnan,  was  the  supernatural  power  which  he  could  wield 


350  Prof.   Hume  Brown 

at  will  to  effectuate  his  objects.  He  owed  this  power,  indeed,  to 
the  sanctity  which  commended  him  to  Heaven,  but  it  is  in 
virtue  of  his  superhuman  gifts  that  he  is  set  before  the  world  as 
an  exemplar  of  the  most  exalted  humanity.  Why  Adamnan  pre- 
sented Columba  primarily  under  this  aspect,  is  sufficiently  illus- 
trated in  such  records  of  the  time  as  have  come  down  to  us.  The 
most  persuasive  means  at  the  Christian  missionary's  disposal  for 
the  conversion  of  a  heathen  prince  and  tribe  was  to  convince  them 
that  he  could  perform  more  wonderful  works  than  any  magician 
of  their  own.  Loigaire,  an  Irish  king,  had  the  intention  of  putting 
St.  Patrick  to  death,  but  when  St.  Patrick  overcame  the  Druids  in 
a  thaumaturgic  competition,  Loigaire  thought  it  prudent  to  come 
to  terms  with  him.  So,  as  Adamnan  records,  Columba  converted 
Brude,  King  of  the  Picts,  and  through  him  his  people,  by  miracu- 
lously throwing  open  the  doors  of  Brude's  palace  which  had  been 
shut  in  the  saints  face.  We  see,  then,  the  world  in  which 
Adamnan  and  his  generation  moved.  Laws  of  nature,  as  we 
understand  them,  did  not  exist.  That  stones  should  swim,  that 
water  should  be  converted  to  wine,  that  the  dead  should  be  raised 
to  life — all  of  which  acts  Columba  performed — seemed  to  them  no 
more  unnatural  than  walking  or  sleeping. 

Four  centuries  of  the  national  history  elapse  before  we  meet 
with  another  document  which,  like  Adamnan's  Life  of  St.  Columba, 
embodies  the  ideals  of  the  age  when  it  was  produced.  During 
these  intervening  centuries  great  changes  had  taken  place  in  the 
territory  to  the  north  of  the  Tweed.  In  the  days  of  Adamnan 
that  territory  was  mainly  divided  between  four  peoples,  the  Angles 
of  Lothian,  the  Britons  of  Strathclyde,  the  Scots  of  the  modern 
Argyleshire,  and  the  Picts  to  the  north  of  the  Forth — each  more 
or  less  successfully  maintaining  their  independence  of  the  other. 
By  the  date  when  the  period  closed,  the  mainland  north  of  the 
Tweed  was  nominally  under  the  rule  of  one  prince — known  to 
history  as  Malcolm  Canmore.  During  the  same  period  equally 
revolutionary  changes  had  been  effectuated  in  the  Church.  Even  in 
the  lifetime  of  Adamnan  the  Church  of  his  master  Columba  was 
threatened  by  a  peril  which  may  explain  the  tone  of  plaintiveness 
which  pervades  his  life  of  the  saint.  The  Church  of  Rome  had 
triumphantly  entered  on  the  course  which  was  eventually  to  end 
in  the  inbringing  of  all  Christendom  to  her  fold.  She  had  already 
brought  within  her  jurisdiction  all  the  lands  of  Western  Europe, 
and  by  the  date  when  Adamnan  reached  middle  life  she  had 
asserted  her  predominance  in  the  different  kingdoms  which  then 


Four  Representative  Documents         351 

composed  the  future  England.  In  664,  at  the  Synod  of  Whitby, 
Oswiu,  King  of  Northumbria,  identified  himself  with  the  Roman 
Communion,  with  the  immediate  result  that  the  clergy  of  the  Irish 
Church  were  banished  from  his  dominion.  Within  little  more 
than  half  a  century,  only  a  few  years  after  Adamnan's  death,  the 
Church  of  Rome  had  extended  her  conquest  to  the  north  of  the 
Tweed.  In  710  Naitan,  then  King  of  the  Picts  to  the  north  of 
the  Forth,  followed  the  example  of  Oswiu,  and  expelled  the 
Columban  clergy  who  clung  to  the  teaching  of  their  founder. 
Seven  years  later  Rome  triumphed  in  lona  itself,  the  ecclesiastical 
centre  of  the  Irish  Church  in  Scotland. 

At  the  close  of  the  eleventh  century,  the  period  to  which  our 
second  document  belongs,  the  Church  that  acknowledged  the 
Bishop  of  Rome  as  its  head  was  thus  in  the  ascendant  in  the 
territory  which  we  must  still  call  North  Britain,  and  this  ascend- 
ancy marks  a  new  departure  in  the  national  history.  Her  peoples 
— we  cannot  yet  designate  them  a  nation — were  now  definitively 
brought  within  the  pale  of  that  unitas  catholica,  which  had  been  the 
goal  of  the  policy  of  Rome  since  it  had  a  definite  policy,  and,  as 
the  result  of  this  affiliation,  they  became  an  integral  part  of 
Christendom,  and  sharers  in  its  secular  and  religious  development. 
But  for  our  present  object,  what  we  have  to  note  is  that  the 
ascendancy  of  the  Roman  type  of  Christianity  implied  other  ideals, 
other  aims  of  collective  endeavour,  than  those  set  forth  by 
Adamnan  in  his  life  of  Columba.  What  these  ideals  and  aims 
were,  we  find  enunciated  in  one  of  those  documents  which  show 
us,  in  Hamlet's  words,  *  the  very  body  of  the  time,  his  form 
and  pressure ' — the  Life  of  St.  Margaret,  wife  of  Malcolm  Canmore, 
composed  most  probably  by  her  confessor,  Turgot,  subsequently 
Bishop  of  St.  Andrews. 

Turgot's  Life  of  St.  Margaret  is  as  remote  from  a  biography  in 
the  modern  sense  as  Adamnan's  Life  of  St.  Columba.  It  is  a 
character  sketch,  not  the  narrative  of  the  events  of  a  life.  But, 
such  as  it  is,  it  possesses  a  higher  historical  value  than  if  it  had 
told  us  with  minutest  detail  all  that  had  happened  to  her  from  the 
cradle  to  the  grave.  For  what  Turgot  has  given  us  is  the  ideal 
of  a  life  which,  in  his  conception,  should  be  the  exemplar  to  all 
such  as  desired  the  assurance  of  the  joys  of  Heaven.  When  we 
compare  his  ideal  with  that  of  Adamnan,  we  realise  that  we  are  in 
another  world  from  that  of  the  community  of  lona.  It  is  not 
only  that  Adamnan's  saint  was  an  apostle  and  Turgot's  a  queen, 
and,  therefore,  called  to  different  functions.  Turgot's  conception 


352  Prof.   Hume  Brown 

of  a  dedicated  life  embraces  a  far  wider  sphere  of  rational  activities 
than  is  suggested  in  the  pages  of  Adamnan.  Specially  noteworthy 
are  the  different  attitudes  of  the  two  biographers  to  the  relative 
importance  of  miracles  as  notes  of  sanctity.  c  I  leave  it  to  others,' 
writes  Turgot,  '  to  admire  the  tokens  of  miracles  which  they  see 
elsewhere.  I  admire  much  more  the  works  of  mercy  which  I 
perceived  in  Margaret ;  for  signs  are  common  to  the  good  and 
the  bad,  whereas  works  of  piety  and  true  charity  belong  to  the 
good  only/  1  But  Margaret's  activities,  as  Turgot  records  them, 
were  not  restricted  to  works  of  piety  and  charity  ;  she  evidently 
had  a  worldly  side  to  her  nature  on  which  he  might  have  enlarged 
had  he  so  chosen.  For  example,  he  incidentally  mentions  that  she 
encouraged  intercourse  with  foreign  traders,  and  specially  with 
those  who  brought  gay  garments  cut  in  the  latest  fashions  ;  she 
introduced  a  magnificence  into  the  Court  which  transformed  the 
royal  household  ;  and  she  persuaded  her  consort  to  institute  the 
service  of  those  high  officials,  selected  for  their  noble  birth,  who 
were  now  attached  to  the  royal  person  in  all  the  continental  Courts. 
<  All  this,'  adds  Turgot,  c  the  Queen  did,  not  because  the  honours 
of  the  world  delighted  her,  but  because  duty  compelled  her  to 
discharge  what  the  kingly  dignity  required  ' ;  and,  in  point  of  fact, 
these  worldly  interests  were  for  Turgot  only  the  inevitable  distrac- 
tions from  higher  concerns  which  are  incident  to  mortals  in  every 
station  during  their  pilgrimage  in  a  sin-stricken  world.  What  he 
desired  to  commemorate  in  Margaret  as  worthy  of  all  imitation  was 
the  example  she  set  of  strenuous  dutifulness  as  a  daughter  of  the 
Church.  The  passage  of  Scripture,  on  which  we  are  told  that  she 
'  meditated  without  ceasing,'  was  a  verse  from  the  Epistle  of 
James  :  *  What  is  our  life  ?  It  is  a  vapour  which  appeareth  for  a 
little  while,  and  afterwards  shall  vanish  away.' 

Here  we  have  the  Weltanschauung,  the  conception  of  the  true 
meaning  of  life  which  it  was  the  object  of  Turgot  to  inculcate  in 
his  sketch  of  the  character  of  Queen  Margaret.  And  it  was  the 
conception  that  dominated  the  whole  stage  of  culture  covered  by 
what  we  call  the  Middle  Ages.  The  true  profession  of  men 
during  their  life  on  earth  is  that  of  c  penitents  and  mourners, 
watchers,  and  pilgrims,'  and  in  this  profession  the  Church  is  their 
indispensable  aider  and  comforter.  When  we  cast  our  eyes  over 
the  surface  of  mediaeval  society,  indeed,  we  hardly  receive  the 
impression  that  its  successive  generations  were  greatly  more 
concerned  about  their  ultimate  salvation  than  those  of  any  other 
1  Forbes-Leith's  translation. 


Four  Representative  Documents         353 

period  of  the  world's  history.  The  history  of  Scotland  during 
the  Middle  Age  is  hardly  a  history  of  the  reign  of  the  saints. 
Nevertheless,  it  was  this  conception  of  life  as  'a  vapour  which 
appeareth  for  a  little  while,'  that  underlay  the  mediaeval  society. 
It  is  the  system  of  education  devised  by  any  community  that  most 
adequately  expresses  the  ideals  by  which  it  lives.  And  what  was  the 
nature  of  the  educational  system  devised  by  the  Middle  Age  for 
the  conservation  of  the  established  order  ?  It  was  in  the  first  and 
last  instance  conceived  in  the  interests  of  the  Church — that  is,  of 
the  institution  which  was  the  life  and  soul  of  the  generations  over 
which  it  ruled.  Instruction  was  given  through  the  Church  and 
for  the  Church,  and  its  all-pervading  aim  was  education,  not  for 
this  world,  but  for  the  next.  The  teachers  were  churchmen  ;  the 
subjects  taught  were  prescribed  by  the  Church,  and  these  subjects 
were  expressly  chosen  in  view  of  the  religious  life.  Thus,  the 
life  of  Queen  Margaret  by  Turgot  may  be  regarded  as  marking 
the  beginning  of  a  new  stage  in  the  national  culture. 

So  far  as  Scotland  is  concerned,  the  conception  of  man's  destiny 
set  forth  in  Turgot's  book  was  that  by  which  the  nation  lived 
from  the  eleventh  to  the  sixteenth  century  when  a  new  vision  of 
human  life  and  its  possibilities  dawned  on  Western  Europe.  In 
the  case  of  Scotland  we  have  no  difficulty  in  fixing  on  the  docu- 
ment which  most  distinctively  signalises  the  opening  of  the  new  era. 
In  the  First  Book  of  Discipline  are  laid  down  the  foundations  for  the 
future  national  life  as  its  authors  conceived  its  highest  interests. 
On  the  face  of  it,  indeed,  the  Book  of  Discipline  would  seem  to  set 
forth  essentially  the  same  conceptions  as  those  of  Turgot.  In  the 
view  of  its  authors  man's  earthly  life  is  a  state  of  probation,  and  his 
chief  aim  should  be  to  assure  himself  of  salvation  in  the  next.  For 
the  attainment  of  this  end  it  was  the  necessary  condition  that  he 
should  know  the  truth  as  it  was  to  be  found  in  the  Church  as  it 
had  now  been  purified  from  human  error.  Here  is  the  opening 
section  of  the  Book  which  lays  down  the  scheme  of  national 
education.  *  Seeing  that  the  office  and  dutie  of  the  godly 
magistrate  is  not  only  to  purge  the  Church  of  God  from  all 
superstition,  and  to  set  it  at  liberty  from  bondage  of  tyrants,  but 
also  to  provide  to  the  uttermost  of  his  power  how  it  may  abide  in 
the  same  purity  to  the  posterities  following,  we  cannot  but  freely 
communicate  our  judgments  with  your  Honours  in  this  behalf.* 
We  see  the  primary  intention  of  the  authors  of  the  Book  when 
they  presented  to  the  civil  magistrate  their  ideal  of  a  system  of 
national  education  ;  it  was  to  ensure  the  conservation  of  that  body 


354 


Prof.  Hume  Brown 


of  doctrine  which  they  deemed  indispensable  for  man's  right 
guidance  on  earth  and  his  salvation  hereafter.  In  presenting  their 
scheme,  moreover,  they  claimed  the  same  power  as  the  Church 
they  had  displaced — the  power  to  dictate  and  regulate  public 
instruction  in  all  its  departments  and  all  its  degrees.  '  Above  all 
things,1  Knox  wrote  in  the  year  of  his  death,  c  preserve  the  kirk 
from  the  bondage  of  the  universities.' 

Thus  it  might  seem  that  in  their  fundamental  conceptions  the 
authors  of  the  First  Book  of  Discipline  were  at  one  with  the  Church 
they  had  displaced.  In  point  of  fact,  however,  whatever  their 
dogmatic  views  of  the  place  of  religion  in  life,  they  could  not 
escape  the  influences  of  the  age  to  which  they  belonged,  and  on 
these  influences  their  educational  scheme  is  the  significant  com- 
mentary. The  governing  fact  of  the  new  time  had  been  the 
decisive  emergence  of  the  laity  as  a  power  in  society  and  in  the 
body  politic.  There  had  been  two  main  causes,  as  we  know,  for 
this  appearance  of  the  laity  as  a  factor  that  had  now  to  be  reckoned 
with  in  the  leading  States.  The  development  of  the  towns  in  the 
different  countries  had  produced  communities  of  citizens  with 
intelligence  enlarged  by  their  own  civic  life  and  by  intercourse  with 
other  rival  communities  bent  on  objects  similar  to  their  own. 
The  other  cause  had  been  the  invention  of  printing,  but  for  which 
the  religious  revolutions  effected  in  the  various  countries  would 
have  been  impossible.  Previous  to  the  invention  of  printing, 
instruction  was  gained  only  from  persons  and  places  sanctioned 
by  the  Church,  and  it  was  thus  made  easy  for  the  ecclesiastical 
authorities  to  stamp  out  heretical  opinion  wherever  it  appeared. 
But  when  books  were  scattered  broadcast  among  the  peoples,  it  was 
no  longer  in  the  power  of  any  organisation  to  suppress  the 
expanding  ideas  regarding  the  possibilities  of  human  life  which 
implied  the  opening  of  a  new  page  in  the  world's  history.  *  As 
formerly,'  wrote  a  contemporary,  '  the  apostles  of  Christianity 
went  forth,  so  now  the  disciples  of  the  sacred  art  (of  printing) 
go  forth  from  Germany  into  all  countries.'  Thus,  at  the  date 
when  the  Scottish  reformers  drafted  their  scheme  of  national 
education,  they  were  face  to  face  with  conditions  which  had  not 
existed  in  the  Middle  Age.  Throughout  that  age  a  middle  class 
did  not  exist  ;  the  Church,  the  king,  and  the  feudal  nobility 
controlled  and  directed  between  them  all  that  concerned  the  main 
interests  of  the  State.  What  was  now  happening  in  Scotland, 
however,  showed  that  these  conditions  no  longer  obtained  ;  it  was 
by  the  support  of  the  middle  class  in  the  chief  towns  that  the 


Four  Representative  Documents         355 

ancient  Church  had  been  overthrown  and  the  new  Church  put  in 
its  place.  If  the  new  Church  was  to  maintain  its  existence, 
therefore,  the  class  which  had  been  largely  instrumental  in  creating 
it  must  be  organised,  educated,  and  directed  on  lines  favourable 
to  the  Church's  permanence.  The  task  before  the  authors  of  the 
Book  of  Discipline,  therefore,  was  the  creation  of  a  national  system 
of  instruction,  which  would  include  every  class,  and  so  produce 
the  conditions  requisite  for  the  formation  of  an  intelligent  public 
opinion.  Such  an  ideal  was  incompatible  with  the  very  being  of 
the  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  it  is  in  the  attempt  to  realise 
this  ideal  that  we  find  all  the  difference  between  the  age  that  had 
gone  and  the  age  that  had  come.  It  is  true  that  underlying  the 
educational  system  which  is  sketched  in  the  Book  we  have  the 
same  conception  of  human  life  as  '  a  vapour  which  appeareth  for 
a  little  while/  that  dominated  the  Middle  Ages,  but,  in  point  of 
fact,  the  provisions  which  it  lays  down  for  all  classes  of  the  people 
ensured  a  secular  training  for  the  service  of  society  and  the  State 
which  in  the  end  was  bound  to  react  against  the  Church  itself. 

As  we  know,  the  scheme  of  national  education  sketched  in  the 
First  Book  of  Discipline  was  never  realised,  but  by  this  inner  con- 
tradiction— the  opposition  between  the  theological  intention  of  its 
authors  and  the  secular  developments  it  involved — the  scheme 
may  be  regarded  as  embodying  the  tendencies  of  the  age  that  was 
to  follow.  What  specifically  characterised  that  age — in  the  case  of 
Scotland  extending  from  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  to  the  close  of 
the  seventeenth  century — was  the  gradual  substitution  of  material 
for  religious  concerns  as  the  main  preoccupation  of  the  different 
peoples.  In  England  during  the  seventeenth  century  secular 
interests  came  to  override  concern  for  religion  and  the  Church  ; 
Holland,  the  battle-ground  of  religion  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
became  a  nation  of  traders  in  the  seventeenth  ;  during  the  latter 
half  of  the  same  century  Louis  XIV.  made  the  Church  in  France 
a  mere  personal  convenience,  and  according  to  the  historians  of 
Germany  the  secularising  process  in  that  country  dates  from  the 
Peace  of  Westphalia  in  1648  which  closed  the  Thirty  Years*  War. 
In  the  case  of  Scotland  during  the  same  period  it  is  the  successive 
ecclesiastical  struggles  that  are  most  prominently  thrust  on  our 
attention,  but  this  is  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  the  contemporary 
historians  were  churchmen  whose  interests  were  restricted  to  the 
sphere  of  religion.  In  the  Acts  of  Parliament  and  in  the  Privy 
Council  Register  of  the  period  we  see  another  side  to  the  national 
life.  From  these  records  we  find  that  economical  questions, 


356  Prof.  Hume  Brown 

bearing  on  the  material  well-being  of  the  country,  came  more  and 
more  to  engage  the  minds  of  those  responsible  for  its  administra- 
tion. If  in  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth  century  we  have  the 
National  Covenant  and  the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant,  in  the 
second  half  we  have  the  Report  on  Trade  presented  by  the 
merchants  of  the  country  to  the  Privy  Council  in  1681 — a  report 
which  was  based  upon  keen  observation  of  the  conditions  requi- 
site for  a  flourishing  home  and  foreign  trade. 

The  period  between  the  Reformation  and  the  Revolution  of 
1689,  therefore,  may  be  regarded  as  a  period  of  transition  during 
which  theological  and  secular  interests  were  in  continuous  conflict 
for  the  dominant  place  in  the  national  policy.  By  the  opening  of 
the  eighteenth  century  the  result  of  the  conflict  was  no  longer 
doubtful.  If  we  desire  a  conclusive  proof  of  the  fact,  we  may  find 
it  in  the  Treaty  of  Union  in  1707  which  gave  Scotland  and 
England  one  legislative  body.  In  the  framing  of  that  Treaty 
it  was  the  material  interests  of  both  countries  that  dominated 
the  minds  of  those  who  were  responsible  for  it ;  in  the  times  of  the 
Covenants  such  a  treaty  would  have  been  possible  only  on  the 
condition  of  religion  being  its  basis. 

With  the  eighteenth  century,  therefore,  we  enter  on  another 
stage  of  development  in  the  national  history ;  and  for  that  century, 
also,  we  have  a  document  which  embodies  its  conceptions  of  man 
and  his  eternal  relations  as  distinctively  as  the  previous  documents 
we  have  been  considering  embody  those  of  the  respective  ages  to 
which  they  belong.  This  document  is  a  book  which  is  assured  of 
permanent  interest  so  long  as  a  Scottish  nation  endures  ;  it  is  the 
Autobiography  of  Dr.  Alexander  Carlyle,  Minister  of  Inveresk.  Un- 
consciously to  himself,  Carlyle,  in  the  account  he  has  given  of  his 
own  life,  has  interpreted  the  tendencies,  the  tone  of  thought 
and  feeling  of  his  age  with  an  expressiveness  which  leaves  nothing 
to  be  desired.  As  we  read  his  book,  we  realise  that  the  world  and 
his  fellow-mortals  are  seen  by  him  in  lights  which  in  previous 
centuries  of  the  national  history  had  not  dawned  on  men's  eyes. 
His  intellectual  attitude  and  his  conception  of  life's  duties  and 
responsibilities  are  as  characteristic  of  his  age  as  were  those  of 
Adamnan  and  Turgot  of  the  age  to  which  they  belonged.  And, 
be  it  noted,  that  like  Adamnan  and  Turgot,  he  also  was  a  cleric. 
In  considering  the  characteristics  of  his  gospel,  therefore,  we  have 
a  further  interesting  commentary  on  the  development  of  the 
national  culture  from  the  earliest  stage  of  which  we  have  the 
documentary  history.  What  are  the  distinguishing  notes  in 


Four  Representative  Documents         357 

Carlyle's  book  which  so  eminently  mark  it  as  a  product  of  his 
age  ? 

Carlyle  was  not  a  great  original  thinker  who  by  force  of  mind 
and  character  gives  a  new  direction  to  traditional  currents  of 
thought.  The  interest  that  belongs  to  him  lies  in  the  fact  that  by 
his  natural  qualities  he  represents  in  discreet  moderation  the  pre- 
vailing tendencies  of  the  age  in  which  he  lived.  Fully  to  appreciate 
those  tendencies  we  have  to  go  beyond  the  limits  of  Scotland,  for 
it  was  not  in  Scotland  that  they  originated.  Carlyle' s  life 
(he  was  born  in  1722  and  died  in  1805)  corresponded  with 
the  period  when  ideas,  which  had  their  birth  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  came  to  their  full  fruition  in  all  the  countries  of 
Western  Europe.  It  was  in  France  that  these  ideas  had  their 
origin,  and  it  is  usual  to  associate  their  first  decisive  appearance 
with  the  publication  of  Descartes'  Discourse  on  Method  in  1657. 
In  that  discourse  was  pregnantly  indicated  an  attitude  of  mind 
which  for  a  century  and  a  half  was  to  determine  not  only  men's 
speculations,  but  their  habitual  tone  of  feeling  regarding  matters 
which  specially  appeal  to  the  emotions.  Descartes'  evangel,  for 
such  it  was  in  his  eyes,  and  in  those  of  the  thinkers  who  followed 
him,  was  the  application  of  reason  to  human  experience  in  the 
entire  range  of  its  content.  It  was  to  the  explanation  of  nature 
that  the  new  method  was  applied  in  the  first  instance,  but  in  due 
course  it  came  soon  to  be  applied  to  man  and  his  history.  The 
particular  form  of  demonstration  which  commended  itself  to  Des- 
cartes and  the  philosophers  of  the  eighteenth  century  as  the  one 
adequate  organon  was  that  of  mathematical  proof,  and  their 
preference  for  this  mode  of  reasoning  has  a  sufficient  explanation. 
It  was  in  the  science  of  astronomy  that  the  most  impressive  dis- 
coveries were  made  in  the  seventeenth  century  ;  and  the  two  great 
discoverers,  Galileo  and  Newton,  were  mathematicians.  Before 
the  close  of  that  century  we  have  the  Ethic  of  Spinoza,  in  which 
the  rationale  of  the  universe  is  set  forth  in  a  series  of  quasi- mathe- 
matical formulas.  In  1734  were  published  Voltaire's  Letters  on  the 
English,  in  which  he  expounded  the  Newtonian  system  with  such 
effect  that  in  France,  the  country  with  which  Scotland  was  in  direct 
intellectual  contact,  Newtonism  became  the  current  designation  for 
the  attitude  which  came  to  dominate  the  French  mind.  '  Is  it  not 
amazing,'  Horace  Walpole  wrote  in  1764,  'that  the  most  sensible 
people  in  France  can  never  help  being  dominated  by  sounds 
and  general  ideas  ?  Now  everybody  must  be  a  geometre^  now  a 
phiksophe^ 


358  Prof.   Hume  Brown 

It  is  in  the  designation  philosophey  as  Walpole  understood  it,  that 
we  have  the  explanation  of  the  characteristics  of  the  class  which 
Carlyle  so  suggestively  represents.  For  the  philosophy  the  whole 
content  of  human  experience  was  explicable  by  reason,  and  should 
be  controlled  by  reason.  Before  the  days  when  man  made  this 
discovery,  they  had  been  led  astray  by  vague  feelings  which  had 
engendered  the  hallucinations  responsible  for  the  follies  and  crimes 
written  so  large  on  the  page  of  history.  In  the  future,  guided  by 
the  light  of  reason,  humanity  would  avoid  its  past  errors,  and, 
adjusting  itself  to  the  realities  of  life  on  earth,  fulfil  its  proper 
destiny.  Here  it  is  that  we  see  the  fundamental  distinction  be- 
tween Carlyle's  attitude  towards  life  and  its  responsibilities  and  that 
expressed  in  the  three  previous  documents  we  have  been  consider- 
ing. For  Adamnan  and  Turgot  and  the  authors  of  the  First  Book 
of  Discipline  man's  life  on  earth  was  only  a  preparation  for  another ; 
it  was  a  condition  to  be  endured,  not  to  be  enjoyed,  by  him  whose 
thoughts  were  wisely  ordered.  For  Carlyle,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  present  life  was  a  good  thing  in  itself  and  to  be  made  the  most 
of  while  we  have  it.  He  has  nowhere  given  us  a  precise  statement 
of  his  theological  creed,  but  from  his  incidental  remarks  and  the 
general  record  of  his  life  we  can  infer  what  was  his  attitude  to  the 
mysteries  of  the  Christian  faith.  In  what  his  editor,  Hill  Burton, 
calls  a  '  characteristic  passage/  we  have  a  sufficiently  piquant  indi- 
cation of  his  opinion  as  to  the  essentials  of  religion.  He  had  been 
requested  by  an  exalted  personage  to  recommend  a  minister  for  a 
church  in  Berwickshire,  and  he  writes  as  follows  :  *  I  think  it  of 
great  consequence  to  a  noble  family,  especially  if  they  have  many 
children,  to  have  a  sensible  and  superior  clergyman  settled  in  their 
parish.  Young  is  of  that  stamp,  and  might  be  greatly  improved 
in  taste,  and  elegance  of  mind  and  manners  by  a  free  entree  to  Lady 
Douglas/  In  these  words  we  have  the  ideal  of  the  type  of  religion 
which  under  the  name  of  *  Moderatism '  dominated  Scotland 
during  the  greater  part  of  the  eighteenth  century.  It  was  a  type 
determined  by  the  prevailing  intellectual  attitude  of  the  age  which 
demanded  that  all  human  beliefs  should  be  brought  to  the  bar  of 
reason.  Vague  aspirations,  spiritual  raptures,  uneasy  heartsearch- 
ings — these  were  the  vagaries  of  distempered  and  half-educated 
minds.  '  It  was  of  great  importance,'  is  a  remark  of  Carlyle's 
own,  cto  discriminate  the  artificial  virtues  and  vices,  formed  by 
ignorance  and  superstition,  from  those  that  are  real,  lest  the  con- 
tinuance of  such  a  bar  should  have  given  check  to  the  rising 
liberality  of  the  young  scholars,  and  prevented  those  of  better 


Four  Representative  Documents         359 


birth  or  more  ingenious  minds  from  entering  into  the  profession ' 
(of  the  Church). 

We  see  the  length  we  have  come  in  the  history  of  the  national 
development.  We  have  seen  in  succession  the  varying  ideals  of 
the  individual  and  the  collective  life  as  conceived  by  Adamnan, 
Turgot,  the  authors  of  the  First  Book  of  Discipline,  and  a  Moderate 
minister  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Behind  the  external  history 
of  the  successive  ages  these  ideals  were  the  inspiring  and  de- 
termining factors,  and  only  by  bearing  them  in  mind  can  we 
understand  the  policies  of  statesmen,  the  general  drift  of  events, 
and  the  ever-changing  adjustments  of  human  society.  One 
comment,  consolatory  or  otherwise,  as  we  may  take  it,  is  im- 
mediately suggested  by  what  has  been  said.  Each  age  is  under 
the  illusion  that  its  own  outlook  is  final  and  all-sufficient ;  Carlyle 
was  as  convinced  as  Adamnan  that  he  saw  human  conditions  under 
their  true  light.  Yet  before  Carlyle's  death  in  1805,  men  had 
begun  to  see  other  visions  than  his.  Reason  was  displaced  from 
the  throne  he  assigned  to  it,  and  in  new  forms  and  in  new 

»  tendencies  those  elements  of  human  nature,  which  he  thought  it 
desirable  to  suppress,  asserted  themselves  with  such  triumphant 
force  as  to  mark  the  beginning  of  still  another  stage  in  man's 
history. 

P.  HUME  BROWN. 


The  Trade  of  Orkney  at  the  End  of  the 
Eighteenth  Century1 

JUST  as  the  philologist  must  consider  both  rules  and  exceptions 
to  those  rules,  so  it  is  the  duty  of  the  economic  historian  to 
turn  his  attention  to  the  social  condition  of  those  parts  of  a 
country  which,  either  through  geographical  or  other  causes,  lie 
outside  the  general  economic  development  of  that  country.  In 
the  special  case  of  the  British  Isles  it  is  only  to  be  expected  that 
the  condition  of  some  of  the  more  remote  Islands  will  afford  much 
that  is  of  interest.  The  isolation  of  these  places  tends  in  itself  to 
conserve  old  customs  ;  while,  in  early  times,  their  trade  will  be 
found  to  have  developed  along  lines  which  were  often  determined 
by  the  special  exigencies  of  the  situation.  Before  the  epoch  of 
steamers,  such  communities  were  often  completely  isolated  from 
the  rest  of  the  world  during  comparatively  long  periods,  and 
therefore  the  people  were  compelled  to  be  self-contained  to  a 
considerable  extent.  At  the  same  time,  through  various  causes, 
from  the  days  of  the  Norse  rovers,  there  was  much  more  com- 
munication by  sea  than  one  would  expect ;  and,  where  there  was 
such  communication,  there  must,  in  times  of  peace,  have  been 
some  trade.  It  is  disappointing  that,  while  the  economic  historian 
has  expectations  of  valuable  information  from  the  social  state  of 
the  inhabitants  of  the  smaller  British  Islands,  the  early  commercial 
history  of  these  places  remains  almost  a  blank.  And  this  is  the 
more  tantalising  since  we  cannot  accept  the  easy  dictum  that  there 
was  no  such  history.  On  the  contrary,  scattered  hints  here 
and  there  show  that  in  several  places  during  the  Middle  Ages 
there  was  a  comparatively  high  degree  of  civilization  and  an  ex- 
tended shipping  trade,  much  beyond  what  one  would  have  expected. 
In  later  times  many  observers  have  noted  traits  of  social  life  and 
curious  customs.  These  involved  economic  transactions  of  a 
somewhat  extensive  character,  and  it  is  disappointing  that  these 

1  Read   at   the   Economic    History    Section    of  the    International    Historical 
Congress.     1913. 


The  Trade  of  Orkney  361 

rarely  obtain  more  than  incidental  mention.  In  such  circumstances 
the  discovery  of  the  Letter-Book  of  a  merchant  of  Orkney,1  which 
covers  a  period  of  three  years  towards  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  is  the  more  valuable  in  that  it  affords  a  clear  picture  of  the 
transactions  of  the  time  and  place.  Moreover  it  reveals  a  state  of 
trade  just  at  the  turning  point  of  a  period  of  transition,  and  is  the 
more  interesting  since  it  provides  historical  evidence,  upon  a 
conveniently  small  scale,  of  the  working  of  certain  well-known 
economic  laws. 

The  Orkney  group  of  Islands  number  50,  of  which  30  are 
inhabited.  They  are  separated  from  Scotland  by  the  Pentland 
Firth.  The  area  is  376  square  miles,  and  the  population,  which 
was  24,445  m  jSoi,  was  returned  at  25,897  in  1911.  This 
population  is  largely  of  Norse  extraction,  indeed  the  fact  that, 
until  1468,  Orkney  was  subject  to  Norway  is  essential  to  an  un- 
derstanding both  of  its  social  and  economic  history.  Up  to 
the  fifteenth  century,  its  commercial  connections  were  with  the 
countries  bordering  on  the  Baltic,  and  to  a  less  degree  with  the 
western  Islands  as  far  as  the  Isle  of  Man.  After  the  annexation 
to  Scotland,  both  the  interest  of  the  Crown  and  considerations  of 
general  policy  would  have  tended  to  divert  the  trade  of  Orkney 
from  the  Continent  to  Scotland,  but  internal  disputes  made  it  im- 
possible to  pursue  any  fixed  policy,  and  the  resort  of  Dutch  fishing 
vessels  to  Orkney  and  Shetland  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  maintained  trading  relations  with  the  Continent.  In  the 
eighteenth  century  the  growth  of  commerce  with  America  gave 
Orkney  a  considerable  importance.  In  the  days  of  sailing-ships 
the  Pentland  Firth  was  considered  dangerous,  and  therefore 
vessels,  sailing  to  America  by  the  Northern  route,  passed  to  the 
north  of  the  Orkneys,  and  most  of  them  touched  there  on  the 
outward  or  the  homeward  voyage,  or  on  both.  Thus  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company  employed  young  men  from  Orkney, 
who  joined  its  ships  at  Stromness,  in  171 1.2 

In  the  eighteenth  century  the  chief  occupation  of  the  people 
was  agriculture,  and  it  was  computed  in  1801  that  five-sixths  of 
the  occupied  population  was  employed  in  this  industry.3  The  land 
in  the  valleys  was  fruitful,  while  that  in  the  higher  districts  pro- 
vided excellent  pasturage  for  sheep,  which  yielded  very  fine  wool. 

1  The  Letter-Book  of  Alexander  Logic  of  Kirkwall.  This  MS.  is  in  the 
possession  of  Mr.  G.  Cursiter,  F.S.A.Scot.,  Kirkwall. 

^The  Great  Company,  by  Beckles  Willson,  1900,  i.  p.  242. 
8  Scots  Magazine,  Ixx.  p.  249. 

2  A 


362  W.   R.   Scott 

Agriculture  was  burdened  by  old  Norse  traditions.  Land  was 
held  by  allodial  or  udal  tenure,  subject  to  c  scat '  and  tythe.  It  was 
divided  into  ure  or  ounce  lands.  Each  c  ounce  '  of  land  was  sub- 
divided into  1 8  penny  lands,  and  the  penny  lands  again  into 
farthing  lands.  Cultivation  in  the  eighteenth  century  was  gener- 
ally in  runrig  or  common  field.1  This  system  continues  to  the 
present  day  in  some  of  the  Islands  with  reference  to  pasture  and 
the  kelp  industry.  When  the  authority  of  the  Scottish  Crown 
was  established  over  Orkney,  the  tythe  and  the  Norse  'scat'  became 
converted  in  a  rental  payable  by  the  Islands.  This  rental  was 
stated  partly  in  money  and  partly  in  kind.  The  quantities  were 
expressed  in  measures  derived  from  Norway,  such  as  meils  of  malt 
and  lispounds  of  butter  and  oil.  The  standard  of  these  weights 
and  measures  was  the  burning  economic  question  in  Orkney 
during  the  eighteenth  century.  It  was  calculated  that  the  Crown 
rent,  when  converted  into  the  contemporary  equivalents,  amounted 
to  5,000  bolls  of  grain,  2,680  stones  of  butter,  and  700  gallons  of 
oil.  Altogether,  in  the  most  favourable  years,  more  than  one- 
half  of  the  surplus  produce  of  the  land  was  exported  in  kind  to 
meet  this  rent.  In  bad  years,  a  money  equivalent  had  to  be  sent 
instead,  and  it  was,  alleged  that  the  ratio  taken  for  conversion  was 
an  inequitable  one.2  Whether  it  is  historically  accurate  or  not  to 
derive  the  Crown  rental  of  Orkney  from  the  tribute  originally  due 
to  Norway,  it  is  true  that,  in  the  external  trade  of  the  Islands,  this 
rent  represented,  from  the  point  of  view  of  international  trade,  a 
position  analogous  to  that  of  a  tribute  or  indemnity.  This  fact 
explains  why  it  was  that  with  a  surplus  of  recorded  visible  exports 
over  recorded  visible  imports  towards  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century  Orkney  remained  comparatively  poor.  The  following 
are  the  figures  : 

1770,     -         -     Exports,  £12,018     Imports,  £10,406 
1780,     -  „  23,247  „  14,011 

1790,     -  „  26,598  „  20,803 3 

The  Letter-Book  of  Alexander  Logic  reveals  the  interesting 
fact  that  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  trade  or 
Orkney  with  Scotland  and  other  places  was  more  nearly  a  foreign 

1  General  View  of  the  Agriculture  of  the  Orkney  Islands,  by  J.  Shirreff,  1814, 
PP.25,  3i. 

2  Shirreff,  General  View,  p.  27. 

3  Old 'Statistical  Account,  vii.  p.  537.     The  prevalence  of  smuggling  (as  is  shoi 
below)  resulted  in  an  understatement  of  the  imports. 


The  Trade  of  Orkney  363 

trade,  in  the  technical  sense  of  the  term,  than  a  domestic  one.  It 
is  true  that  the  direction  of  its  commerce  was  changing  from 
seeking  continental  markets ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  the  irregularity 
of  communication,  differences  in  weights  and  measures,  and 
varieties  as  between  the  customs  of  the  people,  made  Orkney  a 
distinct  economic  region  or  <  nation/  and  I  hope  to  explain 
presently  how  this  gave  rise  to  several  interesting  and  important 
phenomena  in  the  settlement  of  the  balance  of  indebtedness. 

The  chief  exports  were  agricultural  products,  linen  and  linen 
yarn,  stockings,  kelp  (or  the  ash  of  sea-weed  from  which  alkali 
was  obtained),  fish-oil,  calf-skins,  quills  (for  the  making  of  pens), 
and  feathers.  The  imports  were  much  more  numerous  and 
diversified  in  character.  They  comprise  all  those  manufactured 
commodities  required  for  the  comforts  and  luxuries  of  life.  The 
transactions  of  Alexander  Logie  give  a  minute  inventory  of  a 
multiplicity  of  orders  from  Scotland  and  England.  He  was  a 
merchant  or  general  dealer,  who  kept  a  shop  in  which  almost  any 
goods  in  demand  in  Kirkwall  could  be  procured.  The  period 
covered  by  his  Letter-Book  extends  from  April,  1782,  to  April, 
1784.  His  business  was  sufficiently  extended  to  enable  him  to 
purchase  wholesale  in  English,  Scottish,  or  foreign  markets,  and  he 
sold  the  goods  either  to  other  Orkney  traders,  or  retail  in  his 
own  shop.  During  the  two  years  covered  by  his  Letter-Book  his 
orders  may  be  divided  into  commodities  required  for  the  trade  of 
victualling  ships — as,  for  instance,  ships'  biscuit,  powder,  shot ; 
again,  materials  required  either  for  the  building  or  repair  of  ships 
or  for  carpentry,  such  as  iron  bolts,  saws,  cork,  tar,  lintseed  oil, 
white  lead,  glue.  Apparently,  in  spite  of  smuggling,  the  local 
brewing  and  distilling  industry  was  able  to  exist,  since  he 
frequently  orders  hops  and  barley,  and  he  was  an  early  buyer  for 
a  new  season's  crop. 

His  consignments  of  articles  of  dress  were  numerous,  fine  cloth 
for  men's  coats  and  ladies'  mantles  was  often  bought.  Judging 
by  his  correspondence,  the  people  in  Orkney  were  particular  as  to 
the  shape  and  quality  of  their  hats — whether  the  c  beavers '  of  the 
better  classes  or  the  *  bonnets'  of  the  commonalty.1  The  extent 
and  variety  of  the  buttons  required  shows  that  there  must  have 
been  a  distinct  standard  of  elegance  in  dress.  Shoe  buckles  and 

1  Logic  writes  under  date  July  12,  1782  :  'I  want  the  round  hattes  pritty  large 
in  the  rimm,  and  likewise  you'll  observe  not  to  put  black  linings  in  them,  I  want 
the  cocked  hates  of  a  middle  size  not  too  large  in  the  rim,  let  the  hats  be  off  a 
middle  size  in  the  crown  neather  too  bige  nor  yet  too  small.' 


364  W.   R.   Scott 

knee  buckles  were  required  in  great  variety.  Snuff-boxes,  too, 
seem  to  have  had  a  good  sale.  The  list  of  household  furnishings 
and  requisites  is  a  lengthy  one,  from  which  the  following  may  be 
mentioned — pewter  goods,  earthenware,  stoneware,  glass,  fiddles, 
books,  onions,  apples,  ginger-bread,  flour,  candy,  knives,  and 
children's  toys.  Drinking  glasses  were  required  in  quantities — 
those  *  painted  with  Admiral  Rodney  and  with  a  toss '  were  in 
special  favour. 

The  handling  of  goods  often  involved  considerable  vicissitudes, 
as  may  be  gathered  from  the  following  adventures  of  a  cask  of 
molasses  which  Logic  had  ordered.  The  ship  with  the  cask 
reached  Stromness,  and  the  barrel  was  sent  in  a  small  boat  to 
Scapa,  which  is  two  miles  by  road  from  Kirkwall.  According  to 
Logic,  '  the  boat  struck  on  a  barr  of  sand  a  little  way  off  which 
made  them  wait  a  little  till  the  water  rising,  they  put  out  the 
lightest  part  of  the  goods  by  the  four  boatsmen.  The  assistant 
of  one  of  the  carters  attempted  to  put  out  the  treacle  cask.  Not 
being  sensible  of  her  weight — as  they  tould  me — they  put  roups 
round  each  head  of  the  cask  and  roulled  her  to  the  wall  of  the  boat 
when  they  thought  to  let  it  slip  down  in  the  watter  and  roull  it 
ashore,  but  when  they  found  the  weight  of  the  cask  they  were  not 
able  to  manage  it :  the  roups  brock  and  the  cask  fell  with  a  sudden 
girk  to  the  sand,  and,  by  the  fall  struck  out  one  of  the  heads  and, 
the  sea  being  over  the  cask,  before  the  men  could  give  any  assist- 
ants, the  treacle  wase  totaly  lost,  unless  about  J  anker  that  was 
saved  in  the  bottom  of  the  cask  which  I  ordered  to  be  keeped  till 
further  orders,  but  it  is  so  damaged  and  mixt  with  salt  watter  that 
I  suppose  it  will  be  good  for  nothing.' 

Yet  another  side  of  Logic's  business  was  the  import  of  flax, 
which  he  gave  out  to  his  customers,  receiving  back  the  linen  or 
yarn  in  exchange  for  the  goods  he  sold  them.  It  is  to  be  hoped 
that  he  did  not  participate  in  a  pernicious  form  of  the  truck  system, 
by  which  the  linen  workers  were  paid  for  their  spinning  and 
weaving  in  smuggled  spirits  and  tobacco.1  Certainly  smuggling 
was  rife,  and  the  most  extraordinary  feature  of  Logic's  Letter- 
Book  is  the  ingenuousness  with  which  he  copies  his  letters, 
arranging  for  the  running  of  cargoes,  with  full  names  and  par- 
ticulars. In  fact  this  correspondence  shows  that  he  was  pathetically 
eager  not  to  be  left  out  of  any  venture  in  which  his  friends  were 
engaged.  For  his  other  transactions  he  expected  at  least  six 

1  A  Letter  to  a  Gentleman  from  his  Friend  in  Orkney  written  In  1 757  [by  T.  Hepburn 
of  Birsay],  Edinburgh,  1885,  p.2i. 


The  Trade  of  Orkney  365 

months'  credit,  and  generally  twelve  months'  credit :  whereas  he 
seems  to  have  made  arrangements  by  which  a  consignment  of 
smuggled  spirits  was  paid  for  either  on  shipment  or  at  an  early 
date.  The  following  is  the  first  letter  of  this  interesting  series  : 

Mr.  Alex.  Stewart, 

Dear  Sir, — Please  do  me  the  favour  to  add  to  your  order  from 
Bergen  in  Northaway  as  follows,  viz.  3  ankers  Geneva,  3  ankers 
brandy,  Ibs.  1 2  Bohea  tea,  8  libs.  do.  Congo  and  gett  the  same  insured 
along  with  your  own  and  the  above  orders  to  be  at  my  risk  after 
shipped,  which  shall  be  pointedly  paid  to  you  according  to  invoice 
when  the  same  falls  due.  In  doing  the  above  you  will  oblige 
your  Humble  Sev1. 

Kirkwall  27  April  1782. 

This  was  a  small  order, — sometimes  as  much  as  30  ankers  of 
Geneva  and  other  dutiable  goods  were  written  for.  In  most  of 
these  letters  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  it  was  intended  the 
goods  were  to  be  smuggled,  but  in  a  few  cases  Logic  retained 
copies  of  his  letters  to  the  captains  of  the  ships  which  are  much 
more  explicit.  For  instance,  on  I2th  February,  1783,  he  gave 
orders  to  a  Capt.  Boag  in  the  following  terms  :  c  What  you  have 
from  Bergen  on  my  accot.  please  at  your  return  fraught  a  boat  and 
send  it  straight  to  Carness,  and  if  there  is  any  ships  in  Kirk11  Road 
that  may  be  suspected  to  be  his  majesty's,  order  it  to  be  sent  to 
Mr.  Alex.  Slatter  in  Walker  house  in  Evie.'  Or  again,  *  What 
goods  are  corned  by  Boag  for  us  you'll  please  send  it  to  Kirkwall 
by  very  first  opportunity  as  there  is  no  King's  vessals  on  the 
coast  at  present,  it  will  be  the  much  safest  time  to  send  it  without 
loss  of  time.  Order  the  men  to  stop  at  Carness  and  run  an 
express  to  us.' 

Logic  quite  understood  the  principle  of  distributing  his  risk  ; 
as  he  wrote  to  one  of  his  correspondents  in  this  trade  that  he  liked 
to  have  a  small  order  on  every  opportunity  and  was  willing  to  pay 
cash  in  demand.  He  preferred  to  have  his  Geneva  and  Hollands 
in  a  foreign  bottom,  and  generally  had  three  times  as  much  in  a 
vessel  under  a  neutral  flag  as  in  one  under  the  British  flag.  There 
were  several  distinct  sources  from  which  spirits  and  tea  were 
obtained  to  be  smuggled.  In  one  case  the  organisation  can  be 
traced.  Logic's  order  was  sent  to  Leith — generally  by  a  ship's 
captain  who  was  in  the  trade.  From  Leith  a  further  order  was 
sent  to  Bergen,  where  the  kegs  were  shipped.  The  vessel  either 


366  W.   R.   Scott 

sailed  to  a  northern  depot  at  the  Islands  of  Evie  and  North  Farr 
or  to  a  southern  one  at  Carness.  Unlike  the  boat  carrying 
molasses,  a  smuggler  never  arrived  without  being  anxiously  ex- 
pected, and  adequate  arrangements  were  made  for  dealing  with 
the  cargo. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  Logic's  business  was  fairly  repre- 
sentative of  the  import  trade  ;  it  had  also  a  close  connection  with 
the  exports.  His  Letter-Book  covers  a  period  when  there  was  a 
serious  scarcity  of  grain,  and  so  there  were  no  exports  of 
agricultural  produce,  or  at  least  none  which  passed  through  his 
hands.  The  kelp  manufacture  was  managed  by  the  landed 
proprietors,  and  there  is  no  mention  of  shipments  of  kelp  in  the 
Letter-Book,  this,  no  doubt,  being  managed  by  the  factors  of  the 
respective  estates.  As  regards  other  exports,  Logic  dealt  from 
time  to  time  in  all  the  commodities.  Quills,  feathers,  rabbit 
skins,  and  particularly  linen.  Of  the  latter  he  shipped  2,561! 
yards,  during  seven  weeks  in  1784,  besides  linen  yarn. 

Logic's  transactions  outside  Orkney  were  generally  of  such  a 
nature  that  he  owed  more  than  was  due  to  him,  and  it  is  par- 
ticularly interesting  to  observe  how  the  cancellation  of  the  resulting 
indebtedness  developed  along  the  lines  of  the  '  barter-theory '  of 
foreign  trade.  The  following  is  an  analysis  of  a  shipment  of  this 
type  to  Newcastle.  Logic  sent  i  bag  of  goose  downs  weighing 
60  Ibs.,  i  bag  of  wild  fowl  [? feathers],  weighing  48  Ibs.,  and  56 
yards  of  bleached  sheeting  linen.  The  ship's  captain  was  to  sell 
these,  and  to  buy  against  the  proceeds  i  barrel  of  apples,  i  cwt.  of 
copperas,  20  gros  corks,  two  reams  of  grey  paper,  and  a  parcel  of 
c  new  hops  of  the  very  best  kind.'  It  was  only  in  small  transac- 
tions that  it  was  possible  to  make  the  exports  and  imports  balance  ; 
and,  usually,  Logic  found  himself  bound  to  discharge  a  balance, 
representing  the  excess  of  his  imports  over  the  exports  he  could 
send.  This  he  effected  by  the  purchase  of  Scottish  or  English 
bills  in  the  ordinary  way — each  bill  remitted  was  always  copied 
into  the  Letter-Book,  and  it  may  be  guessed  that  some  of  them 
were  sent  to  landed  proprietors  in  payment  for  kelp  from  their 
estates.  Owing  to  the  fact  that  just  at  this  time  it  was  necessary 
to  import  grain,  and  that  the  Crown  rent  had  to  be  paid  in  money 
in  lieu  of  the  produce,  which  had  proved  deficient,  it  is  probable 
that  the  balance  of  indebtedness  was  against  Orkney.  Accordingly 
Scottish  and  English  bills  were  scarce,  while  there  are  various  in- 
dications that  his  correspondents  were  not  willing  to  receive  bills 
drawn  by  Logic.  There  still  remained  credit  instruments  which 


The  Trade  of  Orkney  367 

were  used  as  bills.  These  were  Navy  Tickets  originating  from 
allowances  made  by  sailors  to  their  wives  or  other  dependents. 
These  tickets  were  payable  at  the  Excise  Office,  Kirkwall ;  but  it 
frequently  happened  that  the  Collector  of  Excise  at  Kirkwall  had 
no  funds  to  meet  the  order  and  he  endorsed  the  ticket  accordingly. 
It  was  then  changed  locally,  probably  against  goods,  and  so  was 
endorsed  by  Logic  and  remitted  to  his  creditor  at  Leith  to  be 
collected  at  Edinburgh. 

The  prevalence  of  smuggling  explains  the  shortage  of  funds  at 
the  Excise  Office  in  Kirkwall  ;  sometimes  the  Collector  had  not 
received  a  sufficient  amount  in  duties  even  to  pay  current  wages. 
This  situation  was  met  by  the  issue  of  a  credit  or  imprest  by  the 
Commissioners  at  Edinburgh.  Since  these  documents  bore  the 
signature  of  Adam  Smith,  one  of  them  may  be  quoted  : 

Number  Seventy-nine. 

Gentlemen, — Mr.  James  Riddock,  Collector  of  the  Customs  at 
Kirkwall,  not  having  sufficient  money  in  his  hands  fore  defraying 
the  officers'  salaries  and  other  exigencies  of  that  port,  we  direct  the 
Collector  to  pay  him  the  sum  of  One  hundred  pounds  sterling  for 
the  purposes  above  mentioned  out  of  the  following  branches,  viz. : 
Customs  £40,  one-third  subsidy  £20,*  two-thirds  subsidy  £40,2 
and  upon  his  transmitting  this  order  with  Mr.  Riddock's  receipt 
thereon  to  the  Comptroller  Generall,  he  will  have  credit  for  the 
same  and  Mr.  Riddock  will  be  charged  therewith,  the  Branches 
above  mentioned  are  to  be  specified  on  Mr.  Riddock's  receipt. 

We  are     Your  loving  Friends 

ADAM  SMITH. 
BASIL  COCHRAN. 

JAMES  EDGAR. 

Custom  House 

Edinburgh  9th  February,  1784. 

The  Collector  at  Kirkwall  endorsed  the  order,  and  Logic 
obtained  it  against  value  paid  out.  He  sent  it  to  a  mercantile 
correspondent  at  Edinburgh,  who  was  to  meet  various  liabilities 

1  An  addition  of  one-third  to  the  rates  of  *  New '  Subsidy.    It  was  first  imposed 
by  2  &  3  Anne,  cap.  9,  for  a  period  years,  and  by  i  George  I.  cap  8,  for  ever. 

2  An  addition  of  two-thirds  to  the  rates  of  the  New  and  One-Third  Subsidies, 
imposed  by  3  &  4  Anne,  cap.  5  (The  British  Customs,  by  Henry  Saxby,  1757, 
pp.  21,  22). 


368  The  Trade  of  Orkney 

of  Logic's  for  goods  sent  to  Orkney  out  of  the  proceeds.  The 
humour  of  the  situation  was  that  the  largest  of  these  was  one  for 
smuggled  spirits.  It  was  a  truly  Gilbertian  situation  when  the 
contraband  trade  kept  the  Orkney  Customs  Office  so  short  of  ready 
money  that  it  had  to  be  maintained  by  credit  orders  from  head- 
quarters, and  that  these  formed  a  convenient  credit  instrument  for 
some  of  the  chief  smugglers  in  which  to  pay  for  the  cargoes  of 
Geneva  and  Bohea  by  which  the  revenue  was  being  defrauded  ! 

Besides  bills  of  exchange  and  the  paper  of  government  depart- 
ments Logic  used  another  kind  of  document  in  discharging  his 
debts  in  England  or  Scotland — namely,  the  notes  of  some  of  the 
chief  banks.  From  this  it  would  appear  that  trade  between 
Orkney  and  Great  Britain  was  not  wholly  conducted  on  a  basis 
resembling  that  between  distinct  economic  regions.  A  closer 
inspection  of  the  situation  shows  that  Logic  used  these  bank  notes 
simply  as  bills  of  exchange.  They  were  sufficiently  rare  not  to  be 
generally  acceptable  in  Orkney,  and  it  may  be  conjectured  that 
these  had  been  sent  as  remittances  to  relatives  from  members  of 
their  families  who  were  employed  in  Scotland  or  England.  In 
each  case,  where  Logic  remitted  a  bank  note,  he  not  only  copies 
it  even  to  any  signature  on  the  back,  but  he  makes  an  attempt  to 
make  a  rough  drawing  of  any  engraving  on  the  note  or  even  of 
the  impressed  duty  stamp  or  seal  of  a  banking  company.  When 
the  device  was  of  a  heraldic  nature  (as  was  the  case  in  many  bank 
notes  of  the  period),  he  surrounded  a  space  of  its  approximate  size 
and  shape  by  an  irregular  line,  writing  across  it  ccotarms.'  The 
whole  character  of  this  series  of  entries  indicates  that  the  bank 
note  was  being  used  simply  as  a  bill  of  exchange  ;  and  that,  in 
relation  to  England  and  Scotland,  at  this  time,  Orkney  constituted 
a  distinct  economic  region,  and  that  there  was  something  re- 
sembling an  equation  of  indebtedness  on  such  commerce  as  there 
was.  Logic's  letters  show  with  remarkable  precision  the  manner 
in  which  the  balance,  adverse  to  Orkney,  was  settled. 

W.  R.  SCOTT. 


Dr.   Blacklock's  Manuscripts 

TO  his  contemporaries  Thomas  Blacklock,  the  blind  poet, 
seemed  a  figure  of  considerable  importance.  David  Hume 
spoke  with  great  respect  of  his  talents,  and  Samuel  Johnson  was 
glad  to  become  personally  acquainted  with  him.  In  a  rare  book 
on  <  Living  Authors  ' 1  published  in  London  three  years  before 
Blacklock's  death,  he  is  allotted  almost  as  much  space  as  his 
countryman,  Robert  Burns,  and  about  half  as  much  as  the  chief 
English  poet  of  the  time,  William  Cowper.  The  name  of  Black- 
lock  is  still  a  household  word  in  Scotland  :  but  he  owes  his 
enduring  fame,  not  to  his  formal  verse,  which  has  few  admirers 
now,  but  to  the  fact  that  he  was  the  first  literary  man  of  estab- 
lished reputation  who  recognised  the  genius  of  Burns. 

Blacklock  was  born  at  Annan  in  1721.  In  the  third  decade  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  as  in  the  days  when  Carlyle  wielded  the 
strap  in  c  Hinterschlag  Gymnasium/  the  people  of  Annan  were 
c  more  given  to  intellectual  pursuits  than  some  of  their  neigh- 
bours ' ;  and  Blacklock's  father  and  a  few  friends  often  read  the 
works  of  Spenser,  Milton,  Pope  and  other  poets  in  the  hearing  of 
the  blind  boy,  thus  revealing  to  him  a  world  of  enchantment.  In 
1741  Blacklock  was  sent  to  Edinburgh  University  by  an  accom- 
plished physician  named  John  Stevenson.  Eager  to  win  fame,  he 
ventured  in  1 746  to  publish  a  volume  of  verse  in  Glasgow.  An 
Edinburgh  edition  followed  in  1754,  and  three  London  editions 
in  1756.  When  about  forty  years  of  age,  Blacklock  was  ordained 
minister  of  Kirkcudbright,  in  consequence  of  a  presentation  from 
the  Crown  obtained  for  him  by  Lord  Selkirk.  But  the  parishioners 
refused  to  receive  him,  alleging  that  his  blindness  rendered  him 
incapable  of  discharging  the  duties  of  his  office  in  a  satisfactory 
manner.  After  some  litigation,  he  wisely  resigned  his  living  and 
retired  to  Edinburgh.  In  1773  Blacklock,  now  a  D.D.  of  Aber- 
deen University,  was  introduced  to  Dr.  Johnson,  who,  as  Boswell 

1  Catalogue  of  Five  Hundred  Celebrated  Authors  of  Great  Britain,  now  Living. 
London,  1788. 


370  Frank  Miller 

records,  e  received  him  with  a  most  humane  complacency/  When 
Burns  visited  Edinburgh  in  1786  'The  Doctor'  showed  him 
much  attention,  though  the  great  poet's  familiarity  of  address  and 
habit  of  speaking  his  mind  '  but  fear  or  shame '  proved  discon- 
certing at  times.1  Blacklock  had  also  the  good  fortune  to  be 
able  to  help  Walter  Scott,  '  that  most  extraordinary  genius  of  a 
boy/  as  Mrs.  Alison  Cockburn  called  him.  Long  after  Dr. 
Blacklock's  death,  which  occurred  in  1791,  Scott  recalled  with 
gratitude  the  old  man's  kindness  in  opening  to  him  the  '  stores  of 
his  library.' 

Dr.  Robert  Anderson,  in  the  Life  prefixed  to  his  edition  of 
Blacklock's  Poems,  published  in  1795,  says:  cHe'  (Blacklock) 
'has  left  some  volumes  of  Sermons  in  manuscript,  as  also  a 
Treatise  on  Morals,  both  of  which  it  is  in  contemplation  with  his 
friends  to  publish.  It  is  probable  that  the  most  important  of  his 
other  pieces  may  be  collected  and  republished  on  that  occasion.' 
Though  the  poet's  representatives  gathered  together  and  arranged 
his  manuscripts,  they  did  not  carry  out  their  intention  of  sending 
them  to  a  publisher.  Probably  in  1809,  when  Blacklock's  widow 
died,  the  papers  came  into  the  possession  of  Dr.  Thomas  Tudor 
Duncan,  minister  of  the  New  Church,  Dumfries,  brother  of 
Dr.  Henry  Duncan  of  Ruthwell,  celebrated  as  the  founder  of 
Savings  Banks.  Duncan  was  related  to  Blacklock,  his  mother, 
Ann  M'Murdo,  being  the  daughter  of  the  poet's  sister,  Mary 
Blacklock,  wife  of  William  M'Murdo,  merchant,  Dumfries.2  In 
1898  the  late  Mr.  William  Robert  Duncan,  Liverpool,  grandson 
of  the  Dumfries  minister,  and  consequently  great-great-grandson 
of  Mrs.  M'Murdo,  offered  the  MSS. — which  were  bound  in  ten 
volumes — to  the  writer  of  these  pages  for  presentation  to  the 
Mechanics'  Institute  of  Dr.  Blacklock's  native  town.  They  were, 
of  course,  gladly  accepted  ;  and  they  are  now  preserved  in  Annan 
Public  Library,  where  a  copy  of  the  London  octavo  edition  of 

1  In  a  *  Letter '  to  Elizabeth  Scott,  poetess,  which  does  not  appear  to  be  gener- 
ally known,  Dr.  Blacklock  says  : 

'  With  joy  to  praise,  with  freedom  blame, 
To  ca*  folk  by  their  Christian  name, 
To  speak  his  mind,  but  fear  or  shame, 

Was  aye  his  fashion  ; 
But  virtue  his  eternal  flame, 

His  ruling  passion.' 

Alonzo  and  Cora,  London,  1 80 1 . 

2  Uncle  of  Burns's  friend,  John  M'Murdo,  father  of '  Phillis  the  Fair/ 


Dr.   Blacklock's  Manuscripts  371 

Blacklock's   poems,    presented    to    the    Mechanics'   Institute    by 
Thomas  Carlyle,  may  also  be  seen. 

The  collection  at  Annan  affords  ample  materials  for  judging  of 
Dr.  Blacklock's  qualifications  as  a  Christian  teacher,  for  it  embraces 
five  volumes  of  excellent  manuscript  sermons,  on  such  subjects  as 
*  The  Character  and  Fate  of  Hypocrisy/  '  The  Advantages  Arising 
from  a  Proper  Estimate  of  Human  Life,'  and  *  The  Unsatisfactory 
Nature  of  Sublunary  Enjoyments,'  and  also  an  unpublished  treatise 
of  considerable  length  on  c  Practical  Ethics  ' — doubtless  the 

O 

Treatise  on  Morals  referred  to  by  Dr.  Anderson. 

Blacklock  reviewed  books  for  various  periodicals ;  and  a 
volume  in  the  collection,  entitled  *  Letters  and  Observations  on  Men, 
Books,  and  Manners,  By  George  Tenant,  Farmer  in  the  Lands  of 
Grim  Gribber,'  consists  mainly  of  copies  of  his  reviews.  Among 
the  books  noticed  in  the  volume  are  the  *  immortal '  Minstrel  of 
James  Beattie,  and  The  Cave  of  Morar,  a  poem  by  John  Tait,  the 
Edinburgh  lawyer  who  recovered  and  printed  the  version  of  Fair 
Helen  alluded  to  by  Pennant.  In  an  article  written  early  in  1784 
there  is  an  uncomplimentary  reference  to  Samuel  Johnson.  As 
reported  in  The  Westminster  Magazine,  Dr.  Johnson  had  declared 
that  '  Many  men,  many  women,  and  many  children '  might  have 
written  Dr.  Blair's  Critical  Dissertation  on  the  Poems  of  Ossian. 
Forgetting  that  the  great  English  author  had  praised  the  Sermons 
of  Blair  with  generous  warmth — '  though  the  dog  was  a  Scotchman 
and  a  Presbyterian  ' — Blacklock  wrote :  c  Doctor  Johnson  will  be 
universally  acknowledged  to  have  united  a  great  genius  with 
profound  and  extensive  learning;  but  these  qualities,  however 
eminent,  are  not  only  disfigured  but  almost  counterbalanced  by 
his  hateful  and  incorrigible  affectation.' 

Only  three  of  the  Blacklock  volumes  are  devoted  to  poetry. 
One  of  the  three  consists  of  an  unpublished  translation  from  the 
French  of  Mercier,  entitled  The  Deserter :  a  Tragedy  ;  the  other 
two  are  made  up  of  printed  and  unprinted  poems  on  many  different 
subjects. 

Dr.  Blacklock's  biographer,  Henry  Mackenzie,  author  of  The 
Man  of  Feeling,  after  mentioning  that  in  1756  the  poet  was 
urged — but  urged  in  vain — to  attempt  a  drama,  says  :  *  At  a 
subsequent  period  he  wrote  a  tragedy ;  but  upon  what  subject  his 
relation,  from  whom  I  received  the  intelligence,  cannot  recollect. 
The  manuscript  was  put  into  the  hands  of  Mr.  Crosbie,1  then  an 

1  Andrew  Crosbie,  generally  considered  the  prototype  of  Pleydell,  in  Guy 
Mannering.  Like  Blacklock,  he  was  a  native  of  Dumfriesshire. 


372  Frank  Miller 

eminent  advocate  at  the  Bar  of  Scotland,  but  has  never  since  been 
recovered.'1  Evidently  Mackenzie's  informant  could  state  only 
one  fact  relating  to  the  play  which  had  been  lent  to  Crosbie — that 
it  was  a  tragedy.  The  Deserter  is  a  work  of  that  description  ;  and, 
though  it  exhibits  Blacklock  in  the  character  of  translator  merely, 
it  may  be  the  composition  alluded  to  by  Mackenzie. 

Bound  up  together  in  one  cover  are  a  copy  of  the  1793 
Edition  of  Blacklock's  Poems  and  some  unimportant  manuscript 
pieces.  While  the  last  printed  page  of  the  volume  is  numbered 
216,  the  first  page  of  the  manuscript  part  bears  the  number  377. 
We  may  conclude  that  the  poems  in  writing  originally  belonged 
to  another  volume,  and  that  they  were  transferred  to  their  present 
position  to  supply  what  the  collector  of  Blacklock's  papers  con- 
sidered regrettable  omissions  in  the  quarto  of  1793. 

The  volume  which  has  not  yet  been  noticed  is  richer  in  interest 
than  any  other  in  the  collection.  It  includes  a  copy  of  the  first 
London  edition  of  Blacklock's  Works  and  fifty-three  written 
poems,  occupying  380  quarto  pages.  There  is  no  marking  to 
indicate  that  any  of  the  4  Manuscript  Poems '  are  to  be  found  in 
print ;  but  some  of  them  were  published  by  the  author  himself, 
and  some  by  Mackenzie.  The  earliest  verses  were  written  in 
1745:  the  latest  probably  in  1780,  when  Blacklock  was  almost 
sixty  years  of  age.  Many  of  the  texts  have  brief  marginal  c  notes 
and  explanations/  designed  to  identify  the  men  and  women  cele- 
brated in  his  poetry  under  fictitious  names. 

Prominent  in  the  volume  is  a  play  called  Seraphina^  a  free  trans- 
lation of  the  Cenie  of  D'Happoncourt  de  Grafigny.  While  engaged 
on  this  work,  Dr.  Blacklock,  remembering  the  proceedings  in  con- 
nection with  John  Home's  Douglas,  had  some  fear  that  his  occupa- 
tion might  lead  him  into  trouble  with  the  Church.  Dr.  James 
Beattie,  author  of  'The  Minstrel,  to  whose  friendly  exertions  he  was 
indebted  for  his  degree,  consoled  him  by  arguing  sophisticallv  that 
not  even  the  persecutors  of  Home  would  have  held  that  to  trans- 
late a  drama  was  on  the  same  footing  with  composing  one.  As 
the  poetical  merits  of  Seraphina  are  small,  we  need  not  regret  that 
it  was  allowed  to  remain  in  the  obscurity  of  manuscript. 

In  one  of  his  published  pieces  Blacklock  says  : 

6 1  ne'er  for  satire  torture  common  sense, 
Nor  show  my  wit  at  God's  nor  man's  expense.' 

Sometimes,  however,  he  forgot  these  wise  words,  and  indulged  in 

1  Life  and  Writings  of  Dr.  Blacklock,  prefaced  to  Poems  by  the  late  Reverend  Dr. 
Thomas  Blacklock,  1793,  p.  8. 


Dr.   Blacklock's   Manuscripts  373 

the  composition  of  *  libels.'  In  the  volume  under  consideration 
there  is  an  unpublished  poem  assailing  Lord  Chatham  in  a  fashion 
worthy  of  a  Grub  Street  pamphleteer.  More  real  virulence  is 
displayed  in  some  lampoons  written  on  the  occasion  of  the  poet's 
rejection  at  Kirkcudbright.  Pistapolis^  the  most  pungent  of  these 
Galloway  pasquils,  has  curious  notes  by  the  author  on  the  habits 
and  personal  history  of  the  men  who  were  chiefly  responsible  for 
his  'persecution/  Fortunately  for  his  reputation  as  an  amiable 
and  a  sensible  man,  he  successfully  resisted  the  temptation  to  hand 
Pistapolis  to  the  printers.1 

Not  a  few  of  the  pieces  in  manuscript  are  odes  and  songs. 
Among  the  compositions  of  the  former  class  is  a  version  of  the 
famous  Ode  to  Aurora,  on  Melissa  s  Birthday^  differing  considerably 
from  the  version  published  by  Mackenzie.  The  poem  is  a  tribute 
to  the  '  tender  assiduity '  of  the  author's  wife,  who  was  the 
daughter  of  a  surgeon  of  Dumfries,  named  Joseph  Johnston. 
Several  of  the  Odes  are  addressed  to  the  heroine  of  On  Euanthe  s 
Absence,  one  of  the  best  known  of  Blacklock's  poems.  From  the 
manuscript  notes  already  referred  to,  it  is  clear  that  the  c  person 
called  Euanthe  ' — her  real  name  has  been  carefully  erased — valued 
the  homage  of  the  poet  more  than  the  affection  of  the  man,  and 
discarded  him  for  a  lover  who  *  had  his  sight  entire.'  Blacklock, 
in  a  savage  Ode  to  his  Successful  Rival,  which  he  did  not  hesitate 
to  publish,  calls  his  first  love  c  Clarinda,'  a  name  which  had  for  him 
less  sacred  associations  than  c  Euanthe '  : 

*  Fool !  thus  to  curse  the  man,  whose  every  smart 
Must  pierce  thy  inmost  soul,  must  wound  Clarinda's  heart ! ' 

It  is  pleasant  to  relate  that  when  advanced  in  years  and  estab- 
lished in  fame,  Blacklock  met  the  idol  of  his  youth  again  ;  and 
that  the  '  kind  old  man,'  as  Sir  Walter  Scott  called  him,  wrote  a 
few  more  verses  in  honour  of  *  dear  Euanthe.' 

The  manuscript  songs  in  the  volume  appear  all  to  have  been 
written  after  the  publication  of  the  third  London  edition  of 
Blacklock's  Poems,  1756.  Some  of  them  were  printed  in  James 
Johnson's  The  Scots  Musical  Museum.  Burns  says,  *  He  '  (Black- 
lock),  '  as  well  as  I,  often  gave  Johnson  verses,  trifling  enough, 
perhaps,  but  they  served  as  a  vehicle  to  the  music.'  Dr.  Black- 
lock  contributed  to  the  Museum  fourteen  songs  at  least.  No 
copies  of  those  which  he  wrote  late  in  life,  expressly  for  that 
work,  are  to  be  found  among  his  manuscripts.  But  there  are 

1  The  satire  was  published  for  the  first  time  in  The  Scottish  Historical  Review, 
vol.  iv.  pp.  205-212. 


374  Frank  Miller 

copies  of  Cease,  cease,  my  dear  friend \  to  explore ;  Te  rivers  so  limpid 
and  clear,1  and  other  lyrics  that  were  published,  though  not  for 
the  first  time,  by  James  Johnson. 

Dr.  Blacklock  delighted  to  compose  and  dictate  to  his  amanu- 
enses epistles  in  verse ;  and  the  volume  before  us  contains  a  number 
of '  letters  in  rhyme.'  When  the  writer  of  this  article  received 
the  Blacklock  MSS.  from  Mr.  Duncan,  he  searched  diligently 
among  the  various  addresses  for  references  to  Burns  ;  but  his 
hope  of  discovering  some  was  not  realised.  The  collection  does 
not  embrace  any  pieces  so  late  as  the  two  rhyming  epistles  by 
Blacklock  which  every  admirer  of  Burns  knows  by  heart.  There 
is  a  rhyme  in  the  vernacular  headed  To  the  Rev.  Mr.  Oliver,  on 
Receiving  a  Collection  of  Scotch  Poems  from  him ; 2  but  it  seems  to 
have  been  composed  before  Dr.  Blacklock  became  acquainted  with 
Burns's  verse.  Unlike  his  friend  Dr.  James  Beattie,  who  informs 
us  that  he  '  early  warned '  his  son  '  against  the  use  of  Scottish 
words,  and  other  similar  improprieties,'  Blacklock  loved  the 
vernacular.  A  hearty  contempt  for  Anglified  Scots  is  displayed 
in  these  lines  from  the  Epistle  to  Oliver  : — 

<  Frae  card  should  our  bald  Gutchers  rise, 
How  would  their  sauls  ilk  Oe  despise, 
Wha  southern  phrase,  a  winsome  prize, 

For  their's  could  barter  ? 
Yet  when  the  ape  his  English  tries 
He  takes  a  Tartar. 

The  daw  in  peacock's  feathers  dress' d, 
When  first  he  mingles  wi  the  rest, 
Wow  !  but  he  shaws  an  ally  crest, 

And  pensy  stride  ! 
But  soon  the  birds  the  fool  divest — 

Sae  comes  o'  pride  ! ' 

Among  the  poet's  manuscript  songs  and  addresses,  the  present 
writer  discovered  a  religious  piece  which  especially  interested  him 
— the  hitherto  unpublished  original  of  the  Paraphrase,  In  life's 
gay  morn.  Though  the  sixteenth  Paraphrase  had  generally  been 
attributed  to  Dr.  Blacklock,  the  ascription  had  not  been  made 

1  Stenhouse  erroneously  states  that  the  two  songs  named  were  composed  by 
Blacklock  'on  purpose  for  the  "Museum".'     Both  were  in  print  long  before 
Johnson  began  to  compile  his  work,  the  first  having  appeared  in  A  Collection  of 
Original  Poems  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Blacklock,  and  other  Scotch  Gentlemen,  1 760,  and  the 
second  in  The  Edinburgh  Magazine  and  Review  for  1774. 

2  The  clergyman  addressed  was  probably  Stephen  Oliver,  ordained  Minister 
of  Innerleithen,  1755  >  translated  to  Maxton,  1776. 


Dr.   Blacklock's  Manuscripts  375 

with  full  confidence.1  The  writer  was,  therefore,  glad  to  be  able 
to  advance  evidence  which  substantiated  the  blind  poet's  claim. 
It  is  unnecessary  to  give  the  complete  text  of  Blacklock's  poem 
here  ; 2  but  the  two  stanzas  which  formed  the  Paraphrase,  or  rather 
the  basis  of  the  Paraphrase,  may  be  inserted  : 

A  POEM  FROM  ECCLES.,  Chap,  xii.,  Verse  i. 

4  In  life's  gay  dawn,  when  sprightly  youth 

With  vital  ardour  glows, 
When  beauteous  innocence  and  truth 

Their  loveliest  charms  disclose, 
Deep  on  thy  spirit's  ductile  frame, 

Ere  wholly  prepossess'd, 
Be  thy  Creator's  glorious  name 

And  character  impress'd, 

For  soon  the  shades  of  grief  and  pain 

Shall  tinge  thy  brightest  days ; 
And  poignant  ills,  a  nameless  train, 

Encompass  all  thy  ways. 
Soon  shall  thy  heart  the  woes  of  age 

In  piercing  groans  deplore  ; 
And,  with  sad  retrospect,  presage 

Returns  of  joy  no  more  ! ' 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  poem  as  it  left  Blacklock's  hands 
is  much  inferior  to  the  amended  version  familiar  to  every  old- 
fashioned  Scottish  Presbyterian.  The  emendations  were  certainly 
made  by  some  writer  of  uncommon  taste  and  skill — probably  by 
John  Logan  or  William  Cameron.  When  most  of  the  nineteenth 
century  hymns  that  are  sung  in  Scottish  Churches  at  the  present 
time  have  passed  into  merited  oblivion,  these  beautiful  eighteenth 
century  verses  will  be  admired  : 

'  In  life's  gay  morn,  when  sprightly  youth 

With  vital  ardour  glows, 
And  shines,  in  all  the  fairest  charms 

Which  beauty  can  disclose, 
Deep  on  thy  soul,  before  its  pow'rs 

Are  yet  by  vice  enslav'd, 
Be  thy  Creator's  glorious  name 

And  character  engrav'd. 

1  See   Maclagan's   Scottish   Paraphrases,   pp.    32-3,    and    Julian's    Dictionary    of 
Hymnology,  p.   144. 

2  It  is  printed  in  The  Poets  of  Dumfriesshire,  Glasgow,  1910. 


376 


Dr.   Blacklock's  Manuscripts 

For  soon  the  shades  of  grief  shall  cloud 

The  sunshine  of  thy  days  ; 
And  cares,  and  toils,  in  endless  round, 

Encompass  all  thy  ways. 
Soon  shall  thy  heart  the  woes  of  age 

In  mournful  groans  deplore, 
And  sadly  muse  on  former  joys, 


'  » 


That  now  return  no  more. 


FRANK   MILLER. 


Sixteenth  Century  Rental  of  Haddington 

AMONGST  the  writs  in  the  charter  chest  of  the  Marquess  of 
Tweeddale  at  Tester  there  is  a  small  paper  book  of  twelve 
pages,  measuring  1 2  inches  by  4  inches,  and  endorsed,  '  Rental 
buik  of  hadingtoun  to  know  ye  aikeris  of  ye  provestre  of  bothanes 
by  it/  This  last  explains  the  presence  of  the  record  at  Tester. 
In  1592  the  kirklands  of  Bothans  were  sold  to  James,  Lord  Hay 
of  Tester,1  and  with  them  passed  the  charters,  etc.,  of  the  College. 
Written  in  a  hand  of  the  latter  part  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the 
record  is  only  a  copy,  made  for  the  purpose  stated  above,  and  a 
few  words  are  unintelligible.  It  is  undated,  but  internal  evidence 
proves  that  the  rental  must  have  been  compiled  about  1560.  The 
names  of  the  following  proprietors  prove  this  :  Robert  Lawson 
of  Humbie,  who  succeeded  his  father  after  1549  and  before  1556,2 
and  Alexander  Tule  of  Garmilton,3  who  succeeded  after  1530,  is 
mentioned  in  1549  and  1561,  and  was  dead  before  1573. 

The  two  last  entries  are  mere  jottings  quite  distinct  from  the 
rental,  and  their  date,  1507,  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  rest. 

C.  CLELAND  HARVEY. 


NOTES. 

1.  Mr.  Walter  Hay,  Provost  of  Bothans,  sold  the  Kirklands  on  the  9th 
May,  1592,  to  his  kinsman,  William  Hay,  who  resigned  them  next  day  to 
James,  Lord  Hay  of  Tester  (R.M.S.  6  Sept.  1592). 

2.  James  Lawson  of  Humbie  appears  on  record  in  March,  1548-9  (Ld. 
High  Treas.  Accounts,  v.  IX.  p.  293),  and  Robert  Lawson  of  Humbie  on 
the  nth  Janry.  1555-6  (Ex.  Rolls,  v.  XVIII.  p.  597). 

3.  Walter   Tule    of    Garmilton   appears   on   record    23rd   Oct.    1508 
{Tweeddale  Charters),  Robert  T.  of  G.   23  May,  1530  (Memorials  of  the 
Earls  of  Haddington,  II.  p.  252),  Alexander,  27  May,  1549  (Swintons  of  that 
Ilk,  p.  cxx),  and   3   Novr.   1561    (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  Report,  XII.  pt.  8, 
p.    150),  and  John   Tule  of  Garmilton,   7    Deer.    1573   (Cal.  of  Laing 
Charters,  No.  885). 

2B 


378 


C.   Cleland  Harvey 


RENTAL  BUIK  OF   HADINGTOUN. 

TO    KNOW    YE    AIKERIS    OF    YE    PROVESTRE    OF    BOTHANES    BY    IT. 

Heir  followis  ye  rentall  of  harmonflatt  beginnand  at  ye  eist  syde. 


Item  in  ye  first  wm  homeis  aiker  and 
now  Jon  thomesonis  aiker  and  fy  ve 
rude  and  xij  fall  allowit  for  ye 
gall  (gait  ?)  payand  of  maill  be  zeir 

v.  sh. 

Item  wm  reidpethis  aiker  and  now 
James  homeis  fy  ve  rude  payand  of 
maill  be  zeir  v.  sh. 

Item  ro'  greinlawis  aiker  and  now 
Dowglas  airis  of  rawburne  pay- 
and zeirlie  iiij  sh. 

Item  nicolass  swintonis  aiker  and 
now  george  batchcattis  aiker  iiij  sh. 

Item  lawrence  patrusonis  and  now 
to  ane  gyll  (Jle  ?)  in  nor1  bervik 
ane  aiker  iiij  sh. 

Item  wm  fuirdis  aiker  and  now  nicoll 
swyntonis  iiij  sh. 

Item  Jon  of  greinlawis  aiker  and  now 
Jon  forrestis  iiij  sh. 

Item  thomas  alesonis  wyffis  aiker 
and  now  of  ye  Jle  of  nor1  bervik 
payand  iiij  sh. 

Item  ro*  Inglastonis  aiker  and  now 
ye  trinitie  Jle  wl  in  or  parroche 
payand  iiij  sh. 


Item  Jon  aytonis  aiker  and  now 
ard  cuitlaris  airis  payand  v  sh. 

Item  rol  kirkaldyis  aiker  and  now 
Jon  aytonis  wyffis  v  sh. 

Item  James  cokburnis  aiker  and  now 
hary  cokburnis  payand  vij  sh. 

Item  wm  wollis  aiker  and  now 
Jon  Dowglas  baxter  payand  iiij  sh. 

Item  wm  clerkis  and  now  James 
oliphantis  aiker  iiij  sh. 

Item  Jon  curryis  and  now  ye  ane 
half  to  Jon  hainschaw  and  ye  vyir 
to  ro*  burwnis  iij  rude  and  xxviij 
fall  payand  iij  sh.  vj  d. 

Item  allane  cragis  aiker  and  now  ye 
airis  of  alexr  ogilvie  iiij  sh. 

Item  rol  spottiswood  and  now  Johne 
forrestis  aiker  v  sh.  iij  d. 

Item  wm  baxteris  aiker  and  now 
Jon  forrestis  v  sh.  iiij  d. 

Item  Johne  temp  -  -  His  aiker  and 
now  wm  fowlaris  airis  ane  aiker 
fyve  rude  xxvj  fall  payand  v.  sh. 

Item  Jon  mandersonis  aiker  and  now 
to  ane  altar  of  bothane  kirk  ane 
aiker  and  sex  fall  iiij  sh. 


The  mylflatt  beginnand  at  lethane  burne 


Item    hew    robertsonis    aiker    and 

now  mr  dauid  boruikis  payand 

iiij  sh. 
Item  wm  cokburnis  aiker  and  now 

wm  ogillis  iiij  sh. 

Item  katherine  flemyngis  aiker  and 

now  mr  hew  congiltonis  payand 

iij  sh.  vj  d. 
Item  rol  congiltonis  aiker  and  now 

ard  cutlaris  airis  iiij  sh. 

Item  cristiane  cokburnis  aiker  and 

now  harye  cokburnis    iiij  sh  vj  d. 
Item  Jon  patrusonis  aiker  and  now 

hary  cokburnis  iij  sh  vij  d. 


Item  thomas  Inglistonis  aiker  and 
now  wm  gibsonis  thre  rude  and 
(blank)  fall  iij  sh.  x  d. 

Item  Jon  hendersonis  aiker  now 
mr  dauid  borthuikis  thre  rude  and 
xvij  fall  payand  iij  sh  vj  d. 

Item  ard  leirmondis  aiker  and  now 
nicoll  swintonis  thre  rude  and  ten 
fall  payand  iij  sh.  iiij  d. 

Item  Jon  banis  aiker  and  now  george 
symsonis  thre  rude  ane  fall  payand 

iiij  sh. 

Item  Jon  clerksonis  aiker  and  now 
Jon  maris  thre  rude  v  sh. 


T«^, 


A  Sixteenth  Century  Rental  379 


Item  ane  aiker  of  Jon  crummyis  now  Item  thomas  karrand  airis  and  now 

to  ye  college  of  ye  bothanis    v  sh.  adame  wilsonisthrerude  xxxiiij  d. 

Item  ro*  aitkinsoun  and  Jon  forrest  Item  Jon  Johnestonis  and  now  adame 

iij  rude  xix  fall  payand  wilsonis  iiij  rude  and  ix  fall 

iij  sh.  iiij  d.  iij  sh.  iiij  d. 

Item   Jon   curryis    aiker   and    now  Item   alexr  curryis  aiker  and  now 

adame  wilsonis  thre  rude  xxxiiij  d.  (blank]  is  fyve  rude  payand     v  sh. 

The  medow  aikeris  begynnand  at  ye  eist  syde. 

James  oliphant  ane  aiker  ye  laird  of  bass  ane  aiker          iiij  sh. 

Jon  forrest  tua  aikeris  ilk  aiker  iiij  sh.  James  home  tua  aikeris            viij  sh. 

The    college    of    ye    bothanis   thre  thomas  dikeson  for  aiker  ilk  aiker 

aikeris  ilk  aiker                      iiij  sh.  iiij  sh. 

Jon  forrest  thre  aikeris  ilk  aiker  Item  syme  woddis  airis  tua  aikeris 

iiij  sh.  ilk  aiker  iiij  sh                      viij  sh. 

The  rentall  of  ye  burrois  rudis  begynnand  at  ye  eist  syde  of  ye  sydgaitt 

along  ye  freir  croft     ilk  rude                             viij  d. 

Item  rol  schorthois  airis  ane  rude  Jon  waikis  land  ane  rude 

viij  d.  the  land  p  teining  to  ye  rude  altar 

edward  wolfis  tua  rudis             xvj  d.  tua  rude 

Ro*  wolfis  tua  rudis                   xvj  d.  Jon  cokburnis  land  thre  rude 

The    laird    of    clerkingtonis    thre  James  fortoun  tua  rude 

rudis  The  laird  of  colstoun  ane  rude 

Wm  lawson  for  rude  The  rude  altare  ane  rude 

Nicoll  reid  ane  rude  The  freir  minores  ane  rude 

re'  zoung  ane  rude  the  rude  altare  thre  rude 

Sr  Jon  congiltoun  ane  rude  Wm  ogill  ane  rude 

Jon  collelawis  land  ane  rude  The  rude  altare  vyir  for  rude 

The  southsyde  of  poldraitt.     ilk  rude  v  d. 

Item  byris  orchard  besouth  ye  kirk  thomas  symsone  ane  rude 

for  rude                                    xx  d.  the  laird  of  lethingtoun  ane  rude 

the  freiris  land  tua  rudis  Jon  millaris  airis  thre  rude 

The  west  syde  of  poldraitt  begynand  at  ye  myl  dam     ilk  rude        v  d. 

Item  thomas  Dikesoun  tua  rude  x  d.  James  tuedy  tua  rude 

george  campbell  tua  rude  the  laird  of  colstoun  tua  rude 

Tohne  haywie  (i.e.  hathwie)  ane  rude  mr  bartill  kello  ane  rude 

thomas  gothray  ane  rude    '  the  laird  of  colstoun  ane  rude 

Sanct  Johnnis  altare  ane  rude  James  cokburne  ane  rude 

The  southsyde  of  Wirlingstreit     ilk  rude  v  d. 

Wm  ogill  thre  rude  xv  d.     Jonet  ogill  sex  rude 

the  laird  of  blanss  for  rude  thomas  dikesoun  foF  rude 

W-  oeill  fyve  rude  the  laird  of  blanss  111  rude 

James  home  vj  rude  henry  lawsoun  v  rude 


38° 


C.  Cleland  Harvey 


North  syd  of  Wirling  streitt     ilk  rude  vj  d. 

Thomas  dikesoun  xiiij  rude      vij  sh.      mr  bartill  kello  xv  rude 
The  laird  of  blanss  xv  rude 

The  westsyd  of  ye  sydgaitt     ilk  rude  v  d. 


Item  wm  ogill  tua  rude 
Item  wm  ogill  vyir  tua  rude 
mr  Jon  hepburnis  airis  tua  rude 
the  laird  of  colstonis  tua  rude 
James  fortoun  ane  rude 
henry  clerkis  airis  ane  rude 
hary  cokburne  three  rude 
James  dikesoun  ane  rude 
r  wm  broun  tua  rude 


m 


Jon  dowglas  ane  rude 


laird  of  wauchtoun  tua  rude 
wm  ogill  ane  rude 
wm  ogill  ane  rude 
Sr  Jon  greinlaw  ane  rude 
george  waikis  airis  ane  rude 
the  laird  of  garmiltoun  tua  rude 
patrik  richartsonis  airis  ane  rude 
Sr  hector  Sinclair  tua  rude 
Sr  Jon  greinlaw  tua  rude 
thomas  millare  tua  rude 


The  southsyde  of  ye  crocegaitt  begynnand  at  ye  eist  Nuik     ilk  rude      v  d. 


Item  sanct  Johnnis  land  ane  rude  v  d. 

Jon  sydserfis  land  ane  rude 

thomas  puntoun  ane  rude 

Sr  Jon  lawty  ane  rude 

Jon  Wauchis  airis  ane  rude 

wm  home  ane  rude 

Jon  collelaw  ane  rude 

wm  gibsoun  ane  rude 

James  oliphant  ane  rude 

Johne  peirsoun  ane  rude 

the  laird  of  rouchlaw  ane  rude 

thomas  fyldar  ane  rude 

Sir  thomas  mauchlyne  ane  rude 

Johne  riclingtonis  airis  ane  rude 

Johne  kemp  ane  rude 

the  landis  of  sanct  ninianis  chapell 

tua  rude 

ro*  vauss  tua  rude 
Dauid  hepburne  ane  rude 
Nicolas  swintoun  ane  rude 
Wm  campbell  tua  rude 
thomas  dikesoun  ane  rude 
george  craig  ane  rude 
henry  campbell  ane  rude 
Jon  quhintene  ane  rude 
mr  bartill  kello  ane  rude 
Wm  broun  ane  rude 
alexr  todrikis  airis  ane  rude 
James  sandersoun  ane  rude 
the  laird  of  garmiltoun  ane  rude 


mr  hew  congiltoun  ane  rude 

adame  cokburne  tua  rude 

alexr  gibsoun  tua  rude 

ro*  thomesoun  ane  rude 

alexr  barnis  tua  rude 

hary  cokburne  ane  rude 

Jon  romano  airis  tua  rude 

Andro  quhyte  ane  rude 

Wm  langlandis  and  ro*  broun  ane 

rude 

cryspianis  altar  ane  rude 
Jon  feild  ane  rude 
Jon  richartsonis  airis  ane  rude 
george  wod  ane  rude 
george  woddis  airis  ane  rude 
patrik  crummy  tua  rude 
Jon  aytoun  for  rude 
wm  veneis  tua  rude 
Jon  blak  ane  rude 
m  garet  bailleis  ane  rude 
Jon  sibbatsoun  and  marioun  stevin- 

stoun  ane  rude 
alexr  gibsoun  ane  rude 
archibald  quhentene  ane  rude 
thomas  spotiswode  ane  rude 
Jon  richartsonis  airis  tua  rude 
Jon  burnis  dochter  ane  rude 
Mungo  allane  ane  rude 
george  bathcat  tua  rude 


A  Sixteenth  Century   Rental  381 

The  Nort  syde  of  ye  toun  beginnand  at  ye  West  port. 


first  henry  lawsoun  for  rude 

Jon  Forrest  ane  rude 

patrik  greinlawis  airis  ane  rude 

Jon  aytoun  ane  rude 

Jon  forrest  thre  rude 

Archie  cutlairis  airis  thre  rude 

the  laird  of  garmiltoun  tua  rude 

cuthbert  symsoun  tua  rude 

Wm  foullaris  airis  tua  rude 

Jon  hainschaw  tua  rude 

Wm  robesonis  airis  ane  rude 

george  symsone  thre  rude 

Mr  dauid  borthuik  ane  rude 

rol  fawsydis  airis  ane  rude 

Johnne  eistonis  airis  ane  rude 

Alexr  gibsoun  ane  rude 

My  loird  home  thre  rude  ye  ane  half 

to  sanct  Jon  ye  vthir  to  ye  toun 
Jon  grayis  land  ane  rude 


Mr  dauid  borthuik  ane  rude 

Adame  bagbie  ane  rude 

Mr  dauid  borthuik  thre  rude 

Sr  ro*  lawu  ane  rude 

the  laird  of  lethingtoun  ane  rude 

Jon  thyn  ane  rude 

the  mr  of  haillis  thre  ruidis 

petir  cokburne  ane  rude 

henry  thomesoun  ane  rude 

the  Minister  of  peblis  ane  rude 

elene  patersoun  ane  rude 

the  laird  of  Innerley*  tua  rude 

Sanct  Ninianis  chapell  ane  rude 

Jon  aytoun  for  rude 

Jon  forres  tua  rude 

the  laird  of  congiltoun  ane  rude 

barnard  thomesoun  ane  rude 

Johne  banis  ane  rude 

The  pryores  of  hadingtoun  tua  rude 


The  West  syde  of  the  hardgaitt. 


Jon  airthis  airis  tua  rude 

Jon  dudgeonis  airis  ane  rude 

Jon  millare  ane  rude 

James  home  for  Keris  land  awand  to 
ye  toun — iiij  sh  and  for  burrow 
maill  v  d. 

Item  James  home  vyir  tua  rude  ilk 
rude  v  d. 

Wm  clapennis  airis  tua  rude 

rol  douglas  airis  ane  rude 

patrik  congiltounis  airis  ane  rude 

ro*  beiris  land  tua  rude 


the  college  of  ye  bothanis  ane  rude 
Jon  mason  ane  rude 
george  richartsoun  tua  rude 
—  zuill  of  garmiltoun  tua  rude 
Nicoll  sydeserfis  airis  ane  rude 
James  howesonis  airis  ane  rude 
Jon  gilzeanis  land  ane  rude 
henry  thomesoun  ane  rude 
rol  Noreis  airis  ane  rude 
Thomas  vauss  fyve  rude 
Jon  forres  land  for  rude 
the  college  of  ye  bothanis  tua  rude 


The  nort  syde  of  ye  heuchheid. 


Item  thomas  darling  ane  rude 
george  elwandis  airis  tua  rude 
Wm  gibsoun  tua  rude 
James  oliphant  for  rude 
thome  arnot  ane  rude 


The  preistis  of  ye  bothanis  sevin 
ruidis 
home  vj  rude 


w 


Thome  arnot  thre  rude 
Wm  homis  land  xiiij  rude 


Alexr  zule  of  garmiltoun  iij  rude 
James  hornis  land  ix  rude 


The  south  syde  of  ye  sandi  gaitt. 

Richart  getguidis  land  tua  rude 


C.  Cleland  Harvey 


The  eist  syde 

The  freiris  Minor  of  hadingtoun  ane 

rude 

wm  dowglas  airis  ane  rude 
Jon  sammellis  airis  ane  rude 
ane  waist  rowm  in  ye  townis  hand 
Thomas  vauss  thre  rude  set  in  few 

to  ye  toun  payand  zeirlie      iij  sh. 
Johne  masoun  ane  rude 
Johne  banis  airis  tua  rude 


of  ye  hardgaitt. 

thomas  banis  thre  rude 
lowrie  getguidis  airis  ane  rude 
petir  gottray  and  wm  dudgeonis  airis 

ane  rude 

Johne  Wauchis  airis  ane  rude 
Alexr  brownis  airis  ane  rude 
george  hepburne  thre  rude 
wm  broun  thre  ruidis 
The  He  of  Eddrem  (sic)  iij  ruidis 


The  gait  foiranent  ye  freiris. 

Item  Jn°  dowglas  tua  rude  Adame  wilsoun  tua  rude 

Jon  hyndis  airis  ane  rude 

The  North  syde  of  the  crocegait  beginnand  at  ye  eist  nuke. 


Johnne  hyndis  airis  ane  rude 

Andro  wilsoun  ane  rude 

wm  ogill  thre  rude 

Adame  wilsoun  tua  rude 

Johnne  dowglas  tua  rude 

The  land  of  halyruidhous  ane  rude 

thome  edingtoun  ane  rude 

Sr  Jon  greinlaw  ane  rude 

Johnne  hathowie  ane  rude 

thome  purves  tua  rude 

Johnne  forrest  ane  rude 

James  hathowie  ane  rude 

The  priores  of  hadingtoun  tua  rude 

Thomas  edingtoun  thre  rude 

Johnne  thomesoun  ane  rude 

Johnne  forrest  ane  rude 

The  smyddy  raw. 

Robert  anderson  and  alexr  barnis  tua  James  cuik  ane  rude 

rude  cuthbert  symsone  tua  rude 

Adame  cokburne  thre  rude  george  bathcat  tua  rude 
Robert  fawsydis  airis  ane  rude 

The  southsyde  of  ye  tolbuy*  gaitt  of  ye  Myddil  raw  beginnand  at  ye 

West  end. 


Wm  home  tua  rude 

george  bathcat  ane  rude 

henry  lawsoun  ane  rude 

Dauid  dalzellis  airis  ane  rude 

Johnne  dargis  airis  ane  rude 

Alexr  gibsoun  ane  rude 

Robert  lawsoun  of  humby  ane  rude 

Robert  broun  ane  rude 

Robert  strauchis  (?)  airis  tua  rude 

Sanct  blaisis  altare  ane  rude 

Johnne  forrest  tua  rude 

Dauid  forrest  tua  rude 

Wm  campbell  tua  rude 

Sr  thomas  stevin  tua  rude 

James  Cokburne  tua  rude 


Item  wm  ogill  fyve  rude 

Wm  congiltoun  tua  rude 

Wm  ogill  vyir  tua  rude 

mr  archibald  cokburnis  airis  ane  rude 

The  laird  of  wauchtoun  ane  rude 

Sr  hector  Sinclair  tua  rude 

alexr  seytoun  thre  rude 


Johnne  dowglais  ane  rude 
henry  lawsoun  ane  rude 
george  bathcat  ane  rude 
thomas  puntoun  ane  rude 
Wm  home  ane  rude 
James  spottiswode  tua  rude 


A  Sixteenth  Century  Rental  383 

Kilpairis. 

Johne  hathewie  tua  rude  Johnne  blair  tua  rude 

thomas  puntoun  tua  rude  Johnne  dowglas  tua  rude 

Thomas  parkie  ane  rude 

Item  of  ilk  hous  of  ye  Nungait  yat  ye  reik  cummis  out  of      v  d  in  ye  zeir. 
Item  of  ilk  rude  in  ye  Giffertgaitt  v  d  in  ye  zeir 

A  Tenement  of  land  provest  (sic]  be  ye  bailleis  of  hadingtoun  lyand  on  ye 
north  syde  of  ye  tolbuy*  betuix  a  land  of  Johnne  halyburtoun  on  ye  eist  pt 
and  a  land  of  umqle  dauid  greinlawis  on  the  west  to  george  Sinclair  of  blanss 
for  ane  mk  of  @nuell  zeirlie  out  of  ye  said  tenement  the  zeir  of  god  jaj  vc 
and  sevin  zeiris. 

Ane  vthir  tenement  of  land  provest  (sic)  be  ye  baillieis  of  hadingtoun 
lyand  on  ye  southsyde  of  ye  tolbuy*  gait  betuix  a  land  of  williame  sinclare  on 
ye  west  pt  and  a  land  of  Richard  crumby  on  the  eist  pt  To  george  sinclare 
of  blanss  for  for  schillingis  @nuell  jaj  vc  and  sevin  zeiris. 


The  Origin  of  the  Convention  of  the   Royal 
Burghs  of  Scotland 

With  a  Note  on 

The  Connection  of  the  Chamberlain  with  the  Burghs 

LENGTH  of  days  cannot  be  said  to  be  a  characteristic  of 
Scottish  institutions,  for  few  have  been  able  to  survive  the 
union  with  England,  and  of  those  which  have  not  disappeared 
the  Court  of  Session  and  the  General  Assembly  only  date  from 
the  sixteenth  century.  The  most  venerable  survivor  is  the  Con- 
vention of  the  Burghs  which,  under  some  form  and  name,  seems 
to  have  existed  from  earlier  times.  The  history  of  the  Scottish 
royal  burghs  as  a  whole  presents  some  unique  features,  and  this 
assembly,  which  exercised  large  powers  of  control  and  of  regula- 
tion of  burghal  affairs,  is  not  the  least  interesting  of  these. 
Charters  and  legislation  granted  to  the  royal  burghs  rights  of 
self-government  and  exclusive  trading  privileges,  and  during  the 
middle  ages  they  seem  to  have  pursued  the  development  of  their 
commerce  and  industry  with  the  encouragement  of  parliament 
and  of  the  crown,  unhampered  by  interference  from  the  nobles. 
During  the  thirteenth  century  they  were  flourishing  communi- 
ties, and,  though  the  war  with  England  put  an  end  to  their 
prosperity  for  a  time,  they  seem  to  have  begun  to  recover  by 
the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century  and  during  the  fifteenth 
their  trade  and  industry  developed  and  increased.  This  economic 
growth  was  not  unaccompanied  by  constitutional  development 
for  from  a  very  early  period  mention  is  made  and  accounts  are 
given  of  the  proceedings  of  burghal  assemblies — of  the  Four 
Burghs,  the  Court  of  the  Four  Burghs,  the  Parliament  of  the 
Court  of  the  Four  Burghs — while  the  commissioners  of  burghs 
gave  decisions  in  judicial  cases,  became  responsible  for  the  pay- 
ment of  ransoms,  recommended  legislation  and  convened  together 
for  various  purposes,  independently  of  parliament,  before  the  end 
of  the  fifteenth  century.  In  the  sixteenth  century  economic  affairs 


Convention  of  the  Royal  Burghs        385 

were  even  more  important ;  it  became  more  necessary  to  defend 
the  privileges  of  the  royal  and  free  burghs  against  encroachments, 
and  their  meetings  became  more  frequent.  From  the  middle  of 
the  century  full  records  of  the  proceedings  of  the  convention  of 
the  burghs  were  preserved  and  soon  after  that  the  meetings  were 
held  every  year. 

It  is  the  purpose  of  this  paper  to  trace  the  connection  of  the 
earlier  burghal  assemblies  with  the  fully  developed  convention,  and 
at  the  same  time  to  describe  the  changes  in  their  constitution  and 
the  growth  of  their  functions.  By  the  beginning  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  the  convention  was  exercising  many  powers.  It 
assessed  the  share,  a  sixth  part,  of  national  taxation  which  was 
paid  by  the  burghs.  It  guarded  the  privileges  of  the  royal  and 
free  burghs,  maintaining  their  exclusive  right  of  engaging  in 
foreign  trade,  and  it  helped  individual  burghs  to  resist  encroach- 
ments by  neighbouring  gentry.  It  made  many  regulations  as  to 
trade  and  industry,  weights  and  measures  and  burghal  adminis- 
tration, and  also  made  some  attempts  to  develop  manufactures  and 
fishing.  The  king  and  the  council  often  consulted  the  convention, 
and  it  made  representations  to  them  and  to  parliament  about 
matters  affecting  the  burghs.  Appeal  was  made  to  it  in  cases 
of  quarrels  between  burghs,  and  the  convention  exercised  certain 
considerable  though  undefined  powers  in  altering  or  authorising 
alterations  in  the  setts  of  burghs  and  of  ratifying  alienations  of 
their  common  good.  The  convention  consisted  of  representatives  of 
all  the  royal  and  free  burghs,  presided  over  by  an  elected  president, 
generally  the  provost  of  the  burgh  where  the  commissioners  met. 

This  assembly  is  said  to  have  been  a  development  of  the  court 
of  the  four  burghs,  an  institution  whose  history  is  difficult  to 
trace,  as  its  records  have  entirely  disappeared  and  there  are  but 
few  references  to  the  court,  its  constitution,  procedure  or  business 
in  other  documents.  The  four  burghs  were  originally  Edinburgh, 
Roxburgh,  Berwick  and  Stirling,  the  most  important  in  the  south 
of  Scotland.  How  and  when  the  court  originated  cannot  be  told. 
The  earliest  reference  to  the  c  Four  Burghs  '  is  in  the  name  of 
the  burghal  code  { Leges  Quatuor  Burgorum.'  The  earlier  chap- 
ters of  the  laws  are  almost  identical  with  the  customs  of  Newcastle- 
on-Tyne,  which  claim  to  date  from  Henry  I.'s  time,  and  probably 
only  these  chapters  come  from  David  I.,  to  whom  the  whole  code 
is  attributed.  These  form  c  a  nucleus  of  laws  deriving  from  the 
first  half  of  the  twelfth  century '  which  *  has  gathered  to  it  other 
laws  of  many  dates/  The  earliest  transcript,  the  Berne  MS.,  was 


386  Theodora  Keith 

probably  written  about  1270,  and  therefore  the  laws  must  have 
been  codified  before  that  date.1  They  were  probably  the  custom 
in  different  burghs  both  in  Scotland  and  in  England2  and  the 
code  may  have  received  the  name  of  the  four  burghs  because  they 
existed  as  an  association  to  which  application  could  be  made  by 
other  burghs  as  to  existing  customs.  Apart  from  the  name  of  the 
laws  the  first  mention  of  the  four  burghs  is  in  a  decision  referred 
in  1292  'super  legem  et  consuetudinem  Burgorum  per  quatuor 
Burgos/  in  a  plea  held  at  Edinburgh  before  the  Custodians  of  the 
kingdom  of  Scotland.  Margery  Moyne  sued  Roger  Bertilmeu, 
executor  of  her  late  husband  William,  for  two  hundred  marks 
which  the  said  William  had  given  her.  Roger's  defence  was  that 
William  had  not  left  enough  to  pay  his  debts  and  that  the 
creditors  should  be  satisfied  first.  Margery  then  asserted  that 
hers  was  the  principal  debt  and  ought  to  be  paid  first  according 
to  the  custom  of  the  burghs.  Roger  demanded  an  appeal  to  the 
law  of  the  burghs,  to  which  Margery  agreed,  and  the  four  burghs 
declared  that  the  law  of  the  burghs  was  that  the  claim  of  the 
dower  was  the  principal  debt  and  ought  to  be  paid  before  other 
debts,  and  sentence  was  given  accordingly.3  The  appeal  may  have 
been  made  to  the  court  of  the  four  burghs. 

In  the  next  reference  the  burgesses  of  the  four  burghs  are  found 
making  an  ordinance  or  declaring  a  custom.  In  1295  'It  was 
decretid  and  ordanit  be  the  worthy  and  noble  burges  of  Berewyk 
Edinburghe  (Roxburgh)  and  Stirling  ...  at  the  abbay  of  the 
haly  cros  of  Edinburghe '  that  ships,  etc.,  and  horses  did  not 
pertain  to  the  heir  heritably,  but  nevertheless  the  best  palfrey 
went  to  the  heir,  if  it  was  not  given  to  the  church  or  to  some 
religious  man,  in  which  case  the  heir  could  have  the  next  best. 
Also,  a  burgess  might  leave  his  armour  and  utensils  where  he 
wished  only  the  heir  should  have  the  principal  armour  and 
utensils.4  This  is  an  addition  to  the  law  in  the  code,  '  Of 
thyngis  pertenand  to  the  burges  ayre,'  concerning  the  household 
geir  and  plenishing.5  The  burgesses  of  the  four  burghs  therefore 

1  Mary  Bateson,  Borough  Customs  (Selden  Society),  i.  1. 

2  Ancient  Laws  and  Customs  of  the  Burghs  of  Scotland  (Scottish  Burgh  Records 
Society),  i.  48,  49,  55. 

*Rotu&  Parliament,  i.  107-8.  4  Acts  of  the  Parliament  of  Scotland,  i.  724. 

6  Ancient  Laws,  i.  56.  Cp.  Acts,  Scotland,  ii.  107.  Item  anent  the  aiersschipe  of 
movabill  gudis  that  the  aieris  of  baronis  gentilmen  ande  frehaldaris  sail  haue  It 
is  statute  and  ordanit  that  the  saide  aieris  sail  haif  the  best  of  like  thing  and  efter 
the  statute  of  the  burow  lawis  and  as  is  contenyt  in  the  samyn. 


Convention  of  the  Royal  Burghs        387 

declared  customs  and  made  ordinances,  which  may  often  have 
meant  putting  an  official  seal  on  custom  or  giving  a  wider  sphere 
to  local  usage.  These  two  entries  concern  an  assembly  of  bur- 
gesses, which  may  have  been  the  same  as  the  court  referred  to  in 
1345  when  Edward  III.  was  told  by  the  community  of  Berwick 
that  it  had  for  long  been  the  custom  in  Scotland  that  appeals  by 
pursuer  or  defender  from  sentences  in  burgh  courts  could  be 
heard  at  Haddington  by  the  chamberlain  and  sixteen  good  men 
from  the  four  burghs  of  Berwick,  Stirling,  Roxburgh,  and  Edin- 
burgh. And  as  the  men  of  the  three  latter  places  adhered  to  the 
king's  enemies  they  could  not  meet  with  the  burgesses  of  Ber- 
wick, and  so  pleas  remained  undetermined  to  the  great  hurt  of 
many.  The  king  granted  that  these  pleas  might  come  before  the 
guardian  and  mayor  and  twelve  burgesses  of  Berwick.1  The 
Scottish  king  had  also  to  make  provision  for  the  dislocation  caused 
by  the  war,  and  in  1368  it  was  decreed  that,  as  Berwick  and 
Roxburgh,  which  were  two  of  the  burghs  which  of  old  had  made 
the  court  of  the  chamberlain  held  once  a  year  at  Haddington  to 
hear  judgments  contradicted  before  him  in  his  ayres,  were  held 
by  the  English,  Linlithgow  and  Lanark  should  be  substituted  for 
them.2  The  four  burghs  therefore  had  another,  a  judicial  capacity, 
in  which  they  attended  at  a  court  presided  over  by  the  king's 
chamberlain,  where  sentences  given  in  burgh  courts  and  in  the 
ayres  of  the  chamberlain  were  revised. 

A  law  of  Robert  III.  asserted  that  all  dooms  falsed  or  gainsaid 
in  burgh  courts  should  be  determined  in  Haddington  before  the 
chamberlain  and  four  burgesses  of  each  of  the  four  burghs.  It 
also  gives  the  c  man  ere  of  dome  falsing ' — '  Gif  ony  party  uill  fals 
a  dome  he  aucht  to  say  thus  This  dome  is  fals  stynkand  and  rottin 
in  the  self  and  tharto  I  streik  a  borch  and  that  I  will  preiff.'3  One 
of  James  I.'s  acts  declared  further  that  he  who  would  false  a 
doom  c  sal  nocht  remufe  oute  of  the  place  that  he  standis  in  quhen 
the  dome  is  gevin  na  zit  be  avisit  na  spek  with  na  man  quhil  the 
dome  be  agayn  callit  ande  that  salbe  wlin  the  tyme  that  a  man 
may  gang  esily  XL  payses.' 4  This  Stair  characterises  as  a  *  very 
rude  and  peremptor  way.'  The  court  consisted  of  three  or  four 
of  the  c  maist  discret '  burgesses  of  the  four  burghs,  with  sufficient 
commission  summoned  by  letter  to  Haddington  to  appear  before 
the  chamberlain,  and  all  judgments  again  said  in  burgh  courts 

1  Rotuli  Scotiae,  i.  660. 

2  Records  of  the  Convention  of  the  Royal  Burghs  of  Scotland,  i.  541-2. 

3  Acts,  Scotland,  i.  742.  *lbid.  ii.  18. 


388  Theodora  Keith 

were  to  be  '  knawlegit  in  iugment  of  ye  iiii  borowis  yt  richt  or 
wroung.' x  It  was  decreed  by  James  I.,  and  confirmed  by  his  son 
in  1454,  that  the  court  should  be  held  in  Edinburgh  on  the  day 
after  the  feast  of  Saint  Michael  the  Archangel.2  This  court  of  the 
four  burghs  seems  to  have  originally  been  a  final  court  of  decision. 
In  the  Drummond  MS.  of  the  laws  a  section  on  processes  of  again 
calling  of  a  doom  contains  this  clause  :  '  Quhar  domis  off  burgh 
sal  be  discussyt.  Item  all  domys  yt  ar  falsyt  in  ony  burgh  ofF  ye 
kyngs  or  in  ony  other  burgh  off  regale  sal  be  discussit  be  foir  ye 
gryt  chamerlain  off  Scotland  or  his  deputs  in  ye  court  off  ye  four 
burro wis  and  yar  sal  tak  finaly  end/3 

Also  the  court  of  the  four  burghs  and  the  parliament  are 
classed  together  in  an  exception  as  to  the  procedure  to  be  followed 
when  doom  was  given  in  absence  of  party.*  Another  source  gives 
an  addition  to  the  statement  that  dooms  falsed  in  burgh  courts 
shall  be  discussed  in  the  court  of  the  four  burghs  :  *  bot  gif  ye 
actioun  depend  betuix  ane  burgh  and  ane  lord  of  regalitie  for  yan 
It  aw  to  be  discussit  in  ye  parliament/  5  But  an  act  of  1 503 
which  decrees  that  appeals  from  bailies  within  burghs  are  to  be 
made  to  the  chamberlain  in  the  court  of  the  four  burghs  also 
provides  that  a  doom  falsed  in  that  court  has  process  to  the  court 
immediately  superior,6  and  this,  from  the  earlier  part  of  the  act, 
appears  to  be  to  c  thretty  or  fourty  persons  more  or  fewer ' 
deputed  by  the  king  with  power  '  as  it  were  in  a  Parliament.' 7 
This  act  also  changed  the  old  law  about  appeals  by  allowing  the 
party  who  appealed  fifteen  days  in  which  to  consider  his  process, 
after  which  he  was  to  present  it  to  the  chamberlain,  who  was  '  to 
sett  ane  Court  of  the  four  burrowis  on  XV  dais  and  mak  the  said 
dume  to  be  discussit/  At  the  same  time  the  prescribed  formula 
for  the  falsing  of  dooms  was  changed  to  a  less  forcible  expression  : 
'  I  am  grettumly  hurt  and  Iniurit  be  ye  said  dume  thairfor  I 
appele.' 8 

There  seem  to  be  only  two  references  to  proceedings  of  this 
court,  both  in  the  Acts  of  the  Lords  of  the  Council  in  Civil 
Causes  and  both  in  1478.  In  the  first  case  a  summons  was 

1  Leges  Scotorum  Antiquae,  Advocates'  Library,  MS.  25.  4.  16.  f.  210. 

2  Convention  Records,  i.  542-3. 

3  Drummond  MS.  (Gen.  Register  House). 

4Harleian  MS.  4700,  f.  275  (Brit.  Mus.).  5 Ibid.  f.  275. 

6  Acts,  Scotland,  ii.  24.6. 

'Stair,  Institutions  of  the  Law  a/Scotland,  Book  IV.  i.  19,  20. 
8  Acts,  Scotland,  ii.  246. 


Convention  of  the  Royal  Burghs        389 

made  by  John  of  Spens  and  his  spouse  against  John  of 
Haddington,  bailie  of  Perth,  for  his  *  wrongous  and  inordinate ' 
conduct  during  the  hearing  of  their  case.  The  chamberlain 
was  ordained  to  call  both  the  bailie  and  the  others  before  him 
in  the  chamberlain  ayre  or  in  the  court  of  the  four  burghs.1 
An  act  had  been  passed  in  1475  ordaining  that  all  parties 
complaining  of  the  judge  ordinary's  administration  of  justice 
should  {  come  and  pleanzie  to  the  King  and  his  Council,  upon  the 
Judge  ;  and  likewise  on  the  Party,  and  in  that  case  he  shall  have 
Summons  baith  on  the  Judge  and  on  the  Party,  to  compear  before 
the  King  and  his  Council,  and  there  have  Justice  and  Reforma- 
tion.'2 In  the  case  cited  complaint  was  made  to  the  council  of 
the  injustice  of  the  bailie,  and  the  hearing  of  the  case  was  referred 
to  the  chamberlain,  the  final  court  in  burghal  affairs.  The  second 
case  concerned  an  attempt  by  one  Robert  of  '  donyng '  to  take 
advantage  of  Marjorie,  daughter  of  umquhile  Gilbert  Browne,  by 
taking  action  upon  a  decree  given  in  the  burgh  of  Perth,  on  which 
appeal  had  in  the  meantime  been  made  to  the  court  of  the  four 
burghs  by  Gilbert,  before  his  death.  The  lords  decreed  that 
Robert  was  not  to  occupy  the  land  until  the  doom  was  discussed 
there.3  There  was  here  no  appeal  from  the  chamberlain's  juris- 
diction. 

Mention  is  made  of  sending  commissioners  to  the  court  from 
Edinburgh  in  1484;*  from  Lanark  in  1490,  when  thirty-four 
shillings  was  paid  to  the  c  balyeis  to  the  Court  of  iiii  Burrowis '  ; 
in  1503,  when  thirty-two  shillings  was  expended  *  for  wax  and 
collacion  to  seill  the  commission  to  the  court  off  (Four  Burghis),' 
and  to  the  'commissaris  at  raid';  and,  again,  for  riding  to  the 
court  when  it  was  continued  ;  and  in  1507,  when  they  again 
attended  twice.5  There  are  no  later  allusions  to  the  court,  though 
that  does  not  necessarily  prove  that  it  ceased  to  exist.  There  was 
a  rising  in  Edinburgh  in  1527  against  the  High  Chamberlain, 
John,  Lord  Fleming,  *  when  sitting  in  judgment  in  the  Tolbooth 
of  our  foresaid  Burgh  in  the  execution  of  his  office  of  Chamber- 
lain.'6 He  may  possibly  have  been  presiding  at  a  meeting  of  the 
court  of  the  four  burghs.  But  the  importance  of  the  office  of 

1  Acts  of  the  Lords  of  the  Council  in  Civil  Causes,  24. 

2  Stair,  op.  cit.  Book  IV.  i.  14. 

3  Acts  of  the  Lords  of  the  Council  in  Civil  Causes,  19-20. 

4  Edinburgh  Burgh  Records  (Scottish  Burgh  Records  Society),  i.  50. 
6  Records  of 'Lanark,  7,  13,  17-18. 

6 Edinburgh  Charters  (Scottish  Burgh  Records  Society),  205-8. 


390  Theodora  Keith 

chamberlain,  and  probably  of  his  jurisdiction,  were  declining,  and 
the  institution  of  the  College  of  Justice  in  1537  made  considerable 
changes  in  the  administration  of  the  law.  After  this  the  process 
used  in  the  court  of  the  four  burghs  came  to  an  end,  for  Stair 
says  that  then  '  all  Appeals  of  falsing  of  Dooms  did  entirely  fall 
in  desuetude  and  ceased.'1  It  seems  likely,  therefore,  that  the 
court  of  the  four  burghs,  as  a  body  with  judicial  functions,  ceased 
to  exist  in  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

During  the  fifteenth  century,  however,  other  functions  were 
acquired  by  the  court.  In  1405,  according  to  Skene,  the  only 
authority  for  this  statement,  in  the  court  of  the  four  burghs  held 
at  Stirling  it  was  ordained  that  two  or  three  burgesses  from  each 
of  the  king's  burghs  south  of  the  Spey  should  c  compear  '  yearly 
'  to  the  Convention  of  the  foure  Burghes,'  in  the  Scots  version,  or 
*  ad  dictum  Parliamentum  quatuor  burgorum,'  c  to  trait,  ordaine 
and  determe  vpon  all  thingis  concerning  the  vtilitie  of  the  common 
well  of  all  the  Kings  burghs,  their  liberties  and  court.' 2  Then 
follow  six  chapters  relating  to  burgh  affairs,  but  Professor  Innes 
says  that  the  manuscript  from  which  they  are  taken  does  not 
ascribe  them  to  the  court  of  the  four  burghs,  and  one  of  them 
deals  with  the  Templars,  whose  order  was  dissolved  in  I312.3 
There  is  no  mention  of  the  chamberlain's  presence.  Then  in 
1454,  in  confirmation  of  an  ordinance  by  James  I.,  James  II. 
granted  to  Edinburgh  that  the  chamberlain  should  hold  the  court 
of  the  parliament  of  the  four  burghs  there,  to  determine  sentences 
given  or  gainsaid  in  the  burgh  courts  ;  to  give  measures  of  the 
ell,  firlot  or  boll,  stoup  and  stone  to  the  lieges  ;  *  Necnon  omnia 
alia  et  singula  facienda  et  exercenda  que  in  huiusmodi  Curia 
Parliament!  secundum  leges  statuta  et  Burgorum  consuetudines 
sunt  tractanda  subeunda  et  finaliter  determinanda.' 4  And  in  1500 
there  is  a  record  of  a  meeting  of  the  Court  of  Parliament  of  Four 
Burghs  at  Edinburgh,  where  it  was  ordained  by  the  chamberlain, 
with  advice  of  his  assessors  and  commissioners  of  burghs,  that 
acts  of  parliament  about  craftsmen  using  merchandise  within 
burgh  should  be  observed  ;  that  no  one  who  was  not  a  burgess 
should  *  pas  in  Flanderis  nor  France  with  merchandice '  ;  that  no 
one  should  have  the  freedom  of  the  burgh  nor  '  haunt  merchandice' 

1  Stair,  op.  cit.  Book  IV.  i.  31.  2  Ancient  Laws,  I.  iv.  156-8. 

8  Acts,  Scotland,  i.  51. 

4  Convention  Records,  i.  542-3.  Each  of  the  four  burghs,  in  the  sixteenth  century 
and  later,  kept  one  of  the  standard  measures.  Edinburgh  had  the  ell,  Stirling  the 
stoup,  Lanark  the  stone,  Linlithgow  the  firlot. 


Convention  of  the  Royal  Burghs        391 

unless  he  resided  in  the  burgh.1  After  this,  until  the  regular 
records  of  the  convention  begin  in  1552,  there  are  mentions  of 
commissioners  being  convened  together,  and  being  convened  by 
command  of  the  king's  letters,  dealing  with  regulations  for  foreign 
trade  and  making  provision  for  guarding  the  privileges  of  the 
burghs  and  the  burgesses,  but  there  are  no  more  records  of  the 
proceedings  of  the  parliament  of  the  court  of  the  four  burghs  nor 
references  to  the  presence  of  the  chamberlain  at  any  meeting  of 
the  commissioners. 

From  these  fragments  it  seems  that  the  court  had  three  aspects. 
In  its  judicial  capacity  appeals  were  heard  from  decisions  in  burgh 
courts  and  from  the  chamberlain's  ayre.  Secondly,  it  had  powers 
of  administration,  giving  the  weights  and  measures  to  the  burghs. 
Thirdly,  ordinances  and  regulations  were  made  in  the  court. 
Perhaps  it  is  permissible  to  conclude  that  the  difference  in  function 
corresponds  with  a  difference  in  title,  for  the  court,  as  a  law  court, 
seems  to  have  been  always  known  as  the  court  of  the  four  burghs, 
while  the  meetings  which  made  ordinances  appear  by  the  records 
of  1405,  1454,  and  1500  to  have  been  called  the  parliament  of  the 
court  of  the  four  burghs.  The  chamberlain  was  always  present, 
except  that  there  was  no  mention  of  him  in  1405.  It  is  difficult 
to  be  certain  about  the  constitution  of  the  court.  According  to 
Skene,  others  than  the  four  burghs  were  represented,  but  the 
letters  patent  of  James  II.  expressly  specified  Edinburgh,  Lanark, 
Linlithgow  and  Stirling,  while  the  entry  of  1500  mentioned  only 
the  '  Commissaris  of  cure  Burrowis.'  Comparing  what  we  know 
of  the  functions  of  this  court  with  those  of  the  convention,  we 
find  that  the  principal  difference  was  that  the  convention  had  not 
the  power  as  a  court  of  justice  which  the  court  of  the  four  burghs 
had  possessed.  Otherwise  the  functions  of  the  convention  were 
wider,  for  it  assessed  taxation,  carried  on  negotiations  concerning 
foreign  trade,  represented  the  burghs  in  consultations  with  and 
recommendations  to  the  king  and  the  council,  and  exercised  larger 
powers  in  burghal  administration  than  the  records  show  that  the 
parliament  of  the  court  of  the  burghs  had  done.  But  before  the 
convention,  as  it  appears  in  the  latter  part  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
began  to  be  held,  there  are  a  few  records  of  meetings  of  burgesses 
belonging  to  others  than  the  four  burghs,  meeting  independently 
of  the  chamberlain,  sometimes  before  or  during  parliament,  and 
exercising  some  of  those  functions  of  the  convention  which  the 

*lbid.  i.   505-6.     See  Sir  James  Marwick's  Preface  to  the  Convention  Records, 
i.,  i.-viii. 


392  Theodora  Keith 

court  did  not  apparently  possess  or  use.  Perhaps  Skene's  clause 
may  have  referred  to  some  gathering  of  this  kind,  and  also  the 
ordinance  in  1466  giving  power  to  certain  lords  c  til  authorize 
ratify  and  apprufe  or  til  annull  as  thai  think  expedient  and 
profitable  al  actis  and  statutis  avisit  and  commonit  in  the  sessionis 
of  burowis  for  the  gude  of  merchandice  and  proffit  of  the  Realme.' 1 
And  also  the  act  of  1487  authorising  commissioners  of  all  burghs 
to  convene  together  once  a  year  at  Inverkeithing,  with  full  com- 
mission to  '  comoun  and  trete  apoun  the  welefare  of  merchandis 
the  gude  Rewle  and  statutis  for  the  commoun  proffit  of  borowis 
and  to  provide  for  Remede  apoun  the  scaith  and  Iniuris  sustenit 
within  burowis  ' 2  seems  likely  to  have  referred  to  these  assemblies. 
This  was  one  of  several  acts  *  that  the  haill  commissionaris  of 
burrowis  desyris  to  be  ratifyit  and  apprevit  in  this  present 
parliament/  The  act  of  1581  declared  that  it  was  found  neces- 
sary by  '  oure  souerane  lord  and  his  hines  predicessouris  That  the 
commissionaris  of  burrowis  convene  at  sic  tymes  as  they  suld 
think  guid  in  quhat  burgh  they  thocht  maist  expedient  with  full 
commissioun  :  To  treat  vpoun  the  weilfair  of  merchandis  mer- 
chandice guid  rewle  and  statutis  for  the  commone  profite  of 
burrowis/ 3  These  statutes  seem  to  refer  to  a  different  body  from 
the  court  where  the  chamberlain  presided,  to  a  body  representing 
a  greater  number  of  burghs  and  exercising  wider  powers. 

On  one  occasion  the  commissioners  of  the  burghs  in  parliament 
gave  a  decree  about  the  course  to  be  followed  when  burgh  lands 
were  waste  and  not  distrainable  for  the  king's  farm  of  the  burgh,4 
a  proceeding  something  like  the  record  of  the  ordinance  of  the 
burgesses  of  the  four  burghs  in  1295.  The  burgh  commissioners, 
too,  seem  to  have  occasionally  had  questions  submitted  to  them 
as  arbitrators,  as  in  1443,  when,  at  a  general  council  held  at 
Stirling  the  commissioners  of  Ayr  and  Irvine,  l  oblisand  thame  to 
hald  ferme  ande  stabill  perpetuale  tymis  to  cum  quhat  the  sade 
commissaris  of  the  lafe  of  the  burghs  .  .  .  sail  decrete  in  that 
mater/  appeared  before  the  commissioners  of  Edinburgh,  Perth, 
Stirling,  Lanark,  Montrose,  Dundee,  Cupar,  Inverkeithing  and 
Aberdeen,  who  gave  decree  about  the  claims  of  the  merchants  of 
Irvine  to  sell  certain  goods  in  Ayr  on  the  market  day.  This  was 

1  Acts,  Scotland,  ii.  85.  *Ibid.  ii.  179. 

zlbid.  iii.  224. 

4  Muniments  of  the  Royal  Burgh  of  Irvine  (Ayrshire  and  Galloway  Archaeological 
Association),  23-4.  There  is  no  record  of  this  in  the  Acts  of  the  Parliament, 
(1429-30). 


Convention  of  the  Royal  Burghs        393 

authorised  before  the  '  hale  generale  consel '  and  confirmed  by  the 
king  under  the  great  seal.1  The  merchants  of  Aberdeen  offered 
to  refer  a  dispute  about  the  freight  of  goods  in  a  ship  belonging 
to  the  Earl  of  Orkney  which  had  been  wrecked  to  the  commis- 
sioners of  burghs,  when  it  pleased  the  earl,  or  at  the  next  general 
council.2  There  are  also  records  of  the  proceedings  of  the  burgh 
commissioners  in  other  matters  with  which  the  convention  was 
much  occupied  later.  In  1483  a  tax  roll  of  the  burghs  beyond 
the  Forth  is  given  as  <c  modifiit '  by  the  burgh  commissioners  at 
the  time  of  the  parliament  at  Edinburgh  on  March  21,  a  sitting 
not  recorded  in  the  Acts.3 

Most  of  the  meetings,  however,  were  concerned  with  foreign 
trade.  In  1478  the  king  summoned  commissioners  from  Aber- 
deen to  Edinburgh,  and  the  council  and  merchants  of  the  burgh 
elected  five  to  *  avise  with  our  souerane  lordis  consall,  and  the 
commissaris  of  utheris  viii  burrowis '  about  sending  an  embassy 
to  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  *  for  the  good  of  merchandice  and 
renouation  of  al  priuilegis  grantit  til  the  merchandis  passing  to 
Brugis  in  Flandris,  and  in  thaa  partis.' 4  The  king  and  the  three 
estates  had  already  (June  i)  ordained  that  an  embassy  should 
be  sent  to  renew  the  former  alliance  with  Burgundy,  to  get 
greater  privileges  for  merchants  and  remedy  for  the  'scathtis' 
they  had  sustained.5  The  expenses  were  to  be  paid  by  all  the 
burghs,  which  perhaps  was  the  reason  they  were  consulted  later. 
The  commissioners  of  Edinburgh,  Aberdeen,  Perth,  Haddington 
and  Dundee  met  in  1498  and  consulted  on  several  matters.  They 
considered  it  advisable  that  *  ane  schap  clerk,  and  twa  burges 
merchandis  of  fasson  '  should  be  sent  to  the  Archduke  of  Austria 
about  the  letters  of  marque  and  his  proclamation  about  the  staple. 
At  this  meeting  they  also  recorded  their  desires  that  their  privileges 
should  be  maintained,  that  the  act  forbidding  any  one  to  sail 
*  within  j  last  of  gude  of  his  awne '  should  be  kept,  and  that  the 
act  forbidding  craftsmen  to  be  merchants  unless  they  gave  up 
their  craft  should  be  enforced  by  the  burgh  officials.6  There  is 
no  record  of  a  parliament  at  this  date,  nor  was  there  any  in  1497 
when  commissioners  were  chosen  from  Aberdeen  '  to  commoun 

1  Charters  of  Ayr  (Ayrshire  and  Wigtonshire  Archaelogical  Association),  27-9. 

2  Aberdeen  Burgh  Register  (Spalding  Club),  i.  13  (1444). 

3  Convention  Records ;  i.  543. 

4  Aberdeen  Burgh  Register,  i.  410;  Spalding  Club  Miscellany,  v.  26. 

5  Acts,  Scotland,  ii.  118. 

6  Aberdeen  Burgh  Register,  i.  67.     Cp.  Acts,  Scotland,  ii.  86. 

2C 


394  Theodora  Keith 

with  vtheris  commissionaris  of  the  brughs  for  the  gude  of  mer- 
chandice.'1  In  1529  Aberdeen  again  sent  representatives  to  Edin- 
burgh c  to  do,  determe,  and  decreit  with  the  laifF  of  the  borrowis 
commissionaris  aftir  the  tenour  of  our  Souerane  Lordis  letters 
directt  thairupon  for  the  common  weill  of  the  merchandis  of  the 
realme.'  They  were  ordered  then  to  appear  before  the  Treasurer,2 
but  there  is  no  record  of  the  presence  of  the  treasurer  at  the 
meeting.  This  assembly  gave  instructions  to  Master  John  Camp- 
bell of  Lundy,  who  was  sent  to  renew  the  peace  between  Scotland 
and  the  Emperor  and  also  the  privileges  of  the  merchants  in  his 
lands  ;  and  desired  that  the  acts  of  parliament  and  c  the  wythir 
statutis  deuisit  and  maid  be  the  consent  of  the  haill  commissionaris ' 
should  be  observed  and  kept.  These  were  principally  regulations 
about  the  privileges  of  burgesses  and  merchants — that  no  one 
dwelling  outside  the  king's  free  burghs  should  send  goods  to 
France  or  Flanders  and  that  burgesses  who  bought  and  sold 
merchandise  should  live  within  the  burgh.  They  also  concerned 
the  relations  of  merchants  and  craftsmen,  the  work  of  craftsmen, 
and  some  rules  for  the  conduct  of  foreign  trade.  These  included 
the  provision  that  any  merchant  who  took  with  him  to  France  or 
Flanders  his  c  ewill  and  wirst  clais  to  the  dishonour  of  the  realme ' 
should  be  ordered  to  get  'honest  clais/  and,  if  he  refused,  that 
the  conservator  should  take  of  his  goods  and  have  suitable  gar- 
ments made  for  him.3  The  king  again  next  year  ordered  the 
commissioners  of  the  burghs  to  meet  and  convene  at  Edinburgh 
about  the  common  weal  of  merchants.4 

A  more  important  meeting  took  place  in  1533  when  the  provost, 
bailies  and  council  of  Edinburgh  and  the  commissioners  of 
Dundee,  Perth,  St.  Andrews  and  Stirling  decided  that  all  the 
burghs  should  send  commissioners  yearly  to  Edinburgh  to  c  avise 
and  decerne  anent  all  maner  of  thingis  center  the  commoun  weill 
of  burrois  and  of  merchandis  and  to  fynd  remeid  for  taxationis 
and  stentis  that  may  happen  to  cum  aganis  thame,  and  that  ilk 
burch  bring  with  thame  sic  articlis  and  writingis  in  quhat  thingis 
thai  ar  hurt  in,  sua  that  reformatioun  and  help  may  be  put  thair- 
vntill  for  the  vniversale  weill,'  and  that  each  burgh  which  did  not 
send  a  commission  should  be  fined  five  pounds.5  Yearly  meetings 
do  not  seem  to  have  taken  place  as  a  result  of  this  ordinance,  and 
the  convention  of  1 552,  the  first  of  the  regular  assemblies  recorded 
in  the  convention  records,  enacted  that  commissioners  should 

1  Convention  Records,  i.  504.  2  Ibid.  i.  507-8.  3  Ibid.  i.  508-12. 

*  Ibid.  i.  5 1 2-3. 


Convention  of  the  Royal  Burghs        395 


meet  annually,  as  it  was  ordained  '  of  lang  time  bipast.'  *•  Never- 
theless, this  ordinance  of  1533  marks  the  beginning  of  the  modern 
history  of  the  convention,  a  body  of  representatives  of  all  the 
royal  and  free  burghs,  over  whom  no  royal  officer  presided, 
assembled  upon  their  own  initiative  to  consult  about  the  affairs 
of  burghs  and  of  merchandise  and  to  defend  the  privileges  of  their 
own  members. 

There  are,  besides  these  records  of  actual  meeting  of  the  com- 
missioners of  the  burghs,  references  which  show  common  action 
on  the  part  of  the  burghs.  In  1357  Edinburgh,  Perth,  Dundee, 
Aberdeen,  Crail,  Inverkeithing,  Cupar,  St.  Andrews,  Montrose, 
Stirling,  Linlithgow,  Haddington,  Dumbarton,  Rutherglen, 
Lanark,  Dumfries,  Peebles,  appointed  burgesses  of  Edinburgh, 
Perth,  Aberdeen,  and  Dundee,  to  act  for  them  in  negotiations 
with  Edward  III.'s  council  for  the  ransom  of  David  II.,  for  which 
the  burgesses  and  merchants  were  to  be  principal  debtors.2  The 
same  four  burghs  bound  themselves  for  the  payment  of  five 
thousand  merks  to  Henry  VI.  for  the  expenses  of  James  I.  during 
his  captivity  in  England,  and  James  promised  to  cause  the  rest  of 
the  burghs  to  bind  themselves  to  these  four  for  payment  of  this 
sum  in  case  they  were  distrained  therefore.3  Then  the  burghs  ot 
the  realm  were  responsible  in  1496  for  the  expenses  incurred  by 
the  bishop  of  Aberdeen  in  annulling  letters  of  marque  purchased 
by  the  Dunkirkers.  The  king's  sheriffs  were  ordained  to  take 
what  remained  unpaid  from  Edinburgh,  which  so  often  took  the 
leading  part  in  proceedings  of  the  burghs,  and  the  city  was  to 
have  relief  of  c  ye  Remanent  of  ye  burrowis  of  ye  Realme  awing 
any  part  of  ye  soume.'4 

Turning  to  foreign  trade,  the  burgesses  and  merchants  of 
Scotland  made  a  contract  with  those  of  Middelburgh  in  I347-5 
And  in  1348  a  letter  was  sent  to  Bruges  from  the  aldermen, 
bailies,  etc.,  of  Aberdeen,  Edinburgh,  Dundee,  and  Perth,  '  les 
quatres  grosses  villes  de  Escoce,'  and  c  des  toutes  les  autres 
grosses  villes  du  royaume  d'Escoce,'  who  declared  themselves 
ready  for  an  agreement  with  the  German  merchants  and  with 
Flanders.6  In  1387  privileges  were  granted  by  the  Duke  of 
Burgundy  c  a  la  humble  supplication  des  marchans  du  Royaulme 

1  Ibid.  i.  2.  2  Ancient  Laws,  i.  194-9. 

3  Charters,  etc.,  of  Aberdeen,  22-4.     Charters  of  Edinburgh,  56-61.     Charters,  etc., 
of  Dundee,  19. 

4  Acta  Dominorum  Concilii,  vii.  f.  34.  5  Acts,  Scotland,  i.  514-5. 
*  Han  site  he  s  Urkundenbuch,  iii.  64-5. 


396 


Theodora  Keith 


d'Escosse.'1  The  contract  with  Middelburgh  about  the  staple, 
which  was  repudiated  in  1526,  had  been  made  by  commissioners 
having  '  procuratioun '  from  Edinburgh,  Aberdeen,  Stirling,  St. 
Andrews,  Perth  and  Dundee,  as  well  as  from  the  king.2 

It  has  been  said  that  there  was  also  a  confederation  of  burghs  in 
the  north,  a  theory  based  on  William  the  Lion's  charter  granting  to 
the  burgesses  of  that  burgh,  and  to  his  burgesses  of  Moray  and 
those  north  of  the  Mounth,  their  free  hanse.3  There  seems  to 
be  no  other  evidence  in  support  of  this  theory,  and  Professor 
Gross  does  not  uphold  it,  considering  that  the  charter  more 
probably  refers  to  a  general  grant  of  a  gild  merchant  or  of  right 
to  take  a  payment  from  merchants.4  Aberdeen  probably  took  a 
leading  part  amongst  the  northern  burghs,  as  a  petition  from 
Banff  also  shows.  The  provost  and  burgesses  entreated  the 
guardians  of  the  kingdom  to  enforce  the  observance  of  Alex- 
ander III.'s  charter  granting  that  certain  fairs  might  be  held  in 
Aberdeen  '  for  the  benefit  of  us  and  of  other  burghs  lying  to  the 
north  of  the  mountains.'  The  burgesses  of  Montrose  had  been 
in  the  habit  of  disturbing  these  fairs  to  the  no  small  prejudice  of 
Aberdeen  and  of  all  the  northern  burghs.5  Though  no  doubt 
Aberdeen  was  a  centre  for  the  northern  burghs,  there  is  no 
indication  that  there  was  any  organisation  in  the  north  which 
could  be  regarded  as  a  predecessor  of  the  convention. 

With  such  scanty  material  as  is  available  it  is  difficult  to  decide 
the  exact  degree  of  the  relationship  of  the  convention  to  these 
earlier  burghal  assemblies.  Considering  the  functions  and  consti- 
tution of  the  court  of  the  four  burghs  as  a  court  of  justice,  and 
the  decline  of  the  power  of  the  chamberlain,  it  seems  reasonable 
to  conclude  that  it  came  to  an  end  sometime  in  the  early  sixteenth 
century,  and  that  it  was  not  a  direct  predecessor  of  the  convention. 
Then  the  court  in  its  other  aspects  also  differed  from  the  conven- 
tion, in  the  presence  of  the  chamberlain,  and  in  being  representa- 
tive only  of  four  burghs,  unless  it  is  possible  to  assume  that  the 
name  was  applied  to  an  assembly  with  an  increased  number  of 
members.  For  Edinburgh,  Aberdeen,  Perth,  and  Dundee  were 

1 M.  P.  Rooseboom,  Scottish  Staple  in  the  Netherlands,  Documents,  ix.-x. 

2  Acts,  Scotland,  ii.  305,  and  see  J.  Davidson  and  A.  Gray,  Scottish  Staple  at  Veere, 
151-5. 

3  Acts,  Scotland,  i.  87.  *C.  Gross,  Gild  Merchant,  i.  197. 

5  Annals  of  Ban/  (New  Spalding  Club),  ii.  373  (1289).  The  charter  granting 
to  Aberdeen  the  right  of  holding  a  fair  does  not  make  any  allusion  to  other 
burghs.  Charters  of  Aberdeen,  8-9. 


Convention  of  the  Royal  Burghs        397 

decidedly  the  '  quatres  grosses  villes  de  Escoce,'  and  only  Edin- 
burgh was  one  of  the  original  four  burghs.  It  is  not  likely  that 
an  assembly  which  did  not  include  these  important  towns  would 
be  able  to  make  regulations  and  to  carry  on  negotiations  concern- 
ing the  trade  and  affecting  the  general  common  weal  of  merchants 
and  of  burghs.  The  commissioners  of  these  and  of  other  burghs 
did  meet  to  transact  business  independently  of  the  chamberlain, 
and  the  assemblies  which  were  authorised  in  1487  seem  to  have 
been  of  this  kind.  The  convention  absorbed  all  the  functions  of 
the  parliament  of  the  court  of  the  four  burghs  and  of  these  other 
meetings  of  the  burghal  commissioners.  There  is  also  an  echo  of 
the  chamberlain's  jurisdiction  in  his  ayres  in  the  proceedings  of 
the  convention,  for  it  was  appealed  to  for  permission  to  alienate 
the  common  good  and  to  change  the  sets  of  burghs,  though  there 
was  some  doubt  as  to  its  legal  authority  in  these  matters.1  It 
also  made  regulations  about  weights  and  measures  which  the 
chamberlain  did  in  his  ayres  as  well  as  in  the  parliament  of  the 
court  of  the  four  burghs. 

The  most  reasonable  conclusion  seems  to  be  that  early  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  partly  no  doubt  owing  to  the  decline  in  the  power 
and  the  activity  of  the  chamberlain,  there  was  an  amalgamation  of 
two  assemblies  concerned  with  the  administration  and  regulation 
of  burghal  affairs,  and  that  the  convention,  the  result  of  the  union, 
preserved  the  functions  of  both  and  the  composition  of  the  one, 
without  the  presence  of  the  president  of  the  other. 

THEODORA  KEITH. 


NOTE   ON   THE   CONNECTION   OF  THE   CHAMBERLAIN   WITH 

THE   BURGHS. 

The  Scottish  royal  burghs  were  kept  in  touch  with  the  central  authority 
by  the  extensive  jurisdiction  exercised  by  the  king's  chamberlain  over  their 
affairs.  This  office  was  in  existence  as  early  as  the  reign  of  David  I., 
and  was  one  of  great  importance,  for  the  chamberlain  had  charge  of  the 
king's  revenues,  in  this  capacity  receiving  all  payments  from  the  royal 
burghs,  and  also  paid  a  yearly  visit  to  the  king's  burghs  to  hold  a  court  of 
justice,  to  inquire  if  burgh  officials  were  exercising  their  proper  functions 
and  if  the  king's  rights  were  being  maintained.  The  first  mention  of  this 
visitation  or  ayre  seems  to  be  in  a  law  of  William  the  Lion's  which  orders 

1Morison,  Dictionary  of  Decisions  of  the  Court  of  Session,  iii.  1861-3,  1839-40, 
1842-8.  See  Sir  James  Marwick's  Preface  to  the  Miscellany  of  the  Scottish  Burgh 
Records  Society. 


398  Theodora  Keith 

no  merchant  to  usurp  the  liberty  of  another  burgh  in  buying  and  selling, 
lest  he  be  convicted  and  punished  in  the  chamberlain's  ayre  as  a  forestaller.1 
Then  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century  the  burgesses  of  Scotland 
petitioned  the  English  king  and  council  that  no  sheriff  or  other  king's  officer 
should  interfere  in  their  burghs,  but  that  they  should  only  answer  to  their 
chamberlain.2  A  few  years  later  Robert  Bruce  ordained  that  the  burghs 
should  be  controlled  by  the  chamberlain  and  his  deputies  only.3  Receipts 
from  the  ayre  are  mentioned  in  one  of  the  earliest  surviving  Exchequer 
Rolls  (i32/),4  and  the  first  list  of  points  to  be  inquired  into  by  the  chamber- 
lain, the  Articuli  Inquirendi  Camerarii,  dates  from  about  the  same  time  A 
later  document,  the  Iter  Camerarii,  supplements  this.  Unfortunately  there 
are  no  records  of  the  ayre,  except  a  very  few  references  in  burgh  records. 
From  the  rolls  in  which  receipts  from  the  ayres  appear,  sometimes  directly 
in  the  chamberlain's  accounts  and  at  others  in  the  accounts  of  the  provosts 
and  bailies  of  the  burghs,  it  does  not  seem  that  they  were  held  regularly 
every  year  in  each  burgh.  It  is  recorded  that  few  ayres  were  held  in  1380, 
and  none  in  1392,  because  of  the  pestilence,  but  for  several  other  years  there 
are  no  accounts,  partly  of  course  because  the  rolls  are  not  a  complete  series.5 

James  I.  took  away  from  the  chamberlain  much  of  his  power,  especially  as 
regards  the  revenue,  handing  over  some  of  his  duties  to  the  newly-appointed 
treasurer  and  comptroller,  but  he  did  not  interfere  with  his  connection  with 
the  administration  of  the  burghs.  In  fact  the  ayres  seem,  as  far  as  one  can 
judge  by  the  accounts,  to  have  been  held  more  regularly  and  in  more  burghs 
than  usual  during  his  reign.  They  seem  to  have  continued  till  late  in  the 
fifteenth  century  or  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth.  In  1511  Dundee 
obtained  a  remission  from  James  IV.  of  all  transgressions  of  which  they 
might  be  accused  in  the  chamberlain  ayres  and  in  the  justice  ayres,  and  the 
burgesses  were  ordered  to  keep  the  weights  and  measures  which  they  had 
received  at  the  last  ayre  until  the  chamberlain  gave  them  new  ones.6  Next 
year  people  were  chosen  in  Aberdeen  to  extent  the  sum  of  ^500  Scots  '  for 
the  releving  of  the  justice  ayr  and  chavmerlane  ayr  of  the  burghe  .  .  .  and 
the  expenss  and  propynis  gevin  to  the  clerkis  and  lordis.' 7 

The  ayres 8  were  ordained  to  be  held  in  summer  to  avoid  expense. 
Before  the  chamberlain  arrived  in  any  burgh  a  precept  was  sent  to  the 
alderman  and  bailies  informing  them  of  the  date  of  his  coming,  and  com- 
manding them  to  summon  all  the  burgesses  to  appear  before  him,  also  all 
and  sundry  officers  of  the  burgh,  who  were  to  present  all  the  weights  and 
measures  used  by  them  in  their  offices.  All  the  names  of  'soyts  of  court,' 

1  indent  Laws,  i.  60. 

2  Calendar  of  Documents  relating  to  Scotland,  iv.  380  (1303-7). 

3  Charters  of  Ayr,  19-20  (1313). 

4  Exchequer  Rolls,  i.  70.  &lbid.  iii.  310,  650. 

6  Charters,  etc.,  of  Dundee,  26. 

7  Aberdeen  Burgh  Register,  i.  442. 

8  Information  about  the  holding  of  the  ayre  and  the  lists  of  the  points  into  which 
inquiry  was  made  are  given  in  the  Articuli  Inquerendi  Camerarii  and  the  Iter 
Camerarii,  Ancient  Laws,  i.  114-26,  132-54. 


The  Chamberlain  399 

of  those  who  held  swine  '  vtought  keping  in  the  law  statut '  and  those  who 
had  merchant  booths  were  to  be  enrolled.  The  bailies  were  to  cry  openly 
that  pledges  should  be  taken  by  them  that  all  who  wished  to  follow  or 
defend  a  cause  before  the  chamberlain  would  be  there  to  follow  or  defend 
their  pleas.  All  who  forestalled  and  who  did  *  purprisioun  in  propirte  or  in 
commoun  of  our  Lorde  the  King '  were  also  to  be  warned  to  be  present. 
The  chamberlain  brought  with  him  a  clerk  who  was  deputed  by  the  king, 
and  had  to  swear  to  '  do  nocht  at  the  bidding  of  the  chalmerlan  to  the 
Kingis  skaith.'  The  clerk  carried  with  him  weights  and  measures,  and  had 
to  see  that  all  the  tron  weights  agreed  with  his.1  But  apparently  the 
chamberlain  was  wont  to  travel  with  a  more  numerous  retinue,  for  in  1449 
it  was  ordained  that  chamberlains  and  others  who  *  makis  coursis  throu  the 
lande  ryde  bot  wt  competent  and  esy  nowmer  to  eschew  grevans  and 
hurting  of  the  pepill  the  whilk  nowmer  of  auld  tym  was  statut  and 
modifiit.' 2 

The  provision  of  supplies  for  a  large  following  must  have  been  a  diffi- 
culty, and  some  burgesses  <  abstract  their  geir  at  the  cumming  of  the 
chalmerlan  or  his  clerks '  that  they  should  not  have  to  sell  it.  In  1457  all 
three  estates  exhorted  the  king  to  reform  the  chamberlain  ayres  by  which 
"  all  the  estatis  and  specialy  the  pur  commownis  ar  fairly  grevyt,'3  but  no 
action  seems  to  have  been  taken  after  this  petition.  In  the  late  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  centuries  the  chamberlain  generally  gave  the  work  to  two 
deputies  who  each  visited  the  burghs  on  one  side  of  the  Forth.  When  the 
chamberlain  or  his  deputy  arrived  the  first  proceeding  was  to  call  all  the 
burgesses  of  the  burgh,  the  absent  being  fined,  and  to  affirm  the  court. 
Then  the  bailies  were  summoned,  and  then  'ane  assyse  ..  .  rasyt  for  the 
inquest  to  be  maid  apon  the  articles  of  the  chawmerlane  ayr.'  These 
articles,  which  were  very  numerous,  were  chiefly  concerned  with  inquiries 
as  to  the  maintenance  of  the  king's  rights,  the  conduct  of  the  officers  of  the 
burgh  and  its  general  administration. 

The  chamberlain  inquired  if  the  king's  rents  were  duly  paid,  if  any  one 
revealed  the  counsel  of  the  neighbours  or  of  the  king,  used  the  freedom  of 
the  burgh  to  the  hurt  of  the  king  or  his  burgh,  disposed  of  lands  in  mort- 
main without  the  king's  leave,  abstracted  suits  owing  to  the  king's  court  or 
gave  annual  rent  to  any  other  lord  than  the  king.  He  asked,  too,  if  any  of 
the  king's  bondsmen  were  hiding  within  the  burgh,  and  if  any  body  took 
the  king's  multures  from  his  mills.  Then  the  chamberlain  proceeded  to 
inquire  if  the  bailies,  as  judges,  administered  justice  c  equallie  to  the  puir 
and  the  ritch,'and  without  cfauour,  hatrent  or  luf  of  personis,'  if  judgments 
had  been  properly  presented  and  executed,  and  if  any  matters  which  should 
have  been  tried  before  them  had  been  taken  to  the  ecclesiastical  court.  He 
also  asked  if  any  one  '  purches  a  lord  duelland  to  landwart  to  cum  to  the 
court  of  the  burgh  in  preiudice  or  scatht  of  his  nychtburis,'  and  if  there  were 
any  confederation  in  the  town  by  which  the  *  nychtburhede  is  wrangwisly 
greffyt  or  pur  men  oppressyt.'  Most  minute  inquiries  were  made  as  to  the 
enforcement  of  regulations  on  economic  matters.  Did  the  bailies  cause  the 
weights  and  measures  to  be  duly  examined,  and  did  they  keep  the  assize  of 

^  Ancient  Law* i  i.  184.  2^fcts,  Scotland,  ii.  36.  3 Ibid.  ii.  50. 


400 


Theodora  Keith 


bread,  ale,  wine  and  fish.  Did  all  the  various  officers — prisers  of  flesh, 
customers  of  the  great  and  small  customs,  gaugers,  troners,  purveyors,  ale- 
tasters — do  their  duty.  Questions  were  also  asked  about  the  behaviour  of 
those  who  supplied  goods  to  the  community — the  browster  wives,  bakers, 
fleshers,  millers,  sellers  of  fish,  shoemakers,  skinners,  maltsters,  sadlers,  cooks, 
who  kept  flesh  and  fish  in  pastry  too  long,  then  heated  it  again  and  sold  it 
*  to  the  manifest  deception  of  the  people.'  The  tailors  were  wont  to  offend 
by  making  *  our  mekill  refus  and  schredis  of  mennis  claith,  whiles  for  greit 
haist  and  vther  whilis  for  faut  of  cunnyng  . . .  thai  mak  mennis  garmentis 
otherwayis  than  men  ordanis  thaimself  or  biddis.'  Then  it  was  necessary 
to  ask  if  merchants  coming  to  the  burgh  were  properly  treated  or  *  hardlie ' 
handled  so  that  they  '  leave  thar  cumming  to  burghs  ...  to  the  damage  of 
our  Lord  the  King,  and  the  manifest  wrack  of  the  communities  of  burghs.* 
Those  bugbears  of  mediaeval  authorities,  the  regraters,  who  bought  goods 
before  the  lawful  hour,  and  the  forestallers,  who  bought  and  sold  gild 
merchandise  which  they  had  no  right  to  use  and  other  goods  without  paying 
custom  to  the  king,  were  not  ignored.  The  head  burgh  in  each  sheriffdom 
had  the  right  of  indicting  all  the  forestallers  in  that  district  before  the 
chamberlain,  a  right  confirmed  to  Dundee  in  a  quarrel  with  Montrose  about 
the  liberty  of  so  doing  in  the  sheriffdom  of  Forfar.1 

Some  miscellaneous  points  were  raised,  whether  the  bailies  had  the  burgh 
properly  watched  at  night,  and  made  the  rich  watch  as  well  as  the  poor, 
whether  they  searched  the  town  thrice  in  the  year  for  casting  out  lepers,  if 
there  were  any  common  slanderers  unpunished,  if  strangers  were  kept  longer 
than  one  night  without  some  one  giving  pledge  for  them,  if  the  fixed  prices 
were  kept. 

The  inquiry  into  the  administration  of  the  common  good  was  one  of  the 
most  important  of  the  chamberlain's  functions.  It  was  to  be  asked  by  the 
assize  if  cthe  comone  purs  be  weil  kepyt  and  even  pertit  as  it  sulde  be,'  if 
'  there  be  a  just  assedation  and  uptaking  of  the  common  gude  of  the  burgh,' 
and  if  it  is  bestowed  in  the  business  of  the  community,  and,  if  not,  who  has 
got  the  profit.  This  seemed  to  include  some  inspection  of  the  common 
property  of  the  burgh.  In  Peebles  and  Haddington  in  1330  the  mills  were 
being  rebuilt  at  the  command  of  the  chamberlain.2  These  burghs  had  not 
yet  got  feu  farm  charters,  and  so  the  mills  were  still  the  king's  property. 
The  act  of  1491  reaffirmed  the  jurisdiction  of  the  chamberlain,  ordering 
inquisition  to  be  taken  yearly  in  his  ayre  of  the  expenses  and  disposition  of 
the  common  good,  and  also  at  the  same  time  forbade  any  of  the  yearly 
revenues  to  be  set  for  more  than  three  years.3  Later  it  was  asserted  that 
the  chamberlain  had  probably  given  setts  to  the  burghs  or  altered  them,  and 
that  the  convention,  which  was  said  to  take  his  place  in  the  superintendence 
of  burghal  affairs,  had  the  same  power.4 

The  chamberlain's  duties  did  not  end  with  making  inquiries,  for  he  seems 
also  to  have  assisted  in  making  regulations,  being  present  with  the  alderman, 

1  Regis trum  Magni  Sigilli,  ii.  139-40. 

2  Exchequer  Rolls,  i.  274,  302.         3  Acts,  Scotland,  ii.  227. 

4Morison,  op.  cit.,  iii.  1861-3.  The  court  decided  that  the  Convention  had  no 
power  to  alter  the  setts  of  burghs. 


The  Chamberlain  401 

bailies  and  council  in  Aberdeen  in  1454,  when  several  ordinances  were 
made  about  bakers,  fleshers,  etc.1  He  was  also  entrusted  with  the  duty  of 
carrying  out  some  of  the  legislation  which  affected  burghs.  He  had  to  see 
that  inns  were  provided  in  towns,  that  trons  for  weighing  wool  were  set  up 
in  burghs,2  to  ask  if  the  statute  of  1424  about  beggars  was  kept,  and  fine 
the  alderman  and  bailies  forty  shillings  if  they  had  broken  it.3  As  late  as 
1524  it  was  ordained  that  the  chamberlain  and  his  deputies  were  to  see  that 
the  acts  about  taking  salt  out  of  the  realm  were  put  into  execution.4 
Burgesses  and  merchants  were  not  allowed  to  leave  the  country  without 
permission  of  the  king  or  the  chamberlain,5 

The  judicial  function  of  the  chamberlain  was  not  unimportant.  Cases 
were  referred  to  him  from  the  burgh  courts,  and  he  was  at  the  same  time  a 
judge  ordinary,6  besides  presiding  in  the  court  of  the  four  burghs.  He 
seemed  to  have  jurisdiction  in  matters  concerning  the  privileges  of  burghs, 
for,  in  1478,  in  the  action  of  the  bailies  and  community  of  Inverkeithing 
against  the  Earl  of  Caithness  about  raising  a  petty  custom  in  Dysart  which 
was  said  to  be  within  the  freedom  of  Inverkeithing,  it  was  decreed  that  in 
future  anyone  who  prevented  the  lieges  within  the  freedom  of  Inverkeithing 
from  passing  to  the  burgh  and  market  was  to  be  '  delit  to  the  chamerlain 
Are'  and  punished.7  Mackenzie  says  that  'The  Chamberlain  was  an 
Officer  to  whom  belonged  the  judging  of  all  crimes  committed  within 
burgh,  and  he  was  in  effect  Justice-general  over  the  borrows,  and  was  to 
hold  Chamberlain  Airs  every  Year  for  that  Effect.'8  He  was  a  supreme 
judge,  and  his  sentences  could  not  be  questioned  by  any  inferior  court. 
Bailies  had  to  answer  before  him  in  any  question  regarding  the  execution 
of  their  office. 

It  was  not  for  want  of  a  policy  of  supervision  that  the  Scottish  medieval 
burgh  could  fail  to  be  a  highly  regulated  and  well-ordered  community, 
where  all  wares  were  of  good  quality  and  sold  at  a  just  price,  and  every 
inhabitant  got  justice  and  no  one  oppressed  his  neighbour  or  defrauded  the 
king.  But,  owing  to  the  want  of  records,  it  is  difficult  to  tell  how  far  the 
chamberlain  attempted  to  put  these  regulations  into  execution  and  how  far 
his  efforts  were  successful.  From  the  point  of  view  of  burghal  history,  the 
most  important  side  was  the  chamberlain's  supervision  of  the  disposal  of  the 
common  good,  and  the  decay  of  his  office  seems  to  have  given  an  impetus 
to  the  process  of  malversation  by  which  so  much  of  the  property  of  the 
burghs  has  disappeared.  The  act  of  I469,9  which  allowed  the  old  council 
to  choose  the  new  and  'erected  the  standard  of  Despotism,  where  liberty 
had  so  long  resided,  and  which  covered  the  face  of  the  country  with  the 
darkness  and  torpitude  of  slavery,  in  place  of  the  light  and  spirit  of  freedom,' 
was  said  to  open  a  wide  door  for  the  '  waste  destruction  and  private  pecu- 

^Aberdeen  Burgh  Register,  i.  390-1.  *  Acts,  Scotland,  i.  499,  497. 

3  Ibid.  ii.  15.  ^Ibid.  ii.  290.  5  Ibid.  i.  509. 

6  See  Aberdeen  Burgh  Register,  i.   372,  379-80,  400-2;   and  Burgh  Records  of 
Peebles  (Scottish  Burgh  Records  Society),  123-4,  I29~3°- 

7  Acts  of  the  Lords  of  the  Council  in  Civil  Causes,  12. 

8  Sir  George  Mackenzie,  Works,  ii.  196.  9  Acts,  Scotland,  ii.  95. 


402  The  Chamberlain 

lation  of  the  common  good,'  because  the  burgesses  had  no  longer  the  same 
control  over  their  magistrates,  the  head  courts,  which  had  elected  magistrates 
and  auditors  of  accounts  and  prosecuted  defaulters  in  the  chamberlain's  ayre, 
being  no  longer  of  the  same  importance.1  The  act  of  1491  was  probably 
passed  in  consequence  of  some  alienations  of  property,  and  by  this  time  the 
chamberlain's  activity  and  authority  may  have  been  waning.  The  act  of 
1503  authorising  the  substitution  of  permanent  tenures  in  feu  farm  for  short 
leases,  although  it  did  not  apply  to  burghal  property,  seems  to  have  increased 
the  mismanagement,  and  soon  after  it  was  passed  the  burghs  began  to  get 
licences  from  the  king  to  convert  common  property  let  under  short  leases 
into  heritable  estates  to  be  held  in  feu  farm,  Edinburgh  obtaining  one  of 
these  in  1508.2 

If  the  chamberlain  had  ceased  to  visit  the  burghs  there  was  now  no  con- 
trol over  their  administration — '  when  the  Chamberlain  ceased  to  carry  the 
engines  and  the  terrors  of  justice  to  the  boroughs,  their  Magistrates  no 
longer  confined  themselves  within  the  line  of  their  duty.  They  appear  to 
have  broken  loose  like  felons  from  their  fetters,  and  to  have  committed  the 
most  enormous  waste  and  dilapidation  of  the  property  of  the  boroughs.' 3  By 
1 535  tne  burghs  were  '  putt  to  pouertie  waistit  and  distroyit  in  thair  gudis  and 
polecy  and  almaist  Ruynous,'  partly  because  people  who  were  not  resident 
had  become  magistrates,  *  for  thare  awine  particular  wele  In  consummyng  of 
the  commun  gudis  of  bwrrowis.'  Therefore  the  provosts  and  officers  were 
ordered  to  make  yearly  account  in  the  Exchequer  of  their  disposal  of  the 
common  good.  But  this  was  not  so  effective  a  check  as  was  an  auditor  who 
visited  the  burghs,  the  inhabitants  could  not  travel  to  Edinburgh  to  challenge 
the  accounts  of  their  officers,  and  so  the  dilapidation  of  the  common  property 
continued. 

Here  the  chamberlain's  administration  seems  to  have  had  some  result,  but 
it  is  difficult  to  draw  any  general  conclusions  from  the  scanty  existing 
material.  Nevertheless,  the  existence  of  such  an  officer  with  such  functions 
shows  an  attempt  to  secure  good  administration  in  the  burghs  and  to  main- 
tain the  connection  of  the  king's  burghs  with  the  crown,  and  it  may  also 
have  made  more  possible  the  union  of  the  burghs  in  their  burghal  assembly. 

1  State  of  the  Evidence  contained  In  the  Returns  to  the  Orders  of  the  House  of  Commons  .  .  . 
By  the  London  Committee  for  conducting  the  Regulation  of  the  Internal  Government  of  the 
Royal  Burghs  (1791),  19-20. 

^Report  of  the  Commission  on  Municipal  Corporations,  1835-6.  General  Report,  23  ; 
Local  Reports,  13. 

3  An  Illustration  of  the  Principles  of  the  Bill  Proposed  to  be  Submitted  to  the  Considera- 
tion of  Parliament,  For  correcting  the  Abuses  and  Supplying  the  Defects  in  the  Internal 
Government  of  the  Royal  Boroughs  .  .  .  By  the  Committee  of  Delegates  (1787),  48-54. 

T.  K. 


Reviews  of  Books 

THE  MINORITY  OF  HENRY  THE  THIRD.     By  Kate  Norgate.     Pp.  xii,  307. 
8vo.     London  :  Macmillan  &  Co.     1912.     8s.  6d.  net. 

THIS  volume  is  a  further  continuation  of  Miss  Norgate's  history  of  England 
under  the  Angevin  kings.  Taken  as  a  whole  the  history  is  the  most 
important  English  contribution  to  the  narrative  style  of  writing  upon  our 
medieval  politics.  It  is  more  critical  than  the  work  of  Freeman,  more 
interesting  than  Sir  James  Ramsay's,  more  up-to-date  and  accessible 
than  Pauli's,  and  fuller  than  the  valuable  though  neglected  history  of 
England  '  during  the  early  and  middle  ages,'  written  by  C.  H.  Pearson. 
Although  this  style  of  writing  is  common  on  the  continent,  it  has 
of  recent  years  been  discarded  by  most  English  scholars.  Under  the 
stress  of  specialism,  our  scholars  prefer  the  medium  of  commentary  and 
detailed  criticism.  Mr.  Round's  Geoffrey  de  Mandev'tlle  was,  in  this  as  in 
other  respects,  an  epoch-making  book.  This  necessary  concentration  has 
its  danger,  and  Miss  Norgate  has  resisted  the  tendency.  That  she  is  not 
indifferent  to  it  her  articles  in  the  English  Historical  Review  and  the  thirty 
pages  of  notes  in  the  present  volume  testify. 

A  new  narrative  of  the  early  years  of  Henry  III.  was  needed.  A  great 
deal  of  work  has  yet  to  be  done  upon  this  period,  so  important  in  legal  and 
constitutional  history  ;  and  students  will  find  much  preliminary  help  in 
this  connected  story.  The  memorable  points  in  it  are,  first,  the  proof  that 
the  papal  legates  did  not  unduly  interfere  in  the  administration,  and, 
secondly,  that  there  was  less  to  choose  between  Hubert  de  Burgh  and  his 
enemies  than  is  commonly  supposed.  As  her  pages  on  William  the  Marshal 
show,  Miss  Norgate  is  a  hero-worshipper ;  and,  if  it  is  difficult  to  follow 
her  in  her  half-concealed  admiration  for  King  John  and  Falkes  de  Breaute, 
it  is  a  real  pleasure  to  have  her  attractive  portrait  of  Pandulf.  The  deprecia- 
tion of  Hubert  de  Burgh  is  not  so  convincing,  because  it  is  conveyed  in 
asides.  What  was  needed  was  a  candid  examination  of  the  charge  that 
Hubert  was  working  to  destroy  the  Charter.  The  value  of  this  latter  part 
of  Miss  Norgate's  book  lies  in  the  general  impression  which  the  reader  gets 
from  the  chronological  account  of  the  king's  gradual  emancipation.  One 
sees  how  casual  the  disorder  was,  how  easily  and  naturally  suspicion  was 
aroused,  and  how  gossip  and  backbiting  made  difficulties  and  formed  parties 
in  Rome  as  well  as  in  England.  It  is  strange,  however,  that  Miss  Norgate 
makes  no  use  of  the  documents  edited  by  Dr.  Gasquet  in  his  book,  Henry 
III.  and  the  Church. 

Among  many  matters  of  more  detailed  interest  may  be  mentioned  the 


404     Norgate :  The  Minority  of  Henry  the  Third 

account  of  Irish  government  (pp.  84-5,  218-9),  the  analysis  of  Poitevin 
politics,  and  the  notes  upon  the  treaty  of  Kingston  (p.  2/8),  the  royal  castles 
in  1223-4  (p.  290),  and  Bedford  castle  (p.  293). 

It  is  obvious  that  some  of  Miss  Norgate 's  criticism,  covering  as  it  does 
such  a  wide  field,  should  provoke  discussion.  The  sixth  note  (pp.  281-6) 
needs  most  exhaustive  treatment  before  it  is  regarded  as  conclusive.  In  the 
next  note  (pp.  286-90),  the  author  shows  clearly  that  the  papal  letters 
included  in  the  Red  Book  of  the  Exchequer  are  in  reality  the  letters  of 
Honorius  III.  and  not  of  Gregory  IX. ;  she  also  makes  the  interesting  and 
very  probable  suggestion  that  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  had  begun  to 
exercise  influence  at  Rome.  But  it  is  difficult  to  see  why  she  does  not 
connect  all  the  papal  letters  of  this  year  with  the  same  cause.  The  pope, 
in  addition  to  the  general  letters  preserved  in  the  Red  Book,  wrote  to  the 
prelates  on  his  policy,  and  also  to  the  four  most  important  men  in  England 
demanding  the  surrender  of  their  castles  to  the  king.  There  is  nothing 
puzzling  about  this  procedure,  especially  if  we  accept  the  view  that  the 
archbishop  was  offering  advice  at  Rome.  Similarly,  Miss  Norgate's  diffi- 
culty about  the  dates  of  publication  seems  to  be  due  to  the  fact  that  she 
overlooks  the  distinction  between  a  council  meeting  in  the  narrow  sense 
and  the  great  meeting  at  the  Christmas  feast  at  Northampton.  True 
publication  could  only  be  made  at  the  latter. 

The  battle  at  Lincoln  is  as  thorny  a  subject  as  the  battle  of  Hastings. 
Like  her  predecessors,  Miss  Norgate  is  more  successful  in  attacking  the 
views  of  others  than  in  constructing  her  own.  She  seems  to  fail  just  in  so 
far  as  she  refuses  to  face  the  literal  meaning  of  her  authorities.  If  there  is 
a  'real  difficulty'  (p.  275)  it  is  of  no  use  to  construct  a  theory  which 
disregards  it.  Either  she  must  repudiate  the  account  in  the  Marshal's  life 
or  explain  all  the  alleged  facts.  As  is  usually  the  case,  a  bold  acceptance 
of  the  harder  interpretation  is  probably  the  easiest  course  in  the  end. 
Personally,  I  think  that  the  story  of  the  Bishop  of  Winchester's  recon- 
naissance must  be  accepted.  The  bishop  commanded  one  division,  and  it 
is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  his  action  was  dependent  upon  the  move- 
ments of  all  the  other  divisions.  But  if  the  story  be  accepted,  it  seems 
necessary  to  believe  that  the  blocked  gateway  which  the  bishop  noticed  lay 
to  the  south  of  the  keep,  and  that  he  ordered  its  demolition  because  he 
wished  to  strengthen  the  position  of  the  castle  by  breaking  through  the  wall 
which  connected  it  with  the  city. 

On  minor  points  Miss  Norgate  creates  unnecessary  difficulties  by  trans- 
lating the  word  tor  (turris)  in  different  ways.  As  she  herself  translates  on 
p.  37  (Guill.  le  Marshal,  1.  16490)  the  tor  was  the  keep,  and  there  is  nothing 
strange  in  sending  men  up  the  keep  to  look  for  ambushes  (p.  39,  note). 
She  makes  the  same  error  a  few  pages  earlier  in  identifying  the  keep  and 
castle  at  Winchester  and  Farnham  (pp.  26,  29).  In  the  latter  case  the 
'castle,'  as  distinguished  from  the  outer  bailey,  did  not  mean  the  keep, 
but  the  castle  proper  or  citadel.  In  later  developments,  as  at  Harlech,  the 
contrast  between  the  outer  walled  enclosure  and  the  massive  fabric  of  the 
inner  bailey  is  obvious.  But  before  this  development  a  distinction  was 
drawn  (e.g.  Rot.  Scacc.  Norm.  i.  no,  'in  .  ,  .  muro  ad  excludendum  baillium 


ftx 


LANERCOST    PRIORY   CHURCH 

From  Drawing  by  T.  Hearne,  F.S.A.     1780. 


See  page  405 


Norgate :  The  Minority  of  Henry  the  Third     405 

a  Castro,'  at  Neufchateau-sur-Epte).  In  this  sense  the  '  castle,'  as  opposed 
to  turris  and  outer  works,  seems  to  correspond  to  the  corpus  of  William  the 
Breton  (Phil.  xi.  460)  and  to  //"  cors  dou  chaste!  (see  Viollet's  note  in  the 
Etablissements  de  Saint  Louis,  I.  cc.  xlii,  Ixx.). 

It  is  not  possible  to  discuss  all  the  points  of  interest  which  I  have  noted  ; 
a  few  criticisms  must  suffice.  On  p.  64  the  Marshalship  of  England  is  erro- 
neously described  as  a  Grand  Serjeanty.  On  p.  1 30,  note,  though  Miss  Norgate 
rightly  corrects  the  annalists  who  say  that  Hubert  de  Burgh  was  made  justiciar 
in  1219  or  1 220,  she  omits  to  mention  that  Hubert  did  become  specially 
responsible  for  the  king  and  government  immediately  after  the  Marshal's 
death.  The  attestations  in  the  Close  Rolls  should  be  connected  with  the 
story  told  by  the  Marshal's  biographer  about  Peter  des  Roches'  attempt  to 
claim  the  person  of  the  king.  With  a  very  few  exceptions  the  justiciar 
attests,  with  or  without  the  bishop,  from  20  April,  1219  (Rot.  Glaus. 
\.  390).  I  think  that  the  annalists  realised  that  an  important  change  had 
taken  place  in  Hubert's  position.  It  is  possible  that  Pandulf's  letters  to  the 
treasurer  and  vice-chancellor  also  refer  to  the  same  attempt  of  the  bishop. 
Between  10-20  April  and  very  occasionally  afterwards  the  bishop  ordered 
the  payment  of  money  out  of  the  treasury.  The  legate  was  very  possibly 
attacking  this  practice.  In  p.  148,  note,  I  doubt  if  Miss  Norgate  proves 
her  point ;  the  sheriff — not  the  castellan,  was  responsible  for  expenditure 
upon  repairs.  The  *  confusing  note '  in  the  Patent  Rolls  mentioned  on 
p.  184,  note,  probably  gives  the  sense,  not  the  words,  of  the  addition  to  the 
letters ;  after  the  letters  had  been  written,  another  copy  with  a  slight 
change  was  made  and  sent,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  Earl  of  Gloucester's 
preparations  had  developed  into  action.  On  pp.  233,  288,  Miss  Norgate 
is  much  too  positive  upon  the  question  of  treason  and  private  warfare. 
The  fall  of  Falkes  de  Breaute"  is  in  reality  an  important  case  in  the 
development  of  English  ideas,  not  a  mere  illustration  of  them.  The 
difference  between  proditio  and  diffidatlo  is  well  seen  on  p.  165.  It  is 
precisely  this  kind  of  point  which  is  missed  by  the  narrative  writer.  Simi- 
larly it  was  impossible  for  Miss  Norgate,  without  overloading  her  book,  to 
go  into  the  very  important  questions  of  the  interpretation  of  the  Charter  in 
the  law  courts  (pp.  186,  198  note),  and  of  the  equitable  jurisdiction  of  the 
king's  council  (p.  96).  Yet  these  were  the  years  of  Patteshull  and  of  many 
of  those  cases  which,  in  Bracton's  view,  made  the  law  of  England. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  Miss  Norgate  will  carry  on  her  history  until  the 
Barons'  War.  She  would  add  greatly  to  the  many  obligations  under  which 
she  has  already  placed  historical  students. 

F.  M.  POWICKE. 

THE  CHRONICLE  OF  LANERCOST,  1272-1396.  Translated  with  Notes  by 

the    Right    Hon.    Sir    Herbert    Maxwell,  Baronet.      Pp.  xxxi,   357. 

With  nine  Illustrations.     410.     Glasgow  :  James  MacLehose  &  Sons. 
1913.     2is.  net. 

SIR  HERBERT  MAXWELL  has  added,  in  this  volume,  another  item  to  the 
debt  of  gratitude  which  students  of  Scottish  history  owe  him  for  his  labours 
on  the  early  chroniclers  of  the  affairs  of  the  country.  The  translation  does 


406    Maxwell :   The  Chronicle  of  Lanercost 

not  cover  the  whole  of  the  MS.  styled  The  Chronicle  of  Lanercost  :  the 
earlier  part  from  1201  to  1272  has  been  omitted  as  it  does  not  contain 
much  of  any  matter  germane  to  the  history  of  Scotland. 

The  Chronicle  has  for  long  been,  if  not  a  perfect  mine  of  information  for 
historians,  at  least  a  useful  granary  from  which  to  cull  many  interesting 
facts  :  these,  however,  require  to  be  correlated  with  other  accounts  of  the 
same  incidents,  as  the  chronicler  can  hardly  be  depended  on  as  a  perfectly 
sane  or  impartial  historian.  Indeed  it  is  very  much  otherwise  :  his  anti- 
Scottish  bias  proclaims  itself  in  almost  every  sentence  in  which  he  has  to 
do  with  that,  to  his  mind,  most  detestable  of  people.  And  we  can  perhaps 
hardly  wonder  at  his  attitude  :  the  north  of  England  suffered  severely  from 
the  many  incursions  from  across  the  border.  And  an  inhabitant  of  the 
former  district  would  require  to  be  more  than  human  if  he  did  not  resent, 
and  resent  keenly,  the  devastation  wrought  by  the  enemy,  the  laying  waste 
of  the  country,  the  destruction  of  the  crops,  and  the  carrying  off  both  of 
women  and  cattle.  He  has,  however,  his  consolations,  and  he  is  able  to 
record  some  shrewd  knocks  which  the  invaders  received  at  the  hands  of  his 
countrymen,  notably  at  the  battles  of  Halidon  Hill  and  Durham. 

The  question  of  the  identity  of  the  author  of  the  Chronicle  has  always 
been  a  matter  of  dispute.  Father  Stevenson,  who  edited  the  Latin  version 
of  the  Chronicle  for  the  Maitland  and  Bannatyne  Clubs  in  1839,  was  of 
opinion  that  it  was  the  work  of  a  Minorite  Friar  of  Carlisle.  But  prefixed 
to  the  present  edition  there  is  a  long  and  scholarly  chapter  by  the  Rev.  Dr. 
James  Wilson  of  Dalston,  in  which  he  favours  the  idea  which  has  generally 
been  held  that  this  book  was  written  in  the  Augustinian  Priory  of  Laner- 
cost, by  one  of  the  canons  or  a  succession  of  them. 

The  editor  evidently  considers  the  question  as  still  a  more  or  less  open 
one,  but  whatever  may  be  the  truth  the  Chronicle  will  probably  always  be 
known  under  the  name  of  that  of  Lanercost. 

The  author  or  authors  did  not,  it  must  be  confessed,  possess  any  great 
literary  style  :  there  are  many  repetitions,  the  same  incident  being  told 
twice  over,  generally  with  more  detail  in  the  second  telling,  a  circumstance 
which  leads  Dr.  Wilson  to  think  that  the  work  was  not  a  continuous  one 
but  that  events  were  jotted  down  as  they  occurred,  and  if  a  fuller  account 
of  them  came  to  hand  afterwards  it  was  inserted  without  the  first  notice 
being  deleted.  Whoever  wrote  the  book  he  must  have  been,  as  Bishop 
Dowden  somewhere  observes,  *  a  credulous  gossip.'  We  should  no  doubt 
be  grateful  to  him  for  certain  historical  information,  some  of  which  is 
accurate,  and  some  at  all  events  useful  as  showing  the  impression  the  events 
of  the  time  made  on  a  North  of  England  ecclesiastic  from  the  information 
he  could  collect.  But  it  must  be  confessed  that  a  great  deal  of  what  we 
are  told  is  rubbish,  and  rubbish  of  a  sort  that  makes  us  wonder  how  any 
educated  man,  even  in  the  thirteenth  or  fourteenth  centuries,  could  possibly 
believe  it.  Many  of  the  preposterous  stories  which  he  tells  have  not  even 
the  merit  of  making  virtue  triumphant  over  vice,  and  as  often  as  not  the 
good  man  gets  the  punishment  while  the  bad  one  escapes  free.  The  author 
does  not  spare  his  own  cloth,  and  though  perhaps  his  strong  national  bias 
may  have  led  him  to  believe  the  unlikely  and  horrible  story  about  the  parish 


Maxwell :   The  Chronicle  of  Lanercost     407 

priest  of  Inverkeithing,  given  on  p.  29,  he  does  not  in  other  instances  spare 
even  English  ecclesiastics  who  had  transgressed  the  laws  of  the  Church  and 
of  common  morality.  But  of  most  of  the  stories  told  in  the  Chronicle  it 
may  be  said  that  they  are  gross  and  unscrupulous  falsehoods,  and  as  the 
translator  remarks  in  a  note,  *  it  is  not  easy  to  understand  how,'  when  its 
doctrines  were  enforced  by  such  fictions,  '  Christianity  retained  its  ascen- 
dancy among  reasonable  beings.' 

Notwithstanding  all  this  we  read  the  Chronicle  with  interest  not  un- 
mingled  with  amusement.  The  author  was  a  quaint  creature  by  no  means 
destitute  of  humour.  His  work  is  full  of  puns,  no  better  than  puns  gener- 
ally are,  and,  of  course,  untranslatable  from  the  Latin.  He,  or  a  friend 
whom  he  generally  calls  H.,  bursts  into  song  from  time  to  time  in  rhymed 
Latin  verses,  of  which  the  spirit  and  humour  has  been  wonderfully  well 
caught  by  the  translator.  There  is  little  doubt  that  the  poet  of  the 
Chronicle  was  Henry  de  Burgo,  who  was  elected  prior  of  Lanercost  about 
1310  and  died  in  1315.  But  it  was  when  he  was  a  young  canon  that  he 
wrote  most  of  his  verses,  and  his  muse  appears  at  its  best  between  1280  and 
1290.  He  seems  to  have  considered  it  as  not  quite  befitting  the  dignity  of 
a  prior  to  write  humorous  verse,  and  at  all  events  none  assigned  to  him 
appear  after  his  elevation  to  the  priorate,  and  the  Chronicle  is  devoid  of  all 
poetical  contributions  after  the  date  of  his  death. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  in  this  volume  there  is  a  rich  feast  for 
the  delver  in  forgotten  byeways  of  history.  The  editor  has  supplied  many 
notes  of  such  assistance  to  the  elucidation  of  the  text  that  we  could  have 
wished  even  more  of  them. 

The  volume  has  several  excellent  illustrations  in  the  shape  of  views  of 
Lanercost  Priory,  Hexham  Abbey,  and  the  Cathedrals  of  Durham  and 
Carlisle.  A  page  also  of  the  original  MS.  has  been  reproduced  in  facsimile, 
and  shows  it  to  be  a  singularly  well  written  and  legible  manuscript. 

The  Chronicle  in  its  present  shape  makes  a  large  and  handsome  volume, 
printed  in  the  most  legible  of  type  and  with  generous  margins.  Such  a 
get-up  adds  much  to  the  comfort  of  the  reader. 

J.   BALFOUR  PAUL. 

HISTORY  AND  HISTORIANS  IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.  By  G.  P. 
Gooch.  Pp.  600.  8vo.  London:  Longmans,  Green  &  Co.  1913. 
i  os.  6d.  net. 

MR.  GOOCH'S  book  is  an  expansion  of  his  article  on  Historical  Research  in 
the  closing  volume  of  the  c  Cambridge  Modern  History.'  Its  object, 
according  to  the  preface,  is  '  to  summarise  and  assess  the  manifold  achieve- 
ments of  historical  research  and  production  during  the  last  hundred  years, 
to  portray  the  masters  of  the  craft,  to  trace  the  development  of  scientific 
method,  to  measure  the  political,  religious,  and  racial  influences  that  have 
contributed  to  the  making  of  celebrated  books,  and  to  analyse  their  effect 
on  the  life  and  thought  of  their  time.'  The  courage  and  ambition  of  this 
ideal  are  enhanced  by  the  fact  that  no  such  survey  has  been  attempted  in 
any  language. 

A  rather  brief  introduction   takes  stock  of  the  progress  of  historical 


408  Gooch:   History  and  Historians 

research  previous  to  the  nineteenth  century.  The  true  starting-point 
of  modern  history  is  the  Renaissance,  which  produced  a  secularisation  of 
thought.  *  Petrarch  and  Boccaccio  were  the  fathers  of  modern  historio- 
graphy.1 But  secular  studies  were  soon  engulfed  in  the  whirlpool  of 
confessional  strife.  From  such  religious  preoccupations  historians  were 
not  free  until  the  eighteenth  century.  'The  task  of  collecting  material 
was  rapidly  pursued,  a  more  critical  attitude  towards  authorities  and  tradi- 
tion was  adopted,  the  first  literary  narratives  were  composed,  and  the  first 
serious  attempts  were  made  to  interpret  the  phenomena  of  civilisation.' 
But  the  spirit  of  the  Aufklarung,  the  want  of  critical  faculty  in  dealing 
with  the  value  of  authorities,  the  absence  of  teaching,  the  difficulties,  both 
physical  and  political,  attending  access  to  documents,  and  the  .attitude  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church  still  hampered  the  historian.  '  For  the  liberty 
of  thought  and  expression,  the  insight  into  different  ages,  and  the  judicial 
temper  on  which  historical  science  depends,  the  world  had  to  wait  till  the 
nineteenth  century,  the  age  of  the  Second  Renaissance.' 

The  historical  activities  of  this  age  are  traced  in  twenty-eight  chapters. 
The  first  eight  are  devoted  to  German  scholarship  from  Niebuhr  to  Ranke 
and  his  contemporaries,  the  impelling  motive  of  their  work  being  the 
romantic  movement,  the  wars  of  liberation,  and  the  rise  of  the  German 
Empire.  'In  the  making  of  the  German  Empire  no  small  part  fell  to 
the  group  of  Professors  who  by  tongue  and  pen  preached  the  gospel  of 
nationality,  glorified  the  achievements  of  the  Hohenzollerns,  and  led  their 
countrymen  from  idealism  to  realism.'  The  six  chapters  assigned  to  France 
deal  with  the  rise  of  historical  studies,  the  '  romantic '  school  of  Thierry 
and  Michelet,  the  '  political '  school  of  Guizot,  Mignet  and  Thiers,  the 
Middle  Ages  and  the  Anclen  Regime^  the  French  Revolution,  and 
Napoleon.  English  historians  to  whom  six  chapters  are  also  allotted 
begin  with  Hallam  and  end  with  Maitland.  The  United  States,  Minor 
Countries,  Mommsen  and  Roman  Studies,  Greece  and  Byzantium,  the 
Ancient  East,  the  Jews  and  the  Christian  Church,  Catholicism,  and  the 
History  of  Civilisation  (Kulturgeschichte)  are  each  discussed  in  separate 
chapters. 

As  the  book  is  primarily  addressed  to  what  Mr.  Gooch  would  call  the 
4  Anglo-Saxon '  world,  the  proportion  assigned  to  England  is  not  excessive. 
The  contribution  of  Scotland  to  historical  studies  is  summed  up  in  one 
sentence :  *  Detailed  narratives  of  Scottish  history  have  been  compiled  by 
Burton,  Andrew  Lang,  and  Hume  Brown.'  Apart  from  the  unhappy 
phraseology,  the  enumeration  of  Scottish  historians  is  singularly  inadequate. 
Omitting  living  writers,  Mr.  Gooch  might  have  found  room  for  at  least 
Thomas  Thomson,  Joseph  Robertson,  E.  W.  Robertson,  M'Crie,  Skene, 
Cosmo  Innes,  and  Tytler.  The  last  is  merely  mentioned  in  connection 
with  the  Records  Commission,  and  his  name  does  not  appear  in  the  index. 
Yet  Tytler's  constant  references  to  unpublished  material  at  a  time  when 
access  to  the  public  archives  was  still  difficult  renders  his  History  of  Scot- 
land even  to-day,  in  spite  of  its  cumbrous  style,  an  important  authority. 
Mr.  Gooch  tells  how  Ranke's  '  discovery  of  the  difference  in  the  portraits 
of  Louis  XI.  and  Charles  the  Bold  in  g>uentin  Durward  and  in  Commines 


in  the  Nineteenth  Century  409 

constituted  an  epoch  in  his  life.'  Yet  Scott's  influence  was  not  limited  to 
Ranke,  and  in  his  own  country,  by  founding  the  Bannatyne  Club,  he  gave 
a  great  impetus  to  research.  Further,  one  would  like  to  know  something 
of  those  fifty  writers  on  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  who,  according  to  Lord 
Acton,  'have  considered  the  original  evidences  sufficiently  to  form  some- 
thing like  an  independent  conclusion.'  Comment  on  this  aspect  of  Mr. 
Gooch's  book  would  have  been  superfluous  were  it  not  somewhat  typical  of 
the  attitude  of  English  writers  to  Scottish  history  and  Scottish  historians. 

No  one  can  peruse  this  volume  without  being  impressed  by  the  vast 
range  of  the  author's  knowledge  of  historical  literature.  This  knowledge 
he  carries  lightly  :  the  book  is  the  product  of  enthusiasm.  Excellent 
character  sketches  are  given  of  eminent  historians,  and  each  important  work 
is  critically  analysed  and  its  value  assessed.  Mr.  Gooch  writes  with  sound 
judgment  and  strict  impartiality,  and  only  an  occasional  reference  to  '  the 
people'  shows  his  own  predilections.  The  verdicts  he  passes  are,  in  general, 
those  which  have  commended  themselves  to  students  in  the  past ;  and  if 
they  are  therefore  less  suggestive,  they  invite  the  reader's  confidence  when 
he  is  introduced  to  less  familiar  parts  of  the  subject.  The  style  is  clear  and 
straightforward  ;  but  in  the  latter  half  of  the  book,  which  tends  to  become 
a  mere  catalogue  raisonn/,  it  suffers  from  an  excessive  use  of  stock  adjectives 
and  phrases.  This  was  hardly  avoidable  in  a  comparatively  small  book  of 
six  hundred  pages.  Nevertheless,  had  Mr.  Gooch  expanded  the  paragraph 
dealing  with  general  features  which  usually  begins  a  chapter  he  might  have 
got  over  this  difficulty,  and  more  adequately  fulfilled  Lord  Acton's  idea  of 
connecting  the  historical  scholarship  of  the  century  'with  the  political, 
religious,  and  economic  thought  throughout  Europe.'  As  it  is,  Mr.  Gooch 
may  be  congratulated  on  having  provided  the  student  with  a  unique  guide 
to  the  historical  literature  of  the  world. 

HENRY  W.  MEIKLE. 

A  HISTORY  OF  WITCHCRAFT  IN  ENGLAND  FROM  1558  TO  1718.  By 
Wallace  Notestein.  Pp.  xiv,  442.  Cr.  8vo.  Washington  :  American 
Historical  Association ;  and  London :  Henry  Frowde.  1911.  6s.  6d.  net. 

AN  assistant  professor  in  Minnesota  University,  Mr.  Notestein  wrote  his 
essay  as  a  thesis  for  a  doctorate  in  philosophy,  and  found  in  course  of  it  the 
necessity  of  a  chronological  survey  of  witch  trials.  Accordingly  it  is  on  a 
list  of  cases  (the  abbreviated  bibliography  of  the  reports,  etc.,  of  which  fills 
an  appendix  of  70  pages)  that  the  work  was  based,  gaining  in  its  final  form 
the  H.  B.  Adams  Prize  of  the  American  Historical  Association  for  1909, 
and  now  appearing  in  a  compact  volume  closely  referenced  and  well 
indexed.  It  reflects  great  credit  on  the  author  by  its  extent  of  research, 
careful  narration,  sound  judgment  and  moderate  standpoint  and  tone.  The 
opinions  are  for  the  most  part  no  echo  of  other  men's  thought,  but  are 
independent  inductions  from  a  wide  range  of  English  witchcraft  literature 
and  record,  not  inclusive,  however,  of  MSS.  sources. 

Completely  in  contrast  with  M.  De  Cauzon's  La  Magie  et  la  Sorcellerie 
en  France  recently  reviewed  (S.H.R.  x.  309),  the  book  trusts  little  to 
broad  theories  of  credulous  occultism,  but  seeking  always  the  solid  ground, 

2D 


410       Notestein:   A  History  of  Witchcraft 

and  restricting  its  scope  by  bounds  both  of  area  and  time,  draws  its  matter 
from  first-hand  published  records,  and  builds  up  its  inferences  with  due 
regard  to  the  canons  of  historical  criticism.  M.  De  Cauzon  shirked  almost 
entirely  the  certain  and  pervasive  presence  of  deliberate  deception  j 
throughout  he  gave  rein  to  faith.  Mr.  Notestein,  making  full  allowance 
for  the  psychology  of  disease,  is  alert  to  discover  the  manifold  signs  (very 
frequently  seen  by  contemporaries)  of  interested  imposture,  and  too  often 
of  active  malice.  The  result  is  that  as  against  the  haze  of  credulity, 
which  in  the  French  study  obscures  and  deprecates  examination  of 
phenomena,  the  concrete  certainties  of  the  American  monograph  stand  out 
firm  in  a  close  foreground  of  hard  clear  light.  The  Frenchman  had  com- 
pensations from  his  broader  canvas,  but  while  the  American  suffers  a  little 
from  insularity  (one  might  sometimes  think  he  had  forgotten  the  continent 
of  Europe,  and  shut  his  eyes  to  the  Middle  Ages),  we  gain  much  more 
from  his  ultra-fidelity  to  English  boundaries.  His  chronological  system  is 
excellent,  mapping  the  course  with  landmarks,  prominent  in  which  are 
Elizabeth's  statute  of  1563,  the  bold  scepticism  of  Reginald  Scot  in  1584, 
followed  by  Harsnett  in  1599,  the  beacon  fires  piled  higher  when  the 
demonologist  James  VI.  came  to  the  united  throne,  and  the  fluctuations  of 
the  public  mind  under  the  later  Stuarts,  until  the  last  gleam  of  the  ancient 
faith  flashed  in  Glanvill's  Sadducismus  Triumphatus  in  1681.  The  latest 
execution  in  England  is  said  to  have  been  in  1682. 

A  sorry  record  of  ignorance  and  cruelty,  to  be  sure,  the  collection  of 
trials  makes,  but  the  monotony  is  broken  by  the  humanity  and  acumen  of 
pioneer  rationalists,  who  broke  the  keys  of  superstition,  and  sometimes 
brightened  literature  with  their  wit.  The  survey  is  comprehensive  and 
searching,  yet  its  exclusion  of  the  Continent  from  view  seems  at  times  to 
distort  the  perspective.  For  instance,  on  the  question  of  the  relative 
tendencies  of  Presbytery  and  Prelacy,  and  of  Scotland  and  England,  towards 
witchcraft  prosecutions,  it  is  right  to  remember  that  the  Demonologie  of 
James  VI.,  was,  with  all  its  sequel,  a  feeble  reflection  of  the  far  grosser 
manifestation  of  bigotry  and  persecution  in  France.  The  theory  of  the 
Covenant  with  Satan  should  have  been  explained,  and  the  fact  brought  out 
that  it  superseded  the  feudal  conception  of  Homage,  of  which  the  mark 
used  to  be  reckoned  the  sign.  Sexual  elements  in  the  creed  should  not 
have  been  virtually  ignored,  and  the  witch  Sabbath  should  have  been  at 
least  described.  Indications  of  awakening  scientific  opinion  on  the  subjec- 
tive nature  of  the  phenomena  might  have  been  correlated  with  the  views  of 
continental  thinkers.  We  should  gladly  have  heard  more  of  the  discussion 
on  the  revival  of  the  water-ordeal.  We  should  also  have  been  glad  to  learn 
what  specialty  there  was  in  English  witchcraft  not  common  to  the  cult  in 
Europe.  Such  specialties  must  have  been  few  :  was  thatch-burning  one  ? 

The  few  desiderata  hinted  at  above  are  far  more  than  balanced  by  the 
amplitude  of  details  and  inferences  actually  given,  notable  among  which  are 
the  proofs  of  fabricated  charges,  of  the  contagion  of  craze,  of  the  pressure 
and  torture  of  victims  to  make  them  confess,  and  of  the  fact  that  most  of 
the  witches  came  from  the  degraded  and  criminal  ranks,  although  the 
established  instances  of  prosecution  of  better-class  people  from  sheer  malice 


were  n 


Notestein:   A  History  of  Witchcraft       411 


were  not  few.  The  essay,  a  capital  short  story  of  England's  share  in  the 
great  illusion  of  the  witch,  is  excellently  suited  for  precise  reference  as  well 
as  for  general  information.  It  adds  Mr.  Notestein's  name  to  the  honour 
list  among  the  capable,  diligent,  and  cultured  students  who  are  steadily 
establishing  the  reputation  of  American  research  in  English  history. 

GEO.  NEILSON. 

EPHEMERIS  EPIGRAPHICA,  CORPORIS  INSCRIPTIONUM  LATINARUM  SUPPLE- 
MENTUM.  Edita  jussu  Instituti  Archaeologici  Romani,  cura  Th. 
Mommseni  (f),  O.  Hirschfeldi,  H.  Dessavi.  Vol.  ix.  Fasciculus 
quartus.  Insunt  F.  Haverfield,  Additamenta  quinta  ad  Corporis 
vol.  vii.  (pp.  509-690)  ;  H.  Dessau,  Miscell.  Epigraph,  (pp.  691-706)  ; 
Indices  (pp.  707-763).  Berolini  :  Typis  et  impensis  Georgii  Reimeri. 


THIS  issue  of  the  Ephemeris  Epigraphica  is  of  the  highest  interest  and 
importance  to  all  students  of  Roman  Britain.  Exactly  forty  years  have 
elapsed  since  the  seventh  volume  of  the  Corpus,  containing  the  British 
inscriptions,  was  published  under  the  editorship  of  Huebner.  Supplements 
appeared  in  1876,  1877,  1879,  and  1889  —  the  first  three  by  the  original 
editor,  the  last  by  Professor  Haverfield.  Since  1889  much  has  happened. 
The  number  of  inscriptions  has  been  largely  added  to.  Excavation  at 
home  and  abroad,  coupled  with  comparative  study,  has  not  only  supplied 
fresh  problems,  but  has  substantially  increased  the  resources  available  for 
solving  them.  Lastly,  the  breathing-space  of  twenty-four  years  has  enabled 
Professor  Haverfield  to  undertake  a  systematic  survey  of  the  whole  of  the 
original  body  of  material. 

The  present  supplement,  therefore,  edited  with  a  competence  and  a 
sureness  of  touch  which  there  is  no  gainsaying,  is  much  more  than  a 
repertory  of  recently  discovered  inscriptions.  These  we  have  in  abundance 
—  from  Caerwent,  Chester,  Housesteads,  Corbridge,  Birrens,  and  other 
sites  in  England  and  in  Scotland  —  and  in  some  cases  the  information  they 
convey  is  very  illuminating.  But,  alongside  of  these  and  of  the  masterly 
commentary  that  accompanies  them,  we  get  the  results  of  Professor  Haver- 
field's  searching  revision  of  Huebner's  work.  Readings  have  been  verified 
or  corrected,  questions  of  provenance  have  been  more  thoroughly  investi- 
gated, and  manuscript  sources  of  information  have  been  re-examined  at  first 
hand,  the  huge  mass  of  facts  being  arranged  and  set  out  with  the  succinct- 
ness and  orderly  care  that  characterises  the  Corpus  generally.  Another 
feature,  which  is  more  of  a  novelty,  is  particularly  welcome.  The  editor 
has  taken  the  opportunity  of  summarizing,  at  appropriate  points,  the  state 
of  present-day  knowledge  regarding  the  Roman  occupation  of  various  parts 
of  Britain.  His  treatment  of  Wales  and  of  the  Antonine  Vallum  are  cases 
in  point.  As  full  references  are  given,  such  authoritative  summaries  are 
very  valuable. 

The  only  other  contribution  to  the  present  fasciculus  consists  of  a  brief 
discussion  by  Professor  Dessau  of  two  questions  relating  toThracian  royalties. 
In  view  of  its  special  character,  this  hardly  calls  for  notice  here.  But  it 
should  not  be  forgotten  that  Dessau  has  also  acted  as  general  editor.  We 


412  Ephemeris  Epigraphica 

gather  from  the  prefatory  note  that  the  fasciculus  has  been  two  years  in 
passing  through  the  press.  This  has  had  its  advantages,  as  it  has  rendered 
possible  the  inclusion,  in  an  Appendix,  of  discoveries  so  recent  as  some  of 
those  made  in  the  autumn  of  1912  by  the  Glasgow  Archaeological  Society 
at  Balmuildy.  That  it  has  also  had  its  drawbacks,  Professor  Haverfield 
himself  would  probably  be  the  first  to  admit. 

GEORGE  MACDONALD. 

LORD  DURHAM'S  REPORT  ON  THE  AFFAIRS  OF  BRITISH  NORTH  AMERICA. 
Edited  with  an  introduction  by  Sir  C.  P.  Lucas,  K.C.B.,  K.C.M.G. 
Three  volumes.  Vol.  I,  vi.  335  ;  Vol.  2,  339  ;  Vol.  3,  380. 
Demy  8vo.  Oxford:  Clarendon  Press.  1912.  2§s.  6d.  net. 

STUDENTS  of  colonial  history  will  welcome  the  appearance  of  Sir  Charles 
Lucas's  work  on  Durham's  Report.  The  new  edition  consists  of  three 
distinct  parts:  An  historical  introduction  to  the  Report,  which  provides 
perhaps  the  best  summary  we  have  of  Canadian  history  about  1837  ;  the 
Report  itself,  with  foot-notes  of  great  value  to  the  student  of  Canadian 
history ;  and  a  selection  from  the  appendixes  to  the  Report.  By  the 
courtesy  of  the  Dominion  Archivist,  Sir  Charles  Lucas  also  has  been 
able  to  give  us,  as  new  and  hitherto  unpublished  matter,  a  most  interesting 
account  of  the  Durham  mission,  written  by  Durham's  right-hand  man, 
Charles  Buller.  Captious  criticism  may  ask  why  all  the  matter  contained 
in  the  original  appendixes  was  not  printed  ;  but  the  bulk  of  the  rejected 
secondary  material,  great  in  proportion  to  its  real  value,  seems  to  justify  the 
plan  of  selection,  and  it  was  certainly  a  matter  of  the  very  first  importance 
to  all  students  of  social  conditions  in  Canada  to  have,  in  some  form  more 
accessible  than  the  original  Parliamentary  Paper,  such  fundamental  docu- 
ments of  colonial  history  as  Charles  Buller's  Report  on  Public  Lands  and 
Emigration,  or  that  of  the  Assistant  Commissioners  on  Municipal  Institutions. 

The  editor  wisely  spends  little  time  on  discussing  the  authority  of  the 
Report,  but,  in  speaking  of  the  influence  exerted  by  Charles  Buller  on 
Durham,  he  makes  a  suggestion  of  some  interest :  '  It  may  well  be  that 
Buller  had  a  large  share  in  forming  his  (Durham's)  views,  and  in  enunciating 
them  in  such  clear  and  forcible  terms  ;  and  Buller,  it  will  be  borne  in  mind, 
was  a  pupil  of  Carlyle.  There  is  a  strong  savour  of  Carlyle  in  the  attitude 
which  the  Report  adopts  towards  the  French-Canadian  nationality.  There 
is  no  Whiggism  whatever  in  it,  no  trace  of  laissez-faire.  Lord  Durham 
was  a  democrat  after  the  type  of  Cromwell,  and  few  State  documents  ever 
embodied  so  strong  a  policy  as  is  contained  in  his  Report*  (i.  132).  But 
Durham's  native  impetuosity  and  vehemence  of  spirit  required  no  assistance 
in  such  matters,  even  from  Chelsea. 

The  edition  has  a  certain  timeliness  in  view  of  recent  events  in  Canada, 
and  Sir  Charles  Lucas  has  given  piquancy  to  his  introduction  by  connecting 
the  question  of  Canadian  autonomy  with  that  of  Irish  Home  Rule.  Indeed, 
throughout  the  introduction,  one  feels  how  fresh  and  living  are  the  matters 
discussed  so  boldly  in  the  great  Report.  Between  1837  an^  l%f>7>  Canada 
passed  from  administration  by  what  the  editor  aptly  calls  c  a  Crown  colony 
office '  to  something  perilously  near  independence.  It  was  a  time  of  hesita- 


Lucas:   Lord  Durham's  Report  413 

tion,  imperfect  foresight,  and  dangerous  error,  and  nothing  but  the  good 
fortune  which  gave  Britain  in  quick  succession  Durham,  Sydenham,  and 
Elgin,  as  governors  in  Canada,  could  have  saved  England  from  a  second 
Declaration  of  Independence  in  America.  Sir  Charles  Lucas  has  brought 
out  with  admirable  lucidity,  not  merely  Durham's  foresight  and  audacity  in 
imperial  matters,  but — a  point  seldom  noticed — the  limitations  he  dreamed 
of  imposing  on  Canadian  self-government :  '  The  contention  of  Lord 
Durham's  Report  was  that  a  clear  line  could  be  drawn  between  matters  of 
imperial  and  matters  of  purely  colonial  concern,  and  that  in  regard  to  the 
second  class  of  questions,  those  of  colonial  concern,  the  colony  should  no 
longer  be  a  dependency.'  In  contrast  with  this  very  provincial  indepen- 
dence, which  Durham  planned,  Sir  Charles  Lucas  makes  it  very  clear 
that  the  autonomy  which  was  the  key-note  of  the  Report  has  gradually 
expanded  until  the  only  supremacy  acknowledged  by  Canada  is  that  of 
tradition,  culture,  and  sentiment.  'The  broad  fact  remains  that  the 
Canadian  self-government  of  to-day  is  not  what  Lord  Durham  recom- 
mended, and  the  Canada  of  to-day  is  more  nearly  an  allied  than  a  subordinate 
nation.''  It  is  well  to  have  the  problem  of  the  limits  of  autonomy  pro- 
posed in  connection  with  the  Report,  for  modern  Canadian  history,  which 
began  with  Durham's  Report,  has  never  moved  far  from  this  central  ques- 
tion. Among  his  other  criticisms  of  Durham,  Sir  Charles  Lucas  seems 
hardly  fair  in  blaming  Durham  for  being  blind  to  a  possible  dominion  *  from 
sea  to  sea.'  'The  territories  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  the  North- 
West,  the  Pacific  Coast  were  not  within  the  scope  of  his  mission,  but  yet 
they  need  not  have  lain  beyond  his  horizon.'  But  politics,  unlike  specula- 
tion in  general,  deal  with  facts  and  possible  facts.  Durham  dealt  with 
matters  urgently  calling  for  settlement ;  other  things  even  in  British  North 
America  were  irrelevant ;  and  even  as  it  was,  he  was  almost  too  far  ahead 
of  his  contemporaries  in  Imperial  ideas. 

The  introduction,  however,  is  a  most  admirable  piece  of  work,  and  one 
may  say  of  the  work  as  a  whole  that  it  is  well  to  have,  from  one  who  com- 
bines, as  the  editor  does,  the  knowledge  and  responsibility  of  a  high  official  in 
the  Colonial  Office  with  the  candour  of  the  historical  student,  this  definitive 
edition  of  the  greatest  blue-book  of  the  Victorian  era.  Apart  from  the 
possible  objection,  alluded  to  above,  that  Sir  Charles  Lucas  should  have 
withheld  none  of  the  original  appendixes,  the  only  criticisms  which  the 
student  of  Canadian  history  will  pass  are,  that  the  third  volume  is  too 
important  to  be  left  unindexed  ;  and  that  maps  of  Lower  and  Upper 
Canada,  at  the  time  of  the  Durham  mission,  would  have  assisted  those  who 

possess  only  maps  of  the  modern  Dominion. 

J.  L.  MORISON. 

THE  MODERATORS  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND  FROM  1690  TO  1740. 
By  the  Rev.  John  Warrick,  M.A.  Pp.  388.  With  six  Portraits. 
Demy  8vo.  Edinburgh  :  Oliphant,  Anderson  &  Ferrier.  1913. 
i  os.  6d.  net. 

WHILE  the  author  of  this  volume  has  not  altogether  escaped  the  tendency 
of  the  ecclesiastical  historian  to  overestimate  the  political  importance  of  his 
subject,  still  the  biographies  of  the  twenty-seven  moderators  of  the  Church 


414       Warrick:   Moderators  of  the  Church 

of  Scotland  of  which  it  consists  furnish  varied,  if  not  in  all  cases  very 
inspiring  reading.  The  lives  of  the  men  here  treated  of  go  back  in  most 
instances  to  the  period  of  storm  and  stress  before  the  Revolution,  but  the 
fifty  years  with  which  the  book  specially  deals  are  the  early  part  of  what 
has  been  well  called  '  the  age  of  secular  interests.'  The  Church  was  no 
longer  supreme.  Economic  forces  were  coming  to  the  front,  and  Scotland 
was  awakening  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  development  of  her  material 
resources,  and  was  claiming  and  obtaining  a  growing  share  in  the  commerce 
of  the  world.  Ecclesiastical  history,  while  with  us  always  important,  no 
longer  covered  the  field.  The  age  of  persecution  being  past,  the  trend  in 
the  direction  of  '  ease  in  Zion '  became  more  visible.  Grim  and  uncom- 
promising determination  gave  place  to  less  denunciatory  and  more  tolerant 
views.  Sermons  are  preached,  but  few  are  published.  The  age  of  moder- 
atism  draws  on. 

The  first  twelve  lives  are  those  of  ministers  who  had  all  suffered  in  the 
struggle  on  behalf  of  Presbyterian  church  government,  and  it  is  not  until 
the  year  1709  that  a  moderator  who  had  not  taken  part  in  the  conflict  is 
met  with.  The  Church  was  wont,  then  as  now,  to  put  into  the  chair  of 
the  Assembly  men  of  years  and  discretion,  and  thus  to  give  her  highest 
honour  to  those  who  had  served  her  well  through  good  report  and  ill. 

Opening  the  volume  at  the  biography  of  John  Law,  whose  portrait, 
reproduced  by  permission  of  the  authorities  of  the  Church  of  Scotland, 
forms  one  of  the  six  contained  in  the  book,  the  reader  is  introduced  to  a 
moderator  who  had  been  a  prisoner  for  conscience'  sake  in  the  Tolbooth  of 
Edinburgh  and  also  on  the  Bass  Rock.  The  grandson  of  Archbishop  Law 
of  Glasgow,  and  the  son  of  the  pro-Episcopalian  minister  of  Inchinnan, 
Law  might  have  been  expected  to  follow  the  family  in  his  ecclesiastical 
outlook.  It  was  not  so,  however ;  he  became  a  stalwart  of  the  stalwarts  on 
the  Presbyterian  side,  and  on  the  deposition  in  1656  by  the  Protesters  of 
Mr.  Archibald  Dennistoun,  minister  of  Campsie,  he  was  ordained  to  that 
parish.  After  his  release  from  prison,  he  spent  some  time  in  Holland  along 
with  his  friend  Erskine  of  Carnock,  who  often  refers  to  him  in  his  Diary. 
He  became  moderator  in  1694.  The  present  reviewer  has  seen  recently 
in  the  possession  of  a  direct  descendant  a  series  of  family  portraits  said  to  be 
of  the  Law  family,  comprising  the  Archbishop,  John  Law,  the  moderator, 
and  Mrs.  Law,  and  their  son,  Professor  William  Law  of  Edinburgh,  and 
also  John  Law  of  Lauriston,  known  as  *  Mississippi  Law.'  The  moderator's 
portrait  is  the  same  as  the  one  reproduced  in  Mr.  Warrick's  volume. 

The  author  has  gathered  his  materials  from  many  sources,  and  has  suc- 
ceeded in  giving  bright  and  interesting  sketches  of  the  lives  of  the  twenty- 
seven  ministers  whom  he  brings  before  the  reader.  Mr.  Warrick  passes 
lenient — at  times  too  lenient — judgment  upon  the  subjects  of  his  biographies 
in  cases  where  they  did  not  rise  above  the  ignorant  prejudices  of  their  age. 

The  work,  however,  has,  as  a  whole,  been  carried  through  with  care  and 
accuracy,  and  it  was  well  worth  doing.  The  book  would  be  more  pleasant 
to  read  were  the  references  to  authorities  relegated  to  the  foot  of  each  page 
instead  of  being  incorporated  in  the  text. 

JOHN  EDWARDS. 


, 


Rose:   William  Pitt  and  National  Revival     415 

WILLIAM  PITT  AND  NATIONAL  REVIVAL.  By  J.  Holland  Rose,  Litt.D. 
Pp.  xii,  655.  With  four  illustrations.  8vo.  London  :  G.  Bell  & 
Sons.  1911.  1 6s.  net. 

WILLIAM  PITT  AND  THE  GREAT  WAR.  By  the  same.  Pp.  xvi,  596. 
With  five  illustrations.  8vo.  London:  G.  Bell  &  Sons.  1911. 
1 6s.  net. 

THE  importance  of  Mr.  Rose's  life  of  Pitt  has  been  generally  recognised. 
The  author's  discrimination  and  sense  of  justice,  his  industry,  his  great 
knowledge  of  the  diplomatic  history  of  Europe  during  Pitt's  career,  his  easy 
and  gently  effervescent  style,  have  given  him  a  prominent  place  among  our 
contemporary  historians,  and  made  his  lengthy  work  agreeable  to  all  classes 
of  his  readers.  It  is  one  of  his  merits  as  a  writer  that  his  defects  are  on  the 
surface.  We  are  sure  of  his  honesty  and  accuracy,  and  have  no  difficulty 
in  recognising  his  faults.  They  are  the  faults  from  which  historians, 
engaged  upon  a  great  and  complicated  theme,  can  rarely  escape,  unless 
they  are  either  possessed  by  a  powerful  imagination  or  actively  engaged  in 
public  affairs.  Mr.  Rose  is  sometimes  over-subtle,  and  sometimes  unduly 
credulous.  As  our  military  and  naval  writers  have  pointed  out,  he  is  weak 
and  untrustworthy  when  he  attempts  to  gauge  a  strategic  situation,  and  the 
same  absence  of  insight  and  vigour  mars  the  general  arrangement  of  his 
book.  His  knowledge  is  not  sufficiently  under  his  command  and  does  not 
always  lie  behind  his  judgment,  so  that  his  most  considered  statements  have 
often  no  more  influence  upon  the  reader  than  has  a  casual  remark.  His 
undistinguished  writing  is  due  to  the  same  quality  of  industry  under 
imperfect  control.  As  George  Meredith  said  of  the  earlier  book  on 
Napoleon,  the  style  flows  with  its  much  matter.  Hence  Mr.  Rose  makes 
his  readers  more  ambitious  for  him  than  he  is  for  himself.  Judged  by  our 
usual  standards,  the  work  is  excellent ;  but  it  is  impossible  not  to  wish  that 
a  book  so  solidly  based  and  concerned  with  such  a  magnificent  subject  had 
been  great  history. 

The  first  volume  deals  with  Pitt  in  the  period  of  enlightenment.  The 
significance  of  the  eighteenth  century  as  an  age  of  reason  has  of  recent 
years  become  much  more  real  to  us.  It  is  in  some  ways  a  tragic  story,  for 
the  friends  of  enlightenment  frequently  struck  the  most  effective  blows  in 
the  cause  of  darkness.  In  the  history  of  Ireland  during  a  quarter  of  a 
century,  between  1770  and  1795,  we  have  the  struggle  reflected  as  in  a 
mirror.  The  failure  of  Fitzwilliam's  vice-royalty  meant  far  more  than 
the  failure  of  Grattan's  Parliament :  it  marked  the  close  of  a  contest  for 
religious  liberty,  parliamentary  reform,  and  imperial  sentiments  in  Ireland. 
And  just  as  Fox,  by  his  opposition  to  Pitt's  commercial  proposals  in  1785, 
helped  to  bring  about  the  failure  in  Ireland  which  he  feared,  so  he  hurried 
on  the  political  catastrophe  which  forced  Pitt  to  become  the  leader  of  the 
new  Toryism.  The  studies  of  Mr.  Winstanley  upon  Chatham  and  of 
Lord  Fitzmaurice  upon  Shelburne  have  shown  clearly  that  Burke  and  Fox 
and  the  more  liberal  Whigs  helped  to  create  rather  than  to  hinder  the 
divisions  which  obscured  the  real  cleavage  of  parties  in  England  until  1834. 
From  the  date  of  the  Tamworth  manifesto  Englishmen  may  be  said  to 


4i 6     Rose:  William  Pitt  and  National  Revival 

have  fallen  into  intelligible  groups,  but  these  groups  might  have  formed 
themselves  fifty  years  earlier,  if  the  Rockingham  Whigs  had  realised  the 
greatness  of  Chatham,  and  if  Fox  had  withstood  the  temptation  to  unite 
with  North.  The  King  would  have  been  put  in  his  proper  place,  Parliament 
would  have  been  reformed,  religious  and  colonial  liberties  defined,  and  party 
divisions  gradually  created  on  the  all-important  questions  of  local  and 
central  government,  and  the  future  commercial  and  agricultural  policy  of 
the  British  Isles.  A  study  of  Mr.  Rose's  pages  makes  one  feel  very  doubtful 
whether  even  the  French  Revolution  need  seriously  have  ruffled  the  surface 
of  political  life  in  England. 

It  is  regrettable  that,  since  Mr.  Rose  set  himself  to  write  the  history  of 
England  as  well  as  the  life  of  Pitt,  he  did  not  penetrate  further  into  the 
cause  of  Pitt's  failure  to  resume  his  father's  task.  He  reminds  us  that  the 
union  of  North  and  Fox  had,  in  Place's  opinion,  killed  the  London  Society 
for  Promoting  Constitutional  Information,  and  that  growing  discontent  was 
easily  allayed  by  the  satisfaction  which  the  country  felt  with  the  new 
Minister  (pp.  205,  206).  He  shows  us  the  personal  weakness  of  Pitt,  his 
indifference  to  inquiry,  his  ignorance  and  exclusiveness,  his  preference  for  the 
administrative  side  of  politics.  A  nimble-minded  doctrinaire,  Pitt  was 
easily  persuaded  to  drop  a  legislative  policy  which  impressed  him  by  its 
truth  rather  than  by  its  urgency.  But  Mr.  Rose  never  really  answers  the 
question,  why,  in  an  age  when  the  truth  was  so  easily  perceived,  and  so 
persistently  expressed  by  writers  and  county  meetings,  was  it  so  hard  for  a 
powerful  and  sympathetic  statesman  to  form  a  party  ?  The  temperament 
of  Pitt  was  only  partly  the  cause.  Mr.  Rose  hints  at  another  when  he 
speaks  of  the  unimportance  of  the  legislative  sovereignty  of  Parliament. 
Sir  Leslie  Stephen  went  deeper  when  he  pointed  out  the  contrast  between 
Arthur  Young's  criticism  of  the  French  nobility,  and  his  eulogy  of  the 
English  aristocracy.  In  England  the  intermediate  powers  were  visible  and 
active,  in  France  they  were,  in  spite  of  some  enlightenment,  opposed  to  the 
new  spirit  of  efficiency.  Most  of  those  English  reformers  who  desired  a 
firmer  handling  of  the  new  social  problems  found  themselves  disinclined  to 
interfere  with  the  distribution  of  sovereignty.  Why  this  prejudice  was 
permitted,  in  an  age  of  reason,  to  harden  into  the  belief  that  any  institution 
or  interest  already  established  was  a  bulwark  of  British  liberty,  must  be 
deduced  from  such  works  as  Stephen's  Utilitarians,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Webb's 
Local  Government,  and  M.  Halevy's  recent  volume. 

Mr.  Rose's  second  volume  is,  like  the  first,  remarkable  for  the  discussion 
of  international  relations.  English  readers  will  especially  welcome  the 
careful  analysis  in  both  volumes  of  Anglo-Prussian  relations.  The  author 
does  for  Ewart  what  Dr.  Gardiner  did  for  Digby,  in  rehabilitating  a  shrewd 
diplomatist.  Throughout,  the  chapters  on  Ireland  are  excellent. 

Mr.  Rose  has  made  much  use  of  the  Dropmore  Papers,  and  has  increased 
available  knowledge  of  the  sources  for  the  period.  Unfortunately  his  work 
will,  in  bibliographical  as  in  other  respects,  be  of  less  service  to  the  general 
student  or  inquirer  than  one  might  reasonably  have  expected.  A  critical 
discussion  of  the  various  classes  of  authority,  on  the  lines  of  Mr.  Robertson's 
appendix  to  his  England  Under  the  Hanoverians,  would  have  been  of  value 


Rose:  William  Pitt  and  National  Revival    417 

to  more  serious  readers,  and  would  also  have  enabled  Mr.  Rose  to  define 
with  more  precision  the  extent  to  which  his  biography  of  Pitt  may  be 
regarded  as  a  general  contribution  to  British  history. 

F.  M.  POWICKE. 

A  CALENDAR  OF  THE  FEET  OF  FINES  RELATING  TO  THE  COUNTY  OF 
HUNTINGDON,  1194-1603.  Edited  by  G.  J.  Turner.  Pp.  clxiv,  300. 
8vo.  Cambridge:  Deighton,  Bell  &  Co.  and  Bowes  &  Bowes.  1913. 

JOS. 

IN  this  important  publication  the  Cambridge  Antiquarian  Society  sets  an 
example  of  a  first-class  task  executed  in  such  a  manner  as  to  make  the 
examination  of  one  county's  records  a  distinct  contribution  to  the  study  of 
national  institutions  relative  to  land  measures,  the  agricultural  system  and 
the  use  and  method  of  fines  by  which  lands  were  assured  from  one  person 
to  another,  and  the  transfer  recorded  in  the  books  of  court.  The  society 
has  been  fortunate  in  the  services  of  an  editor  so  capable  as  Mr.  Turner, 
not  only  to  set  forth  the  principle  of  the  legal  formalities,  but  also  to  make 
the  introduction  serve  as  an  opportunity  to  rediscuss  several  central  questions 
relative  to  the  evolution  of  the  English  manor.  If  the  Nietzschean  doctrine 
of  eternal  recurrence  has  any  true  basis  in  historical  philosophy,  we  may 
well  suspect  its  existence  in  the  determined  manner  in  which  such  subjects 
as  the  definition  of  the  bovate,  the  carucate  and  the  hide  persist  in  return- 
ing. Mr.  Turner  has  succeeded  Professor  Maitland  as  the  chief  editor  for 
the  Selden  Society  ;  Professor  Maitland  was  a  thorough-going  opponent  of 
Mr.  Seebohm's  interpretation  of  the  village  community  as  descended  from 
the  Roman  villa  ;  Mr.  Turner's  preface  expresses  the  hesitation  and  regret 
with  which  he  finds  himself  unable  to  follow  Maitland  and  preferring  See- 
bohm  on  the  origins  of  villainage  and  the  manorial  institution.  His  own 
observations  on  the  data  furnished  by  the  fines  are  numerous  and  pointed. 
*  Yeoman,'  he  notes,  means  not  a  small  freeholder  but  a  tenant  at  will ; 
4  husbandman  '  was  a  bondman  or  copyholder  ;  'terra*  in  early  fines  meant 
arable  land  ;  4  manor,'  originally  the  lord's  mansion  only,  and  synonymous 
with  4  hall,'  was  slow  to  acquire  the  general  sense  of  the  associated  estate, 
and  not  till  the  fifteenth  century  came  to  denote  seignory.  Seebohm's 
position  relative  to  the  manorial  system  seems  to  Mr.  Turner  4  to  afford 
the  surest  basis  of  any  for  the  early  history  of  our  institutions ' — a  dictum 
which  sends  us  back  again  to  the  meridian  of  Hitchin  some  forty  years  ago. 
The  ghost  of  the  Roman  question  defies  the  exorcist,  charm  he  never  so 
wisely  ! 

Mr.  Turner's  re-presentment  of  the  case  will  command  respect  for  its 
variety  of  intimate  points  of  novelty  in  the  argument.  It  modifies  some- 
what the  position  of  Seebohm,  especially  as  regards  the  virgate  and  the  hide, 
endeavouring  4  to  display  the  hide  as  the  share  of  demesne  allotted  to  a 
single  Teutonic  settler  '  who  received,  he  considers,  four  hides  in  villainage 
and  one  in  demesne,  the  hide  being  four  virgates,  measuring  in  some  places 
30,  in  others  24  acres  each.  Revised  definitions  of  carucate  and  of  bovate  or 
oxgang  reject  the  old  opinion  that  the  carucate  was  what  eight  oxen  could 
plough,  and  indicate  the  bovate  as  the  customary  holding  of  a  peasant 


4i  8      Turner:   A  Calendar  of  the  Feet  of  Fines 

who  furnished  one  ox  to  the  common  plough,  and  the  carucate  as 
composed  of  eight  such  holdings.  Besides,  it  is  now  maintained  that  the 
bovate  normally  contained,  not  15  acres  as  now  accepted  in  England,  but 
12 J  acres  or  25  half-acre  strips,  and  the  carucate  eight  times  that  extent. 
All  this  goes  towards  the  contention  that  the  hide  derives  from  the  virgate 
and  the  carucate  from  the  bovate.  Virgate  and  bovate,  representative  of 
two  archaic  measures,  never  merged  and  of  unknown  origin,  were  units  of 
the  early  British  system  :  hide  and  carucate,  superinduced  on  virgate  and 
bovate,  were  allotments  to  Teutonic  settlers  and  held  by  them  as  demesnes 
of  manors.  So  Mr.  Turner  reads  the  riddle.  A  curious  part  of  the 
problem  lies  in  the  undoubted  local  variances  in  the  length  of  the  rod 
(pertica,  rafo,  rarely  virga)  in  different  districts,  as  a  chief  element  in 
explaining  the  divergences  in  actual  size  of  the  holdings.  The  facts, 
calculations,  and  inferences  thus  marshalled  require  careful  adjustment  to 
reconcile  and  fit  them  with  the  anomalies  of  land  holdings  transmitted 
during  four  centuries  by  the  medium  of  fines  in  the  king's  court.  The 
entries  from  5  Richard  I.  to  45  Elizabeth  number  518,  each  given  in 
translated  abstract,  and  all  fully  indexed  both  for  places  and  persons.  Such 
an  editor  as  Mr.  Turner,  shirking  no  labour  and  facing  a  palimpsest  of 
custom  with  manifest  fairness,  has  well  earned  the  right  to  debate  vexed 
questions  anew.  We  shall  watch  with  interest  the  fortune  of  his  new  and 
readjusted  solutions. 

GEO.  NEILSON. 

THE  MAKING  OF  THE  NATIONS  :  FRANCE.  By  Cecil  Headlam,  M.A. 
Pp.  viii,  408.  With  thirty-two  full-page  Illustrations,  also  Maps  and 
Plans  in  the  text.  Demy  8vo.  London  :  Adam  &  Charles  Black. 
1913.  75.  6d.  net. 

THIS  second  volume  of  'The  Making  of  the  Nations'  series  creditably 
sustains  its  share  in  the  venture.  In  days  when  a  specialist  calendars  one 
hundred  thousand  documents  to  illustrate  a  single  reign,  it  is  a  refreshing 
reversion  to  older  fashions  to  turn  to  a  book  which,  in  four  hundred  clearly 
and  agreeably  written  pages,  tells  the  story,  from  the  neolithic  period  to  the 
peace  of  1871,  of  the  nation  which  for  the  last  two  hundred  years  has 
played  the  leading  part  in  European  affairs.  The  author  does  not  profess 
strictly  original  investigation.  But  he  states  in  his  preface  that  he  has 
spared  no  pains  to  ensure  accuracy  of  statement  and  to  take  into  account 
the  results  of  recent  historical  research,  and  no  one  who  reads  his  book  will 
doubt  that  statement.  He  is  a  skilful  and  practised  narrator.  His  descrip- 
tions are  picturesque,  his  generalisations  luminous,  and,  in  the  relation  of 
events,  he  does  not  fail  to  supply  such  philosophic  study  of  the  rise  and 
growth  of  institutions  as  the  space  at  his  command  will  permit. 

He  gives  interesting  sketches  of  Roman  Gaul  and  of  the  Prankish 
invasion,  and  accounts,  condensed  but  comprehensive,  of  the  English 
occupation  of  the  western  parts  and  of  the  vicissitudes  of  the  often-shifted 
eastern  frontier  ;  of  the  conspicuous  rulers — the  Merovingian  Clovis,  the 
Rots  Faineants,  the  Mayors  of  the  Palace,  Charlemagne,  the  Capets,  the 
Valois  kings,  the  Bourbons,  the  great  Cardinal  ministers,  'the  epileptic 


Headlam:   The  Making  of  the  Nations     419 

megalomaniac '  Napoleon,  and  the  obstinate,  crafty,  impulsive  dreamer,  his 
nephew,  with  whose  fall  the  book  closes.  The  gradual  growth  of  the 
power  of  the  monarchy,  and  its  conflicts  with  the  feudal  aristocracy,  the 
clergy  and  the  bourgeoisie  ;  the  perennial  struggle  with  a  greedy  Church  ; 
the  long  course  of  misrule  leading  inevitably  to  the  Revolution  ;  and  the 
transformation  of  the  old  feudal  estates  into  the  first  modern  national 
representative  Assembly  on  the  continent  of  Europe  are  successfully  pre- 
sented. 

The  great  Wars  of  Religion  of  the  twelfth-thirteenth  and  of  the  sixteenth 
centuries  are  described  ;  in  the  earlier,  the  secret  prosecutions  of  the  criminal 
law  founded,  the  Albigenses  so  utterly  exterminated  that  even  what  their 
heresy  was  can  only  be  known  from  the  evidence  of  their  persecutors,  the 
troubadours  banished,  a  whole  characteristic  civilisation  wiped  out ;  in  the 
later,  the  flower  of  '  the  most  intelligent,  moral  and  energetic  of  France's 
citizens '  driven  to  other  lands. 

To  political  students  the  book  will  be  of  value  for  the  light  it  throws  on 
many  problems  pressing  for  solution.  It  shows,  for  example,  the  failure  of 
the  famous  'Right  to  Work'  scheme  of  1848.  It  exhibits  the  economic 
ruin  of  the  Revolution,  the  waste  of  the  Napoleonic  wars,  and  the  financial 
penalty  of  the  Debacle  of  '71,  retrieved  by  the  immense  resources  of  a 
people  of  small  landholders.  It  makes  abundantly  clear  the  deep  disaster 
which  has  followed  the  ever  specious  conjunction  of  moral  and  material 
power  in  the  same  hands. 

The  illustrations  are  excellent  and  the  maps  and  plans  useful. 

ANDREW  MARSHALL. 

FORNVANNEN.  MfiDDELANDEN  FRAN  K.  VlTTERHETS  HlSTORIE  OCH 
ANTIKVITETS  AKADAMIEN.  Under  redaktion  af  Emil  Ekhoff. 
Stockholm.  1911. 

THIS  is  a  collection  of  archaeological  communications  from  the  Royal 
Academy  of  Science,  History  and  Antiquity  in  Sweden  for  the  year 
1911.  These  communications  comprise  a  variety  of  studies  in  Swedish 
antiquities  and  art,  among  which  may  be  noticed  one  on  the  connection 
between  Sweden  and  the  East  in  the  Viking  age,  illustrated  with  numerous 
examples  of  personal  ornaments,  weapons,  and  objects  of  art  and  industry, 
which  found  their  way  to  Sweden  from  as  far  as  Asia  Minor  and  Persia, 
partly  through  warlike  expeditions  and  partly  through  intercourse  of  trade 
between  Scandinavia  and  eastern  nationalities. 

Another  article  is  on  the  paintings  in  the  ancient  wooden  church  of 
Bjorsater,  which  dates  from  about  1401,  an  instructive  account  of 
ecclesiastical  art,  some  of  which  is  believed  to  be  of  very  early  date. 
Runic  inscriptions  also  come  in  for  notice,  as  also  do  grave  structures  and 
primitive  rock-carvings  in  Gotland,  besides  other  scarcely  less  important 
articles. 

The  whole  form  another  instance  of  the  energy  with  which  their  native 
antiquities  are  exploited  and  recorded  by  Swedish  antiquaries. 

GILBERT  GOUDIE. 


420      Fraser-Mackintosh  :   Antiquarian  Notes 

ANTIQUARIAN  NOTES  :  A  Series  of  Papers  regarding  Families  and  Places  in 
the  Highlands,  by  Charles  Fraser-Mackintosh  of  Drummond,  F.S.A. 
Scot.  Second  edition,  with  a  Life  of  the  Author,  Notes,  and  an  Appen- 
dix on  the  Church  in  Inverness,  by  Kenneth  Macdonald,  F.S.A.  Scot., 
Town  Clerk  of  Inverness.  Pp.  xxxi,  462,  with  Frontispiece.  Demy 
8vo.  Stirling:  Eneas  Mackay.  1913.  2 is. 

THIS  is  a  reprint  of  a  well-known  book  by  the  late  Charles  Fraser-Mac- 
kintosh, a  man  of  mark  in  his  day.  The  author  was  so  eager  to  accumulate 
and  communicate  material  that  apparently  he  was  unable  to  present  it  in  a 
convenient  form.  Many  of  the  documents  printed  were  supplied  by 
Captain  Dunbar  Dunbar,  who  was  at  the  same  time  publishing  his 
Social  Life  In  Former  Days.  Its  plan  is  much  better,  and  makes  a  more 
attractive  and  useful  work.  The  editor  of  Mr.  Fraser-Mackintosh's  book 
has  endeavoured  to  improve  it  by  the  addition  of  fresh  notes,  but  it  still 
remains  to  a  considerable  extent  a  mass  of  undigested  information.  The 
question  of  burgh  organization  is  an  important  one,  and  arises  in  several  of 
the  papers,  but  it  is  not  brought  to  a  definite  point.  The  '  Connection  of 
distant  ages  by  the  lives  of  individuals'  is  a  valuable  contribution  to  an 
interesting  subject.  'The  Church  in  Inverness'  is  also  an  excellent 
article,  and  has  been  supplemented  by  the  editor  in  an  admirable  chapter  in 
Appendix  IX.  It  is  to  be  regretted,  however,  that  so  good  and  conscien- 
tious a  piece  of  work  should  be  printed  in  small  type,  without  break  of  any 
kind,  without  head  notes,  side  notes,  or  any  other  clue  to  its  contents. 
There  might  at  least  have  been  a  summary  of  it  in  the  bulky  index,  but 
there  it  is  not  noticed.  Nos.  67-70,  *  Ancient  names  and  places  in  and 
about  Inverness,'  are  good  in  their  way,  but  are  too  much  of  the  nature  of 
jottings.  No.  71,  'Game  Preservation  in  the  North,'  just  touches  upon 
what  might  have  been  a  most  interesting  inquiry,  the  condition  of  ground 
and  winged  game  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  and  then 
branches  off  into  the  consideration  of  the  exhaustion  of  grazings  in  the 
Highlands,  doubtless  an  important  matter,  but  out  of  place  in  a  volume  of 
Antiquarian  Notes. 

The  subject  of  the  book  is  genealogy  rather  than  history  or  antiquities, 
and  from  this  point  of  view  it  brings  together  a  large  amount  of  miscel- 
laneous information  regarding  a  crowd  of  people,  most  of  whom,  however, 
are  only  of  local  importance. 

A  pleasant  memoir  of  the  author  is  prefixed,  and  only  does  justice  to  his 
activity  and  his  strenuous  efforts  for  the  good  of  the  Highlands.  One  is, 
however,  suprised  to  learn  that  he,  a  patriotic  Scot,  applied  for  a  royal 
licence  to  assume  the  surname  Mackintosh.  As  a  lawyer  he  must  have 
known  that  he  was  entitled  to  change  his  name  if  and  when  he  chose  to  do 
so,  and  that  such  a  licence  to  a  Scotsman  is  merely  waste  paper. 

DAVID  MURRAY. 


Gasquet  :   England  under  the  Old  Religion     421 

ENGLAND  UNDER  THE  OLD  RELIGION,  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS.  By  Francis 
Aidan  Gasquet,  D.D.,  Abbot-President  of  the  English  Benedictines. 
Crown  8vo.  Pp.  viii,  358.  London  :  G.  Bell  &  Sons.  6s.  net. 

A  COLLECTION  of  formal  lectures  and  essays  by  Dr.  Gasquet,  the  learned 
abbot-president  of  the  English  Benedictines,  is  always  welcome,  though  one 
may  not  look  at  the  subjects  treated  by  him  exactly  from  the  same  view- 
point. This  volume  comprises  a  miscellaneous  assortment  of  studies,  from 
a  weighty  discussion  on  the  condition  of  *  England  under  the  Old  Religion  ' 
to  a  trivial  but  piquant  satire  on  the  slipshod  methods  of  modern  '  Editing 
and  Reviewing.'  Some  of  the  essays,  like  that  on  'The  Question  of 
Anglican  Ordinations,'  are  highly  controversial  :  indeed  most  of  them 
betray  an  ecclesiastical  bias  unsuitable  for  discussion  here.  Scottish  readers, 
however,  will  turn  with  sympathy  to  a  brief  but  interesting  historical  survey 
of  *  Scotland  in  Penal  Days,'  the  reprint  of  an  address  given  at  Fort 
Augustus  in  1911  on  the  occasion  of  the  Bishop  Hay  centenary  celebra- 
tions. In  our  view  one  of  the  most  valuable  and  instructive  essays  in  the 
volume  is  the  chapter  on  c  France  and  the  Vatican,'  a  lecture  delivered  in 
America  and  afterwards  in  Liverpool. 

JAMES  WILSON. 

THE  POLITICAL  PROPHECY  IN  ENGLAND.  By  Rupert  Taylor.  Pp.  xx. 
165.  [London  :  H.  Frowde  for]  The  Columbia  University  Press.  1911. 
5s.  6d.  net. 

WHILE  it  may  be  true  that  no  study  of  political  prophecy  as  a  literary  form 
has  preceded  this  volume  'approved  by  the  Department  of  English  in 
Columbia  University  as  a  contribution  to  knowledge  worthy  of  publication,' 
the  subject  has  a  bibliography  profounder  even  than  Dr.  Taylor  has  dis- 
covered. The  modest  excuses  he  offers,  in  the  scattered  nature  of  the 
material  and  the  difficulty  of  the  theme,  command  acceptance  at  once,  and 
the  essay  will  pro  tanto  fill  a  gap. 

Exposition  starts  from  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  and  chief  illustrations,  as 
well  as  chief  services  to  study,  come  from  the  examination  of  twelfth  to 
fifteenth  century  literature  of  this  designedly  mysterious  class.  Professor 
Alois  Brandl  of  Berlin  often  comes  into  the  line  of  critical  fire  in  respect 
of  his  readings  of  certain  alliterative  prophecies  in  particular,  and  his  inter- 
pretation of  the  prophetic  type  in  general.  But  there  is  reason  to  believe 
that  Professor  Brandl's  later  studies  of  medieval  political  prediction  led  him 
far  further  into  the  manuscript  recesses  of  the  subject  than  Dr.  Taylor's 
researches  have  yet  taken  him.  The  German  was  chiefly  searching  for 
explanations  of  particular  prophecies :  the  American  is  tracing  the  type  and 
its  successes  and  failures  in  political  purpose.  Dr.  Taylor  has  read  widely 
in  this  peculiar  literature,  and  if  he  has  seldom  discovered  interpretations 
for  himself,  and  has  sometimes  missed  the  studies  of  others  in  quest  of  inter- 
pretation, he  has  laid  down  a  good  general  plan  of  the  course  of  development, 
and  traced  the  dominant  '  Galfridian '  type  with  its  animal  symbolism  not 
only  in  Britain  but  also  in  its  successful  invasion  of  the  Continent.  The 
result  is  a  sort  of  bibliographic  survey,  which,  although  not  exhaustive,  and 


422  Taylor :  The  Political  Prophecy  in  England 

therefore  not  definitive  in  particular  sections,  must  considerably  help 
investigator  of  any  of  the  national  sub-cycles  dealt  with.  He  omits  th< 
vow-cycle,  which  properly  has  a  place  in  the  theme.  A  good  many  biblio- 
graphic shortcomings  occur,  and  the  apparatus  of  elucidation  for  individual 
predictions  is  defective  also. 

The  oddity  of  exposition  of  prophecy  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  historical 
part,  not  the  prophetic,  is  the  part  which  counts,  and  it  is  by  the  historical 
elucidation  alone,  that  is  by  the  unprophetic  past,  that  criticism  of  the 
prophetical  is  clarified.  Dr.  Taylor  has  few  or  no  original  interpretations 
to  offer.  He  is  not  fully  master  of  the  subject  of  the  Ampulla  prophecies  : 
he  has  missed  the  corrected  historical  interpretation  of  the  Becket  prophecy 
(Antiquary,  February,  1905),  and  has  not  suspected  the  motive  offered  to 
4  prophecy '  by  the  diplomatic  negotiations  for  the  release  of  King  John  of 
France  and  David  II.  of  Scotland.  In  discussing  the  earlier  Davy's  Dreams 
he  has  failed  to  note  the  fact,  central  to  the  discussion,  that  Edward  III. 
was  actually  elected  Emperor  in  1 348,  but  declined  the  perilous  glory  of 
the  imperial  throne. 

Considerable  hesitation  must  be  felt  about  his  statement  that  the  British 
use  of  animal  symbolism  in  prophecy  is  unique  (p.  5).  As  a  phase  of 
the  bestiaries  and  the  beast-epic  is  it  not  common  to  Christendom  ?  In 
dealing  with  the  Merlin  prophetic  pieces  he  does  not  gather  up  the  historical 
allusions,  and  certainly  brings  nothing  material  to  explain  Geoffrey  beyond 
what  Sebastian  Evans  advanced.  Generally  he  is  rather  a  confused  con- 
tributor to  the  discussion,  although  he  puts  a  great  deal  of  excellent  but 
unindexed  material  into  the  field. 

No  adequate  notice  is  taken  of  various  indications  that  the  war  of  Scottish 
independence  was  influenced  by  flying  predictions.  William  Bannister's 
prophecies  escape  mention.  Wolfius  in  his  extraordinary  Lectiones  Memorabiles 
illustrates  along  the  whole  line  the  prevalence  of  prophecy  in  relation  to  the 
history  of  the  Church.  As  regards  the  bestiary  type  of  prophecy  reference 
might  with  profit  be  made  to  an  important  passage  in  Scalacronica  (ed.  Banna- 
tyne  Club,  p.  317).  And  there  are  predictions  in  the  Reliquiae  Antiquae 
which  would  have  helped  out  the  bibliography.  Much  stress,  however, 
should  never  be  laid  on  the  shortcomings  of  an  inevitably  imperfect  list  of 
consulted  sources  :  the  work  done  is  faithful  and  of  great  service,  and  Dr. 
Taylor  has  excellently  opened  up  the  study  of  a  complex  and  hardly 
fathomable  theme. 

THE  REGISTER  OF  THE  PRIVY  COUNCIL  OF  SCOTLAND.  Edited  by  P.  Hume 
Brown,  M.A.,  LL.D.,  Historiographer  Royal.  Third  series.  Vol.  V. 
A.D.  1676-1678.  Pp.  xlii,  799.  8vo.  H.M.  General  Register  House, 
Edinburgh.  1912.  155.  net. 

A  MORE  complete  picture  of  tyranny  than  this  volume  presents  it  would  be 
hard  to  find.  It  shows,  compared  with  the  preceding  volume  (noticed 
S.H.R.  ix.  415),  systematic  general  and  growing  severity  of  government 
action  to  compel  conformity.  So  many  are  the  ordinances  of  repression 
that  the  ordinary  life  and  business  of  the  community  (usually  the  fullest 
and  most  interesting  part  of  a  Privy  Council  volume)  are  a  reduced  fraction. 


Register  of  the  Privy  Council  of  Scotland     423 

Lauderdale  is  busy  with  the  putting  down  of  conventicles  and  of  recusancy 
by  the  exaction  of  obligations  by  the  people  to  abstain  from  preachings, 
obligations  by  heritors  to  exact  sub-bonds  from  their  tenantry,  proclamations 
breathing  forth  threatenings  and  slaughter  against  the  opposers  and  the 
dilatory,  injunctions  upon  sheriffs  to  enforce  the  acts  in  the  teeth  of  notorious 
public  rejection  of  them,  and,  finally,  elaborate  preparations  and  directions 
for  the  Highland  host  quartered  upon  the  bond-refusing  West,  especially 
Ayrshire. 

Nowhere  in  history  (outside  of  the  Netherlands  under  Alva)  is  there  to 
be  had  so  crass  an  example  of  an  attempt  to  cram  down  the  throat  of  a 
reluctant  country  an  unpalatable  system  of  worship.  Nowhere  can  be  seen 
evidence  of  failure  more  complete.  Professor  Hume  Brown's  preface, 
shorter  than  usual,  expresses  its  substance  in  the  statement :  *  Of  the  entries 
in  the  present  volume  of  the  Register  fully  three-fourths  refer  to  the 
measures  taken  by  the  Council  to  suppress  religious  discontent.'  Fifeshire 
stood  next  to  Ayr  in  the  persistency  of  its  defiance.  East  Lothian  followed 
hard,  and  Glasgow  was  in  evil  grace  with  the  Council  for  the  c  great  multi- 
tudes'  who  profaned  the  Sabbath  day  by  going  to  conventicles  and  deserting 
'  the  publick  worship  within  the  city.'  Glasgow  appears  in  several  special 
connections,  including  a  fine  on  the  magistrates  for  the  escape  of  prisoners, 
a  scheme  for  a  stage  coach  service  to  Edinburgh,  the  dispute  between  the 
printers  Anderson  and  Saunders,  and  principally,  the  great  *  casuall  fyre  '  in 
1677,  *  whereby  the  best  richest  and  greatest  pairt  of  the  toune  is  now 
turned  to  ashes,'  to  the  complete  ruin  of  between  600  and  700  families. 
In  1678  the  town  council  gave  its  bond  for  the  good  behaviour  of  its 
Provand  tenants,  and  in  respect  thereof '  beat  a  bank '  through  the  town  for 
the  whole  burgesship  to  sign  a  bond  of  relief. 

Miscellaneous  public  events  include  the  retirement  of  Nisbet  of  Dirlton 
from  the  office  of  lord  advocate  and  the  succession  of  McKenzie — of  sinister 
epithet — to  the  position,  involving  the  unpopular  function  of  public  prose- 
cutor. A  few  witchcraft  cases  emerge.  Gipsies  and  vagabonds  are  trans- 
ported to  the  American  plantations ;  charter  chests  are  searched ;  letters  of  fire 
and  sword  are  issued  against  Farquharsons  and  others.  Algerian  pirates  capture 
the  'Issobell'  of  Montrose.  A  post  service  to  Ireland  (as.  Scots  per  letter 
for  40  miles,  45.  for  80  miles  or  upwards)  is  ordained  to  be  established.  The 
servile  state  of  coalhewers  and  salters  causes  complications  (or,  is  it,  offers 
pretexts  ?)  about  the  lawburrows  bond  for  them.  The  laird  of  Skelmorlie 
has  as  heirlooms  'antick  arms,'  including  <ane  old  fashoned  Hieland  durk' 
excepted  from  a  disarming  order  (p.  546).  Supplies  to  the  Highland  host 
embrace  a  stock  of  *  sixtie  timber  dishes  sixtie  timber  cuppes  fourty  timber 
stoupes'  (p.  555).  A  Covenanter's  declaration  at  the  scaffold  (p.  608) 
addressed  to  *  Good  people  and  spectators '  is  a  dignified  utterance,  not  even 
now  to  be  read  without  emotion.  Lauderdale's  day  of  reckoning  was  not 
to  be  long  deferred  ;  his  apologists  have  now  a  better  chance  to  understand 
his  policy  than  they  ever  had  before.  Professor  Hume  Brown's  exposition 
of  it  is  a  model  of  restraint,  but  the  citations  themselves  speak.  Miscel- 
laneous original  papers,  forming  an  appendix,  contain  material  more  racily 
phrased  than  the  more  formal  minutes,  but  the  picturesque  capacities  of  the 


424     Register  of  the  Privy  Council  of  Scotland 

vernacular  are  sometimes  carried  into  even  the  latter.  An  alleged  witch 
indignantly  declares  that  lying  accusers  *  may  and  ordinarlie  doe  blunder  the 
best  of  God's  servants '  (p.  232).  A  euphemism  worth  remembering  is  that 
the  design  of  the  host  (p.  272)  was  'falne  upon  for  preventing  any  supprysall 
that  might  happen.' 

For  his  well-indexed  text  the  editor  has  had  the  valued  aid  of  the  Rev. 
Henry  Paton,  and  text  and  introduction  alike  reflect  the  scrupulous  care 
and  thoroughness  of  the  historiographer  royal. 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  FORTH.  By  H.  M.  Cadell  of  Grange,  D.L.,  B.Sc., 
F.R.S.E.,  M.Inst.M.E.  Pp.  xvii,  299.  With  75  Illustrations  and 
8  Maps.  4to.  Glasgow  :  James  MacLehose  and  Sons.  1913.  i6s. 
net. 

THE  earlier  portion  of  this  handsome  and  well-illustrated  book  deals  chiefly 
with  matters  of  importance  to  geologists  and  mineralogists,  although  it  is 
interesting  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  history  of  the  making  of  Scotland  ; 
and  in  this  connection  we  would  draw  special  attention  to  the  account  of 
the  old  boring  operations  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Forth.  The  second  portion 
of  the  volume  is  of  vital  historical  interest.  It  is  largely  occupied  with  the 
narrative  of  the  iron  industry  and  the  growth  of  the  Carron  Company, 
which  was  formed  in  1759  by  Dr.  Roebuck,  Samuel  Garbett  and  William 
Cadell,  to  make  iron  in  Scotland.  One  of  the  partners,  Sir  Charles 
Gascoigne,  after  encountering  various  difficulties  in  connection  with  the 
Company,  eventually  received  an  offer  from  the  Empress  Catherine  II.  of 
Russia  to  cast  her  ordnance,  and  he  left  Scotland  for  Russia  with  some 
of  the  firm's  workmen.  Although  he  had  not  been  fortunate  in  Scotland, 
he  became  famous  in  Russia. 

Interesting  accounts  are  given  of  the  early  iron  works  and  the  oil  industry, 
the  reclamation  of  the  Forth  valley,  and  the  clearing  of  Blair  Drummond 
Moss,  which  was  begun  by  Lord  Kames  in  1766.  While  these  subjects  are 
treated  in  the  light  of  their  past  history,  Mr.  CadelPs  volume  is  also  full 
of  suggestions  as  to  future  revival  and  expansion.  The  author's  close 
intimacy  with  the  neighbourhood  and  its  industries,  and  his  practical 
knowledge  of  geological  science,  entitle  his  views  to  very  careful  con- 
sideration. We  welcome  this  valuable  contribution  to  the  history  and 
geography  of  Scotland. 

STOLEN  WATERS  :  A  PAGE  IN  THE  CONQUEST  OF  ULSTER.  By  T.  M. 
Healy,  M.P.  Pp.  x,  492.  With  Map.  Demy  8vo.  London  : 
Longmans,  Green,  &  Co.  1913-  ios.  6d.  net. 

THIS  <  Page  in  the  Conquest  of  Ulster '  (which  makes  a  volume  of  almost 
five  hundred  closely  printed  pages)  deals  wholly  with  the  right  to  the  rich 
fishings  of  the  river  Bann,  which  drains  Loch  Neagh.  It  was  part  of  the 
bait  held  out  by  James  I.  to  the  citizens  of  London  to  induce  them  to 
*  plant '  Ulster  ;  but  they  never  got  it,  despite  the  most  solemn  engagement, 
being  robbed  of  it  by  the  astuteness  of  the  Lord  Deputy  of  Ireland,  Sir 
Arthur  Chichester,  in  the  possession  of  whose  representatives  the  greater 
portion  still  remains.  The  author  recounts  how  this  embezzlement  from 


LORD    KAMES 


See  page  424 


Healy :   Stolen  Waters  425 

the  Crown  took  place  mainly  by  '  Letters  Patent,  framed  in  Dublin,  sealed 
by  the  Deputy  in  his  own  favour,  with  the  connivance  of  his  Law  Officers,' 
the  King  being  ignorant.  Strafford  made  the  Chichesters  surrender  the 
Bann,  but  they  again  secured  it  on  his  fall ;  they  lost  it  in  Cromwell's 
time,  but  in  Charles  II.'s  reign  regained  it  by  trickery,  and  this  was  upheld 
by  a  divided  House  of  Lords  as  late  as  1911.  The  intrigues  of  past  times, 
which  are  full  of  incident  and  romance,  written  in  such  a  way,  make  it  a 
book  to  read  carefully,  especially  if  one  wants  to  understand  the  difficulties 
of  Irish  history. 

TRECENTALE  BODLEIANUM.  A  Memorial  Volume  for  the  three  hundredth 
anniversary  of  the  public  funeral  of  Sir  Thomas  Bodley,  March  29,  1613. 
Pp.  ix,  175.  Crown  8vo.  Oxford:  Clarendon  Press.  1913.  5s.net. 

OUR  Scotichronicon  concludes  with  the  riming  distich  : 

Non  Scotus  est,  Christe, 
Cui  liber  non  placet  iste. 

Similarly,  he  can  be  no  book-lover  whom  this  memorial  of  Bodley  does  not 
charm.  It  reprints  beautifully  and  in  old-style  type  and  arrangement  the 
autobiographic  sketch  written  A.D.  1609,  various  documents  regarding  the 
library,  two  contemporary  funeral  orations,  and  a  fine  letter  of  criticism  and 
friendship  by  Bodley  to  Sir  Francis  Bacon,  A.D.  1608.  An  appendix  reproduces 
the  Form  of  Commemoration  Service  used  at  the  tercentenary  celebrations. 
A  Scottish  contemporary  wrote  of  Bodley's  noble  service  to  literature, 
4  Nee  tacebit  Posteritas.'  This  delightful  little  book  itself  proves  the  truth 
of  the  prophecy. 

ANNUAL  REPORT  OF  THE  AMERICAN  HISTORICAL  ASSOCIATION  FOR  THE 

YEAR  1910.     Pp.  725.     8vo.     Washington,  1912. 

COMMENCING  with  a  Report  of  the  Twenty-Sixth  Annual  Meeting  of  the 
Association  this  portly  volume  reproduces  many  of  the  valuable  studies  then 
submitted,  several  of  which  have  subsequently  appeared  in  the  American 
Historical  Review.  About  one  half  of  the  contents  consists  of  these 
historical  essays,  the  other  half  deals  with  material,  partly  on  the  teaching 
of  history,  but  chiefly  concerning  State  archives  and  archive  systems,  con- 
cluding with  Miss  Grace  Griffin's  elaborate  bibliography  (230  pp.)  of 
writings  on  American  history  during  1910,  and  a  double  columned  65  page 
index.  The  second  half  reports  the  discussions  of  various  conferences  of 
archivists,  at  one  of  which  (p.  248)  a  careful  plan  was  suggested  for  restora- 
tion and  treatment  of  damaged  and  defective  manuscripts.  In  the  historical 
half  there  are  five  contributions  on  European  subjects.  Mr.  Laurence  M. 
Larson  writes  on  the  efforts  of  Danish  kings  to  secure  the  English  crown 
after  Harthacnut's  death.  Professor  Baldwin  examines  the  records  of  the 
English  privy  seal  and  briefly  traces  the  various  uses  to  which  that  seal  was 
applied.  Mr.  Chalfant  Robinson's  paper  on  the  Royal  Purveyance  and 
Speculum  Regis  describes  Archbishop  Islip's  remonstrances  with  Edward  III., 
especially  as  regards  the  grievance  occasioned  by  wholesale  seizures  made 
for  the  king's  larder  and  barns.  Professor  Catterall  on  Anglo-Dutch  rela- 
tions, 1654-1660,  charts  the  diplomatic  zig-zag  course  of  negotiations  in 

2  £ 


426    Report  of  American  Historical  Association 

which  the  primary  Dutch  object  was  to  get  the  English  Navigation  Act 
revoked  and  the  secondary  object  a  restriction  of  search  of  Dutch  vessels 
and  of  the  interpretation  of  contraband.  Mr.  Roland  G.  Usher's  critical 
notes  on  the  works  of  S.  R.  Gardiner  maintain  that  extensive  and  vital 
divergences  of  standpoint  in  Gardiner's  writings  at  different  times  make 
the  value  of  his  opinions  a  difficult  calculation. 

The  whole  volume  displays  the  catholicity  of  historical  study  in  America, 
the  systematic  research  it  fosters,  and  the  promise  of  enduring  achievement 
sometimes  (as  we  have  repeatedly  noted  in  these  columns)  already  brilliantly 
accomplished. 

THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  OF  1848  IN  ITS  ECONOMIC  ASPECT.  Vol.  I. 
Louis  Blanc's  Organisation  du  Travail.  Vol.  II.  Emile  Thomas's 
Histoire  des  Ateliers  Nationaux.  With  an  Introduction,  Critical  and 
Historical.  By  J.  A.  R.  Marriott.  Vol.  I.  pp.  xcix,  284;  Vol.  II. 
PP-  395'  Crown  8vo.  Oxford:  Clarendon  Press.  1913.  5s.  net 
each. 

THE  aims  of  the  revolution  of  1789  were  political  rather  than  economic, 
the  abolition  of  privilege  not  of  property,  but  the  demand  of  the  Parisian 
workmen  for  the  State  organisation  of  industry  was  a  great  factor  in  the 
movement  which  drove  out  the  bourgeois  monarchy  in  1848.  The  chief 
prophet  of  this  wave  of  economic  unrest  was  Louis  Blanc,  whose  Organisa- 
tion du  Travail  was  published  in  1839.  This  has  more  affinity  with 
modern  socialism  than  with  the  schemes  of  earlier  French  socialistic  writers, 
and  it  has  much  in  common  with  theories  of  co-operative  production  and 
of  syndicalism. 

Louis  Blanc  looked  on  the  results  of  the  industrial  revolution  both  in 
England  and  in  France  and  found  them  evil.  He  denounced  competition 
and  laissez  faire,  declared  that  France  had  adopted  England's  principles  and 
that  the  inevitable  result  was  war  between  them.  The  only  remedy  was 
the  establishment  of  factories  by  the  State  with  borrowed  money.  Part  of 
the  profits  was  to  be  employed  in  extending  the  business,  and  part  was  to 
be  distributed  amongst  the  workers.  These  State-aided  workshops  would 
gradually  extinguish  private  enterprise,  and  so  all  industry  would  be  State- 
organised.  But  Blanc's  cry  of  the  right  to  work  had  more  influence  with  the 
people,  and  this  was  guaranteed  to  all  citizens,  as  a  result  of  their  clamour, 
in  1848.  The  establishment  of  national  workshops  was  decreed  at  the 
same  time.  Their  management  was  not  entrusted  to  Louis  Blanc,  who 
indeed  disclaimed  all  connection  with  those  which  were  set  up,  but  he  was 
made  president  of  a  commission  installed  at  the  Luxemburg  to  examine 
into  the  condition  of  the  working  classes.  He  succeeded  in  starting,  though 
not  with  State  capital,  several  societies  for  co-operative  production  much  on 
the  lines  of  those  described  in  his  Organisation  du  Travail^  and  these  had 
some^  success. 

Emile  Thomas  came  forward  to  extract  the  Government  from  the  diffi- 
culties caused  by  the  promise  of  national  workshops,  and  the  Ateliers 
Nationaux  gives  his  account  of  his  labours.  He  succeeded  in  substituting 
for  a  dangerous  mass  of  idle  men  a  highly  organised  body,  but  hardly  any 


< 


Marriott  :  The  French  Revolution  of  1848    427 


work  was  forthcoming,  and  the  men  remained  for  the  greater  part  unem- 
ployed. There  was  apparently  some  idea  that  this  organisation  should  be 
used  to  counteract  the  socialistic  influence  of  Blanc's  party  at  the  Luxem- 
burg. But  by  the  end  of  May  120,000  men  were  enrolled,  and  the 
Government  saw  that  it  was  necessary  to  deal  decisively  with  this  question. 
Emile  Thomas  was  removed,  and  the  efforts  to  reduce  the  number  of 
workmen  led  to  the  members  of  the  ateliers  joining  the  more  socialistic 
members  of  the  Luxemburg  and  to  the  insurrection  in  Paris  of  June  23rd 
to  26th.  The  Commission  appointed  to  inquire  into  its  causes  found  that 
'a  most  poisonous  influence'  was  exercised  by  the  speeches  and  principles 
of  Louis  Blanc.  These  two  books  therefore  are  most  interesting  as  showing 
the  influences  which  led  to  the  revolution  of  1848  and  the  difficulties 
which  followed  the  decree  of  the  right  to  work. 

Mr.  Marriott's  introduction,  which  not  only  gives  a  sketch  of  the  lives 
of  the  authors  and  an  account  of  the  end  of  the  experiment  of  the  Ateliers 
NationauX)  but  also  briefly  summarises  the  political  and  constitutional 
history  which  led  up  to  the  1848  revolution  and  the  ideas  of  earlier  French 
socialistic  writers,  adds  very  greatly  to  the  value  of  the  reprint. 

HENRY   VIII.      By  A.  F.   Pollard,   M.A.     Pp.   xii,   470.     Crown   8vo. 

London  :  Longmans,  Green,  &  Co.  1913.  4$.  6d.  net. 
IT  is  a  pleasure  to  read  a  life  of  Henry  VIII.  like  this.  In  spite  of  his 
undoubted  popularity,  Henry  remains  a  most  unlovable  figure,  and  Mr. 
Pollard  has  done  his  best  for  his  unsympathetic  hero.  He  points  out  his 
curious  (and  dubious)  title  to  the  throne,  which  caused  him  (sooner  or  later) 
to  put  an  end  to  all  accessible  competitors.  He  does  justice  to  the  way  he 
always  allowed  Parliament  to  have  free  speech,  and  yet  to  do  what  he 
wanted.  He  tries  to  believe  that  the  great  question  of  the  Divorce  and  the 
quarrel  with  the  Pope  had  other  and  prior  causes  than  the  love  of  Anne 
Boleyn.  He  deals  as  gently  as  he  can  with  the  curious  'conscience'  of  the 
King  and  the  matrimonial  webs  (twice  ended  by  the  sword  and  twice  by 
dissolution)  it  led  him  into.  We  cannot  say  he  has  quite  made  us  see  eye 
to  eye  with  him,  but  his  book  has  given  pleasure.  One  mistake  must  be 
corrected.  On  p.  187  he  says  of  Anne  Bullen  that  her  mother  'was  of 
noble  blood,  being  daughter  and  co-heir  of  the  Earl  of  Ormonde.'  This 
was  her  grandmother.  Anne's  mother  was  Lady  Elizabeth  Howard,  sister 
of  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  who  helped  to  condemn  her  to  death  on  the 
scaffold. 

THE  MATTER  OF  WALES.     Preliminary  Volume.     '  Cymru  as  the  native 
name  for  Wales.'     By  Arthur  Owen  Vaughan.     Pp.  viii,  192.     8vo. 
Cardiff:  The  Educational  Publishing  Co.  Ltd.     1913. 
THIS  rather  confusing  book  (which  reads  something  like  a  Saga)  is  written 
to  prove  that  the  old  name  for  Wales  was  Britain,  not  Cymru,  and  that  the 
last  is  used  for  the  first-known  time  by  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  in  the  twelfth 
century.     The  author  builds  up  his  theory  with  great  care  and  genealogical 
research,  showing  that  Powys  was  overrun  by  Saxons,  and  only  recovered 
in  890  by  the  help  of  'The  Men  of  the  North.'     These,  he  holds,  came 


428          Vaughan :   The  Matter  of  Wales 

mainly  from  Cumbria,  which  was  not  (as  Skene  thought)  politically  identical 
with  Strathclyde.  Then  he  tells  us  fighting  with  the  Saxons  and  Normans 
welded  the  Welsh  together,  till  they  called  their  country  Cymru  of  their 
own  initiative.  It  is  a  book  of  very  considerable  ingenuity,  but  is  a  little 
difficult  to  understand. 

ARBELLA  STUART.  A  Biography.  By  B.  C.  Hardy.  Pp.  xiii,  340.  With 
eight  Illustrations.  Demy  8vo.  London  :  Constable  &  Co.  Ltd. 
1913.  I2S.  6d.  net. 

THIS  is  an  excellent  study  of  the  life  of  one  who  was  the  victim  of  being 
too  near  the  Throne.  Lady  Arbella  Stuart,  the  niece  of  Henry  Lord 
Darnley  (not  Henry  Darnley,  as  the  author  calls  him),  the  cousin  of  Mary 
Stuart,  and  the  possible  heir  (as  English-born)  of  her  kinswoman,  Queen 
Elizabeth,  had  too  many  great  relations  to  make  marriage  an  easy  business. 
Kindly  treated  in  the  main  by  Elizabeth,  she  remained  (partly  perhaps  by 
choice)  unwed  at  her  death.  At  first  made  much  of  by  James  I.,  she 
thought  it  safe  to  marry,  and  at  the  age  of  thirty-five  got  betrothed  to  her 
kinsman,  William  Seymour,  aged  twenty-five.  Unluckily  he  too  was  one 
of  the  next  kinsmen  to  the  King,  and  the  usual  sickening  story  of  imprison- 
ment, escape,  and  further  imprisonment  began,  and  continued  till  she  died, 
separated  from  her  husband,  in  the  Tower,  25th  September,  1615.  The 
biography  is  well  written,  and  there  is  some  new  light  on  Lady  Arbella's  com- 
plicated relations  with  the  Cavendish  and  Shrewsbury  families,  and  a  pathetic 
picture  is  made  of  a  lonely  life  very  near  to  the  Tudor  and  Stuart  roses. 

PRINCE  CHARLIE'S  PILOT  :  A  RECORD  OF  LOYALTY  AND  DEVOTION.  By 
Evan  Macleod  Barren.  Pp.  205.  With  Frontispiece.  Demy  8vo. 
Inverness:  Robert  Carruthers  &  Sons.  1913-  5s. 

THIS  interesting  '  record  of  loyalty  and  devotion,'  which  first  appeared  in 
the  Inverness  Courier^  is  a  well-written  account  of  Donald  Macleod  of 
Gualtergill,  who  acted  as  the  pilot  of  the  Prince's  band  during  the 
wanderings  among  the  Western  Islands.  He  joined  the  Prince  just  before 
Culloden,  and  his  son  Murdoch  (of  whose  later  career  we  would  fain  know 
more)  ran  away  from  school  at  Inverness  to  be  present  at  the  battle.  The 
wonderful  wanderings  of  the  Prince's  band  (chiefly  taken  from  the  *  Lyon 
in  mourning ')  are  well  told,  and  the  author  rightly  lays  some  stress  on  the 
fact  that  the  Prince  was  not  succoured  by  Jacobites  alone.  We  think  he 
perhaps  exaggerates  the  Hanoverian  *  brutalities '  a  little,  but  he  has  made  a 
very  readable  account  of  the  life  story  of  one  whom  the  Jacobites  dubbed 
the  faithful  Palinurus.' 

TWELVE  SCOTS  TRIALS.  By  William  Roughead,  Writer  to  the  Signet. 
Pp.  302.  With  thirteen  Illustrations.  Demy  8vo.  Edinburgh  :  Wm. 
Green  &  Sons.  1913.  75.  6d.  net. 

IF  all  trials  were  written  with  the  clear  accuracy,  the  interest,  and  the 
humour  that  Mr.  Roughead  has  managed  to  put  into  this  book,  one  would 
be  tempted  to  read  little  else  than  criminal  trials.  Those  he  has  included 
have  all  elements  of  horror  and  most  of  them  tragedy.  He  begins  with 


Roughead:  Twelve  Scots  Trials          429 

*  The  Parson  of  Spott,'  who,  red-handed  from  hanging  his  wife,  preached  a 
moving  sermon.  The  baiting  of  the  murderess,  Lady  Warriston,  by  the 
ministers,  throws  a  curious  light  on  the  days  of  James  VI.  Major  Weir 
the  warlock's  trial  follows,  and  then  the  ordeal  of  Philip  Stanfield, 
which  deals  with  the  bleeding  of  the  corpse  at  the  murderer's  touch. 
Among  those  which  are  included  we  may  mention  the  well-known  trial  of 
Katherine  Nairne  (the  editor  wants  more  information  still  about  her  fate), 
the  less  familiar  Keiths  of  Northfield,  and  the  '  wife  of  Denside.'  The  two 
last,  the  Dunecht  mystery,  and  (specially  well  told)  the  Goatfell  murder, 
belong  to  our  own  time. 

GELDWERT  IN  DER  GESCHICHTE  :  EIN  METHODOLOGISCHER  VERSUCH. 
Von  Andreas  Walther.  Pp.  52.  Stuttgart :  W.  Kohlhammer.  Mk. 

1.20. 

THIS  is  primarily  a  criticism  of  current  methods  of  estimating  money  values 
in  earlier  times,  showing  their  failure  to  combine  the  data  necessary  for  a 
correct  calculation.  The  author's  own  solution  is  a  difficult  but  not  wholly 
unattainable  counsel  to  interpret  medieval  values  by  a  co-ordination  of 
elements  based  on  comparative  social  conditions,  and  local  prices,  rents,  and 
wages,  as  well  as  on  numismatics  and  metrology.  There  is  no  royal  road 
to  the  formula. 

THE  DEATHS  OF  THE  KINGS  OF  ENGLAND.     By  James  Rae.     Pp.  viii,  152. 
Crown  8vo.     London  :  Sherratt  &  Hughes.     1913.     4s.  6d.  net. 

VIEWED  from  the  medical  side,  the  sad  stories  of  the  deaths  of  kings  acquire 
an  exceptional  interest.  But  Dr.  Rae's  authorities  are  inadequate  and 
sometimes  uncritically  selected,  without  sufficient  regard  to  the  dates  of  the 
chronicles  cited.  For  instance,  Baker's  Chronicle  (seventeenth  century)  is 
cited  alongside  of  Gervase  of  Canterbury  and  William  of  Newburgh  (twelfth 
century)  for  the  illness  of  King  Stephen  in  1154.  For  Henry  II.  the  first 
author  cited  is  Higden  (fourteenth  century) ;  the  second  is  *  Matthew  of 
Westminster '  (there  was  no  such  person) :  for  Henry  III.  Walsingham 
(fifteenth  century)  is  cited  in  spite  of  his  obvious  blunder  in  date.  For 
Edward  I.  Walsingham  (fifteenth  century)  is  misquoted.  For  Henry  V. 
better  authorities  are  cited,  but  Fordun  was  dead  nearly  forty  years  before 
Henry :  the  Scotichronicon  is  mistranslated,  for  the  '  immunity '  of  St. 
Fiacre  was  the  privilege  of  sanctuary.  Dr.  Rae's  task  was  interesting,  and 
would  have  been  work  worth  doing  well. 

JOHN  PENRY,  THE  SO-CALLED  MARTYR  OF  CONGREGATIONALISM,  AS 
REVEALED  IN  THE  ORIGINAL  RECORD  OF  HIS  TRIAL  AND  IN 
DOCUMENTS  RELATED  THERETO.  By  Champlin  Burrage.  Pp.  43. 
8vo.  Oxford  University  Press.  London  :  Henry  Frowde.  1913. 
2s.  6d.  net. 

THIS  edits  for  the  first  time  the  indictment  and  sentence  on  Penry  for 
treasonable  defamation  of  Queen  Elizabeth  in  1593,  devised  and  written  at 
Edinburgh.  In  defending  himself  Penry  wrote  that  he  had  taken  particular 


43° 


Burrage:  John  Penry 


note  of  opinion  in  Scotland.  *  For  the  gentlemen,'  he  says,  '  ministers  and 
people  of  Scotland  who  are  not  acquainted  with  the  state  of  this  land 
[England]  think  by  reason  of  the  prelacy  heere  maynteyned  the  yoke 
whereof  they  felt  overgreevous  within  these  few  yeeres  by  reason  of  the 
multitude  of  dumb  ministers  that  are  tollerated  and  dayly  made  in  this  land, 
and  because  they  heare  that  preachers  are  suspended,  silenced,  emprisoned, 
deprived,  etc.  they  have  thought  (I  say)  and  have  spoken  yt  unto  me  that 
little  or  no  truth  is  permitted  to  bee  taught  in  England.  .  .  .  Wherunto  I 
answered  that  the  gospell  is  in  my  conscience  as  much  beholding  unto  hir 
majestic  as  unto  all  the  princes  in  Europe  besides.'  This  answer,  however, 
came  too  late,  and  in  spite  of  it  Penry,  a  Welshman  (whom  the  Anglo- 
Scottish  historian  Johnstone,  no  doubt  with  an  eye  to  his  race  as  well  as  his 
individual  character,  calls  '  Camber  vir  natura  vehementior '),  was  hanged  for 
his  freedom  in  ecclesiastical  criticism.  Mr.  Burrage  by  his  introduction  and 
notes  throws  the  clearest  light  on  this  important  and  painful  judgment. 

LES    CORSAIRES    DUNKERQUOIS    ET    JEAN    BART.       I.    Des  OrigineS  a   1 662. 

Par  Henri  Malo.     Paris  :  Mercure  de  France.     Pp.  461.     3.50  fr. 

OUR  annals  so  often  tell  of  the  plague  the  Dunkirkers  were  to  our  shipping 
that  this  capable  study  is  specially  welcome.  A  'reptile'  pamphleteer  of 
Richelieu's  was  very  near  the  mark  when  he  styled  Dunkirk  the  Algiers  of 
the  North.  M.  Malo  gives  a  solid  yet  lively  narrative  of  the  piratical 
system  and  exploits  of  these  Ishmaelites  of  the  sea  and  '  gueux  de  mer,' 
bringing  down  the  narrative  in  volume  one  to  the  period  of  Louis  XIV.'s 
acquisition  of  the  port  and  his  announcement  that  its  piracies  had  ceased.  A 
second  volume,  in  which  the  daring  Jean  Bart  will  have  his  place  on  the 
deck,  may  be  expected  to  show  what  kind  of '  cessation '  this  was. 

ATHENAE  CANTABRIGIENSES.  By  C.  H.  Cooper  and  Thompson  Cooper. 
Vol.  III.  1609-1611.  Pp.  163.  Cambridge:  Bowes  &  Bowes.  1913. 
THIS  supplement  embodies  additions  and  corrections  by  Henry  Bradshaw 
and  others ;  completed  by  Mr.  G.  J.  Gray,  who  has  also  furnished  an  index  to 
the  whole  work.  Of  the  seventy-eight  minor  celebrities  of  Cambridge  dealt 
with  at  large,  some  were  Scots  and  some  had  adventures  in  Scotland ;  e.g. 
William  Bowes,  ambassador,  1597-99,  associated  with  one  of  those  kid- 
napping episodes  so  curiously  distinctive  of  Scottish  history.  There  is  a 
great  deal  of  subordinate  biography  of  value  beyond  college  bounds.  All 
who  are  interested  in  the  history  of  Cambridge  owe  much  to  the  enterprise 
of  Mr.  Bowes,  and  this  volume  adds  to  their  indebtedness. 

In  his  outline  History  of  Europe  (Longmans,  Green,  &  Co.,  1913  ;  pp.  xvi, 
674  ;  75.  6d.  net),  Professor  A.  J.  Grant  of  Leeds  University  has  succeeded 
admirably  in  producing  a  concise,  accurate  and  interesting  introduction  to 
European  history  considered  as  one  whole.  Discarding  the  attempt  to 
pack  his  pages  with  as  many  facts  as  they  could  hold,  he  has  shown  a  fine 
sense  of  proportion  in  selecting  and  arranging  crucial  events  and  tendencies. 
His  unobtrusive  little  book  is  remarkably  free  from  serious  errors  (the  date 
of  the  Bull  clericis  laicos  appears,  however,  on  p.  313  as  1299).  ^ts  crown- 
ing merit  is  that  it  succeeds  in  the  difficult  task  of  preserving  the  sense  of 


Current  Literature  431 

unity  ;  so  that  European  development,  from  the  days  of  ancient  Greece  to 
the  present  century,  appears  as  one  connected  tale.  It  is  a  book  fitted  to 
attract  students  to  a  more  detailed  study  of  history,  in  marked  contrast 
to  many  manuals  that  repel  youthful  enthusiasm  by  learning  that  out- 
weighs judgment. 

Essentials  in  Early  European  History,  by  Samuel  Burnett  Howe  (Long- 
mans, 1913,  pp.  xvi,  417,  75.  6d.  net),  is  an  American  manual  and 
picture-book  of  history,  and  will  serve  the  purposes  of  secondary  schools 
reasonably  well  by  its  rapid  survey  of  Europe  from  the  days  of  Greece  and 
Rome  down  to  the  age  of  Louis  XIV.  Each  chapter  has  an  appendix  of 
historical  works  (not  the  original  authorities)  recommended  for  further  study, 
pleasantly  interesting  to  British  readers  from  the  prominence  of  American 
books  on  the  lists.  The  work  is  a  creditable  general  sketch  and  the  illus- 
trations are  very  numerous. 

The  Romance  of  British  History,  by  Josiah  Turner  (Methuen  &  Co., 
pp.  vii,  150,  is.  6d.),  is  a  respectable  sketch  of  events  from  the  arrival  of  the 
Romans  till  the  present  time.  Why  people  call  such  summaries  c  romance ' 
is  a  mystery. 

In  the  Life  of  Sir  Henry  Vane  the  Younger,  Statesman  and  Mystic,  1632- 
1662  (pp.  xxi,  405,  with  fifteen  Illustrations,  demy  8vo.  London  :  St. 
Catherine  Press.  1913.  ios.  net),  Dr.  Willcock  continues  his  Charles  II. 
monographs,  abandoning  Scotland  for  England  in  this  book.  It  is  a  good 
(though  rather  heavy)  life  of  the  'statesman  and  mystic'  who  was  so  wrongly 
treated  by  Charles  II.  Unfortunately,  in  the  author's  eyes,  the  cavaliers 
could  never  do  right.  He  is  correct,  however,  in  pointing  out  that  Vane 
was  greatly  in  advance  of  his  age,  and  perhaps  this  put  him  on  a  different 
pinnacle  from  his  enemies. 

The  Ancient  History  of  the  near  East  from  the  Earliest  Times  to  the  Battle 
of  Sa /amis  (pp.  xxiii,  602,  with  33  plates  and  14  maps,  demy  8vo.  London: 
Methuen  &  Co.  1913.  155.  net)  is  a  learned  book  by  Mr.  H.  R.  Hall, 
dealing  with  the  histories  of  the  older  civilizations  of  Greece,  Egypt, 
Babylonia,  the  Sumerians,  the  Hittites,  Assyria  and  Israel.  It  covers  a 
vast  tract  of  time,  and  is  a  work  where  too  great  scholarship  is  condensed 
into  too  small  a  space.  The  account  of  the  settlement  of  the  Jews  in 
Palestine  is  exceedingly  interesting. 

The  Harvard  University  Press,  Cambridge,  has  issued  The  Barrington- 
Bernard  Correspondence,  edited  by  Edward  Channing  and  Archibald  Gary 
Coolidge  (pp.  xxiii,  306,  demy  8vo.  1912.  8s.  6d.  net),  This  is  mainly  the 
correspondence  of  Sir  Francis  Bernard,  Governor  of  Massachusetts  Bay, 
with  his  cousin-in-law,  Lord  Barrington,  1759-1774.  It  is  the  more 
interesting  as  it  is  mostly  family  letters  which  trace  his  doings  as 
governor,  which  did  not  altogether  gain  him  much  credit  or  success. 

The  Growth  of  Modern  Britain,  by  B.  H.  Sutton  (London  :  Methuen  & 
Co.,  pp.  ix,  198,  2s.),  though  a  trifle  homiletic  in  style,  is  a  brisk  illustrated 


432  Current  Literature 

narrative  of  British  progress  from  the  days  when  the  locomotive  was  a 
miracle  till  the  time  when  the  aeroplane  has  almost  reached  the  common- 
place level. 

Messrs.  G.  Bell  &  Sons,  Ltd.,  have  added  to  their  English  History  Source 
Books  (cr.  8vo,  is.  net  each)  the  following  :  The  Angevins  and  the  Charter, 
1154-1216,  editor,  S.  M.  Toyne.  War  and  Misrule,  1307-1399,  editor, 
A.  Audrey  Locke.  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance,  1485-1547, 
editor,  F.  W.  Bewsher.  Peace  and  Reform,  1815-1837,  editor,  A.  C.  W. 
Edwards.  Imperialism  and  Mr.  Gladstone,  1876-1887,  editor,  R.  H. 
Gretton.  They  maintain  a  high  standard  of  apt  selection.  Mr.  Toyne 
should,  however,  have  known  that  *  Geoffrey  de  VinsauP  is  no  longer 
regarded  as  author  of  the  Itinerarium  of  Richard  I. 

Mary  £)ueen  of  Scots  and  the  Prince  Her  Son,  edited  and  published  by 
Robt.  M'Clure,  Glasgow.  4to.  Pp.  12.  is.  net.  This  is  a  transcript 
from  a  contemporary  Venetian  MS.  in  the  editor's  possession — a  c  Relatio 
brevis  de  statu  serenissime  Mariae  Reginae  Scotiae,'  dated  1578,  of  the  well- 
known  type  of  such  ambassadorial  4  Relazioni.'  Despite  several  corrupt 
renderings,  the  text,  naturally  hostile  to  the  c  sectaries '  who  had  subverted 
the  Faith,  gives  an  interesting  view  of  events  in  Scotland  from  1542  until 

1578. 

To  the  Notes  on  the  Diplomatic  Relations  of  England  with  the  North 
of  Europe,  edited  by  Professor  Firth,  Mr.  J.  F.  Chance  contributes  a  List 
of  English  Diplomatic  Representatives  and  Agents  in  Denmark,  Sweden,  and 
Russia,  and  of  those  Countries  in  England,  1689-1762  (Oxford  :  B.  H. 
Blackwell.  1913.  Pp.  52.  2s.  6d.  net).  It  is  a  laborious  compilation  of 
particulars  of  diplomatic  missions,  of  the  ambassadors  sent  from  and  received 
in  Great  Britain,  and  of  the  general  sources  where  the  acts  and  corre- 
spondence are  to  be  found.  Though  small  in  bulk,  the  pamphlet  is 
invaluable  as  an  aid  to  the  political  study  and  historical  chronology  of  the 
period. 

Messrs.  D.  Wyllie  &  Son,  Aberdeen,  have  reprinted  from  the  Annual 
Burns'  Chronicle  of  1913,  a.  little  essay,  chiefly  bibliographical,  John  Burness 
(*  Thrummy  Cap9)  (pp.  7),  vernacular  author,  1771-1826. 

Aberdeen  University  Library  Bulletin,  No.  6,  April  1913,  will  be  specially 
valued  by  students  and  lovers  of  Aberdeen  for  its  skilfully  selected  Concise 
Bibliography  of  the  History  of  the  City  and  its  Institutions,  drawn  up  by 
Mr.  J.  F.  Kellas  Johnstone.  An  appendix  to  the  article  consists  of  a  dozen 
historical  subjects  suggested  for  future  work.  First  and  chief  of  them  is  a 
collaborative  and  illustrated  collection  of  the  Historic  Annals  of  the  City. 
Other  themes  prepared  include  work  on  the  dialect,  on  Quakerism,  on  the 
clipper-ship  and  on  journalism. 

We  have  received  a  reprint  from  the  Numismatic  Chronicle  of  Dr.  George 
Macdonald's  article,  Two  Hoards  of  Edward  Pennies  recently  found  in  Scot- 
land (pp.  62,  with  three  plates  of  coins).  The  hoards  consisted  (i)  of  2067 
pieces  found  in  1911  at  Blackhills,  Parton,  Kirkcudbright,  deposited  prob- 
ably circa  1320  A.D.;  and  (2)  of  896  pieces  found  also  in  1911,  at  Mellen- 


Current  Literature  433 

dean,  near  Kelso,  deposited  probably  circa  1296  A.D.  The  opportunity  has 
enabled  Dr.  Macdonald  to  establish  fresh  grounds  for  chronological  classifi- 
cation of  the  coins  of  Edward  I.  and  II.  Generally  his  results  confirm  the 
classification  in  Fox's  Numismatic  History  of  the  Reigns  of  Edward  I. ,  //. , 
and  Hl.y  but  as  that  work  was  not  yet  available,  when  the  first  hoard  was 
under  examination,  the  independence  of  the  investigations  offers  additional 
guarantees  for  the  accuracy  of  the  joint  conclusions.  Forty-eight  of  the 
coins,  photo-typed  with  great  success,  illustrate  the  astonishing  uniformity 
of  the  pennies  of  the  first  two  Edwards,  a  similarity  which  made  classifica- 
tion a  task  of  extraordinary  nicety. 

Among  the  Scottish  coins,  which  were  all  single  long-cross  pennies 
(chiefly  of  Alexander  III.)  there  were  five  varieties  of  John  Balliol's  pennies, 
one  of  Robert  the  Bruce's,  and — a  special  curiosity — c  the  thin  skin  of  the 
reverse  of  what  had  evidently  been  a  plated  coin  of  Alexander  III.' 

Such  work  as  this  shows  how  well  bestowed  was  the  Numismatic 
Society's  medal,  conferred  recently  upon  Dr.  Macdonald. 

Bulletins  of  the  Departments  of  History,  etc.,  in  Queen's  University, 
Kingston,  Canada,  have  reached  us.  No.  6  (Jan.,  1913),  by  Mr.  W.  B. 
Munro,  decides  strongly  for  the  negative  on  the  question  *  Should  Canadian 
Cities  Adopt  Commission  Government  ? '  This  sort  of  elective  dictator- 
ship, resorted  to  in  some  towns  of  the  United  States  as  a  substitute  for 
normal  municipal  rule,  has  found  foothold  in  rare  instances  in  Canada,  and 
Mr.  Munro  finds  good  reason  to  condemn  the  institution.  No.  7  (April, 
1913),  by  Mr.  D.  A.  M'Arthur,  on  c  An  Early  Canadian  Impeachment,' 
deals  with  a  remarkable  but  abortive  experiment  in  accusation  directed 
against  Chief- Justice  Sewell  in  1814  for  attempting  'to  introduce  an 
arbitrary  tyrannical  Government'  in  Canada. 

The  Proceedings  of  the  Somersetshire  Archaeological  and  Natural  History 
Society  for  the  year  1912  (Vol.  Iviii.  Pp.  xi,  134,  206,  85,  with  several 
Illustrations.  Demy  8vo.  Taunton  :  Barnicott  &  Pierce.  1913.  IDS.  6d.) 
include  Mr.  Bligh  Bond's  fifth  report  on  the  discoveries  made  during  the 
excavations  at  Glastonbury  Abbey  (in  this  case  at  the  western  end  of  the 
church),  and  a  paper  by  Mr.  Hamilton  Hall,  entitled  *  A  Third  John  de 
Courcy.'  Mr.  Hall  seeks  to  justify  the  statement  of  a  late  annotator  in  a 
MS.  of  Robert  of  Gloucester,  now  in  the  College  of  Arms,  that  king  John 
was  the  father  of  John  of  Courcy,  lord  of  Ulster.  Although,  as  he  points 
out,  this  particular  John  of  Courcy  was  born  some  years  before  the  future 
king,  he  argues  that  the  story  points  to  a  truth.  The  argument  is  based 
upon  the  slenderest  foundation,  and  seems  to  us  worthless.  There  is  no 
other  evidence  that  such  a  John  of  Courcy  ever  existed.  Mr.  Hall  suggests 
that  the  probability  of  his  story  is  confirmed  by  an  entry  in  the  Close  Rolls 
(Rotuti  Lift.  Glaus,  i.  285  b)  by  which  the  king  on  2nd  Sept.,  1216,  gave 
the  manor  of  Down  Ampney  in  Gloucestershire  to  Alice  of  Courcy,  wife 
of  the  well-known  Warin  Fitzgerold,  for  her  maintenance.  Now,  between 
28th  May,  when  Warin  attests  a  royal  charter  (Rotuli  Chartarum^  p.  222), 
and  1 2th  July,  when  John  ordered  his  castle  of  Stoke  Courcy  to  be 
destroyed  (Rotuli  Litt.  Patent,  p.  igob),  Warin  Fitzgerold  had  deserted  his 


434  Current  Literature 

master  and  lost  his  lands.  His  wife  was  a  lady  of  noble  birth  and  a  great 
heiress ;  her  daughter  was  married  to  John's  favourite,  Falkes  de  Breaute  ; 
obviously  she  had  to  be  provided  for.  The  king,  when  he  was  in  her 
neighbourhood,  made  a  very  modest  provision  for  her  by  granting  a  manor 
which  had  belonged  to  John  of  Preaux.  Such  acts  of  mercy,  though 
Mr.  Hall  seems  to  find  them  hard  to  explain,  were  by  no  means  uncommon 
even  in  John's  reign.  After  all,  the  king  had  seized  lands  belonging  to 
Warin  in  more  than  a  dozen  counties  (Rot.  Glaus,  i.  295).  Was  a  grave 
charge  against  the  honour  of  a  lady  ever  brought  with  less  reason  ?  But 
we  confess  that  we  have  discussed  the  paper  rather  with  the  purpose  of 
calling  attention  to  a  method  of  argument  which  is  but  too  common,  than 
with  the  chivalrous  desire  to  exculpate  Alice  of  Courcy. 

Mr.  George  Neilson  has  pointed  out  that  the  phrase,  *  that  me  seide,'  in 
the  College  of  Arms  MS.,  which  puzzles  Mr.  Hall  (p.  22),  is  almost 
certainly  meant  for  f  that  me  (i.e.  men)  seide.' 

We  have  received  the  Presidential  Address  by  the  Right  Hon.  James 
Bryce  with  the  c  remarks '  by  Dr.  A.  W.  Ward,  the  acting  President,  at  the 
opening  of  the  International  Congress  of  Historical  Studies,  London,  1913. 
The  address  and  not  less  the  'remarks'  struck  a  magnificent  note  of 
welcome  and  prelude  to  their  doubly  historical  occasion. 

Remember  the  Days  of  Old  (pp.  8.  6d.  net)  is  a  sermon  preached  in 
Westminster  Abbey  to  the  recent  Historical  Congress  by  the  Dean,  Dr. 
H.  E.  Ryle.  It  is  an  eloquent  discourse  for  the  occasion,  well  punctuated 
by  references  to  the  Abbey  itself,  as  an  illustrious  historical  epitome,  with 
its  '  tombs  of  warlike  Plantagenets,  wilful  Tudors,  vacillating  Stuarts,  prosaic 
Hanoverians.' 

To  the  British  Academy  proceedings  Mr.  Sidney  Low  contributes  an 
essay,  The  Organization  of  Imperial  Studies  in  London  (London :  Frowde, 
is.  net),  which  is  a  trenchant  plea  for  an  Imperial  School  of  Colonial 
Studies. 

From  the  Academy's  Proceedings  we  also  have  Prolegomena  to  the  Study 
of  the  Later  Irish  Bards,  1200-1500,  by  Mr.  E.  C.  Quiggin  (London: 
Humphrey  Milford.  Pp.  55.  38.  6d.  net).  It  is  an  important  original 
contribution  to  the  history  and  criticism  of  the  bards,  and  in  particular  it 
illustrates  the  influence  exerted  on  Irish  literature  by  the  prevalence  of 
poetical  panegyrics  of  families  or  chiefs.  Many  curious  quotations  are  given 
from  bardic  authors,  whose  very  names  are  known  only  to  specialists.  An 
interesting  point  is  the  proof  that  '  exempla,'  legends  of  saints,  and  even 
the  Gesta  Romanorum  were  sources  of  matter  used,  either  for  independent 
subjects  or  in  combination,  by  old  Irish  poets. 

The  Historical  Association  of  Scotland  opens  up  a  promising  course  of 
aids  to  study  in  the  Concise  Bibliography  of  the  History  of  the  City  of 
Aberdeen  and  its  Institutions  (pp.  40),  which  Mr.  J.  F.  Kelley  Johnstone  has 
drawn  up  and  which  forms  Pamphlet  No.  3  of  the  Association's  issues  to  its 
members. 


Current  Literature  435 

In  the  Carnegie  Trust  Report  for  1911-12,  Professor  Hume  Brown  gives 
an  informing  summary  of  historical  studies,  published  and  prospective, 
under  the  Trust's  auspices.  Mr.  Meikle's  book  on  Scotland  and  the  French 
Revolution  stands  to  the  credit  of  completed  work,  while  Mr.  A.  O. 
Anderson's  Scottish  Annals,  from  Early  Scottish,  Manx,  Irish,  Scandinavian, 
and  Welsh  Sources,  promised  for  next  year,  bids  fair  to  be  a  valuable  com- 
panion to  his  volume  of  translated  passages  from  English  chronicles. 

The  Fourth  Interim  Report  of  the  Excavations  at  Maumbury  Rings, 
Dorchester,  1912,  by  Mr.  H.  St.  George  Gray  (Dorchester  :  Dorset  County 
Chronicle,  1913,  pp.  28,  is.),  reports  upon  these  archaeologically  remunera- 
tive cuttings,  describes  their  special  features  and  figures,  many  of  the  finds 
(including  a  grave  hewn  in  the  chalk),  shafts  mined  (possibly  for  flints)  to  a 
depth  of  nearly  thirty  feet,  many  antler  picks,  a  piece  of  very  early  pottery, 
an  uninscribed  British  coin,  etc.  A  phallic  carving  in  the  chalk  was  found 
fifteen  feet  down.  The  patient  labour  of  digging  and  classifying  brings 
gradually  nearer  the  hope  of  a  complete  account  of  the  Rings  or  Amphi- 
theatre. 

Viking  Society  publications  attest  the  vitality  of  its  members.  The  Tear 
Book,  Vol.  IV.,  1911-12,  pp.  113,  is  a  compact  record  of  versatile  activities: 
it  contains  notes,  reports,  and  reviews,  and  is  an  attractive  northern 
miscellany  of  specialised  research.  Caithness  and  Sutherland  Records  and 
the  Old  Lore  Miscellany  are  efficiently  continued.  In  the  latter  (January- 
April)  Mr.  A.  Francis  Steuart  is  editing  the  correspondence  of  Charles 
Stewart,  an  Orcadian,  who  became  Receiver-General  of  Customs  in  British 
North  America,  and  died  at  Edinburgh  in  1797.  In  the  April  issue  there 
is  given  a  view  of  Kirkwall  in  1766,  with  ships  in  the  harbour  and 
harvesting  operations  in  the  foreground.  The  Rev.  D.  Beaton  begins  a 
revised  and  critical  account  of  the  early  Christian  monuments  of  Caithness. 

In  The  English  Historical  Review  (April)  Mr.  H.  Jenkinson  and  Miss 
M.  T.  Stead  edit  a  roll  of  debts  owing  to  a  certain  William  Cade  early  in 
the  reign  of  Henry  II.  The  document  is  interpreted  as  a  record  of  the 
first  English  financier  on  record.  His  transactions  included  at  least  one 
bad  debt  in  Scotland : 

Alanus  filius  Walter i  vii  libras  per  plegium  Thomae  de  Lundoniae. 

in  scocia.     mihiL 

The  authors'  suggestion  that  this  indicates  the  flight  of  a  *  criminal '  to 
Scotland  seems  rather  offhand  and  egregious  if,  as  may  possibly  be  presumed, 
the  debtor  was  Alan,  son  of  the  Steward  of  Scotland.  This  is  one  point 
suggesting  doubt  about  the  proposed  date  of  1 1 66  for  the  rolls.  One  entry 
refers  to  a  last  of  wool  from  *  Berewic  in  lodeneis,'  a  useful  mention  of 
Lothian  under  a  much  discussed  form.  Dr.  W.  H.  Stevenson  returns  to  a 
field  of  ancient  battle  in  his  article  on  '  Senlac  and  the  Malfosse,'  which, 
with  weighty  documents  to  vouch,  establishes  'Sandlake'  as  a  division  of  the 
little  town  of  Battle.  Other  papers  deal  with  Irish  Cistercian  documents, 
the  accounts  of  a  papal  collector  in  England  in  1304,  and  the  records  of 
Justices  of  Peace  from  1364  until  1391. 


436  Current  Literature 

Berks,  Bucks  and  Oxon  Archaeological  Journal  (Jan.),  besides  notes  on 
churches,  brasses,  etc.,  has  a  good  obituary  notice  of  James  Parker,  1833- 
1912,  an  industrious  architectural,  liturgical,  and  geological  antiquary,  son 
of  John  Henry  Parker,  yet  more  famous  as  an  authority  on  Gothic 
architecture. 

Epitaphs  and  brasses  of  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  century  Ayshcombes 
and  Wellesbornes  are  well  described  and  illustrated  in  the  Journal  for 
April.  Field  names  are  discussed  in  a  well  documented  article. 

Notes  and  Queries  for  Somerset  and  Dorset  (Dec.  1912,  April  1913) 
continue  printing  the  tenures  of  Sherborne,  anno  1377,  which  are  full  of 
information  on  agricultural  services,  such  as  that  of  one  tenant  grepiare  circa 
bffueria^  another  includere  porcheria,  another  colligere  prayes^  another  invenlre 
unum  hominem  ad  mollonem  fern.  One  document  printed  is  concerning  a 
charge  of  atheism  made  in  1594  against  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  over  a  conversa- 
tion about  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 

In  The  Juridical  Review  (April)  some  unfairnesses  of  Lord  Lovat's  trial 
are  exposed  ;  a  reasonable  argument  is  submitted  that  Gibson  of  Durie  was 
only  once  kidnapped  (i.e.  in  1601,  when  he  was  not  a  Judge  but  only  a 
Clerk  of  Session)  ;  and  a  coronation  point  is  advanced,  contradicting  Dr. 
Round,  that  the  service  of  carrying  the  great  gold  spurs  descended  through 
Marshal  blood,  not  through  the  office  of  Marshal.  The  ceremonial  of  the 
spurs  was  one  of  the  analogues  of  the  coronation  with  the  creation  of  a 
knight. 

In  the  American  Historical  Review  (Jan.),  Mr.  Laprade  analyses  the 
politics  of  Pitt,  1784-88,  in  the  Westminster  elections.  Mr.  N.  W. 
Stephenson  groups  fresh  facts  on  General  Lee's  countenance  to  the  project 
of  arming  the  slaves  in  the  final  stages  of  the  Confederate  secession.  The 
April  number,  besides  an  eloquent  disquisition  on  *  History  as  Literature,' 
by  Mr.  Roosevelt,  offers  several  valuable  studies ;  Mr.  Thompson  suggest- 
ing new  lines  of  medieval  investigation  ;  Mr.  H.  Vignaud  ridiculing  the 
claim  that  Columbus  was  a  Spanish  Jew  ;  Mr.  C.  F.  Adams  redescribing 
the  famous  sea-fight  of  the  Constitution  and  the  Guerriere  in  1812  ;  and 
Mr.  W.  E.  Dodd  opening  fresh  subjects  of  American  history,  1815-60, 
specially  inclusive  of  sectarian  influences. 

The  Maryland  Historical  Magazine  (March)  edits  an  instalment  of  the 
Rev.  Jonathan  Boucher's  letters  from  Carolina  to  a  friend  of  his  at  home  in 
Cumberland.  In  one  of  them,  dated  1769,  occurs  a  pleasingly  candid 
criticism  of  national  character.  It  is  about  a  certain  c  raw  Scotchman,'  of 
whom  Boucher  writes :  '  He  seem'd  modest  which  is  so  rare  a  Virtue  in 
people  of  his  Country  that  I  was  pleas'd  with  ye  Man.' 

The  Iowa  Journal  (January)  prints  the  graphic  and  stirring  report  and 
journal  of  Captain  James  Allen's  dragoon  expedition  or  reconnaissance 
into  Indian  territory,  setting  out  from  Fort  Des  Moines  in  August,  1844. 
Touches  of  Indian  lore  include  the  c  custom  of  giving  away  horses  on  a 
ceremony  of  smoking.' 


, 


Current  Literature  437 


The  Caledonian  (New  York,  April,  1913,  The  Thirteenth  Anniversary 
Number,  illustrated,  pp.  48)  shows  how  the  heather  flourishes  when  trans- 
planted. 

Educational  Review  (New  York)  for  April,  has  an  eloge — rather  disfigured 
by  the  obtrusion  of  modern  politics — of  Alexander  Hamilton. 

In  the  Revue  Historique  (Mars-Avril),  a  study  of  the  life  of  Erasmus  to 
1517,  by  A.  Renaudet,  contributes  not  only  to  biography  but  to  criticism. 
In  the  Mai-Juin  issue  M.  Ed.  Rott  reveals  intrigues  of  Richelieu  for  a 
projected  annexation  of  Geneva  in  1632,  which  he  himself  disapproved 
after  it  had  failed.  M.  Homo  commences  a  study  of  the  reign  of  the 
Emperor  Gallienus — an  epoch  of  crisis  and  disaster. 

The  interaction  between  events  and  historiography  is  interestingly 
indicated  by  the  foundation  in  1912  of  what  we  may  call  a  Balkan 
Bulletin.  It  is  the  Bulletin  de  la  Section  Historique  de  PAcademie  Roumaine 
(Bucarest :  Charles  Gobi,  I  fr.),  and  the  contents  of  the  first  three  numbers 
display  the  acuteness  and  width  of  the  political,  folklore,  ecclesiastical,  and 
literary  interest  which  it  represents.  Contributions  are  admissible  in  Latin, 
French,  German,  Italian,  and  English. 

Bulletins  de  la  Soci/te  des  Antiquaires  de  F  Quest  (troiseme  s£rie,  tome  II., 
Avril  I9ii-Juin  1912,  Poitiers:  J.  L6vrier,  1911,  1912),  describe  the 
prisons  of  Poitiers  under  the  Terror,  deal  with  early  printing  by  the 
Bouchet  family  from  1491  onward  to  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
and  present  an  inventory  of  objects  acquired  by  the  Society  for  the  local 
museums.  A  very  important  article  by  M.  Levillian  is  a  well-illustrated 
and  complete  account  and  discussion  of  the  *  Memoria '  of  Abbot  Melle- 
baudus,  dating  perhaps  circa  727  A.D.,  and  consisting  of  an  extraordinary 
crypt  with  sculptures  and  inscriptions  to  commemorate  saints  and  martyrs, 
'Acnanus,  Lauritus,  Varigatus,  Helarius,  Martinius,'  and  others  whose 
bones  the  abbot  piously  gathered  in  his  '  spelunca,'  c  hypogee-martyrium,' 
or  '  Chiron-martir.'  The  sculptured  panels  of  saints  and  angels  resemble 
the  figures  of  saints  graven  on  the  coffin  of  St.  Cuthbert.  A  portrait  of 
Camille  de  la  Croix  and  several  eloges  pronounced  after  his  death  are  fitting 
tribute  to  the  antiquary-priest  in  whose  extensive  bibliography  of  discoveries 
and  dissertations  the  work  he  did  on  the  '  Memoria '  occupies  an  honourable 
place. 


Notes  and  Comments 

SIR  R.  MORAY  AND  THE  <  LIVES  OF  THE  HAMILTONS.' 

In  Nov.,  1669,  Burnet  began  work  as  Divinity  Professor  at  Glasgow,1  and 
during  the  next  eighteen  months  he  was  a  frequent  visitor  at  the  home  of 
the  Duke  of  Hamilton.2  He  undertook  to  examine  the  documents  relating 
to  the  careers  of  the  father  and  uncle  of  the  Duchess,3  and  the  result  was 
the  Lives  of  the  Hamilton*.  When  Lauderdale  heard  that  the  work  was 
completed,  he  requested  the  author  to  repair  to  London,  which  Burnet  did 
in  the  year  167 1.4  Lauderdale  'was  sure  he  could  give  it  a  finishing.'5 
*  All  the  additions  he  gave  to  my  work  was  with  relation  to  those  passages 
in  which  he  had  a  share.  I  took  them  all  readily  from  him,  but  could  not 
bring  myself  to  comply  with  his  brutal  imperious  humours.' 6 

At  the  same  time,  Sir  Robert  Moray,  who  was  no  longer  friendly  with 
Lauderdale,7  saw  Burnet's  original  MS.  At  first  Burnet  '  wrote  this  work 
historically  and  only  drew  the  most  material  heads  and  passages  out  of  the 
papers  that  lay  before '  him  :  but  '  that  noble  and  judicious  gentleman,  Sir 
R.  Moray,  to  whose  memory  I  owe  the  most  grateful  acknowledgments 
that  can  be  paid  by  a  person  infinitely  obliged  to  him,  and  that  did  highly 
value  his  extraordinary  parts  and  rare  virtues,  gave  me  such  reasons  to  change 
the  whole  work,  and  to  insert  most  of  the  papers  at  full  length,  that  pre- 
vailed on  me  to  do  it.' 8 

Hereupon  Burnet  returned  to  Scotland,  but  two  years  later,  '  in  the  year 
1673,  I  went  up  again  to  print  the  Memoirs  of  the  Dukes  of  Hamilton.'9 
According  to  Mr.  Dewar,  he  carried  with  him  to  Court  a  second  MS. 
which  contained  the  improvements  that  Moray  had  recommended.  ( It  is 
this  MS.  part  of  which  is  preserved  to-day.' 10 

The  work,  however,  was  not  published  until  i678,u  and  before  its 
publication  it  underwent  still  further  changes  at  the  suggestion  of  Charles  II., 

1 G.  Burnet,  History  of  My  Own  Time,  Foxcrofts  Supplement,  p.  477. 
2  Ibid.  p.  479.  *Ibid.  p.  479.  *lbid.  p.  479. 

5G.  Burnet,  History  of  My  Own  Time,  vol.  i.  p.  533. 
*  Ibid.,  Foxcroffs  Supplement,  p.  479. 

7  G.  Burnet,  History  of  My  Own  Time,  vol.  i.  p.  533. 

8  Burnet's  Lives  of  the  Hamiltons,  Preface,  p.  xviii. 

9  Burnet's  Own  Time,  vol.  ii.  p.  24  ;  Supplement,  p.  482. 

10  Sc.  Hist.  Review,  iv.  p.  384  et  seq.     Article  by  Mr.  R.  Dewar. 

11 T.  Clark  and  H.  Foxcroft,  Life  of  Burnet,  Introd.  by  C.  H.  Firth,  p.  xiv. 


Notes  and  Comments  439 

and  of  *  persons  of  honour  and  worth.'  There  were  both  deletions  and 
additions,  and,  in  its  final  form,  the  book  passed  over  in  silence  much  that 
would  have  been  incompatible  with  its  purpose.  That  purpose  was  to 
eulogise  Charles  I.  and,  as  far  as  possible,  Hamilton.1 

4 At  my  coming  to  Court'  (in  1673),  says  Burnet,  <Duke  Lauderdale 
took  me  into  his  closet,  and  asked  me  the  state  of  Scotland.'2  Now,  when 
Burnet  was  examined  before  the  Commons  in  1675,  he  identified  the  day 
of  this  interview  as  the  first  Saturday  of  September.3  Obviously,  Lauder- 
dale was  anxious  to  hear  about  the  condition  of  Scotland,  and  therefore 
Burnet  would  be  summoned  to  his  presence  shortly  after  his  arrival  in  town. 
It  may  be  assumed,  therefore,  that  he  reached  London  late  in  August  or 
early  in  September.  Moray  had  died  on  the  4th  of  July,4  and  indeed  the 
tone  of  Burnet's  remarks  on  his  position  at  London  seems  to  imply  that  Sir 
Robert  had  disappeared  from  the  scene.5 

Nevertheless,  the  same  writer,  in  his  preface  to  the  Lives  of  the 
Hamilton*,  published  five  years  later,  makes  a  statement  which  is  very 
difficult  to  reconcile  with  the  fact  of  Moray's  death  early  in  July,  1673. 
After  explaining  that  at  Sir  Robert's  suggestion  he  had  inserted  the 
documents  in  full,  he  continues  :  '  and  when  it  was  written  over  again, 
as  I  now  offer  it  to  the  world,  he  was  so  much  pleased  with  it  that,  though 
I  know  the  setting  down  his  words  would  add  a  great  value  to  it  among  all 
that  knew  him,  yet  they  are  so  high  in  the  commendation  of  it,  that  I 
cannot  but  conceal  them.'6  In  the  History  of  My  Own  Time,  however, 
Burnet  was  less  modest.  <I  will  take  the  boldness  to  set  down  the 
character  which  Sir  Robert  Moray,  who  had  a  great  share  in  the  affairs  of 
that  time,  and  knew  the  whole  secret  of  them,  gave,  after  he  read  it  in  MS., 
that  he  did  not  think  there  was  a  truer  history  writ  since  the  Apostles' 
days.'  7 

Now,  it  was  possible,  though  very  unlikely,  that  Burnet  in  1675  had 
forgotten  the  exact  date  of  his  first  interview  with  Lauderdale  in  1673, 
and  he  may  have  arrived  in  London  before  Sir  Robert's  death.  But 
it  is  impossible  to  suppose  that  Moray  ever  saw  the  version  which  in  1678 
Burnet  offered  to  the  world.  It  has  been  pointed  out  that  the  second  MS. 
which  he  brought  with  him  from  Scotland  in  1673  underwent  very 
important  changes.  Some  considerable  time  would  elapse  before  these 
changes  were  made.  Moreover,  precisely  because  it  is  so  improbable  that 
Sir  Robert  and  Burnet  met  in  the  summer  of  1673,  it  can  scarcely  be  held 
that  Moray's  eulogy  was  passed  on  the  second  version  of  the  Lives.  Nor 
does  Burnet  give  us  the  least  reason  to  suppose  that  a  copy  of  the  work  was 

1  Sc.  Hist.  Review,  iv.  p.  384  et  seq. 

2  Burnet,  Own  Time,  v.  ii.  p.  26.  *lbld,  v.  ii.  p.  26,  foot-note  I. 

4 Letters  to  Sir  Joseph  Williamson,  i.  No.  43,  p.  85,  4th  July,  1673  ;  No.  46, 
p.  92,  7th  July,  1673.  Evelyris  Diary,  v.  ii.  pp.  292-3,  date  July  6th,  1673. 

6G.  Burnet,  Own  Time,  v.  ii.  pp.  24-26. 

6  Burnet,  Lives  of  the  Hamlltons,  Preface,  p.  xviii. 

7  Burnet,  Own  Time,  i.  p.  41. 


440  Notes  and  Comments 

sent  to  Sir  Robert  before  the  author  himself  repaired  to  London,  and  that 
he  obtained  from  Moray  his  opinion  of  it  in  writing. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  Burnet  deliberately  put  into 
Sir  Robert's  mouth  words  which  he  had  never  uttered.  It  is  difficult  to 
suppose  that  the  writer  of  the  glowing  tribute  to  Moray  which  occurs  in 
the  preface  of  the  Lives  could  be  guilty  of  such  baseness. 

It  would  be  a  much  less  serious  offence  to  assert  that  Sir  Robert  had  said 
about  the  final  version  what  he  really  had  affirmed  about  the  first.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  after  reading  the  1671  MS.,  Moray  suggested  that  the 
narrative  should  give  place  largely  to  the  documents  on  which  it  was  based. 
The  truth  of  the  work  in  the  two  cases  would  not  differ  greatly  in  amount ; 
the  change  of  method  would  only  make  the  truth  of  it  more  apparent  and 
incontestable.  Therefore,  Moray's  words  of  praise  may  have  applied  to  the 
version  of  1671,  or  he  may  in  1671  have  said  that,  with  the  improvement 
which  he  had  suggested,  it  would  be  deserving  of  such  a  commendation. 
In  any  case,  the  words  were  more  applicable  to  the  early  versions  than  to 
the  latest  one. 

It  is  evident  from  the  preceding  remarks  that  Sir  Robert  had  nothing  to 
do  with  the  deletions  and  additions  which  the  second  MS.  underwent,  and 
which  lessened  the  value  of  the  book.  Indeed,  it  was  he  who  suggested 
that  insertion  of  documents  in  extenso^  which,  according  to  Mr.  Dewar, 
gives  the  Lives  their  chief  value.1 

ALEXANDER  ROBERTSON. 

1  Sc.  Hist.  Review,  iv.  pp.  384  et  seq.  Cf.  also  C.  H.  Firth,  Introd.  to  Clarke 
and  Foxcroft,  Life  of  Burnet.  It  is  obvious,  however,  that  had  Burnet  published 
the  1671  MS.  its  value  would  eventually  have  been  found  to  be  considerable  ;  i.e. 
when  it  came  to  be  compared  with  those  MS.  sources  upon  which  it  was  based. 
As  to  the  insertion  of  documents,  John  Cockburn,  in  his  Specimen  of  some  Free  and 
Impartial  Remarks  (London,  1735),  pp.  45  et  seq.9  points  out  that  those  were  not 
included  which  would  have  shown  Hamilton  in  an  unpleasant  light. 

IN  BYWAYS  OF  SCOTTISH  HISTORY.  (S.H.R.  x.  316.)  Mr. 
Barbe  has  written  to  us  disclaiming  direct  and  large  indebtedness  to  Dr. 
Neilson's  Caudatus  Anglicus.  The  disclaimer,  however,  which  our  critic 
willingly  accepts,  does  not  clearly  explain  why  Mr.  Barbe  refrained  from 
naming  Dr.  Neilson's  Essay,  which  he  knew  had,  in  1896,  covered  the  vital 
facts,  discussed  the  whole  problem,  and  reached  substantially  the  same 
conclusions  as  those  now  advanced  (certainly  with  valuable  supplementary 
data)  by  himself. 

Mr.  Barb£  also  resents  the  objection  taken  to  his  allusion  to  the  fact  of 
publication  of  Randolph's  Fantasie,  on  the  ground  that  his  article  is  a 
reprint ;  but  his  footnote  on  page  103  is  not  a  reprint. 

We  regret  that  we  have  not  space  to  print  Mr.  Barbe's  long  letter, 
which  would  involve  a  reply  from  our  reviewer.  We  place  on  record, 
however,  that  in  Mr.  Barbe's  opinion  some  of  the  statements  in  the  review 
of  his  work  are  inaccurate  and  not  fair  to  him. 


Index 


Aberdeen,  Bibliography  of,  -434 
Aberdeen  University  Library 

Bulletin,  -  -  221,432 

Academy,  The  Royal  Scottish,  -  233 
Adams,  Professor  G.  B.,  The  Origin 

of  the  English  Constitution,  -  318 
Agrarian  Problem  in  the  Six- 
teenth Century,  -  -317 
American  Historical  Association,  425 
American  Historical  Review,  225,  436 
Analecta  Bollandiana,  -  324 
Ancient  Forestry  of  Argyllshire,  2 1 9 
Antikvarisk  Tidskriftjor  Sverige,  -  105 
Archiv  fur  das  Studium  der  neueren 

Sprachen  und  Literaturen,  -  227 
Archivum  Franciscanum  Historicum,  227 
Armitage,  Ella  S.,  Early  Norman 

Castles  of  the  British  Isles,  -  207 
Armitage-Smith,  S.,  John  o/Gaunt's 

Register,  edited  by,  -  205 

Army,  History  of  the  British,  -  98 
Aston,  Journal  of  John,  by  J.  C. 

Hodgson,  -  -  no 

Atkinson,  C.  T.,  review  by,  -  102 
Avignon,  Jacobite  Papers  at,  -  60 

Ball,  F.  Elrington,  The  Corres- 
pondence of  Jonathan  Swift,  108,  324 

Ballad  History  of  the  Reign  of 
King  James  I.,  -112 

Bar  be,  Louis  A.,  In  Byways  of 
Scottish  History,  -  -316 

Barb6,  L.  A.,  note,  -  -     440 

Barrington-Bernard  Correspondence, 
The,  -  -  431 

Barren,  E.  M.,  Prince  Charlie's 
Pilot,  -  -  428 

Bartholomew,  A.  T.,  Gunnings 
Last  Tears,  -  -  -  -112 


Bell's      English     History      Source 

Books,  -     432 

Belloc,  H.,  Warfare  in  England,  -     218 
Berks,  Bucks  and  Oxon  Archaeo- 
logical Journal,      -         -      223,  436 
Birt,  Dom  H.  N,,Lingard*s  History 

of  England,  abridged,  -  -  323 
Blacklock,  Manuscripts  of  Dr.,  -  369 
Blair,  R.,  review  by,  -  207 

Bodleianum,  Trecentale,  -  -  425 
Brown,  J.  Wood,  note  by,  -  232 

Brown,  P.  Hume,  A  Forgotten 
Scottish  Scholar,  122  ;  Four  Rep- 
resentative Documents  of  Scottish 
History,  347  ;  The  Register  of 
the  Privy  Council  of  Scotland, 
edited  by,  -  -  422 

Browning,     O.,    History    of   the 

Modern  World,       -    '  -     105 

Bryce,  Right  Hon.  James,  Address 

by,  -  434 

Bryce,  W.  Moir,  History  of  the  Old 

Grey  friars''  Church,  -  102 

Bulletins  de  la  Societe  des  Anti- 

quaires  de  P Quest,  -  -  437 

Bulletin  de  la  Section  Historique  de 

FAcademie  Roumaine,  -  -  437 
Bulletins  of  Historical  Department 

of  Queen's  University,  Kingston, 

Canada,  -  -221,433 

Burghs  of  Scotland,  Origin  of  the 

Convention  of  the  Royal,  -  384 
Burness,  John,  -  432 

Burrage,  Champlin,  John  Penry,  -  429 
Burrage,  Champlin,  The  Early 

English  Dissenters,  -  -  97 

Bute,  John  Third  Marquess  of, 

Essays,  -  218 

Bute,  John  Stuart  Earl  of,  -  -  219 


441 


442 


Index 


Cadell,  H.  M.,  The  Story  of  the  Forth,  424 

Caledonian,  The,                            -  437 
Calvin,  The  Life  and  Times  of,  by 

L.  Penning,                                 -  322 

Cambridge  County  Geographies,     -  218 

Cambridge  Modern  History  Atlas,  -  112 
Campbell,  Niall  D.,  The  Origin  of 
the   Holy  Loch  in   Cowall,  29 ; 

The  Castle  Campbell  Inventory,  299 

Canada,  Lord  Elgin  in,      -  I 

Canon  Law  in  Medieval  England,  185 

Cantabrigienses  Athenae,      -         -  430 
Cape,    H.    J.,    Short    History    of 

Early  England,       -  -217 

Carnegie  Trust  Report,      -         *  435 
Cassillis,  the  Earl  of,  on  The  Sea- 

field  Correspondence,                   -  47 

Castle  Campbell  Inventory,  The,  299 
Cauzons,  Th.  de,  La  Magie  et  la 

Sorcellerie  en  France,       -         -  309 

Caw,  James  L.,  review  by,          -  191 
Chamberlain,  the  connection  of 

the,  with  the  Royal  Burghs,    -  384 
Channing,  E.,  and  Corlidge,  A. 
C.,     The     Barrington- Bernard 
Correspondence,       -                   -  431 
Charteris,  A.  H.,  review  by,       -  209 
Charters  of  the  Abbey  of  Cupar,  272 
Charters  texts  and  translations  of,  273, 
274,  275,  277,  278,  282,  283,  285 
Chartulary  of  Nostell,  extract  from,  228 
Chatham,  Lord,        -                   -  213 
Chauce,  J.  F.,  Diplomatic  'Represen- 
tatives and  Agents,  1689-1762,  432 
Clapham,  J.  H.,  The  Abbe  Sieyts,  212 
Clemen,  Otto,  Luthers  Werke  in 

Auswahl,      -                            -  217 
Clemestra,  H.  W.,  A  History  of 

Preston  in  Amounderness,  -  -  104 
Colbert's  West  India  Policy,  -  216 
Coman,  Katharine,  Economic  Be- 
ginnings of  the  Far  West,  -  -  324 
Comments,  Notes  and,  -  -  438 
Communications  and  Notes,  -  325 
Convention  of  the  Royal  Burghs 

of  Scotland,  Origin  of  the,       -  384 
Cooper,   C.  H.,  and  Thompson 

Cooper,  Athenae  Cantabrigienses,  430 

Corbett,  Julian  S.,  review  by,     -  94 
Cowall,  The   Origin  of  the   Holy 

Loch  in,                  -  29 


PAGE 

Cowan,  A.  R.,  review  by,  -  -  320 
Cowan,  S.,  The  Ruthven  Family 

Papers,  -  108 

Crieff,  The  History  of,  -  194 
Cupar,  Original  Charters  of  the 

Abbey  of,  -  -  272 

Current  Literature,  -  -  216 

Dallas,     James,     The     Honorific 

"The,"  39 

Diaries  and  Memoirs,  Some  Seven- 
teenth Century,  by  C.  H.  Firth,     329 
Documents  of  Scottish  History,  Four 

Representative,        -  -     347 

Drummond     of     Hawthornden, 

note  on,        -         -  221 

Dunbar  Burgh  Charters,  note  on,  232 
Dunbar,  William,  review  by,  -  92 
Dunoyer,  A.,  Fouquier-Tinville,  -  320 
Dupont  E.,  Le  Mont  Saint  Michel 

Inconnu,        -  -     109 

Durham,  Report  of  Lord,  on  the 
Affairs  of  British  North  America,  412 

Economic  Development  of  Scot- 
land before  1707,  Influence  of 
Convention  of  Royal  Burghs 
upon,  -  -  250 

Edinburgh  Club,  The  Book  of 

the  old,  reviewed,  -     216 

Educational  Review,  -     437 

Edwards,  John,  review  by,  102,  320, 413 
EckhofF,  E.  Fornvannen,  Medde- 
landenfran  K.  Vitterhets  Historic 
och  Antikvitets  Akadamien,        -     419 
Elderton,  William,  note  on,        -     220 
Eeles.   F.   C.,  A  Mass  of  Saint 

Ninian,        -  -       35 

Elgin,  Lord,  in  Canada,     -  I 

English  Constitution,  The  Origin 

of  the,  -     318 

English  Historical  Review,  222,  435 
Ephemeris  Epigraphica,  -  -  411 

Firth,  Professor  C.  H.,  The  Ballad 
History  of  the  Reign  of  James  /., 
112;  Some  Seventeenth  Century 
Diaries  and  Memoirs,  -  -  329 

Fornvannen  :  Meddelanden  fran  K. 
Vitterhets  Historie  och  Antik- 
vitets Akadamien,  -  -  419 


Index 


443 


Fortescue,  Hon.  J.  W.,  History  of 
the  British  Army,  -  98 

Foster,  W.,  James  Mill  in  Leaden- 
hall  Street,  162  ;  The  English 
Factories  in  India,  -  205 

Fouquier-Tint'ille,  by  A.  Dunoyer,     320 

Fraser- Mackintosh,  C.,  Anti- 
quarian Notes,  -  -  420 

Galloway,  The  Early  History  of,     325 
Gasquet,  F.  A.,  England  under  the 

Old  Religion,  and  other  Essays,  -     42 1 
Gooch,   G.   P.,  History  and  His- 
torians in  the  Nineteenth  Century,     407 
Goudie,  G.,  reviews  by,     -      105,  419 
Graham,    R.    B.    Cunninghame, 

Loose  and  Broken  Men,  -         -     113 
Grant,  A.  ].,  History  of  Europe,    -     430 
Greyfriars'    Church,  Edinburgh, 
The  Old,    -  -     102 

Haddington,  A  Sixteenth  Cen- 
tury Rental  of,  -  ~  377 

Hall,  H.  R.,  The  Ancient  History 
of  the  Near  East,  -  -  43 1 

Halliday,  W.  R.,  review  by,        -     307 

Hamilton    of  Kincavil  and    the 

General  Assembly  of  1563,    -     156 

Hammermen  of  Glasgow,  His- 
tory of  the,  -  1 98 

Hardie,  R.  P.,  The  Tobermory 
Argosy,  -  94 

Harding,  Colonel  T.  Walter, 
Tales  of  Madingley,  -  108 

Hardy,  B.  C.,  Arbetta  Stuart,       -     428 

Hardy,  E.  G.,  Roman  Laws  and 
Charters  Translated,  -  -  314 

Hart,  R.  J.,  Chronos,  a  Handbook 

of  Chronology,  -     112 

Harvey,  C.  Cleland,  A  Sixteenth 

Century  Rental  of  Haddington,  -     377 

Haverfield,  F.,The  Romanization 
of  Roman  Britain,  107  ;  Ephe- 
meris  Epigraphica,  -  411 

Headlam,  C.,  The  Making  of  the 
Nations:  France,  -  418 

Healy,  T.  M.,  Stolen  Waters:  a 
Page  in  the  Conquest  of  Ulster,  -  424 

Henderson,  Alexander,  The  Cov- 
enanter, 218 
enderson,  T.  F.,  review  by,     -     201 


PAGE 

Henry  III.,  The  Minority  of,  -  403 
Henry  VIII.,  -  -  4*7 

Hodgson,  J.  C.,  Journal  of  John 

Aston,   no;  review  by,  200; 

note  on  William  Elderton,  -  220 
Holy  Loch  in  Cowall,  Argyll,  The 

Origin  of  the,  -  29 

Home  Counties  Magazine,  -  223 
Honorific  "The,"  The,  by  James 

Dallas,  39  ;  note  on  by  Sir  H. 

Maxwell,  -  -  230 

Howe,  Si  B.,  Essentials  in  Early 

European  History,  -  431 

Huntingdon,  A  Calendar  of  the 

Feet  of  Fines  relating  to,        -     417 

India,  The  English  Factories  in,-  205 
Innes,  A.  D.,  A  Service  Book  of 

English  History,  edited  by,  -  323 
Iowa  Journal,  -  226,  436 

Irish  Bards,  Prolegomena  to  the 

Study  of  the  Later,        ~  ,      -     434 

Jacobite  Papers  at  Avignon,         -       60 
James  VI.,  The  Scottish  Progress  of,       zi 
Jeudevine,    J.     W.,    The     First 
Twelve  Centuries  of  British  His- 
tory,   -  314 
John  of  Gaunt's  Register,  -         -     205 
Johnston,  Arthur,  in  his  Poems,  -     287 
Johnston,  G.  H.,  Scottish  Heraldry 

made  Easy,    -  -218 

Johnston,    R.    M.,    Memoir e   de 

Marie-Caroline,  Reine  de  Naples,     216 
Johnstone,  J.  F.  K.,  Concise  Biblio- 
graphy of  the  History  of  Aberdeen,     434 
Joint-Stock  Companies,  Constitu- 
tion and  Finance  of  British,   -     196 
Jones,   H.    Stuart,    Companion  to 

Roman  History,       -  193 

Juridical  Review,      -         -      223,  436 

Keith,  A.  B.,  Responsible  Govern- 
ment in  the  Dominions,  -  -  209 

Keith,  Theodora,  Influence  of  Con- 
vention of  Royal  Burghs  upon 
Economic  Development  of  Scotland, 
250  ;  The  Origin  of  the  Con- 
vention of  the  Royal  Burghs 
of  Scotland,  384  ;  reviews  by, 

196,  208,  317 


444 


Index 


Kenmure's  on  and  awa',  Willie,-     231 
Ker,  W.  P.,  review  by,      -         -       88 

Lanercost,  Authorship  of  the 
Chronicle  of,  by  Rev.  James 
Wilson,  -  -  138 

Lanercost,  Chronicle  of,  trans- 
lated by  Sir  H.  Maxwell,  76,  174 

Lanercost,  Chronicle  of,  by  Sir 
H.  Maxwell,  reviewed,  -  -  405 

Lart,  C.  E.,  The  Parochial  Extract* 
of  Saint  Germain-en-Laye,  -  215 

Lawlor,  H.  J.,  Eusebiana,   -         -     318 

Lawrie,  Sir  A.  C.,  review  by,  1 89 ; 

note  by,       -  -     229 

Lawyer?  Merriments,  by  D.  Mur- 
ray, -  -  190 

Lenotre,  G.,  Bleus,  Blancs  et 
Rouges,  -  320 

Little,  A.  G.,  Opus  T-ertium  of 
Roger  Bacon,  edited  by,  -  320 

Loose  and  Broken  Men,  by  R.  B. 

Cunninghame  Graham,  -     113 

Lovat-Fraser,  M.  J.  A.,  John 
Stuart,  Earl  of  Bute,  -  -219 

Low,  Sidney,  Organization  of  Im- 
perial Studies  in  London,  -  -  434 

Lucas,  Sir  C.  P.,  Greater  Rome 
and  Greater  Britain,  307  ;  Lord 
Durham's  Report  on  the  Affairs 
of  British  North  America,  -  412 

Lumsden,  H.,  and  Rev.  P.  H. 
Aiken,  History  of  the  Hammer- 
men of  Glasgow,  -  198 

Macbeth,  A.  D.,  The  Rationale  of 
Rates,  -  -  2 1 8 

Macculloch,  J.  A.,  Early  Chris- 
tian Visions  of  the  Other  World,-  2 1 8 

Macdonald,  George,  reviews  by, 

I07>  X93»  3H»  411  ;  /Two 
Hoards  of  English  Pennies,  -  432 

Mackenzie,  W.  M.,  reviews  by, 

106,  213 

Mackie,  J.  D.,  reviews  by,        314,  321 

Macphail,  J.  R.  N.,  Hamilton  of 
Kincavil  and  the  General  As- 
sembly of  1563,  -  -  156 

Magie  et  la  Sorcellerie  en  France, 

La,  -  309 

Maitland  of  Lethington,  -     201 


Malo,  H.,  Les  Corsaires  Dunker- 

quois  et  Jean  Bart,  -  -     430 

Marie  Caroline,  Reine  de  Naples,  216 
Marriott,  J.  A.  R.,  The  French 

Revolution  of  1848,  -     426 

Marshall,  Andrew,  review  by,  316,418 
Maryland  Historical  Magazine, 

324,  436 

Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  -  -  432 
Mass  of  St.  Ninian,  A,  -  35 

Maumbury  Rings,  Dorchester, 

Dorsetshire,  Excavations  at,  -  435 
Maxwell,  Sir  Herbert,  Chronicle 

of    Lanercost,    translated    by, 

76,  174;  notes  by,  -  230,  325 
Maxwell,  Sir  J.  Stirling,  The 

Royal  Scottish  Academy,  -  -  233 
M'Clellan,  W.  S.,  Smuggling  in  the 

American  Colonies,  reviewed,  -  324 
M'Clure,  R.,  Mary  Queen  of  Scots 

and  the  Prince  her  Son,  -  -  432 
M'Kechnie,  W.  S.,  reviews  by, 

3i3»  3i8 

Meikle,  H.  W.,  Scotland  and  the 
French  Revolution,  306  ;  review 
by,  -  -  407 

Memoirs,  Some  Seventeenth  Century 

Diaries  and,  by  C.  H.  Firth,  -     329 
Mill,  James,  in  Leadenhall  Street,      1 62 
Millar,  Professor  J.  H.,  Scottish 
Prose    of   the    Seventeenth    and 
Eighteenth  Centuries,  88 ;  review 
by,      -  -       89 

Miller,    Frank,    Dr.    Blacklock's 

Manuscripts,  369  ;  note  by,  -  232 
Milligan,  Rev.  G.,  review  by,  -  318 
Mims,  S.  L.,  Colbert's  West  India 

Policy,  -     216 

Mirbt,    Professor,     Quellen    zur 

Geschichte  des  Papsthums,  by,  -  1 04 
Moderators  of  the  Church  of 

Scotland  from  1690  to  1740,  413 
Modern  Language  Review,  The,  221 
Mont  Saint  Michel  Inconnu,  Le,  109 
Moray,  Sir  R.,  and  the  '  Lives  of 

the  Hamiltons,'    -  -     438 

Morison,   J.    L.,    Lord  Elgin   in 

Canada,  i  ;  review  by,  -         -     413 
Murray,  David,  Lawyers'  Merri- 
ments,- -     190 
Murray,  David,  review  by,          -     420 


Index 


445 


Murray,  Rev.  R.  H.,  The  Journal 

of  John  Stevens,      -  -321 

Murray,  Sir  J.  A.  H.,  note  by,  -     328 

Napoleon,  the  Personality  of,  -  323 
Neilson,  George,  review  by, 

2°5»  309,  4<>9>4i7 
Newcastle    Society   of  Antiquaries, 

Proceedings  of,        -  -     220 

Ninian,  A  Mass  of  Saint,  35 

Norgate,  Kate,   The  Minority  of 

Henry  ///.,  -  -     403 

Norman  Castles  of  the  British  Isles,    207 
Nostell  and  Scone,  The  Founda- 
tion of,        -  228 
Notes  and  Comments,     228,  324,  438 
Notes  and  Queries  for  Somerset  and 

Dorset,  -      222,  436 

Notestein,  W.,  A  History  of  Witch- 
craft in  England  from  1558  to 
1718,  -  409 

Ogg,  David,  review  by,  -  -  212 
Ogle,  Rev.  A.,  Canon  Law  in 

Medieval  England,  -  185 

Old  Lore  Miscellany,  -  223 

Orkney,  The  Trade  of,  at  the 

end  of  the  Eighteenth  Century,  360 

Oxford  Portraits,  -  191 

Paul,  Sir  J.  Balfour,  review  by,  -  405 

Peebles,  The  Burgh  of,  -  -  107 
Penning,  L.,  The  Life  and  Times 

of  Calvin,  -  -  322 

Penry,  John,  by  C.  Burrage,  -  429 

Pilgrims  in  Italy,  Scottish,  -  232 

Pitt,  William,  -  415 

Poetry  Review,  -  223 

Pollard,  A.  F.,  Henry  7111.,  -  427 
Poole,  Mrs.  Reginald  L.,  Catalogue 

of  Oxford  Portraits,  -  191 
Poole,  R.  L.,  The  Exchequer  in  the 

Twelfth  Century,  -  -  313 
Porteous,  Alexander,  The  History 

ofCrieff,  -  -  194 
Powicke,  F.  M.,  review  by,  403,  415 
Privy  Council  of  Scotland,  The 

Register  of  the,     -                   -  422 

Quiggin,  E.  C.,  Prolegomena  to  the 
Study  of  the  Later  Irish  Bards.  -  434 


Rae,  James,  The  deaths  of  the  Kings 

of  England,  -                            -  429 

Rait,  Robert  S.,  review  by,          -  306 

Rates,  The  Rationale  of,    -         -  218 

Reade,  A.  L.,  Johnsonian  Gleanings,  105 
Renwick,   Robert,  The  Burgh  of 

Peebles,  107  ;  review  by,      194,  198 

Replies,  Notes  and,  -                    -  228 

Reviews  of  Books,      88,  185,  306,  403 

Revue  d'Histoire  Ecclesiastique       -  227 

Revue  Historique,       -         -      226,  437 
Robb,  T.  D.,  Arthur  Johnston  in 

his  Poems,     -                            -  287 

Robertson,  Alexander,  note  by,  438 
Robertson    of    Cults,   query    by 

G.  C.  Robertson,  -  328 
Robertson,  Rev.  Professor,  review 

by,  -  98 
Roman  Criminal  Law,  Problems 

of  the,  -  92 
Romanization  of  Roman  Britain, 

The,  -  107 

Rose  Castle,     -                             -  200 
Rose,  J.  Holland,  The  Personality 

of  Napoleon,  323  ;  William  Pitt,  415 
Roughead,  W.,  Twelve  Scots  Trials,  428 
Russell,  E. ,  Maitland  of  Lethington,  201 
Rutland  Magazine,  -  -  222 
Ryle,  Dr.  H.  E.,  Dean  of  West- 
minster, -  -  434 

Sarkar,  B.  K.,  The  Science  of  History,    219 
Sainsbury,  Ethel  B.,  A  Calendar 

of  the  East  India  Company,  -  204 
Saint  Germain-en-Laye,  -  -215 
Salmanticensian  Codex,  extract 

from,  -       31 

Salmon,  S.,  Economic  History  of 

England,      -  -     208 

Sargant,  E.  B.,  British  Citizenship,     217 
Schnittger,  Bror,       -  105 

School  Atlas  of  Ancient  History,      217 
Scotland  and  the  French  Revolution, 

by  H.  W.  Meikle,  -     306 

Scott,  W.  R.,  Joint-Stock  Com- 
panies by,  reviewed,  196; 
reviews  by,  204,  205  ;  The 
Trade  of  Orkney  at  the  end  of 
the  Eighteenth  Century,  -  360 
Scottish  Prose  of  the  Seventeenth 
and  Eighteenth  Centuries,  -  88 


446 


Index 


Scottish  Scholar  of  the  Sixteenth 

Century,  A  Forgotten,  -  122 

Scots  Dictionary,  A,  326 

Scots  Trials,  Twelve,  -  -     428 

Se afield  Correspondence,  The,          -       47 
Shadwell,  L.  L.,  Enactments  con- 
cerning Universities  and  Colleges,       89 
Sieyes,  The  Abbe,     -  -212 

Sinclair,  Hon.  G.  A.,  The  Scottish 

Progress  of  James  VI.,      -         -       21 
Slater,    D.    A.,    The    Poetry    of 

Catullus,  reviewed,  -     215 

Smith,  D.  Baird,  review  by,     104,  190 
Smuggling  in  the  American  Colo- 
nies, by  W.  S.  M'Clellan,       -     324 
Somersetshire  Archaeological  and 

Natural  History  Society,         ,«u>  433 
Steuart,  A.  Francis,  reviews  by, 

105,  215,322 

Stevens,  John,  The  Journal  of,  -  321 
Stevenson,  J.  H.,  The  Teinds,  -  in 
Stjerna,  Knut,  -  105,  224 

Strachan-Davidson,  J.  L.,  Problems 

of  the  Roman  Criminal  Law,      -       92 
Stuart,  Arbella,  -     428 

Sutton,    B.    H.,    The   Growth  of 

Modern  Britain,      -  -431 

Swift,  The  Correspondence  of 
Jonathan,  -  -  108,  324 

Tawney,  R.  H.,  The  Agrarian 
Problem  in  the  Sixteenth  Century,  3 1 7 

Taylor,  R.,  The  Political  Prophecy 
in  England,  -  -421 

Teinds,  The,  -  1 1 1 

"  The,"  The  Honorific,  by  James 
Dallas,  -  39 

Thomson,  J.  Maitland,  review 
by,  185  ;  note  by,  -  229 

Thomson,  J .  P. ,  Alexander  Hender- 
son the  Covenanter,  -  218 

Tobermory  Argosy,  The,    -  94 

Turner,  E.  R.,  The  Negro  in  Penn- 
sylvania, -  109 


" 

Turner,  G.,  Ancient  Forestry  and 
the  Extinct  Industries  of  Argyll- 
shire, -  -  219 

Turner,  G.  J.,  A  Calendar  of  the 
Feet  of  Fines  relating  to  Hunt- 
ingdon, 417 

Turner,  J.,  The  Romance  of  British 
History,  -  431 

Twigge,  R.  W.,  Jacobite  Papers  at 
Avignon,  -  -  60 

University  Enactments  in  Parlia- 
ment, 89 

Vane  the  Younger,  Life  of  Sir 
Henry,  -  431 

Vaughan,  A.  O.,  The  Matter  of 

Wales,  -  427 

Viking  Club  Publications,  223,  224,435 

Volusenus,  Florentius,        -         -     122 

Waliszewski,  K.,  Paul  I .  of  Russia,  322 
Walther,  A.,  Geldwert  in  der 

Geschichte,  -  -  429 

Warrick,  Rev.  J.,  Moderators  of 

the    Church    of  Scotland   from 

1690  to  174.0,  -  -  413 

Whig,  note  on  the  word,  -  -  328 
Wigtown,  Report  of  Monuments 

in  189 

Willcock,  Dr.,  Life  of  Sir  Henry 

Vane  the  Younger,  -  -  431 

Williams,  A.  M.,  note  by,  -  -  326 
Wilson,  Rev.  James,  Authorship  of 

the  Chronicle  of  Lanercost,  138  ; 

Original  Charters  of  the  Abbey 

of  Cupar,    272  ;    reviews   by, 

104,    421  ;    note    by,     228  ; 

Rose  Castle,  reviewed  by,  -  200 
Winbolt,  S.  E.,  and  Bell,  K., 

English  History  Source  Books,  -  214 
Winstanley,  D.  A.,  Lord  Chatham 

and  Whig  Opposition,  -  -  213 
Witchcraft  in  England,  -  -  409 


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