nobles, did not enforce the Lowland institutions upon
their Highland vassals out of mere zeal for their civiliza-
tion, but rather because, by taking care to secure the
power of the sovereign and the laws on their own side,
they could make the infraction of them by the smaller
independent chiefs the pretext for breaking down entire
clans, and binding them to their own authority.
I will give you an example of the manner in which a
noble lady chastised a Highland chief in the reign of
James the Sixth. The Head of the House of Gordon,
then Marquis of Huntly, was by far the most powerful
lord in the northern counties, and exercised great influ-
ence over the Highland clans who inhabited the moun-
tains of Badenoch, which lay behind his extensive do-
mains. One of the most ancient is that of Macintosh, a
word which means Child of the Thane, as they boast
their descent from MacDuff, the celebrated Thane of
Fife. This haughty race having fallen at variance with
the Gordons, William Macintosh, their chief, carried his
enmity to so great a pitch, as to surprise and burn the
Castle of Atichindown, belonging to the Gordon family.
The Marquis of Huntly vowed the severest vengeance.
He moved against the Macintoshes with his own chivalry ;
nnd he let loose upon the devoted tribe, all such neigh-
bouring clans aj would do anything, as the old phrase
76 KXKCUTION OF THE
was, for his love or for his fear. Macintosh, after a shor*
struggle, found himself unequal to sustain ihe conflict,
and saw that he must either behold his clan totally exter-
minated, or contrive some mode of pacifying Huntly's
resentment. Of the last he saw no chance, save by sur
rendering himself into the power of the Marquis, and
thus personally atoning for the offence which he had com
mined. To perform this act of generous devotion with
as much chance of safety as possible, he chose a time
when the Marquis himself was absent, and asking for the
lady, whom he judged likely to prove less inexorable
than her husband, he presented himself as the unhappy
Laird of Macintosh, who came to deliver himself up to
the Gordon, to answer for his burning of Auchindown,
and only desired that Huntly would spare his clan. The
Marchioness, a stern and haughty woman, had shared
deeply in her husband's resentment. She regarded Mac-
intosh with a stern eye, as the hawk or eagle contem-
plates the prey within its clutch, and having spoken a
word aside tt> her attendants, replied to the suppliant
chief in this manner : " Macintosh, you have offended
the Gordon so deeply, that Huntly has sworn by his fath-
er's soul, that he will never pardon you, till he has brought
your neck to the block." " I will stoop even to that hu-
miliation, to secure the safety of my father's house,"
said Macintosh. And as this interview passed in the
kitchen of the Castle at Bog of Gicht, he undid the collar
of his doublet, and kneeling down before the huge block
on which, in the rude hospitality of the time, the slain
bullocks and sheep were broken up for use, he laid his
neck upon it, expecting, doubtless, that the lady would
be satisfied with this token of unreserved submission.
But the inexorable Marchioness made a sign to the cook,
who stepped forward with his hatchet raised, and struck
Macintosh's head from his body.
Another story, and I will change the subject. It is
also of th 3 family of Gordon ; not that they were by any
mean? mere hard-hearted than other Scottish barons, who
Lad feudt with the Highlanders, but because it is the
LAIRD OF MACINTOSH 77
readiest which occurs to my recollection. The Far
qtiharsons of Dee side, a bold and warlike people, inhab-
'ting the dales of Brae-mar, had taken offence at, and
slain, a gentleman of consequence, named Gordon of
Brackley. The Marquis of Huntly summoned his forces,
to take a bloody vengeance for the death of a Gordon ;
and that none of the guilty tribe might escape, commu-
nicated with the Laird of Grant, a very powerful chief,
who was an ally of Huntly, and a relation, I believe, to
the slain Baron of Brackley. They agreed, that, on a
day appointed, Grant, with his clan in arms, should occu-
py the upper end of the vale of Dee, while the Gordons
should ascend the river from beneath, each party killing,
burning, and destroying, without mercy, whatever and
whomsoever they found before them. A terrible massa-
cre was made among the Farquharsons, taken at una-
wares, and placed betwixt two enemies. Almost all the
men and women of the race were slain, and when the
day was done, Huntly found himself encumbered with
about two hundred orphan children, whose parents had
been killed. What beca.i.e ./ them, you shall presently
hear.
About a year after this foray, the Laird of Grant
chanced to dine at the Marquis's castle. He was, ot
course, received with kindness, and entertained with
magnificence. After dinner was over, Huntly said to his
guest, that he would show him some rare sport. Ac-
cordingly, he conducted Grant to a balcony, which, as
was frequent in old mansions, overlooked the kitchen,
perhaps to permit the lady to give an occasional eye to
the operations there. The numerous servants of the
Marquis and his visiters had already dined, and Grant
beheld all the remains of the victuals flung at random
into a large trough, like that out of which swine feed.
While Grant was wondering what this could mean, the
master cook gave a signal with his silver whistle ; on
which a hatch, like that of a dog-kennel, was raised, and
there rushed into the kitchen, some shrieking, some shouJ
78 KACE OF THE TROUGH.
ing, some yelling not a pack of hounds, which, in num
her, noise, and tumult, they greatly resembled, but a hugn
mob of children, half naked, and totally \\ild in their
manners, who threw themselves on the contents of the
trough, and fought, struggled, and clamoured, each to get
the largest share. Grant was a man of humility, and
did not see in that degrading scene all the amusement
which his noble host had intended to afford him. " In
the name of Heaven," he said, " who are these unfor-.
tunate creatures that are fed like so many pigs?" " They
are the children of those Farquharsons whom we slew
last year on Dee side," answered Huntly. The Laird
felt more shocked than it would have been prudent or
polite to express. " My lord," he said, " my sword
helped to make these poor children orphans, and it is not
fair that your lordship should be burdened with all the
expense of maintaining them. You have supported them
for a year and day -allow me now to take them to Cas-
tle-Grant, and keep them for the same time at my cost."
Huntly was tired of the joke of the pig-trough, and wil-
lingly consented to have the undisciplined rabble of chil-
dren taken off his hands. He troubled himself no more
about them ; and the Laird of Grant, carrying them to
his castle, had them dispersed among his clan, and brought
up decently, giving them his own name of Grant ; but it
is said their descendants are still called the Race of the
Trough, to distinguish them from the families of the tribe
into which they were adopted.
These are instances of the severe authority exercised
by the great barons over their Highland neighbours and
vassals. Still that authority produced a regard to the
laws, which they would not otherwise have received
These mighty lords, though possessed of great power ih
their jurisdictions, never affected entire independence, as
had been done by the old Lords of the Isles, who made
peace and war with England, without the consent of the
King of Scotland ; whereas, Argyle, Huntly, and others
always used at least the pretext of the king's name and
authority, and were, from habit an . education, less apt
EXECUTION OF THE EARL OF ORKNEY. 79
to practise wild stretches of arbitrary power than the na-
tive chiefs of the Highlands. In proportion, therefore,
as the influence of the nobles increased, the country ap-
proached more nearly to civilization.
It must not here be forgotten, that the increase of power
acquired by the sovereign, had been felt severely by one
of his great feudal lords, for exercising violence and op-
pression, even in the most distant extremity of the em-
pire. The Earl of Orkney, descended from a natural
son of James V., and of course a cousin-german of the
reigning monarch, had indulged himself in extravagant
excesses of arbitrary authority amongst the wild recesses
of the Orkney and Zetland islands. He had also, it was
alleged, shown some token of a wish to assume sovereign
power, and had caused his natural son to defend the
Castle of Kirkwall. by force of arms, against the King's
troops. For these offences the Earl was tried and exe-
cuted at Edinburgh ; and his punishment struck such
terror among the aristocracy, as made even those preat
lords, whose power lay in the most distant and inaccessi-
ble places of Scotland, disposed to be amenable to the
royal authority.
Having thus discussed the changes effected bv the
union of tie crowns on the Borders, Highlands nnd
Isles, it re nains to notice the effects produced in the
Lowlands, or more civilized parts of the kingdom.
80 SCOTSMEN IN FOREIGN SEUV1CE.
CHAPTER VIL
Injurious effects to Scotland of the Removal of the Court
to London Numerous Scotsmen employed in Foreign
Military Service and as Travelling Merchants, or
Packmen, in Germany Exertions of the Presbyte-
rian Clergy to put an end to Family Feuds, and to
extend Education Establishment, by their means, oj
Parochial Schools James VlSs Visit to Scotland in
1617 his Death his Children.
The Scottish people were soon made sensible, that il
their courtiers and great men made fortunes by King
James's favour, the nation at large was not enriched by
the union of the crowns. Edinburgh was no longer the
residence of a Court, whose expenditure, though very
moderate, was diffused among her merchants and citizens,
and was so far of importance. The sons of the gentry
and better classes, whose sole trade had been war and
battle, were deprived of employment by the general
peace with England, and the nation was likely to feel all
the distress arising from an excess of population. The
wars on the Continent afforded a resource peculiarly fit-
ted to the genius of the Scots, who have always had a
disposition for visiting foreign parts. The celebrated
Thirty Years' War, as it was called, was now raging in
Germany, and a large national brigade of Scots were
engaged in the service of Gustavus Adolphus, King o*
Sweden, one of the most successful generals of the age.
Their total numbers may be guessed from those of the
superior officers, which amounted to thirty-four colonels,
and fifty lieutenant-colonels. The similarity of the reli-
gion of the Scots with that of the Swedes, and some
congenial resemblances betwixt the two nations, as well
BS the high fame of Gustavus, made most of the Scots
SCOTSMEN IN FOREIGN SERVICE. 81
prefer the service of Sweden ; but there were others
who went into that of the Emperor of Austria, of France,
of the Italian States, in short, they were dispersed as
soldiers throughout all Europe. It was not uncommon,
when a party of Scots were mounting a breach, for them
to hear some of the defenders call out in the Scottish
language, " Come on, gentlemen ; this is not like gallant-
ing it at the Cross of Edinburgh," and thus learn that
they were opposed to some of their countrymen engaged
on the opposite side. The taste for foreign service was
so universal, that young gentlemen of family, vvho wished
to see the world, used to travel on the Continent from
place to place, and from state to state, and defray their
expenses by engaging for a few weeks or months in mil-
itary service in the garrison or guards of the state in
which they made their temporary residence. It is but
doing the Scots justice to say, that while thus acting as
mercenary soldiers, they acquired a high character for
courage, military skill, and a faithful adherence to their
engagements. The Scots regiments in the Swedish ser-
vice were the first troops who employed platoon firing,
by which they contributed greatly to achieve the decisive
battle of Lutzen.
Besides the many thousand Scottish emigrants who
pursued the trade of war on the Continent, there was
another numerous class who undertook the toilsome and
precarious task of travelling merchants, or to speak plainly,
of pedlers, and were employed in conducting the petty
inland commerce, which gave the inhabitants of Germany,
Poland, and the northern parts of Europe in general, op-
portunities of purchasing articles of domestic convenience.
There were at that time few towns, and in these towns
there were few shops regularly open. When an inhabitant
of the country, of high or low degree, had to purchase
any article of dress or domestic convenience which he did
not manufacture himself, he was obliged to attend at the
next fair, to which the travelling merchants flocked, in
order to expose their goods to sale. Or if the buyer did
not choose to take that trouble, he must wait till somo
885
82 IMPERFECT ENFORCEMENT
pedler, who carried his goods on horseback, in a small
wain, or perhaps in a pack upon his shoulders, made his
wandering journey through the country. It has been made
matter of ridicule against the Scots, that this traflic fell
into their hands, as a frugal, patient, provident and labo-
rious people, possessing some share of education, which
we shall presently see was now becoming general amongst
them. But we cannot think that the business which re-
quired such attributes to succeed in it, could be dishon-
ourable to those who pursued it j and we believe that
those Scots who, in honest commerce, supplied foreign-
ers with the goods they required, were at least as well
employed as those who assisted them in killing each other.
While the Scots thus continued to improve their. con-
dition by enterprise abroad, they gradually sunk into peace-
ful habits at home. In the wars of Queen Mary's time,
and those of King James's minority, we have the author-
ity of a great lawyer, the first Earl of Haddington, gene-
rally known by the name of Tom of the Cowgate, to
assure us, that " the whole country was so miserably dis-
tracted, not only by the accustomed barbarity of the High-
lands and Borders, which was greatly increased, but by
the cruel dissensions arising from public factions and pri-
vate feuds, that men of every rank daily wore steel-jacks,
knapscaps or head-pieces, plate-sleeves, and pistols and
poniards, being as necessary parts of their apparel as their
doublets and breeches." Their disposition was, of course,
as warlike as their dress ; and the same authority informs
us, that whatever was the cause of their assemblies or
meetings, fights arid affrays were the necessary conse-
quence before they separated ; and this not at parlia-
ments, conventions, trysts, and markets only, but likewise
n church-yards, churches, and places appointed for the
exercise of religion.
This universal state of disorder was not owing to any
want of laws against such enormities ; on the contrary, the
Scottish legislature was more severe than that of England,
accounting a slaughter taking place on a sudden quarrel,
without previous malice, as murder. ,vhich the law oi
OF THE LAWS. 83
England rated under the milder denomination of man-
slaughter. And this severity was introduced into the law
expressly to restrain the peculiar furious temper of the
Scottish nation. It was not, therefore, laws which were
wanting to restrain violence, but the regular and due ex-
ecution of such as existed. An ancient Scottish states-
man and judge, who was also a poet, has alluded to the
means used to save the guilty from deserved punishment.
" We are allowed some skill," he says, " in making; good
laws, but God knows how ill they are kept and enforced ;
since a man accused of a crime will frequently appear at
the bar of a court to which he is summoned, with such a
company of armed friends at his back, as if it were his
purpose to defy and intimidate both judge and jury." The
interest of great men, moreover, obtained often by bribes,
interposed between a criminal and justice, and saved by
court favour the life which was forfeited to the laws.
James made great reformation in these pauiculars, as
soon as his power, increased by the union of the two
kingdoms, gave him the means of doing so. The laws,
as we have seen in more cases than one, were enforced
with greater severity ; and the assistance of powerful
friends, nay, the interposition of courtiers and favourites,
was less successful in interfering with the course of jus-
tice, or obtaining remissions and pardons for condemned
criminals. Thus the wholesome terror of justice gradu-
ally imposed a restraint on the general violence and dis-
order which had followed the civil wars of Scotland.
Still, however, as the barons held, by means of their he-
reditary jurisdictions, the exclusive right to try and to
punish such crimes as were committed on their own es
tates ; and as they often did not choose to do so, either
because the action had been committed by the baron's own
direction ; or that the malefactor was a strong and active
partizan, of whose service the lord might have need ; or
because the judge and criminal stood in some degree of
relationship to each other; in all such. cases, the culprit's
escape from justice was a necessary consequence Nev-
ertheless, viewing Scotland generally, the progress of
54 HEREDITARY JURISDICTIONS.
public justice at the commencement of the seventeenth
century, was much purer, and less liable to interruption,
than in former ages, and the disorders of the country were
fewer in proportion.
The law and its terrors had its effect in preventing the
frequency of crime ; but it could not have been in the
power of mere human laws, and the punishments which
they enacted, to eradicate from the national feelings the
proneness to violence, and the thirst of revenge, which
had been so long a general characteristic of the Scottish
people. The heathenish and accursed custom of deadly
feud, or the duty, as it was thought, of exacting blood for
blood, and perpetuating a chance quarrel, by handing it
down to future generations, could only give place to those
pure religious doctrines which teach men to practise, not
the revenge, but the forgiveness of injuries, as the only
means of acquiring the favour of Heaven.
The Presbyterian preachers, in throwing away the ex-
ternal pomp and ceremonial of religious worship, had in-
culcated, in its place, the most severe observation of
morality. It was objected to them, indeed, that as in
their model of church government, the Scottish clerg)
claimed an undue influence over state affairs, so, in their
professions of doctrine and practice, they verged towards
an ascetic system, in which too much weight was laid on
venial transgressions, and the opinions of other Christian
churches were treated with too little liberality. But no
one who considers their works, and their history, can de-
ny to those respectable men, the merit of practising, in
the most rigid extent, the strict doctrines of morality
which they taught. They despised wealth, shunned even
harmless pleasures, and acquired the love of their flocks,
by attending to their temporal as well as spiritual diseases.
They preached what they themselves seriously believed
and they were believed because they spoke with all the
earnestness of conviction. They spared neither example
nor precept to improve the more ignorant of their hear-
ers, and often endangered their own lives in attempting to
nit a stop to the feuds and frays which daily occurred in
INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMERS. 85
their bounds. It is recorded of a wo/thy clergyman
whose parish was peculiarly distracted by the brawls ol
the quarrelsome inhabitants, that he used constantly to
wear a stout steel head-piece, which bore an odd appear-
ance contrasted with his clerical dress. The purpose was,
that when he saw swords drawn in the street, which was
almost daily, he might run between the combatants, and
thus separate them, with less risk of being killed by a
chance blow. So that his venturous and dauntless hu-
manity was perpetually placing his life in danger.
The clergy of that day were frequently respectable
from their birth and connexions, often from their learning,
and at all times from their character. These qualities
enabled them to interfere with effect, even in the feuds ol
the barons and gentry ; and they often brought to milder
and more peaceful thoughts, men who would not have
listened to any other intercessors. There is no doubt,
that these good men, and the Christianity which they
taught, were one of the principal means of correcting the
furious temper and revengeful habits of the Scottish na-
tion, in whose eyes bloodshed and deadly vengeance had
been till then a virtue.
Besides the precepts and examples of religion and mo-
rality, the encouragement of general information and
knowledge is also an effectual mode of taming and sub-
duing the wild habits of a military and barbarous people.
For this also the Lowlands of Scotland were indebted to
the Presbyterian ministers.
The Catholic clergy had been especially instrumental
in the foundation of three universities in Scotland, name-
ly, those of Glasgow, St. Andrews, and Aberdeen ; but
these places of education, from the very nature of their
institutions, were only calculated for the education of stu-
dents designed for the church, or of those youths from
among the higher classes of the laity, whom their parents
might wish to receive such information as might qual-
ify them for lawyers and statesmen. The more noble
view of the Reformed Church, was to extend the bless-
66 SPREAD OF !; 1)1 CATION.
ings of knowledge to the lower, as well a3 the higher
classes of society.
The preachers of the reformation had appealed to the
Scriptures as the rule of their doctrine, and it was their
honourable and liberal desire, that the poorest, as well as
the richest man, should have an opportunity of judging,
by his own perusal of the sacred volume, whether they
had interpreted the text truly and faithfully. The inven-
tion of printing had made the Scriptures accessible tc
every one, and the clergy desired that the meanest peas-
ant should have the skill necessary to peruse them. John
Knox, and other leaders of the Congregation, had, from
the very era of the Reformation, pressed the duty of re-
serving from the confiscated revenues of the Romish
Church the means of providing for the clergy with de-
cency, and of establishing colleges and schools for the
education of youth ; but their wishes were for a long time
disappointed by the avarice of the nobility and gentry,
who were determined to retain for their own use the spoils
of the Catholic Church, and by the stormy complexion
of the times, in which little was regarded save what be-
longed to politics and war.
At length the legislature, chiefly by the influence of the
clergy, was induced to authorize the noble enactment,
which appoints a school to be kept in every parish of Scot-
land, at a low rate of endowment indeed, but such as en-
ables every poor man within the parish to procure for his
children the knowledge of reading and writing ; and af
fords an opportunity for those who show a decided taste
for learning, to obtain such progress in classical knowledge,
as may fit them for college studies. There can be no
doubt, that the opportunity afforded, of procuring instruc-
tion thus easily, tended, in the course of a generation,
greatly to civilize and humanize the character of the
Scottish nation ; and it is equally certain, that this gene-
ral access to useful knowledge, has not only given rise to
the success of many men of genius, who otherwise would
never have aspired above the humble rank in which they
were horn, but has raised the common people of Scotland
JAMES S VISIT TO SCOTLAND. 87
in general, in knowledge, sagacity, and intelligence, many
degrees above those of most other countries.
The Highlands and islands did not share the influence
of religion and education, which so essentially benefited
their Lowland countrymen, owing to their speaking a lan-
guage different from the rest of Scotland, as well as to
the difficulty, or rather at that time the impossibility, ot
establishing churches or schools in such a remote country,
ajid amongst natives of such wild manners.
To the reign of James VI. it is only necessary to add,
that in 1617 he revisited his ancient kingdom of Scotland,