m mm InH ussy ■ ■ ma m m Hi mm® ■mm Mite Wmm ■■HP; JHi W< !3 HSHHSlHFwi 1 ? x4 >6^L McZi ■ ^ 4Uu*j . C&£^^ /UA^ The Social and Industrial History of Scotland The Social and Industrial History of Scotland From the Earliest Times to the Union / BY JAMES MACKINNON, Ph.D., D.D. Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History, University of Edinburgh Formerly Lecturer in History, University of St. Andrews and Queen Margaret College, University of Glasgow BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED 50 OLD BAILEY LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY 1920 PREFACE The increased and increasing interest in social and industrial history has suggested the writing of this review of that of Scotland from the earliest times to the Union of 1707. Such a review was, besides, desirable in view of the fact that a work of this kind, dealing with the period of Scottish history embraced by it, was lacking. The work is intended for the educated reader in- terested in the social and industrial history of Scot- land, and it is hoped that it will prove useful as a guide to students of history in Schools and Uni- versities. For the benefit of readers who may desire to enlarge their studies in this department of Scottish history, a list of the sources used by the author is appended to each chapter. The author desires to express his indebtedness to his colleague, Professor Watson, and to Mr. A. O. Curie, Director of the Royal Scottish Museum, for their kindness in reading the manuscript of the first two chapters, and for the valuable suggestions made by them. To Mr. Walter W. Blackie he owes the vi PREFACE proposal that he should undertake the work, and, in addition, some serviceable criticisms on its contents. His thanks are also due to his colleague, Mr. George G. Chisholm, to Mrs. MacKinnon, and to Mr. J. A. R. MacKinnon, advocate, who have read the proofs of the whole work. Edinburgh, Nov., igig. CONTENTS Chapter I— PRE-CHRISTIAN TIMES PAGE i. Influence of Geography on Social and Industrial Life i 2. The Complex Character of the Scottish People - 3 3. The Making of the Scottish Kingdom ... 9 4. Social and Industrial Conditions in the Pre- Christian Age 15 Sources 28 Chapter II— EARLY CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION 1. The Missions of Ninian and Kentigern - - - 30 2. The Mission of Columba - 34 3. The Monastic Community at Iona - - - - 37 4. Social and Industrial Life in Pictland - - - 42 5. The Conversion of the Angles ----- 44 5. Christian Civilization of the Scoto-Pictish King- dom 45 Sources 50 Chapter III— THE EARLY FEUDAL AGE 1. The Feudal Social System 51 2. Celtic and Anglo-Norman Institutions - - - 55 3. Feudal Class-Distinctions— Serfdom - -58 4. Rise of the Burghs .---.--61 5. Rural Life and Labour 68 vii viii CONTENTS PAGE 6. The Administration of Justice 71 7. Church Reform and Church Building - - 74 Sources 77 Chapter IV— FROM THE WAR OF INDEPEN- DENCE TO THE REFORMATION 1. Influences on the National Life - - - - 78 2. The Scottish Parliament and Aristocratic Faction 80 3. Trade and Industry 83 4. Industrial Development 91 5. Impressions of Scotland and the Scots - - - 96 6. The Regulation of Social Life, Costume, Domestic Economy - 106 7. Popular Amusement - - in 8. Influence of the Renaissance and the Reformation 113 Sources 121 Chapter V— FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION OF THE PARLIAMENTS 1. The Union of the Crowns and its Economic Effects 123 2. The Union of the Kingdoms on a Free Trade Basis 133 3. Presbyterianism and Political Liberty - - - 142 4. Church Discipline and Social Life ... - 146 5. Architecture 156 6. Domestic Life 164 7. Education and Culture 171 Sources _.... 176 Index ----- -177 SCOTLAND SOCIAL and INDUSTRIAL CHAPTER I PRE-CHRISTIAN TIMES i . Influence of Geography on Social and Industrial Life The social and industrial life of a people is influenced by the physical features of the land which the people in- habits. Geographically Scotland may be divided into three well-defined regions — the Highlands, the Central Lowlands, and the Southern Uplands. The Highlands comprise the mountain region lying beyond the line run- ning south-west from Stonehaven to the Clyde. Between this line and a second one stretching from Dunbar on the east coast, al«ng a series of intervening hills with a south- westerly trend, to Girvan on the west lies the plain of the Central Lowlands. Southward of this second line as far as the Border stretches the hilly region of the Southern Uplands. The Central Lowlands do not, however, form a continuous plain, since they are intersected here and there by ranges of hills, whilst in both the Highlands and the 2 PRE-CHRISTIAN TIMES Southern Uplands there are tracts of low land along the courses of the larger rivers, or in the regions adjoining portions of the coast. These descriptive terms are, therefore, only generally exact. But they correspond to distinctive factors in the shaping of the social and industrial life of the inhabitants. The Central Lowlands contain a very large proportion of good arable land and extensive deposits of coal, iron ore, and oil shale. Hence the development of agriculture and mining, with the industries dependent on the working of these mineral deposits. Hence, too, the rise and growth of cities and of a large urban as well as rural population. In the Highlands and the Southern Uplands, on the other hand, the proportion of arable land is more restricted, whilst the mineral deposits of the Central Lowlands are largely lacking. The tillage of the soil flourishes, indeed, in fertile areas like those around the Beauly, Cromarty, and Dornoch Firths, along the southern shore of the Moray Firth from Inverness to Aberdeen, and the northern shore of the Solway. But relatively to the whole surface of these northern and southern divisions, it is much smaller than in the central division, and sheep-farming takes a much larger place in these two divisions than in the other. Con- sequently the number of considerable towns is limited and the population is less dense. Social and industrial life thus necessarily differs in accordance with the physical conditions of these respective regions, though the differ- ence is in some respects less in the Southern Uplands than in the larger and preponderatingly mountainous region of the Highlands. COMPLEX CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE 3 2. The Complex Character of the Scottish People The Scottish People is composed of a mixture of races which came to North Britain in successive waves from the European continent, either directly by sea, or indirectly through England and Ireland. The earliest immigration, at least after Britain had been cut off from the Continent by the North Sea and the English Channel, seems to have been that of the people of short stature, with dark hair and dark eyes, whose descendants still form a marked element of the population of the West Highlands, Wales, and Western Ireland. They were not Celts and had not adopted the Aryan language, which had spread among a number of European peoples, including the Celts, and had undergone characteristic variations as it did so. They belonged to the same type as that termed the Iberian or Mediterranean, which survives, for instance, in the Basque population of the Pyrenean region. Following them, at some indefinite period, came another immigration. These immigrants were Celts, and, according to Skene and other historians, the first wave of them belonged to the Goidelic or Gaelic branch of the Celts, who spoke an ancient form of the Gaelic language and pressed the pre-Celtic inhabi- tants into the remote regions of the west and north of Britain. They are further of opinion that the Goidels were themselves pressed back into the region north of the Clyde and Forth by a second wave of Celtic immigrants who belonged to the Brythonic branch of the Celts (the Britons), and spoke a Celtic dialect now represented by 4 PRE-CHRISTIAN TIMES the Welsh language, and that these Goidels are identical with the Caledonians and Picts who, in the time of the Romans and subsequently, are found inhabiting this northern region. Recent research has, however, tended to discredit this opinion. According to this more pro- bable view the Celts who first invaded Britain were Bry- thons or Britons, not Goidels or Gaels. The Goidels crossed over from Gaul, not to Britain, but to Ireland, and only later (within historic times) established a colony in that part of North Britain anciently known as Dalriada and later as Argyle, which means the coastland of the Gael. Moreover, it is not necessary to assume that all the abori- ginal inhabitants were driven by the Celtic invaders into the remote parts where their descendants form a charac- teristic element of the population. These invaders, like other conquerors, would probably spare many of the natives for the purpose of servile labour. This immigration of Brythonic Celts took place in pre- historic times. To historic times belongs the invasion of a series of other peoples. In the first century a.d. the Roman army conquered, at least temporarily, the south of Scotland, whilst failing to make any lasting impression on the region north of the Forth and Clyde, and in the suc- ceeding century the Romans attempted to hold the region south of these rivers by constructing an earthern wall be- tween them. Their hold on this region was, however, never very firm, as the evidence of archaeology, and the renewed efforts of Severus and Theodosius, in the third and fourth centuries respectively, to assert Roman rule over it, show. This intermittent and precarious occupa- COMPLEX CHARACTER OF PEOPLE 5 tion could only have resulted in adding a very slender Roman strain to the native population of this region, though it brought this population into touch with Roman civilization. Roman soldiers would doubtless, during this occupation, marry Celtic women (witness the Celtic female ornaments found at the Roman station at New- stead), and it is certain that there were many British princes of the sixth century who are credited in the Welsh Genealogies with Roman descent. This is, however, all that can safely be said in support of the inclusion of a Roman strain in the population of North Britain. In the fourth century we hear of attacks against this part of Roman Britain by Saxon invaders from over the North Sea and by Goidelic Scots from Ireland. These attacks were the forerunners of another infusion into the popula- tion of Scotland after the withdrawal of the Romans from Britain in the beginning of the fifth century. This in- fusion was due to the settlement in the course of this century of the Angles, a people, like the Saxons, of Teu- tonic stock, who came from Schleswig, and obtained a footing in the south-east between the Forth and the Tweed. We hear, too, of Frisian invaders, who, however, may have been merely raiders, and not settlers. Besides these Teutonic settlers and the native Britons, mention is made by Bede of Picts in Galloway (Niduari Picti) and they are also found in the district from East Lothian westwards along the southern shore of the Forth. North of the Forth and Clyde in early historic times were a number of tribes of whom Ptolemy mentions about a dozen. Among them were the Caledonians, and to 6 PRE-CHRISTIAN TIMES Tacitus this region was known by the general name of Caledonia. From this it is apparent that the Caledonians were the leading; tribe of the region, their territory ex- tending from Loch Lomond to the Beauly Firth, and that they exercised the leadership of what might be called the Caledonian confederacy which opposed Agricola in the second half of the first century. In the beginning of the third century another leading tribe, the Maiatae, is men- tioned along with them as opposing the emperor Severus. In the fourth century the two main tribes appear as the Dicalydones (the two Caledonias, i.e. north and south of the Grampians) and the Verturiones. These Caledonians and other tribes north of the Forth were of the same Celtic race as the Brythons or Britons to the south of this river, and spoke the same language. By this time, too, a Scottish settlement from Ireland had been established (about the beginning of the third century) in Kintyre and Argyle (the ancient Dalriada, from the name of their leader Riada), and this settlement was enlarged and con- solidated towards the end of the fifth century by a renewed immigration under Fergus MacErc. In the fourth century the general name of Picts is applied to the inhabitants of the region north of the Forth and Clyde,, and this name henceforth takes the place of that of the Caledonians. Over these Picts a long contro- versy has 1 been waged. Who were they? According to Professor Watson, the most recent investigator of the subject, the Picts were a Celtic people, originally settled in the Orkney and Shetland Islands, whither they had migrated from Gaul. From these islands they effected a COMPLEX CHARACTER OF PEOPLE 7 settlement on the northern mainland and gradually ad- vanced southwards to the Forth and beyond it. They suc- ceeded the Caledonians as the leading people north of this river, and gave their name to the population of this region under the name of the Northern and Southern Picts, as they are called by Bede in the eighth century. They were Celts of the same type as the ordinary Celtic race in Gaul — " tall, strong-limbed men, with golden hair, milk-white skin, and blue eyes ", as Professor Watson describes them. In the far north they subdued the pre- Celtic population — the small, dark-haired people, already mentioned — whose language has been lost, but some of whose customs sur- vived in those of the Picts, in particular the non-Celtic custom of tracing descent through the mother, and not through the father, which betokens the prevalence of polyandry. Succession through the mother prevailed, in- deed, among the Picts down to the end of the Pictish monarchy in the ninth century. " In the Picts, there- fore ", concludes Professor Watson, " first as a tribe and then as a nation, including many old British tribes, we have to do with a mixed people, whose rulers, nobles, and freemen were originally Celtic and probably maintained a considerable strain of Celtic blood, while the main body of the population, originally non-Celtic, would in course of time become Celticized ". In the early middle ages (about a.d. 800) the Danes and Norsemen are found making predatory attacks on the western and eastern coasts, and the Norsemen ultimately succeeded in effecting a settlement in the Western Isles, the northern mainland, and to a slight extent in Galloway. 8 PRE-CHRISTIAN TIMES Still later there was a considerable infusion from England of Norman and Anglo-Norman settlers, whom David I, in particular, in the twelfth century, attracted by grants of land, and also of Flemings, who settled as merchants and craftsmen in the rising burghs of mediaeval Scotland. It is thus evident that the Scottish people is a very mixed one, to which a pre- Celtic remnant of the pre- historic inhabitants, Celt, Roman, Teuton, Norse, Norman, and Fleming have each, in varying degree, contributed. Of these the Celtic element, which ultimately gave the name of one of its subdivisions — the Scots — to the country, is much the largest. Although the Lowlands between the Tweed and the Forth became largely popu- lated by people of Teutonic origin, the Celtic inhabitants of even this region were probably far from being entirely displaced by its Anglic invaders. In the Lothians, Berwick, Selkirk, Roxburgh, and Peebles there are be- tween 600 and 700 place names about equally divided between Gaelic and British, and Professor Watson holds that Gaelic was spoken in Peebles in a.d. 1200. In the Lowlands lying north of the Forth, as well as in the High- lands, the population was overwhelmingly Celtic, and the same may be said of the part of the Lowlands between the Clyde and the Solway occupied by the Britons and the Picts of Galloway. More than three-fourths of the sur- face of Scotland thus remained in the occupation of people of Celtic origin with an intermixture of pre-Celtic, Norse, Norman, and Flemish elements, whilst in the region in which the Angles settled there was probably to a certain extent a fusion with the old Celtic inhabitants. Many of (D17) MAKING OF THE SCOTTISH KINGDOM 9 the place-names in East Lothian, for instance, as Mr. Muir in his geography of this county shows, are Celtic. This does not suggest that the Celtic element in the population died out. It rather points to the persistence of the people as well as the language and to their ultimate fusion with their conquerors. The proportion of people of pure or mixed Celtic race in the population of Scotland must, in view of these facts, be very large. Perhaps eighty per cent would not be an over-estimate. 3. The Making of the Scottish Kingdom The kingdom of Scotland, in the later sense of the whole territory between the Tweed and the Solway in the south and the Pentland Firth in the extreme north, was not fully formed till the thirteenth century. The older Scottish historians like Hector Boece and George Buchanan knew of the existence of a kingdom of Scots and Picts in North Britain for several centuries before the coming of the Romans and have much to tell of the history of the long series of its kings. Buchanan gives this kingdom a very democratic constitution, under which the people take a very active part in the decision of all important affairs and frequently depose their kings for misgovernment. In their eagerness to prove the great antiquity of the Scottish kingdom these historians accepted a mass of legend as history, but their history has not stood the test of later criticism. What we gather from Ptolemy, who wrote a description of Britain in the second century a.d., and from other sources, is that the northern part of it was occu- pied by a number of tribes which do not seem to have (D17) 2 io PRE-CHRISTIAN TIMES been ruled by a single king. The attempts of the Romans to conquer them appear, however, to have led them, or a number of them, to combine in the effort to repel the Roman aggressor. In the second half of the first century those north of the Forth are found resisting the invasion of Agricola under a leader named Calgacus, who, like Arthur at a later time, may only have been the general chosen for the occasion and is not necessarily to be re- garded as King of the whole region. In the third and fourth centuries the Caledonians occupy a leading posi- tion, and in the second half of the latter century the in- habitants of the whole region appear under the general name of Picts, who, as we have seen, had gradually ex- tended their sway from the far north southwards to the Forth, and ultimately welded these tribes into the Pictish nation. In the early eighth century Bede distinguishes between the northern and the southern Picts — the former inhabiting the mountainous region beyond the Grampians, the latter the Lowlands between the Grampians and the Forth. It appears, too, that while the whole of Pictland was divided into seven provinces under their chiefs or Mormaers, the inhabitants were more or less subject to a supreme king who, in St. Columba's time, in the second half of the sixth century, had his residence at or near Inverness, but whose successors removed the capital southwards to the region of the Southern Picts (Abernethy on the River Earn, near its junction with the Tay). South of the Forth, the region between it and the Tweed, in which the Angles had established themselves, formed part of the kingdom of Bernicia which extended south- MAKING OF THE SCOTTISH KINGDOM n wards to the Tees and later, under the name of North- umbria, to the Humber. These Anglic Kings strove to extend their dominion northwards at the expense of the Picts, and at times, especially in the reign of King Oswiu, with considerable success. But they ultimately failed in their aggressive attempts, and the defeat of Oswiu's son, Ecgfrith, in 685, by the Picts at Nechtansmere (Dunnichen in Forfarshire) was of great importance for the rise of the future Scottish kingdom. The defeat, in fact, proved to be a decisive check to the English ambition to bring the whole of Britain under English sway and materially con- tributed to render possible the growth of the independent northern kingdom of the future. Westwards of the Angles were the Britons, who formed the kingdom of Strathclyde, stretching from the Firth of Clyde southwards into Cumberland, with the capital at Alclyd or Dunbrettan, the modern Dumbarton (the " dun " or fort of the Britons). For long there was frequent conflict between them and the Angles. In this struggle they had, on the whole, the worst of it. Under their warrior king Athelfrith the Angles won a signal victory over them and their ally Aidan, king of the Scots of Dalriada, at Dawston, in Liddesdale, in the beginning of the seventh century (603). During the reign of Oswiu, later in the century, they, along with the Scots, were com- pelled to acknowledge the overlordship of the Anglic King. From this subjection they, like the Picts and Scots, were freed by the defeat of Ecgfrith at Dunnichen, though the Strathclyde kingdom had by this time shrunk to the region between the Solway and the Clyde. 12 PRE-CHRISTIAN TIMES In the south-west angle of this region was the Pictish state of Galloway, though it is to be noted that Professor Watson is at issue with the historians in doubting its ex- istence. To the north-west of it, in Dalriada (the modern Argyle), another petty kingdom had been founded by a colony of Scots from Ireland. It ultimately became for a time part of the Anglic kingdom and, owing to internal dissensions and frequent conflict with Angles and Picts, maintained a somewhat precarious existence till the middle of the eighth century. But from this time, when the power of the Pictish king Angus MacFergus began to " ebb ", as the Annals of Ulster record, the Scots appear to have asserted themselves against the Picts, and it is certain that ultimately they were strong enough to assert their supremacy over them and to impose their language on them. Thus within less than 100 years after the withdrawal of the Romans, Britain, north of the Tweed and the Solway, which was afterwards to form the kingdom of Scotland, was divided into a number of small and warring states and peoples, consisting of Picts, Britons, Angles, and Scots. It was only after several centuries that, as a result of the fusion of these states and peoples, the Scottish kingdom in the larger sense came into existence. How, now, was this fusion brought about? In the first place it is important to remember that before the middle of the seventh century all these peoples had been converted to Christianity, and that they ultimately adopted the Roman in place of the more primitive and less highly organized Celtic form of ecclesiastical government. This of itself would not have MAKING OF THE SCOTTISH KINGDOM 13 sufficed to fuse these states together, for Christianity, even in its highly- organized Roman form, does not necessarily do away with national antagonisms and antipathies. But it may at least make the task of political union easier when the historic circumstances tend in this direction. In the second place the king of the Scots in Dalriada became, about the middle of the ninth century (a.d. 844), king of the Picts, and this Scoto-Pictish kingdom included, though somewhat loosely at first and for long, all the region north of the Forth and Clyde and was known by the name of Alba. It was only in the eleventh century that it began to be called Scotland (Scotia), which had hitherto denoted Ireland, or at least part of Ireland, the land whence the Scots originally came. In the third place these Scottish kings ultimately succeeded in annexing that part of the English kingdom of Northumbria lying between the Forth and the Tweed, and known as Lothian, to the Scottish Crown, as the result of the victory which Malcolm II won over the English at Carham in the beginning of the eleventh century. It was in his reign, too, that Strathclyde became a dependency of the Scottish crown, and with the accession of his son Duncan, to whom he had made it over as a principality on the death of its last King Owen, to the Scottish throne in 1034, it was incorporated along with Galloway into the Scottish kingdom. In the fourth place uniformity of language also made for national unity. By 1018, the year of the battle of Carham, Gaelic was spoken from the Pentland Firth to the Tweed, though, doubtless, Norse prevailed in Lewis and some other parts, and some Welsh probably survived in the south. i 4 PRE-CHRISTIAN TIMES By this time another people, the Norsemen, had suc- ceeded in establishing themselves in the north-west, as the result of repeated invasions from Norway and the Orkney and Shetland Islands, which they had conquered from the Celts. They took possession of the Hebrides and secured a footing in the northern mainland. But the attempt at further conquest was frustrated at the battle of Largs on the Clyde, where the Norwegian King, Hakon, was defeated by Alexander III in the second half of the twelfth century (1263), and Gaelic influence was fast dis- placing the Norse influence on the west coast. Three years later Alexander acquired the Hebrides by negotia- tion, and thus before the end of the century Scotland, with the adjacent isles, had become a united kingdom, though it was only in the fifteenth century that the Orkney and Shetland Islands were incorporated with it through the marriage of Margaret, daughter of the King of Denmark and Norway, to James III, to whom these islands were ceded as his wife's dowry. There was, however, hardly as yet a Scottish people in the real sense, for in mediaeval Scotland, as in the case of other media; val nations, the national spirit was still weak. It required the war of Independence in the fourteenth century to quicken and strengthen this feeling by uniting the people in a heroic struggle against the English invader. Moreover there was still a certain cleavage between the Anglo-Saxon south and the Celtic north. In the course of the centuries the centre of the kingdom had shifted from the Celtic to the Saxon region and the Scottish kings had become anglicized, chiefly as the result of the rule of CONDITIONS IN PRE-CHRISTIAN AGE 15 Malcolm III and his English Queen, Margaret, and their sons, Edgar, Alexander I, and David I. This southerly tendency of the ruling power is also explained by the fact that the Lowlands of Scotland were alone fitted to be the centre of a large population, and to provide the means of its support. Geographical features as well as politics thus tended to decide the centre of government in Scotland. Several centuries of friction were to elapse before this cleavage disappeared and Celt and Saxon became fused in a common nationality. Till the eighteenth century, in fact, Highlander and Lowlander, though ruled by a common king, were as different in culture and temperament and as antagonistic as if they had been foreigners, and there is still observable a certain typical distinction, as the result of the difference of geographical and historical con- ditions, between them in this respect. It is, indeed, only from a comparatively recent period that this cleavage, this estrangement has disappeared as the result of the weaken- ing of the clan system, the extension of the power of the crown at the expense of that of the Highland chiefs, the growth of a larger patriotism which has made the High- land soldier, colonist, administrator, and merchant among the most intrepid and energetic pioneers and defenders of the British Empire. 4. Social and Industrial Conditions in the Pre- Christian Age Scottish antiquaries distinguish three stages in the pre- Christian civilization of northern Britain, which they term the age of Stone, the age of Bronze, and the age of Iron. 16 PRE-CHRISTIAN TIMES There are no definite remains in Scotland of the earlier or palaeolithic stone age. The men of the later or neolithic age erected the chambered cairns in which they buried their dead and which, though met with in Gallo- way, Arran, Argyle, are most numerous in Sutherland, Caithness, and Orkney. They are built upon a plan, with one or more chambers and a passage affording an entrance to them. The articles found in them include human and animal bones, and a rudely ornamented urn, the main characteristic of which is that it is round bottomed. The animal bones are those of the ox, the horse, the pig, the dog, deer, and sheep. The people who built these rude, but skilfully-planned buildings were thus a stage above the state of mere savages, reared the domestic animals, made implements such as axes and arrow- and spear-heads of flint and other durable stone (usually polished), and sharpened them according to the material by flaking or rubbing on a stone. They had learned in their own simple fashion one of the great secrets of human progress — how to adapt means to the end in view. They had at least the primitive artistic instinct, as the fluted ornament of the flint arrow- and spear-heads shows. From the examination of the human bones found in burial mounds in England, in Arran, and elsewhere, they are inferred to have been of short stature with long, narrow skulls, and are believed to be represented by the short, dark-haired people of Wales, the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, and of Ireland. More supposititious is the inference from the size of some of these cairns that they lived in communities. Antiquaries like Dr. Anderson CONDITIONS IN PRE-CHRISTIAN AGE 17 who have minutely examined these remains have a high opinion of the relative civilization of these prehistoric ancestors of ours. Dr. Anderson, for instance, thinks that they "afford evidence of capacity and culture in the individual associated with evidences of civilization in the community ". This general statement may pass if we are careful to give to the words " culture " and " civilization " a primitive meaning. The remains of the Bronze Age show a considerable advance upon those of the age of stone. By the use of bronze implements and weapons our remote ancestors were able to help themselves more effectively in the struggle for existence against nature and wild life. They could, if they chose, more easily clear away the forest, till the ground, provide shelter for themselves, and obtain a better diet. Their implements would thus help them to rise from a nomadic or purely pastoral to a more developed industrial life. The advance in virtue of these advantages is so marked that it has been regarded by Worsaae and Lubbock as indicating the advent of a new people. Wilson, on the other hand, is of opinion that the likeness of the first bronze weapons to those of stone shows that the transition from one age to the other was made by the same people. In other words, their progress may have been due to the contact by, say barter, of the people of the Stone Age with a more advanced people rather than by the suppression of an old race and the advent of a new one — to what we call the spread of civilization, not necessarily to invasion and the conquest and suppression of the older race. Both influences have been at work in 18 PRE-CHRISTIAN TIMES advancing civilization in the long process of its develop- ment in this land of ours. But it is now generally accepted that a new race arrived about the time of the advent of bronze. As the result of an examination of the human remains in the cists in Arran, Professor Bryce concludes that they are those of a people of short round skulls, who " in stature do not appear to have greatly ex- ceeded the earlier Iberian settlers, and in complexion they were probably dark, like them ". He thinks that the anatomical evidence warrants the conclusion " that a new immigrant race appeared in Scotland at this time ", that the immigrants " belonged to a physical type which is still represented in Central Europe ", and " that they reached our shores across the Continent and over the North Sea ". This is an inference which, as Lord Aber- crombie has shown, may also be drawn from the early ceramic of the Bronze Age, the beaker urn, which has been traced from Central Europe. Once more we must haunt the tombs of these long dead people to find the traces of how they lived and laboured. Dr. Anderson concludes that we have in the standing stone circles of the north, such as those of Stennis in Orkney and Callernish in Lewis, which have survived the operations of the agriculturist, the most impressive monu- ments of these still prehistoric times. These circles were long supposed to be the remains of Druid temples, and their exact use is still a rather nebulous question. But it may be said that they were at least partly used for the purpose of interment, though the cairn is the more dis- tinctly sepulchral monument of this age, and there were CONDITIONS IN PRE-CHRISTIAN AGE 19 also burials without any overground structure to mark them. The human remains found in them are interred in short stone cists and are both cremated and unburnt, though the former mode of burial seems to have been the more common. They have yielded, too, a variety of articles illustrating the life of those who placed them there, such as more richly ornamented urns, pieces of bronze implements, ornaments of the same material as well as of gold, jet, and amber, and articles of flint or stone. They seem to have been laid along with the remains of the de- parted as tokens of the affection of the bereaved, and also perhaps in order that they might have the use of these things in the other world. Other objects, such as swords, spears, and daggers show that the men of the Bronze Age were addicted to fighting (the bronze shields are probably of the Iron Age). But they also had their implements of peace, as those of the smith, the carpenter, the fisherman, the reaper, the goldsmith, prove, and the abundance of gold seems to show that they knew how to utilize the native ore of the precious metal in the manufacture of elegant and massive ornaments and in the decoration of sword and dagger handles. They evidently had developed the artistic instinct in a remarkable degree, and the make and decoration of the clay urns, which, though not turned on the potter's wheel, are ornamented by a combination of straight lines, show, in the opinion of Mr. Romilly Allen, no small skill and sense of beauty in the workmen who fashioned them. Skill and sense of beauty are still more marked in the remains of the Iron Age which probably represent the 20 PRE-CHRISTIAN TIMES immigration of a new people of Celtic race. It is certain, at any rate, that the art of the pre-Christian Iron Age is Celtic. Unlike the combination of straight lines of the Bronze Age, it consists of spiral curves — the simple fore- runner of the intricate style in which the Celtic monk in historic times gave scope to his taste and fancy. Some- times the ornament is an attempt to represent animal forms, as in the case of the armlet in the form of a coiled serpent. It is also very extensively applied in the decora- tion of articles of common use as well as ornaments, of the harness of the horses, and the mysterious knotted stone balls as well as armlets and bronze hand mirrors. From the fact that a bronze saucepan of Roman manufacture has been discovered along with an armlet ornamented in this fashion, Dr. Anderson argues that this style of art had reached its highest development at or about the time of the Roman occupation of the south of Scotland. The presence of objects of this kind in the architectural re- mains of this age, such as pieces of Samian ware and stones dressed in the Roman fashion, are indications that the inmates of these dwellings probably witnessed the march of Agricola at the end of the first century, or that of Lollius Urbicus in the middle of the second. These ancient remains are no longer the monuments of the dead. They are the dwellings of the living. To one class peculiar to Scotland antiquaries give the name of " brochs ", and they are mostly confined to the five northern counties, in which over 300 have been found, though examples are to be met with in Galloway, and to a small extent in the south- east. They were the forerunners of the round towers CONDITIONS IN PRE-CHRISTIAN AGE 21 which the Celts at a later time both in Ireland and Scot- land built for protection against the Norse pirates, and were constructed of unhewn stone without mortar, the walls at the base being from 9 to 20 feet thick. A single door gave access to the interior, which was open to the sky, and a circular stair led up within the walls from the ground floor through several tiers of galleries, which were lighted from the interior side of the walls so as to present a solid surface on the outside, with the exception of the entrance. These structures were evidently meant for defence and were very well fitted, considering the warfare of the time, to serve this purpose. Other remains of human habitation are the lake dwell- ings or crannogs, which Dr. Munro assigns to the period during and succeeding the Roman occupation of Britain, and the earth houses. The lake dwellings are composed of various layers of logs, rising tier upon tier over the bottom of the loch, with masses of brushwood, stones, and gravel between them until a height of several feet above the surface has been attained. A paling of oak piles, whose opposite sides were connected by transverse beams, served to bind the whole mass firmly together. On the uppermost layer, which was surrounded by a fence, the lake dwellers • erected their huts and maintained con- nection with the shore either by the canoes, which have been found in a wonderful state of preservation, or by a submerged wooden gangway, which also afforded access for the cattle. The earth house consisted of a long, low, narrow underground gallery, with sides, floor, and roof of stone widening and increasing in height from the long and 22 PRE-CHRISTIAN TIMES narrow entrance inwards. The people who dwelt in these structures certainly practised the arts and industries of a. peasant community. They cultivated the soil, ground their corn in stone querns or handmills, reared cattle and sheep, the horse, the pig, and the dog, hunted the deer, and fished the rivers, bays, and lochs. They made their own ornaments and articles of domestic use. They manufactured the iron swords, spears, knives, axes, chisels, pincers, &c, which formed their weapons and implements. They possessed a variety of pottery and their women did the spinning and weaving and probably ground the grain. There is little in the social and industrial conditions revealed by the remains of the dwellings and their contents belonging to the pre-Christian period that is not in accor- dance with the first historic glimpses of Britain which are derived from written records . The account of Py theas , who visited Britain in the fourth century before the Christian era, has been lost, but the fragments which have been pre- served by other writers tell us that the Britons cultivated the soil, grew corn and vegetables, reared the domestic animals, and made a beverage of wheat and honey. Posi- donius says of the inhabitants of Cornwall that " they are civilized in their manner of life ". From their intercourse with Gaul they were naturally at a more advanced stage of civilization than those dwelling in the interior would be, and Caesar believed that these latter grew no corn and were clad in the skins of beasts. His knowledge was evidently very scanty, since he had no personal acquaintance with the interior inhabitants. At any rate Tacitus, writing CONDITIONS IN PRE-CHRISTIAN AGE 23 about the beginning of the second century, tells us that Britain yields corn in great plenty. It is very probable that in the northern part agriculture could only have been very limited, a large tract of the country being covered with forest (the Caledonian forest, for instance) and most of the arable land being swampy. The inhabitants of the north whom he depicts are, however, a high-spirited people who fought with sword and war chariot, and frustrated by their bravery and their skill the attempts of a series of great Roman generals to conquer them. They seem also to have been addicted to fighting among themselves, " ever addicted to a life of warfare " says Tacitus, and their buildings were significantly adapted for defence against enemies internal as well as external. We may, therefore, dismiss as mere tales the statements of credulous writers like Dion Cassius and Herodian that the Caledonians were mere savages. Tales of this kind about the peoples of the lands of Northern Europe were put in circulation by the romancers of the time, much as certain novelists of to-day invent all kinds of impossible and horrible situations in order to satisfy the appetite of their readers for sensational- ism. They know, for instance, of one-footed men, of Germans with monstrous feet and ears (even in these days of ours the Germans are gravely said by veracious war correspondents to have made sausages of their dead soldiers!), of fantastic Kings of Thule and Irish tribes who devoured their parents! It is not surprising, therefore, that they should tell us of savage Caledonians, whom they represent as a sort of aquatic animal who passed the greater part of his time swimming in the horrid northern lochs, 24 PRE-CHRISTIAN TIMES or hiding from his foe in the mud of the marsh, with only his head above the surface. The Roman occupation of the south of Scotland was never very effective, and may be fairly described as inter- mittent and transitory, owing to the difficulty of holding this region against the unsubdued Caledonians of the north and the recurring revolts of the natives farther south. Dr. George MacDonald concludes that the line between the Forth and the Clyde was continuously held for only a comparatively short period — about forty years in the second century a.d. This seems to have been the case, too, with the stations farther to the south, at New- stead at the foot of the Eildon Hills and at Birrens in Dumfriesshire. The Roman coins, for instance, found along the wall between the Forth and the Clyde are largely those of the emperors of this period and do not go beyond it into the reigns of the later emperors. Pro- fessor Haverfield comes to the same conclusion, and it has been confirmed by Mr. J. Curie's examination of the Roman station at Newstead. Nor was the occupation of these sites a continuous one even within this period. Agricola's attempt at conquest towards the end of the first century was abandoned. The revived attempt of Lollius Urbicus in the reign of Antoninus in the first half of the second century also failed to lead to a permanent occupa- tion, though it was in this reign that the wall (vallum) between the Forth and Clyde was constructed. The New- stead station was similarly abandoned more than once within the period covered by the coins and the other objects found in it. From an examination of the fort at CONDITIONS IN PRE-CHRISTIAN AGE 2 ;> Birrens the same conclusion has been drawn, and thus recent research has tended to prove that the Roman hold on Southern Scotland was both precarious and much less permanent and more limited than had previously been assumed. The more substantial relics of the occupation, such as it was, are, accordingly, of a military character — military works meant for defence rather than aggression, and roads from south to north to maintain communica- tion with the wall and between the stations south of it. Besides Newstead and Birrens, there seem to have been settlements at Inveresk, where traces of what were pro- bably Roman houses have been discovered, Cramond, Camelon, and a few other spots. The articles found at such places as well as along the wall — coins, weapons, helmets, shields, pottery, boots, implements of husbandry, harness, ornaments, &c. — survive to give us a realistic idea of the advanced civilization they represent. But com- pared with Southern Britain, or with Gaul, they do not warrant the conclusion that the Romanizing influence on the life of the natives was very pervasive. Fragments of pottery or other articles discovered in or about the native structures of the period of the Roman presence in Britain are about all that remain to show this influence. All that we can say with reasonable certainty is that the natives of the southern region of Scotland, compared with those living north of the wall of Antonine, would be to a certain extent Romanized, and that this influence would count for something in moulding their culture, though limited by the unsettled conditions both during the inter- mittent and precarious Roman occupation and also in the ( D 17 ) 3 26 PRE-CHRISTIAN TIMES period following the final withdrawal of the Romans from Britain. The excavations carried on by the Society of Anti- quaries of Scotland, under the direction of Mr. A. O. Curie, at Traprain Law in East Lothian, and described by him in the Proceedings of the Society for 1915-16, have thrown new light on this rather obscure subject. It is evident that this hill was occupied by three sets of Celtic inhabitants during the Roman period. Dr. MacDonald, in a descriptive article in The Scotsman of May 31, 191 9, thinks that they had attained a relatively high civilization and had learned to appreciate that of Rome. " Though they lived in huts of daub and wattle, they had attained a far higher level of civilization than has been generally supposed. Expert workers in metal, they had no skill in the manufacture of pottery, but they imported Roman wares in an abundance which betrays their appreciation of artistic excellence as surely as do their own enamelled fibulae. And they had passed beyond the stage of barter, since Roman coins evidently served them as a currency. In a word, the odds and ends they had left behind them spoke unmistakably, not perhaps of luxury, but at all events of comfort and refinement." As to the social organization in the pre-Christian period, it is evident from the testimony of both Ptolemy and Tacitus that the tribal system was the prevailing one. Both writers speak of the tribes inhabiting this region and Ptolemy gives their names. He even knows of " towns " in Northern Britain in the second century. These " towns " must, however, have been only hamlets con- CONDITIONS IN PRE-CHRISTIAN AGE 27 structed of very perishable materials, or fortified places, some of which would attract a number of settlers. There evidently were, at anyrate, centres of population here and there. In early historic times we hear of such a centre at or near Inverness (the fort of the Pictish king in Col- umba's time) and at Alclyd or Dumbarton, mentioned by Bede, who also knows of another town, Giudi, at the eastern end of the wall between the Forth and Clyde. Professor Watson concludes, on philological grounds, that the Alauna of the Damnonians mentioned by Ptolemy was the Alclut of Bede, and that the other Alauna of the Otadini, on the east side of the country, which Ptolemy also mentions as " a town " in North Britain, was on the rock of Edinburgh — the al in both cases being the Celtic word for rock. Dumbarton and Edinburgh would thus both seem to have been in existence in the second century. The tribal system of social organization is certainly of remote antiquity, and we may accept the mention of it by earlv Greek and Latin writers as conclusive of its existence in North Britain. These tribes may or may not have been each under a chief, since in primitive times the tribe seems to have been self-governing and to have owned the land, and we cannot assert definitely that in, say, the first Christian century, these North British tribes had passed out of the more primitive stage and had each developed a single chief and individual ownership. The tendency was, however, towards the rise of a tribal head and of a class of landowners (flaith) from whom the people held their holdings and to whom they paid rent in money or kind. A proportion of these tenants were 28 PRE-CHRISTIAN TIMES serfs, for there were unfree as well as free men in the community. In the biography of Columba, for instance, mention is made of unfree persons. Captives in war, clansmen of broken fortune, criminals, would tend to increase this class of serfs and slaves. This was the system that obtained in Goidelic Ireland, from which it was transplanted to Goidelic Dalriada. The same ten- dency would probably be operative among the kindred people of the Picts and, as we have noted, the tribes of both Picts and Scots appear in the sixth century under a supreme ruler or high-king (ard-ri). Among the Angles the invaders would settle down in the fifth and sixth centuries in village communities, as in the Anglo-Saxon south. But here also the tendency was towards the rise of a class of landowners and a dependent class of tenants, if, indeed, as Mr. Seebohm argues, there was not from the outset a more or less serfish element, not necessarily of the conquered native population, among the Anglic invaders. At all events villenage became common at a comparatively early period. In Strathclyde we like- wise find in the second half of the sixth century a number of tribes under their respective chiefs, whose names are recorded in the History of Nennius. Sources. — Articles by Professor James Geikie, Dr. Home, Dr. Peach, and Mr. Webster in the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland, VI (1885); Chisholm, Stanford's Compendium of Geography, II (1902); Kermack, Historical Geography of Scotland (1913); Cambridge County Geographies by various writers; Skene, Chronicles of the Picts and Scots (1867), and Celtic Scotland, second edition (1886-90); Rhys, Celtic Britain (1884), and his Rhind Lectures. The works of Skene and Rhys require to be checked by the more recent researches of Dr. Watson and others. Henderson, the Norse Influence on Celtic CONDITIONS IN PRE-CHRISTIAN AGE 29 Scotland (1910); Watson, Place-names of Ross and Cromarty (1904), and his forthcoming Rhind Lectures; Anderson, Scotland in Pagan Times, The Bronze and Stone Ages (1886), The Iron Age (1883); Bryce on the Sepulchral Remains of Arran, in The Book of Arran, edited by J. A. Balfour (1910); Munro, Ancient Scottish Lake Dwell- ings (1882), and Prehistoric Scotland (1899); MacDonald, The Roman Wall in Scotland (191 1), and his forthcoming Munro Lectures, also his article in Scotsman, 31st May, 1919; J. Curie, A Roman Frontier Post (191 1). The works of Dr. MacDonald and Mr. Curie have greatly modified previous views of the Roman occupation of S. Scotland. A. O. Curie, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries for 1 91 5-16, and articles in The Glasgow Herald, May, 1919. an <3 Scotsman, November, 1919; Abercrombie, Bronze Age Ceramic; Guide to the Bronze Age Collection in the British Museum. Mac- Kinnon, Culture in Early Scotland (1892). In the light of the researches of Dr. MacDonald and Messrs. J. and A. O. Curie this work requires some revision. Shore, The Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race (1906); Seebohm, The English Village Community (1883), and Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law (1902); MacKenzie, The Races of Ireland and Scotland, somewhat extremist. CHAPTER II EARLY CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION i. The Missions of Ninian and Kentigern Christianity had gained a firm footing in Southern Britain by the first half of the fourth century. If St. Patrick was born at Old Kilpatrick on the Clyde, and not, as some hold, at Bannaventa, 12 miles north of Towcester, on the Roman Watling Street, there must have been Christians in North Britain before the end of this century, since we learn from his Confession that his grandfather was a presbyter and his father a deacon. It was not, how- ever, till about the beginning of the fifth that, as far as we can judge, a sustained effort was made to preach the Gospel to the inhabitants of the north. The effort was made by St. Ninian, the son of a British chief, who, according to Bede, had been instructed in the Christian faith at Rome and founded a church at Candida Casa or Whithorn, which he named after St. Martin of Tours, the great missionary bishop of Gaul, who died about 397. It was, he adds, built of stone, " which was not usual among the Britons ", and Ninian's mediaeval biographer says that he brought with him from Tours the masons who built it. According to Bede, he extended his mission, which he had evidently begun before St. Martin's death, across so NINIAN AND KENTIGERN 31 the Forth among the Southern Picts. A number of churches were subsequently dedicated to him in this region, and the fact affords some confirmation of his Pictish mission. But its effects were apparently not very lasting, for we hear subsequently of the lapse of the Picts into paganism. The church at Whithorn continued, how- ever, to be a centre of Christian civilization and ultimately became for a time a bishopric of the Anglic church. Like St. Martin, Ninian seems to have combined zeal for the monastic life with that of the missionary preacher, and the institution at Whithorn was long a training school for other missionaries, who came even from Ireland to be instructed there. It was probably modelled on that of Marmoutier, where St. Martin had founded a monastic community, and if he dedicated his church to him, he would also follow his example in ordering the religious life of his pupils at Whithorn. Memorials of the existence of Christian emblems in North Britain in St. Ninian's time were unexpectedly dis- covered in May, 1919, as the result of the excavation carried out at Traprain Law in East Lothian under the auspices of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. A small pit was found to contain " a rich collection of fourth century silver plate, whose crushed and broken condition stamped it as loot and destined for the melting-pot ". A clue to the date was yielded by four small coins, one of the emperor Valens, the others of one of his successors, Gratian or Honorius. The ornamentation of several of the articles is Christian, depicting the Fall and the Adora- tion of the Magi. On one the name Jesus Christus, on 32 EARLY CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION others the monogram of Christ, i.e. the first two Greek letters of the name, are inscribed. The craftmanship and decoration are of exceptional excellence. These precious articles were thus indubitably of Christian origin, and some of them may have been used in Christian worship. Dr. MacDonald concludes that they were the plunder taken from some monastery, whilst others are pagan loot. Was this monastery situated in the neigh- bourhood, or somewhere in Britain? one asks with bated breath. The style of the workmanship leads to the con- clusion that the articles were brought from Northern Gaul, and one is tempted to think of St. Ninian, who is said to have brought masons from this region to construct his monastery at Whithorn. Might he not also have brought articles of this kind for use in the worship of his monastic church? Unfortunately for this tempting conclusion, Dr. MacDonald is of opinion that they were deposited in this spot by Frisian or Saxon pirates, who carried with them their plunder from Northern Gaul, and also left on the hill some articles of unmistakably Teutonic workman- ship. He further thinks that the presence of these articles tends to show that the hill was occupied about the end of the fourth century by these marauders, and that they were compelled to retire in a hurry and left this deposit with the intention of returning. There it has lain un- known till the other day, and its excavation is justifiably described by Dr. MacDonald as " one of the most re- markable archaeological discoveries that have ever been made in Britain, or rather in Northern Europe ". In the sixth century we hear of the activity of a number NINIAN AND KENTIGERN 33 of missionaries— some of them educated at Whithorn — among the Picts, who attempted to revive the work of Ninian by planting churches in Pictland. Among these the most notable are the Briton Kentigern and the Scot Columba. The biography of Kentigern, like that of Ninian, was written long after his day and is largely legendary. But so much seems certain, that he founded on the site of what is now Glasgow a church and a monastic community, like those of Ninian at Whithorn, and laboured to renew the Christianity of the Strathclyde region which had greatly declined owing to the unsettled conditions arising from the long struggle with the pagan Angles. Like Ninian he is said to have preached among the Picts, and the meeting with his greater contemporary, St. Columba, may be historic. He is said to have died in 612, nine years after the defeat of the Strathclyde Britons and their Scottish allies at Dawstane, and in the period of conflict that supervened, his work, as in the case of Ninian, seems to have been largely nullified, though mention is made of several successors. At all events when David, prince of Cumbria, in the twelfth century, caused an enquiry to be made about the ancient possessions of the see of Glasgow, it had greatly decayed during this long interval. Nevertheless, the religious establishment which he founded on the Molendinar Burn was of great future importance, for out of it was to develop the great city and hive of industry which has given the Clyde, and with it the name of St. Mungo, as Kentigern is more familiarly called, a world-wide renown. It is significant of this far- off industrial development that the bishop combined 34 EARLY CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION manual labour with the exercise of the religious life, and set his monks to till the soil and practise the simpler arts. 2. The Mission of Columba We are fortunate in having more reliable information about Columba and his mission in the biography written by Adamnan, one of his successors as Abbot of Iona, or Hy, within a century after his death. He belonged to the Goidelic branch of the Celts who had founded the Scot- tish colony of Dalriada many years before he left Ireland on his mission to North Britain (a.d. 563). His departure was due partly to civil troubles in his native land in which he had been mixed up, partly to his missionary spirit. By this time Ireland, which had been in part Christianized by the Briton, St. Patrick, in the middle of the previous century, had become a centre of missionary activity which embraced not only Northern Britain, but Gaul, Western Germany, and even northern Italy. Irish monks like Columbanus and Gallus, for instance, are found preaching the Gospel and establishing monasteries among the Franks, the Allemanni, and other Teutonic peoples who had in- vaded and conquered the western part of the Roman Empire. They were men of learning as well as zealous missionaries, for the Irish monk of the period studied the classic writers as well as the Bible, and they rendered great service in the diffusion not only of Christianity, but of the higher culture among the pagan invaders of the old empire. The Irish Church was further distinguished at this period by the fact that its organization was monastic rather than episcopal. The centres of religious life and THE MISSION OF COLUMBA 35 government were the monasteries under the rule of their abbots, and the episcopal office was only a subordinate one. The unit of church organization was the monastic com- munity and not the episcopal diocese, just as in the social sphere the unit was the clan or tribe. Columba is one of the great figures of this widely-extended missionary move- ment, and along with the Gospel he brought to North Britain the learning and the system of church government of the old Irish Church. For the next two centuries Iona was the chief centre of Christian civilization in Scotland, sending forth missionaries to the Picts of the north and the Angles of the south, and even to the Continent. Two years after his arrival he, along with two com- panions, Comgall and Cainnech, paid a visit to Brude the supreme Pictish King on the banks of the Ness, in accord- ance with the plan adopted by the Irish missionaries of seeking, in the first place, to effect the conversion of the king or the chief of a district as a means of winning over the people. He succeeded in his attempt in spite of the opposition of the Druids. He was equally successful in gaining the patronage of the lesser rulers, such as Bede, the mormaer or chief of Buchan, and Gartnaidh, the chief of the Southern Picts and the successor of King Brude, who died in 584, in the supreme power. As the result of his ceaseless activity and that of other Irish missionaries, working along with or independently of him, such as Moluog, Brendan, Finnian or Finbar, Comgall, Cainnech, Ronan, Donnan, Drostan, Christianity now took a per- manent hold of the land from the Clyde to Caithness and from the Hebrides to Buchan. It had even penetrated to 36 EARLY CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION the Orkney and Shetland Islands, and was ultimately to reach far-off Iceland, " He converted to the faith of Christ ", says Bede, " the Pictish nation by his preaching and example ". Christianity had, indeed, penetrated the region north of the Forth long before his day through the missionary activity of Ninian, and there were others after Ninian's time who sought to perpetuate its hold. But these efforts were only intermittent and not very effective, and in Columba's time Druidism, in the simple form of a sort of nature worship, was still the dominant pagan cult, as the opposition to Columba's mission plainly shows. This opposition was all the stronger inasmuch as the Druids were the counsellors of the king and the chiefs as well as the ministers of the native cult, and the Christian missionary was their rival in both the social and the religious sphere. In other words, he threatened to deprive them of their influence, and at the same time of their liveli- hood as counsellors of the king and the nobles and experts in magic among the people. In spite of this opposition he and his fellow-workers gradually effected the evangeliza- tion of the north, though pagan ideas and usages survived, and such a movement is perforce to a certain extent a superficial one. It did not necessarily effect a far-reaching change of life and thought. But it was at least the be- ginning of such a change, and henceforth paganism was only the dying, if lingering, monument of a lower civiliza- tion. THE MONASTIC COMMUNITY AT IONA 37 3. The Monastic Community at Iona The monastic community which Columba founded at Iona affords the best insight into the social, industrial, and religious life of the period under Christian auspices, and the advance it represented in the civilization of Scotland. The establishment was in outward appearance humble enough. It consisted of a cluster of wooden huts, sur- rounding a church built of the same material, and enclosed, like the Celtic village of the time, by a rath or cashel of stone or earth. A little apart, on a slight eminence and overlooking the beehive huts of the monks, stood the dwelling of the abbot. Other important buildings were the writing room or library, where the manuscripts were copied and kept, the refectory, with kitchen attached, the bakery, and the workshops of the smith and the carpenter. The cultivation of the soil, of which about a third was arable, necessitated the erection of a cowstall, a mill driven by the water of a small lake, a kiln, and a granary, which were placed outside the rampart. A number* of paths connected the hamlet with the creeks that served as harbours for the numerous craft, ranging from the wooden- built longae naves (longboats) and the curucae (coracles), constructed of wicker-work covered with hides, down to the small cobble or ferry-boat, by which the island com- munity maintained intercourse with the opposite shore of Mull or with the mainland. In such modest craft the monks sometimes made voyages, of extraordinary daring and distance. The Celtic monk was a great wanderer or voyager. He loved to seek out secluded spots — " deserts " 38 EARLY CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION he called them, which were preferably lonely islands in the western ocean — in order to realize what he esteemed the perfection of the religious life. We hear, for instance, in the biography of Columba, of Cormac, who sailed away to the far north in order to discover such a " desert " in the ocean, and whom Columba commends to the protection of the ruler of the Orkneys. Again, this Cormac sets out three times from his native Ireland for the same purpose and steers his frail coracle over the trackless sea — on the third occasion for fourteen days on end before a south wind — in search of complete seclusion, in order to gain the merit of this form of the ascetic life. St. Brendan was another of these intrepid voyagers, and the heap of loose stones on such remote islands as North Rona which, when examined, were found to be the remains of some hermit cell — " presenting the earliest type of Christian construc- tion remaining in Scotland " — still testify to the courage and peculiar piety of these Celtic monks. There is evidence that in these adventurous voyages they went as far as the Faroe Isles and Iceland, which were occupied by hermits before the Norsemen took possession of them. The chief figure of the monastic community is that of the abbot, who wielded authority not only over the members of the community, but over all the monasteries founded both in Ireland and North Britain by himself or his monks. The presence of a bishop is noted on several occasions, but while the abbot accords him the honour due to the exercise of the function of ordaining presbyters, he is subject to his jurisdiction, and is not the superior THE MONASTIC COMMUNITY AT IONA 39 functionary, the head of a diocese that the bishop in other Christian lands had come to be. The inmates of the monastery of whatever rank, who take the vow on bended knee in the oratory or church, were subject to a code of rules, by which discipline was maintained. The members were divided into seniors and juniors, the former com- prising those of tried wisdom and piety, the latter those who were under training for the higher grade. In addi- tion to the daily religious exercises, the abbot occasionally summoned the brethren to church by the sound of the bell in the middle of the night and addressed them from the altar. Manual labour in the form of the cultivation of the soil, gardening, fishing, the care of the cows, the crafts of the blacksmith, carpenter, &c, was shared by all, the abbot himself setting an example by carrying his own portion of corn to the mill and grinding it, although the heavier labour fell to those, of whom there was a large number connected with these early monasteries, whose meagre attainments unfitted them for the higher office of the presbyter. On admission to the monastery the novice undertook to practise celibacy and placed all his property at the disposal of the brethren, on the ground that " it is not befitting a religious life to have any distinction of property with his own free brother ". The sense of obedience is apparent in the readiness to undertake a long journey, or a hazardous voyage, at the abbot's command, and in the conception of their calling as " soldiers of Christ ". An open door was kept, for strangers and travellers. The pages of Adamnan contain pleasing in- stances of the hospitable greetings at the little harbour, 40 EARLY CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION while almsgiving and the care of the poor and the sick, who resorted to Iona for medical aid, are emphasized in an ancient Rule of Colli mba. Transgression of the vows of the monastic life was atoned for by penance which, in the case of criminals and delinquents of all kinds, who came from Ireland to confess to the saint, extended to several years' sojourn on some island like Elachnave, with perpetual exile from their native land in some cases. Though great stress is laid on external acts, there is no trace of the more elaborate usages of the Roman Church, such as the worship of the Virgin and the Saints, and the impression we derive from the biography of Adamnan is that of a cheerful, even life, earnest and strict, but relieved by the easy, kindly intercourse of the monks with each other and the abbot, and whose bent was largely towards the practical. The effect of such a settlement in elevating the social conditions of a barbarous people is obvious, and the moral and industrial effect was not the least meri- torious. Nor did the devotion of the cell deaden the interest of the community in the outside world. The arrival of a boat from Ireland was always an event of the keenest expectation, and even the " yarns " of the captain and crew of a large trader, which had put in in the neigh- bourhood from Gaul, excited the liveliest curiosity of the saint and his brethren. Even at this early period there was some trade between this region and Gaul, and part of the cargo was probably wine. The monastery appears to have had its school, and we hear of one Berchan, " a pupil learning wisdom ". This education embraced the knowledge of the Scriptures, THE MONASTIC COMMUNITY AT IONA 41 especially the Psalms, which were committed to memory. Latin certainly, and Greek probably, were taught, for the Irish monks who evangelized on the Continent were noted for their learning as well as their zeal, and Columba, who belonged to the same missionary circle, laid great stress on literary activity and scholarship. The reputation of Baithene, his fellow-worker and successor, for knowledge of the Scriptures and extensive learning, was widespread. In the case of a monastery whose abbot was himself a poet and the friend of the bards of his native land, and who took delight in the songs which the bard Cronan accompanied on the lyre, the bardic poetry and the traditions of the past most likely formed a subject of instruction. The ability to write on waxed tablets or on parchment was highly prized and the scribe was held in special honour. We frequently find Columba and Baithene engaged in this occupation in the chamber where the books and the calami or graphi used in writing were kept. This occupa- tion was evidently more than a mechanical operation; it was regarded as an art and gave scope to the artistic taste of the scribes. The excellence attained, judged from the magnificent specimens preserved in the books of Durrow and Kells, believed by competent authorities to touch the age of Columba, reveals in these early Celtic monks the gift of exquisite artistic feeling and contrasts strikingly with the humble civilization amid which they lived. Whilst the cells in which they dwelt and the churches in which they worshipped were little in advance of the huts of the people, the illumination, the ornamentation of the manu- scripts they wrote, as well as the delicately-wrought orna (D17) 4 42 EARLY CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION ment of bells, brooches, &c, are worthy of a refined civilization. 4. Social and Industrial Life in Pictland The biography of Columba throws some light on the social and industrial life of the people of Pictland. King Brude, we learn, lived " in royal pomp and pride " in a fortified dwelling, and the entrance of the fort was through folding-doors strongly barred with bolts. He comes forth to meet Columba attended by his council, and he had evidently a large number of retainers, two of whom he dispatched to the saint on one occasion on horseback. Fosterage prevails, under which the children of the higher class are placed under and brought up by a guardian, the foster-father of Brude himself being the Druid Broichan. There is an upper class which also has retainers and slaves, who are apparently captives, in their households, and for one of these menials, an Irish woman, Columba strives to regain freedom. We get an occasional glimpse of family life — of husband, wife, and children — and we hear nothing of the loose family relations (wives in common) of which credulous Roman writers speak. The family bond seems a strong one, and family affection appears in the sorrow for those whom death snatches away. It is an age of fighting and battles, and faction or clan fights are common. Mention is also made of armour and such weapons as spears, axes, and ornamented swords. The people live in villages and also in separate homesteads. There are robbers and marauders about in certain districts like Lochaber, and one of these villages, near which Columba LIFE IN PICTLAND 43 was spending the night, is set on fire by such a plundering band. On one occasion the marauders harry a whole district and the peasants are fain to flee to the mountains to escape their murderous designs, leaving their cattle and goods to be carried off. One of these robbers attempts to steal the seals on a little island near Iona, which belong to the monastery, and is caught by the monks before he can carry out his thievish purpose. Second sight is men- tioned as the gift of some, notably of Columba himself, who can plainly foresee and foretell these and other events. The people keep cattle in the fields, and swine, which they fatten on acorns and other nuts. They have sufficient land to rear a family, and a part of it is under cultivation, for we hear of corn growing and threshing floors, wagons, implements, and horses. Tiree (Ethica Terra) derived its name from its productivity in corn, for which it was famed probably long before Columba's day. There are rich and poor peasants. Some are so poor that they are under the necessity of begging. But one who is said to be poor possesses five cows — a number that we should hardly associate with poverty — whilst rich peasants are found in possession of as many as 105. These peasants sometimes quarrel and Columba acts as judge. Apparently, how- ever, they sometimes take the law into their own hands and decide the matter by violence. The people hunt the deer and the boar with hounds and also use snares, and stick sharp stakes in the ground for transfixing the unsus- pecting game, the surplus of which they sell to their neighbours. They fish the lochs and rivers for trout and salmon, and cross them in boats which they propel by oars 44 EARLY CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION and sails. There are water monsters in the Ness and in the ocean (kelpies) which sometimes attack and kill swimmers or sailors with huge open mouth and a great roar. Poison- ous vipers there are too which do hurt to cattle and human beings. There is some trade with Gaul, as the mention of the Gaulish ship proves. 5. The Conversion of the Angles The missionary spirit of Columba continued to inspire the community at Iona in the century succeeding his death. Evidence of the fact is apparent in the evangeliza- tion of the Angles of Northumbria by monks from Iona. This task was undertaken by Aidan at the invitation of the Northumbrian king, Oswald, who had spent some years at Iona before the death of Aedwin opened to him the succession to the Northumbrian throne. From his head- quarters at Lindisfarne, where he founded a monastery on the model of that of Iona, he preached the Gospel to the Angles between the years 635 and 651. His successors, Finan and Colman, continued his mission after his death in the latter year until Colman was compelled to return to Iona in 664, as the result of the controversy with Wilfrid and the Roman party in the Northumbrian Church over the date of the observance of Easter and the tonsure. In these matters the Celtic Church differed from the Roman practice, and Colman retired from Lindisfarne, though not before Christianity had made a substantial advance in the Anglic settlements south of the Forth. This advance was greatly extended by the Angle St. Cuthbert, who was probably born in the Leader valley, had been educated in THE SCOTO-P1CTISH KINGDOM 45 the monastery at Melrose, and ultimately became Bishop of Lindisfarne. Whilst acting as Prior of Melrose in suc- cession to Boisel, better known by the name of St. Boswell, he evangelized among the valleys of the Southern Uplands, penetrating, as Bede tells us, on foot or on horseback, into the more remote settlements, where other missionaries had not yet gone, and winning over the people from idolatry. He extended his mission into Galloway, where his name survives in Kirkcudbright, and we have the authority of Dr. Skene for the statement that he founded a church on the site of St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh. Besides Melrose, monasteries had been established by these Celtic mission- aries at Coldingham and Abercorn, which contributed to extend the faith in Tweeddale and Lothian as well as foster monastic piety and education. 6. Christian Civilization of the Scoto-Pictish Kingdom By the second half of the seventh century the whole of Scotland had been more or less evangelized. Paganism had largely given way to Christianity as the result of the missionary movement which Ninian had begun about the end of the fourth century, and Kentigern, Columba, Aidan, and other devoted evangelists had brought to fruition in the course of the sixth and seventh. The change from Paganism to Christianity thus effected repre- sented a change from a lower to a higher religious and social life as far as the conditions of the age permitted its realization. Conversion to Christianity did not, indeed, necessarily mean a radical transformation of the religious 46 EARLY CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION and social life. The disunion, disorder, and strife pre- vailing in a region divided into a number of petty and rival states and exposed to wave after wave of invasion were not favourable to such a transformation. The pro- cess of Christian leavening was very slow and imperfect. Nevertheless the change from paganism to Christianity provided the moral and spiritual condition of social pro- gress, and was the beginning of a real advance in civiliza- tion. The Christian civilization thus planted throughout the land was Celtic in character, and this character it retained down to the days of Queen Margaret in the second half of the eleventh century. The Celtic Church of Pict- land ultimately, in the beginning of the eighth century, adopted the Roman usages in the matter of the celebration of Easter and the tonsure over which Celt and Saxon had disputed so tenaciously in the second half of the seventh. By the middle of the ninth, when Scots and Picts were united into one kingdom under the name of Alba, it appears to have also adopted the episcopal system of government. By this time, at all events, we hear of the Bishop of Fortrenn, or Alba. But in spite of these changes the Pictish Church retained its Celtic individuality, and in Queen Margaret's days its usages were still in certain respects at variance with those of the Church of the west. Owing to political antagonism to the English in the south and the Norse settlements in the Western Isles and in Ireland, the kingdom of Alba was largely isolated from outside influences, and its church seems practically to have had no connection with that of Rome. Its history is, however, obscure throughout this long interval. It was THE SCOTO-PICTISH KINGDOM 47 a period of recurring Norse and Danish invasion as well as internal strife — very unfavourable to the development of the higher civilization for which Christianity stood. Norsemen and Danes were pagans, and the Church as well as the State suffered directly from their devastating raids and their settlements in the Western Isles, in Galloway, and in the northern mainland. The meagre chronicles of the time tell mostly of the plunder and slaughter and devasta- tion perpetrated by these fierce rovers from over the sea, and of internal feuds and battles. Iona was more than once attacked and pillaged by these fierce pirate bands, and, as the result of these outrages, ceased, in the ninth century, to be the ecclesiastical centre, which was trans- ferred to Dunkeld, and subsequently to St. Andrews, which finally became the seat of the Bishop of Alba. Such Christian civilization as subsisted in these un- toward circumstances was mainly fostered by the monastic communities known as the Culdees, or Ceile-De, " Ser- vants of God ". In these fraternities the early monastic system survived along side the episcopal rule of the Bishop of Alba, though they are not to be regarded as identical, under another name, with the old Columban communi- ties, or as a distinctive order in the later mediaeval sense. The term Culdee seems to have been applied generally to those who, during this period, associated together in religious communities, of varying degrees of strictness, not only to cultivate personal piety, but, like the early Columban monks, to foster Christian life, worship, and education among the people. They were scattered over the Lowland country from Fife to Dornoch, and to them 48 EARLY CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION is mainly due the merit of maintaining, albeit imperfectly, Christian civilization in Alba during the long and untoward period from the decline of Iona to the days of Queen Margaret. Of the Christian civilization of this rather obscure period we may learn something from its antiquarian re- mains. To protect themselves and preserve their property from the depredations of Danes and Norsemen, the monks built the round towers, examples of which survive in those of Abernethy, Brechin, and Egilsay in Orkney. The early oratory, with its door to the west and a small window to the east, of which ruins survive in a few spots — all, with one exception, islands — gave place to the still rude church, consisting of nave and chancel, connected at first by a doorway and afterwards by an arch. In cases where wood was used, time and the ravages of the Norsemen account for the complete disappearance of these simple structures, whose plan shows, however, an approach to the later mediaeval church architecture. The monks continued to write or copy books, for the scribe was still an important functionary in these monasteries, and at least one example of his activity remains in the book of Deer — a manuscript copy of the Gospel of St. John and parts of the three other Gospels in Latin, with the Apostles' Creed and some additional matter. The writer was also an artist, and attempted in rather rude fashion to give expression to his taste in figures of the evangelists and other decorative devices. This ornamentation is very inferior to that of the great Irish manuscripts of Kells and Durrow, but it would hardly be fair to judge the artistic skill of the later THE SCOTO-PICTISH KINGDOM 49 monks from the meagre literary survivals of the period. Competent judges of the finer specimens of this kind of Celtic art pronounce it to be extremely beautiful, rich, and intricate, and the skill in combining three different patterns, with which the artist worked, consisting of inter- laced, spiral, and fretwork, is indeed quite remarkable. It is often also zoomorphic in character, that is, it includes figures of animals, such as dragons, monsters, birds' heads. This art is also applied to decorate articles for use or orna- ment, such as silver rings, brooches, and chains, some of them of remarkable beauty. The sculptor as well as the silversmith made use of it on the dressed stone slabs in the Northern Lowlands, on which he hewed the Celtic cross, and on the free-standing crosses of the same design so common in the West Highlands. This art is also symbolic, that is, it was meant to convey an object-lesson in the truths of religion. The sculptor was a moralist as well as an artist. From it we learn, too, something of the social and industrial life of the period. " For instance," says Dr. Anderson, in Scotland in Early Christian Times, " we learn from a comparison of all the different repre- sentations, that the horsemen of that period rode without spurs and stirrups, cropped the manes and tails of their horses, used snaffle bridles with check rings and orna- mental rosettes, and sat upon peaked saddle-cloths; that, when journeying on horseback, armed, they wore a kilt- like dress, falling below mid thigh, and a plaid across the shoulders; that they used long-bows in war and cross- bows in hunting; that their swords were long, broad- bladed, double-edged, obtusely pointed weapons, with 5 o EARLY CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION triangular pommels and straight guards; that their spears had long lozenge-shaped heads, while their bucklers were round and furnished with bosses; that when journeying on foot they wore trews or tight-fitting nether garments and a plaid loosely wrapped round the body, or a tight jerkin with sleeves and belt round the waist; that they wore their hair long, flowing, and curly, sometimes with peaked beards, at other times with moustaches and shaven cheeks and chin; that they used covered chariots or two- wheeled carriages, with poles for draught by two horses, the driver sitting on a seat over the pole, the wheels having ornamental spokes; that they used chairs with side arms and high curved backs, sometimes ornamented with heads of animals; that their boats had high prows and stern posts; that the long dresses of the ecclesiastics were richly embroidered; that they walked in loose, short boots, and carried croziers and book satchels ". Sources: — Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, edited by Plummer. Eng- lish translation by Sellar (1907) and by Stevenson in Church Historiatis of England, I, Part II, (1853); Lives of Ninian by Ailred, and of Kentigern by Jocelyn. edited with translation by Bishop Forbes (1874); Adamnan, Vita S. Columbae, edited by Fowler (1894); the same edited by Reeves, with translation (1874); Bede's Life of Cuthbert, translated by Stevenson in Church Historians of England, I, Part II; Skene, Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, and Celtic Scotland; Ander- son, Scotland in Early Christian Times (1881); MacKinnon, Culture in Early Scotlatid (1892); Campbell, The Church.of Scotland, I (1890). MacEwen, History of the Church in Scotland, I (1913); Dowden, The Celtic Church in Scotland (1894); Plummer, Latin Lives of the Irish Saints; Romilly Allen, Early Christian Monuments of Scotland; Bald- win Brown, The Arts in Early England, I (1903). CHAPTER III THE EARLY FEUDAL AGE i. The Feudal Social System The rise of the feudal system of society in Scotland and the transformation effected by it fall mainly within the 200 years extending from the beginning of the reign of David I, in the first half of the twelfth century, to that of Robert Bruce in the early part of the fourteenth. The tendency towards this system is traceable before the time of David, who attracted to his court Norman and Anglo- Norman settlers in increasing numbers. But it was in his reign that it became an effective part of the royal policy, and exercised a far-reaching influence on the state and society. Whilst of little effect in the Highlands and for a time in Galloway, it became the distinctive one in Lothian and Strathclyde and in the eastern region north of the Forth as far as the Moray Firth. Its characteristic feature is the dependence on a superior, and the holding of land from this superior in return for military service and the rendering of certain dues. Under this system the chief superior is the king, who, by a legal fiction, is assumed to be the supreme possessor of the land of the kingdom, and grants by charter estates to certain individuals, or confirms by charter the holding of their estates to those already in 51 52 BENEFITS OF FEUDAL SYSTEM possession. The charter is an essential of the system, and we have such charters of David granting, for instance, to the Bruces, the Cunninghams, the Fitzalans lands in Annandale, Ayrshire, and Renfrew. These landowners thus became the king's vassals and rendered him in return military or other service. These vassals of the Crown might, however, become the superiors of others, to whom they in turn made grants by charter out of their estates. The aim of this system was to establish an ordered society under its supreme head, the king, to increase the royal power, and to ensure an effective central government. From this point of view it was, if vigorously maintained, an advance upon the system which prevailed under the earlier kings and under which, owing to the weakness of the crown, civil war, invasion, and weak government were a too-frequent feature of the history of the kingdom. It was a means of extending and maintaining law and order, of bringing the king's justice and the king's peace to bear on the national life. The king could summon the military strength of the nation to resist invasion, or overawe faction. He could the better guarantee security of life and property in virtue of a recognized general system of feudal law and its administration by a set of royal officials. He was, further, enabled to foster the sense of nationality and the national prosperity. Under David and his successors, Malcolm IV, William the Lion, the second and third Alexanders, it seems to have proved its efficacy in these respects in spite of wars with England, Norse invasions, and revolts in restless Galloway and remote Moray. By the time of Alexander III Scotland, under this system, ITS DISADVANTAGES 5 j had become, territorially at least, an united nation and had made a marked advance in wealth and prosperity. At the same time the system contained in it elements of danger to the stability of the crown and the well-being of the nation. In lands, where the feudal nobility wielded virtually sovereign powers, as in France and other conti- nental countries, the feudal magnate was the enemy of an effective central government, and his excessive power tended to disrupt rather than unify the nation. Though, as applied in Scotland, it was at first less exposed to this danger, the great feudal nobility ultimately became an obstacle to effective centralized government, as the lawless- ness and fractious spirit of the magnates during the Stewart period show. Wherever it prevailed, in fact, it tended to foster a fractious warlike spirit, to familiarize the mind with the idea of force and violence as the rightful method of settling disputes, to make the profession of arms the privilege and the glory of those of noble birth, and to cast a false halo over the barbarous cult of war, from which the nations have not yet succeeded in emanci- pating themselves. Moreover, the system tended to per- petuate the selfish subordination of the masses by its rigid distinction between the free and the unfree and might easily become a source of oppression and a hindrance to the social improvement of the people. Hence the long series of popular risings in behalf of social emancipation which periodically occurred in the lands of Western Europe. In Scotland we hear of no such risings in the middle ages, and it would seem that the emancipation of the serfs under ecclesiastical and economic influences was 54 THE EARLY FEUDAL AGE more easily attainable here than elsewhere. At all events the process of emancipation was completed much earlier in Scotland than in England, not to speak of France or Germany. The system, in so far as it recognized and incorporated the principle of servitude, was certainly not a material advance on the past, and where it tended to perpetuate this principle and took advantage of it to oppress and repress the masses, it became the object of the popular hatred and fostered century after century a sense of in- justice and intolerable misery among the people. Serf- dom was, indeed, not introduced by it. The loss of freedom on the part of the mass of the people throughout Western and Central Europe was an inheritance from the social oppression that preceded and followed the fall of the Roman Empire in the west. Protection from the dis- orders of the time became an urgent necessity, and such protection was only to be had by placing life and property, at the expense of personal liberty, under the power of some lord strong enough to afford it. The greed and violence of such powerful individuals, who sought to aggrandize themselves in an age of lawlessness and disorder, were also responsible for its extension, with the result that the mass of the people ere long sank more or less into serfish de- pendence or downright slavery over a large area of what had been the western Roman Empire. It was this in- herited system that feudalism incorporated, and from which the people in Scotland, more fortunate than their fellows on the Continent or even in England, seem to have attained liberation by the fifteenth century. ANCIENT CELTS AND GERMANS 55 2. Celtic and Anglo-Norman Institutions There is a tendency in some Scottish historians to repre- sent the change to feudal society in Scotland as a complete breach with the Celtic institutions of the past. They contrast these institutions with those introduced under Norman or Anglo-Norman influence and generalize on the greater capacity of Anglo-Saxon and Norman, as compared with the Celt, for political and social organization. This tendency has, however, been overdone. The emphasis should be laid, not on any radical racial difference between Celt and Saxon or Norman in this respect, but on the difference in their social and political development in, say, the twelfth or the thirteenth century. In ancient times they were very much alike in social and political organi- zation, as we learn from a writer like Strabo. " Gauls (Celts) and Germans ", he says, " resemble each other both physically and politically. They live the same kind of life and have the same institutions ". This fact has been pointed out by a recent writer, who is entitled to be regarded as an authority on the subject. " There is not a single trait of the social and political state of the ancient Germans ", says M. de Coulanges> " which we do not discover among the Gauls ". At a later time — in the early Middle Ages — we find, too, the tendency towards the feudal system of society developing among the Celts as well as the Saxons and the Normans. Under the old Celtic social system it takes shape in the rise of the chief and a class of landowners within the tribe, and the ex- istence of a lower class, free or unfree, which holds the land 56 THE EARLY FEUDAL AGE from them f nd renders rent or service in return. In this respect Celtic society was already more or less feudal long before the more developed Anglo-Norman system was generally applied in Scotland by David I. So, too, in the matter of political institutions. In the development of the kingship, for instance, by which the successful leader of the Anglo-Saxon tribe became the king of a number of tribes, whom he welded into a people, until ultimately the whole of the petty Anglo-Saxon states became the English nation under one ruler. The same process is apparent in Celtic Scotland, where the king of the Scots gradually, by the welding of the various states under a single ruler, became the national king from the Tweed to the Pentland Firth. So, further, in the matter of organization and administration, the Anglo-Saxon king has his ealdormen and his shire reeves, whom he invests with the military and judicial administration of the shire. Similarly, the old Celtic kings of Scotland have their mormaers, or governors, of the seven provinces (the later earls), their maers and toisechs (the later thanes), who administer these subdivisions of the Celtic Kingdom. In such respects we have in Celtic Scotland, as in Saxon England, a certain anticipation of the feudal tendency to attain an ordered society, ruled by the king and his officials and including a land-owning class, from which others, whether free or unfree, derive their holdings, the unfree element being at the bottom of the social scale. The distinction between Celtic and Anglo-Norman institutions is thus not one of radical difference, but rather one of degree of development. The feudal tendency had made more progress among CELTS AND ANGLO-NORMANS 57 Saxons and Normans south of the Border than north of it. Anglo-Normans did not invent it, but simply came, at an earlier time, under the influence of the general feudal tendency at work among the western and central peoples of Europe. It is not a case of racial characteristics, or differences at all, but of the earlier growth of a system that was universal, though the stage of development might vary among the various peoples affected by it. The Anglo- Norman infusion into the predominantly Celtic population of mediaeval Scotland might and did quicken this develop- ment and bring it, except in the remote Highlands, where the older stage of social development long survived, into touch with the more advanced cilivization of the West. But the question of race had little to do with the matter, and it is both superficial and misleading to assert that, while the Celt may have lagged behind, say, the Anglo- Normans in social and political development, he is radically inferior to them in the capacity for social and political organization. Mediaeval France, for instance, was largely Celtic, and it would be hazardous to assume that, because it was so, it was behind Anglo-Norman England in the progress of civilization. Moreover, in that part of Scot- land where the feudal system took firm root — the Low- lands in their widest extent — the bulk of the population was Celtic and showed itself capable of adapting itself to the new order. Generalities of this kind, based on race, are usually nothing but airy theories and display oftener than not the conceit and arrogance of certain peoples or races in their judgment of others. Differences in the degree of development are dependent, not so much on (D17) 5 58 THE EARLY FEUDAL AGE race, at any rate in the case of the European peoples, as on purely historic considerations. As another authority on this subject, Sir Henry Maine, reminds us, " many of these theories appear to have little merit, except the facility which they give for building on them inferences tremendously out of proportion to the mental labour which they cost the builder ". 3. Feudal Class-Distinctions — Serfdom By the introduction of the feudal system of society in the later-developed sense all land throughout the Low- lands from the Tweed to the Moray Firth thus came to be held by written charter of a superior. David I and his successors conferred lands lavishly on the Norman and Anglo-Norman adventurers who sought refuge and fortune in Scotland. We are not to suppose, however, that they dispossessed the old Celtic proprietors, though a portion of the land must have been granted at somebody's expense, probably not always at the king's. They appear to have confirmed in such cases their proprietary rights by charter and thus brought them under the new system. This system of land-tenure accentuated and stereotyped the social distinction between the free landholder by charter and the non-freeholder, the noble and the ignoble, the " gentle " and the " simple " members of society. The non-freeholder might be a free tenant, a freeman, a lease- holder (firmarius, farmer), but he did not hold by charter from king, earl, baron, or ecclesiastical superior (bishop or abbot), and was, therefore, not reckoned among the gentry, and was socially outside the feudal caste Still FEUDAL CLASS-DISTINCTIONS— SERFDOM 59 lower in the scale was the serf, who might be of various degree of bondage — the neyf (fiativus), the cottar (cot- tarius), the husbandman (husbandus). The system thus gave a renewed lease to social rights and privileges which were so long to cleave the classes asunder and render any- thing like real democratic institutions a misnomer through- out the Middle Ages. This class distinction is sharply expressed in a statute of Alexander II. On the one side of the social gulf were, " all knights, sons of knights, or holders of any portion of a knight's fee, and all who held their lands by free service, hereditarily and by charter ". On the other, " the churl-born tenant of land, the man of ignoble birth, and all who had neither free tenement nor free parentage ". Feudalism thus in Scotland, as in Eng- land and on the Continent, gave a recognized status and rights to the upper classes; it tended, at first, at least, to confirm the inferiority and the bondage of the lower. The ' neyf" or serf was bound to the soil and transferred along with it to the feudal proprietor. He might be bought and sold like a piece of merchandise, and he paid a fine or due to the lord on the marriage of his daughter, by which the lord was deprived of her service. The Earl of Dunbar, in the twelfth century, for instance, makes over Halden and his brother William and all their chil- dren and descendants to the Abbot of Kelso. Another in the following century gives the abbey, besides certain lands and meadows, men and pastures The Constable De Morvil sells to H. St. Clair Edmund and Gillemichel, his brother, their sons and daughters and all their progeny for the sum of three merks. Genealogies of serfs were 60 THE EARLY FEUDAL AGE kept like the stud book of horses in order to enable the proprietor to trace and reclaim this species of property. From such details it is a relief to turn to another kind of transaction, relative to the serfs — that of the purchase of their freedom and their consequent emancipation. They owed their freedom not so much to the philanthropy of the church or society, as to the economic factors which in Scotland, as elsewhere, substituted a money rent for service, and to the necessities of the War of Independence which afforded them the opportunity of earning their freedom on the battle-field. As money became the more important element of wealth and medium of exchange it was in the interest of the superior, whether lay or cleric, to commute the services of the unfree for a money payment, to emanci- pate them and transform them into free farmers and free labourers. This emancipation was probably not complete before the fifteenth century in the Lowlands, and pre- sumably later in the Highlands, though, according to Mr. Cosmo Innes, "the last claim of 'neyfship' or serfdom proved in a Scotch court was in 1364 ", before the Sheriff of Banffshire. Happily there was one door of escape for him, even in the twelfth century, which feudalism could not shut. He could run away, or migrate with his lord's consent, to a neighbouring burgh and acquire freedom by a full year's residence and the purchase of a burgage tene- ment. The feudal king was the foster-father of the Scottish burgh, and the Scottish burgh was, compara- tively speaking, an oasis of freedom in the desert of feudal privilege. It doubtless contained an unfree element, like the country around it, but it was a centre of activity, and RISE OF THE BURGHS 61 its chartered privileges were the recognition of the rights of work, of the industry of merchant and craftsman. The chartered community, the municipality, was in Scotland, as elsewhere, the focus of progress, though here, too, pro- gress was shackled by the thralls of burgher privilege and monopoly. 4. Rise of thk Burghs These burgh communities did not owe their existence to David I, or his immediate predecessors and successors. The ecclesiastical charters of David I (1124-53), for instance, already contain references to the burghs of Dun- fermline, Haddington, Perth, Stirling, Edinburgh, Elgin. " The oldest burgh charters are '\ according to Mr. Cosmo Innes, " only of the reign of William the Lion (1 165-12 14), but, like the early English charters, they point plainly to a previous burghal organization ". The Scottish burgh did not come into existence with the charter, but goes well back into Celtic times, though Mr. Robertson invests it with merely an Anglo-Norman origin. William the Lion was not the creator, but tne patron of the burghs, which, as in England and elsewhere, had grown up around the king's residence, or the bishop's seat, or the baron's dwelling, or the monastery, and had attained a certain measure of self-government. Nor was there in Scotland, as in France and Germany, a struggle for municipal self-government with the feudal superior in the case of those situated on the land which the superior held of the king. Not only did the king favour the de- velopment of those situated on the royal domains by granting them charters of self-government (royal burghs). 62 THE EARLY FEUDAL AGE He found zealous imitators in the bishops and abbots and the great landowners, who gave chartered rights to those that had grown up around the cathedral church, or abbey, or baronial " keep ", those of a secular lord being known as burghs of Regality and Barony. Another character- istic of the mediaeval Scottish burghs, which, however, they shared with the free imperial cities of Germany, was their union for commercial and political purposes. Such a union the Hansa of the northern burghs, to which David I and William the Lion accorded special privileges, is supposed to have been, though it is questionable whether the term is here used in the sense of a league. More famous was the union of the four burghs of the south — usually Edinburgh, Stirling, Roxburgh, and Berwick — with their own Court, which was invested with large powers and met under the presidency of the king's cham- berlain. In this union we may see the germ of the later Convention of Royal Burghs, and its customary laws, which were confirmed by David I in the first half of the twelfth century, form, in the opinion of Mr. Innes, the oldest extant municipal code. It is, however, necessary to add that a more recent writer, Sir A. C. Laurie, does not consider them to be ' genuine productions " of David's reign. The adoption of these laws by the other Scottish burghs adds to their value as a mirror of Scottish municipal organization at a period when, in the case of other countries, we are left to grope our way to general- ization from individual charters. While the Scottish charters tell us nothing very definite on the point, the burgh laws inform us that the burgh was governed by RISE OF THE BURGHS 63 magistrates (praepositi, aldirmen and bailyeis in the Scottish translation) " who shall be elected by the common council of the good men of the town, shall swear fealty to the king and the burgesses, shall conserve its customs and shall do justice according to the constitution, council, and judg- ment of the said good men ". The municipal organiza- tion is still more definitely outlined in the Laws of the Gild, enacted a century later (1249) for the town of Ber- wick, and serving as the model for all other Scottish Gilds. " We ordain by common consent that the community of Berwick shall be governed by twenty-four good men, of the better, more discreet, and trustworthy of that burgh thereto chosen, together with the mayor and four baillies. Item, we ordain that the mayor and baillies shall be chosen at the sight and the consideration of the whole community. And if any controversy be on the election of the mayor and baillies, then their election shall be made by the oath of twenty-four good men of the said burgh, elected to choose one person to rule the said community ". The system of civic government thus outlined is that of a community administering its own affairs through its elected officials — the alderman and baillies of the Scottish translation— and the laws which they were elected to ad- minister embrace the whole range of an organized civic life. The possession of a rood of land, for which he pays a rent of fivepence to the king or other superior, constitutes a burgher, and each burgher was bound to be present at the fortnightly moot or court. The merchant plays, of course, an important part in the town organization, and the buying, selling, and making of articles are subject to minute regu- 64 THE EARLY FEUDAL AGE lation. The merchant gild appears as a privileged corporation to which no dyer, butcher, or tanner who worked with his hands is admitted, and which possessed a monopoly of trade within the burgh and the trading district attached to it. The district in which Edinburgh merchants, for instance, possessed the exclusive right of trade and manufacture extended from Edgebuckling Brae on the east to the River Almond on the west. Rutherglen also exercised this right over an extensive district wnich at this time included Glasgow. So, too, in the case of burghs like Ayr in the west, Perth in the Central Low- lands, and Aberdeen and Inverness in the north. Stranger merchants could not buy or sell within the district, but only in the burgh itself. The common craftsman was evidently, as yet, in a semi- servile condition, for if " any keemster (wool comber) leaves the burgh to dwell with upland men, while having sufficient work to occupy him within such burgh, he ought to be taken and imprisoned " . It was not till the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that the Scottish craftsman, like his English and Continental brethren, succeeded in at- taining a share of municipal rights. Whilst in Scotland, as elsewhere, the merchant gild was originally a trading association and the right of electing the Town Council was evidently exercised by every burgher who possessed a rood of land, the gild members gradually absorbed the civic administration and developed all the pretentious pride and tyranny of local privilege and monopoly. Its petty magnates displayed a prodigious dignity on ten pounds a year, and one of the old gild laws, enacted in RISE OF THE BURGHS 65 1249, informs us that it was essential to their dignity to possess a " decent " horse under penalty of a fine. ' We ordain that any burgess having in goods ten pounds shall have in his stable a seemly horse (equum decentem) worth at least forty shillings. And if he be deprived of his horse by any chance — death, sale, gift, or in any other manner — he shall within forty days provide another. If not, he shall be fined eight shillings to the Gild ". It was not in ac- cordance with his dignity to work with his hands, and it was against this petty spirit of purse pride and pretension that the craftsmen arrayed themselves in their craft gilds and struggled for the recognition of the rights of labour against the power of capital. The struggle ended in a compromise, which shows that the Scottish craftsmen had to be content with a much smaller share of municipal power than that which some of their brethren in the towns of the Netherlands and Germany extorted from the mer- chant oligarchy. Each craft gild was empowered by Act of Parliament in 1469 to elect a member, who in turn had a voice in the election of the Town Council along with the outgoing councillors. With this modest recognition of its claims the democracy of the burghs had to be content for many a long day. In these burghs, trade and industry were in a com- paratively flourishing state. Berwick, at this period, when it was still a Scottish town, was the most important port on the east coast, the centre of a brisk import and export trade. In the middle of the thirteenth century the Chronicle of Lanercost enthusiastically describes it as " a city so populous and of such trade that it might justly 66 THE EARLY FEUDAL AGE be called another Alexandria, whose riches were the sea and the waters its walls. In those days its citizens, being mostly wealthy and devout, gave noble alms ". After its loss to Scotland Edinburgh, which had been a favourite residence of the Scottish kings from the time of Mal- colm II, and had liberally experienced the patronage of David I, seems to have taken its place as the most im- portant trading centre; and, in the middle of the fourteenth century, the customs paid by it were about one half of the sum received by the crown from this source from the whole of Scotland. On the other hand, Glasgow appears in King David's time to have been merely a village within the trading jurisdiction of its neighbour Rutherglen, and its bishop only later succeeded in receiving the privilege of independent trade. The burghs thus appear in these centuries more or less extensively as centres of an active commercial and industrial life. Each had, besides its weekly market, its annual fair, which attracted the pedlar and the " stranger " merchant from far and near, who were free to buy and sell for the time being in the booths or " kramers " which they set up in the street, equally with the local merchant. On these occasions the strolling musician and the conjurer, just as in more modern times, provided a rustic entertainment for the motley crowd of traffickers and pleasure-seekers. There is evidence of a considerable export and import trade by way of Berwick and other seaports. This foreign trade was largely in the hands of Flemings, whom David encouraged to settle in the burghs on the east coast, especially Berwick. The trade was chiefly RISE OF THE BURGHS 67 with the Low Countries, but it is evident from a letter of William Wallace to the towns of Liibeck and Hamburg, that an appreciable commerce had sprung up before the end of the thirteenth century with the Baltic and the Elbe. There is evidence, too, that Scottish merchants also en- gaged in this foreign trade and made use of Scottish ships for this purpose, as the short-sighted edict of Alexander III, prohibiting this trade on account of the loss of ships from pirates and storms, shows. The result of this edict was to transfer the foreign trade for a time entirely to foreign merchants, whose ships, according to John of Fordun, came into Scottish ports laden with merchandise which these merchants were eager to exchange for native products. The tendency of the burgh laws was, however, to restrict the trade of foreigners within the burghs as far as possible by enactments in the interest of the local mer- chant at the expense of the foreigner. Among the ex- ported articles were hides, tallow, wool, and furs; herring, salmon, and other fish; corn, meal, malt, and salt. Im- ports include dyestuffs, pepper, ginger, almonds, rice, figs, wine, iron, lead, and oil. Native manufactures were very- limited, but weaving and cloth making of a coarse variety were important industries, and we hear of gold, iron and coal digging. Export and import involved shipping and Berwick possessed a large number of ships, one citizen being able on occasion to hire as many as 14 for 100 marks of silver. Shipbuilding was already a Scottish industry, and one of the ships that earned the crusading expedition of Louis IX to the Holy Land was, we learn, built at Inverness. It affords some idea of the wealth and pros- 68 THE EARLY FEUDAL AGE perity of this burgh commerce that at the beginning of the thirteenth century over one third (6000 marks) of the 15,000 marks paid by King William of Scotland to King John of England was contributed by the burghs, the re- mainder being furnished by the lay and clerical magnates of the kingdom. 5. Rural Life and Labour Of life and labour in the rural districts, say in the thir- teenth century, we can form a fairly complete general picture. By this time, under Anglo-Norman influence, a marked advance in architecture, in the case at least of the dwellings of the higher classes and of the churches in which the people worshipped , if not of the houses in which they lived, had taken place. The royal and baronial castle after the Norman model and the stone-built church, cathedral, and monastery had begun to dot the land. The earliest type of fortified dwelling in Scotland is, as we have noted, the broch. This seems to have been suc- ceeded in the twelfth century as the result of the Anglo- Norman infusion, by the " mote ", or moated mound, fortified with a palisade and a ditch, and crowned by a tower, usually of wood, which had been introduced by William the Conqueror into England from Normandy. "Mote" is translated into Latin by castellwn, and the French term donjon is also applied to it. Under David I and his successors these " motes " were multiplied in rebellious Galloway, where the remains or the docu- mentary notices of them are. as Dr. Neilson has pointed out, most numerous. Traces of them are found more RURAL LIFE AND LABOUR 69 sparsely in the southern and eastern Lowlands It was from these moated mounds that the royal and baronial castle was developed — the massive stone tower surrounded with walls and moat. A number of these early stone castles had been erected in the thirteenth century and the remains of some of them — Lochindorb in Morayshire, Dunstaffnage, Kildrummie, Bothwell, Lochmaben, for instance — survive. Within the courtyard encircled by the walls there were probably other buildings for the lord's retainers, and outside would be the huts of his serfs and tenants. Some of them, like Edinburgh, Rox- burgh, Dumbarton, Stirling, Forfar, Inverness, were royal castles. Others, like Lochmaben, Bothwell, Dunbar, Dirleton, Selkirk, were residences of the great nobles. Some, whether royal or baronial, became the centres of a growing population, developing into the royal burgh or the burgh of barony, or, in the case of those which were the seat of a bishopric or a monastery, into the ecclesi- astical burgh. Many which never attained this importance were at least the centres of an expanding agricultural in- dustry which gradually reclaimed a portion of the lord's estate, often of large extent, from forest or moorland, and enabled him to maintain the retainers whom, along with his knightly vassals, he led in battle. Near them were the buildings which this industry required — the stables, byres, mill, granary, brewing and malting houses — and the dwellings of the serfs and free tenants, who cultivated the land thus reclaimed. In the forest or the waste land, as well as in the meadows, herds of cattle, sheep, swine, were reared, whilst the boar, the deer, and other game in great 70 THE EARLY FEUDAL AGE variety and abundance enabled him to gratify his passion for the chase. The game was strictly preserved, the right of hunting it being jealously guarded by pains and penal- ties. The produce of the soil and the chase supplied him and his dependents with a substantial diet. Oats, wheat, and barley, peas and beans, butter and cheese, poultry, beef, mutton, and pork, were apparently fairly abundant. Fish was plentiful, and there was no lack of ale as a beverage. The prevalence of leprosy may betoken a lack of vegetables and an excessive use of salt meat, as well as a lack of cleanliness. Probably a more advanced cultivation of the soil was to be found on the church lands, especially those of the monasteries. The abbots of Melrose, Dryburgh, Jed- burgh, Kelso, were the largest landowners of Tweeddale and Teviotdale. On the abbey lands of Kelso the monks were keen farmers. They cultivated the land by means of their serfs and tenants, maintaining large flocks of sheep, cows, and pigs on their pastures. Each farm thus # cultivated had its grange, or farm-steading, along with the cottages of the peasants (neyfs and cottars, the latter being higher in the social scale than the former) who tilled it by means of the ponderous mediaeval Scottish plough, drawn by twelve oxen, and had a piece of land and a share of the common pasturage, a portion of which was reserved for haymaking. They grew wheat, oats, and barley. They ground the grain in the water or windmill, which had dis- placed the handmill or quern, though the quern remained in use in remote Highland districts till far into modern times. In addition to the mill, they owned breweries, THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 71 which they let at ten shillings each, with the obligation to sell ale to the abbot at a halfpenny the measure. They had waggons for harvest work and wains for carting peats and bringing goods from Berwick to the monastery. They let a portion of their lands to tenants (husbandi) in return for rent and service. These farmers had their own granges, and each cultivated what was called a husband- land amounting to 26 acres, with the right of common pasturage. The rent in the thirteenth century of such a husbandland was 6s. 8 d. and the services included four days reaping in harvest, a day and a half ploughing on the lands farmed by the monks themselves, a day's harrowing in seedtime, one day carting peats, and the service of a man and a horse to and from Berwick once a year. Four of these husbandlands, which joined in maintaining a common plough, were known as a ploughgate, and we also hear of an oxgate which consisted of thirteen acres. Above the husbandmen were the vassals of the monastery who held by charter, rendered no service, except military service in the King's army, and could hold their own courts to try certain offences. 6. The Administration of Justice The administration of justice is of the first importance in any society and in this respect there is a marked ad- vance under the feudal social system on the ways of an earlier time. Under the older system each individual had his personal value, in case of murder or injury, known among the Anglo-Saxons as his " wergeld ", among the Celts as his " enechlann " (honour price), and justice was 72 THE EARLY FEUDAL AGE done by the delinquent paying the sum at which the sufferer was valued, which varied according to his rank. Under the feudal system the delinquent pays, in case of murder, in his person, the penalty being death. Again, the old form of trial by compurgation gives place to trial by jury. By compurgation the accused was required to find those who were prepared to swear that he was guilt- less. These compurgators might know nothing about the actual deed of which the person was accused. They were not required to give actual evidence as to the deed in question, on which a judgment of the guilt or innocence of the accused might be formed. They simply swore as to the good character of the person and this was deemed sufficient to clear him of the charge. This was, of course, a very imperfect form of trial, especially as these witnesses might shape their testimony to suit the occasion. So, too, in the case of other earlier forms of trial — grasping a red-hot iron, plunging the hand into boiling water, or fighting a duel. If the accused passed through the ordeal scathless he was assumed to be innocent. Undoubtedly a very haphazard method, since, for instance, the stronger man, who had seized another and a weaker man's property, would naturally have the best of it in a fight with his victim. It was the growing feeling that such methods were both bar- barous and ineffective that led to the institution of trial by jury before the king or the king's judge — the justiciar and the sheriff — when each freeman came to be tried before the royal officers of justice by his peers in the form of a jury of his fellow freemen, who might also be witnesses in the case. Both forms seem to have lingered a consider- THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 73 able time side by side. King David himself heard and decided suits. So zealous was he in dispensing justice that when he was about to go out hunting, even with his foot in the stirrup in the act of mounting his horse, he would stay his purpose to hear the plea of some poor suitor. He would settle disputes about rights of pasture, marches, forests, by making a notch on an oak tree, or setting up boundary stones, or cutting a ditch on the hill-side. The King had, however, his law officers, his justiciar, chancellor, constable, who shared the work of trying lawsuits, and ere long the country was divided into shires with a sheriff (vice-comes) over each to maintain the king's justice. Thus the king's justice represented an advance on the old system, though it did not neces- sarily follow that justice could always be got against a powerful delinquent, or that a local jury was always honest or incorruptible. The grant of land by charter carried, besides possession of the soil, jurisdiction over those inhabiting it. The lord as well as the king had his court for the trial of suits. He could punish by fine or forfeiture and inflict the death penalty by hanging or drowning (furca et fossa). He could levy tolls on goods passing through his lands. He could arrest thieves within his own estate and could follow and arrest them within the jurisdiction of another lord. Usually, however, the crown retained jurisdiction in case of murder, fireraising, rape, and robbery, which were tried in the royal courts. The law of sanctuary secured the immunity of the criminal, for a time at least, and under certain conditions, and the king's peace (girth) ( D 17 ) 6 74 THE EARLY FEUDAL AGE attached the same privilege to the king's castle and other places to which he assigned it. 7. Church Reform and Church Building Queen Margaret was the agent of a reformation of the Celtic Church which aimed at bringing it into greater conformity with the Church Catholic in usages and organization. This conformity had only been very par- tially effected in the eighth century. It was completed by Margaret and her sons and their successors, who founded bishoprics and monasteries and introduced the monastic orders — Benedictines, Cistercians, Augustinians, Carthusians, &c. — who gradually displaced the Culdee establishments. There was only one bishop in Scotland proper, i. e. north of the Forth, in Margaret's time, the Bishop of St. Andrews. In David's reign the number had increased to nine, including the restored sees of Glasgow and Galloway, and a beginning had been made in the division of the land into parishes as well as dioceses. David lavished lands on the monasteries, and only too well deserved the reproach of James I that he was " a sair sanct for the crown ". The monks, as we have seen, earned this otherwise questionable generosity by their services as agriculturists. They also fostered trade and industry, were in fact the chief shipowners and bankers of the period, and had already on this ground incurred the illwill of the merchant gilds. The settlement and endowment of the mendicant Friars — Carmelites, Dominicans, and Fran- ciscans — strengthened their influence in completing the romanizing of the* Scottish Church. One good result of CHURCH REFORM AND BUILDING 75 this ecclesiastical transformation appears in the ecclesi- astical architecture of the period. Bishops and abbots in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries effected an extra- ordinary advance in this respect in the erection of cathe- drals, abbeys, and parish churches all over the land, though they were not designed or built by native skill, but by gilds of foreign craftsmen. The earliest of them were in the Norman style — simple and massive, with round arches — and of these only a few portions have sur- vived later reconstruction or alteration — a tower of the cathedral of Dunblane, the nave of the church of the Trinity at Dunfermline, parts of Holyrood, Kelso, Ar- broath, Dryburgh, and Jedburgh abbeys, the churches of Leuchars and Dalmeny, &c. This style gave place, in the thirteenth century, to the pointed Gothic arch, which was introduced from England and modelled on the great English minsters and abbeys, though the two styles are found sometimes combined in the same building, be- tokening a period of transition. Beautiful examples of the pointed Gothic remain in the crypt and choir of Glasgow Cathedral, the nave of Dunblane, the transept of Dryburgh, the choir of Brechin, the north-west tower of Holyrood, and in the remnants of the abbeys of Culross, Restennet, Coldingham, Inchcolm, Kilwinning, Dundrennan, Pluscarden, &c. In addition to building abbeys and churches, the monks provided hospitality for travellers and hospices for the sick. They paid some attention to education, though their services in this respect have been exaggerated. There seem, indeed, to have been only eighteen places in Scot- 76 THE EARLY FEUDAL AGE land where schools were in existence before 1284, and of these only eight can be credited to the monasteries. Nor did they produce anything memorable in literature, and the only two men who at this period shed renown on their native land by their scholastic eminence lived and laboured in foreign lands. The one was Michael Scott, the scholar and physician, who acquired his learning at Paris and added lustre to the court of the emperor Frederick II at Palermo. The other was Duns Scotus, the great scholastic doctor who taught at Oxford, Paris, and Cologne, and lies buried in one of the churches of the last-mentioned city, of which he was the most brilliant teacher of his time. The monks seem, however, to have exercised their skill as craftsmen in the manu- facture of costly and beautiful vessels used in divine worship. Of the existence of highly skilled artificers of these and other articles Turgot speaks in his Life of the saintly Margaret. Margaret enriched the church of the Holy Trinity, which she erected at Dunfermline, and other churches, with a number of sacred vessels of solid gold. She and her ladies were constantly employed in making embroidered vestments for the clergy. He makes mention, too, of workers in the precious metals whom her husband, Malcolm III, commissioned to ornament her books. They appear, further, to have supplied the gold and silver plate with which she furnished the royal palace " so that the whole building blazed with gold and silver ". She introduced a more sumptuous style of dress and personal ornament which foreign traders brought in their ships, so that, adds Turgot, " new costumes of different CHURCH REFORM AND BUILDING 77 fashions were adopted, the elegance of which made the wearers appear to be a new race of beings ". Sources: — Anderson, Calender of Laing Charters (1899); Lawrie, Early Scottish Charters (1905); Cosmo Innes, Ancient Laws and Customs of the Burghs of Scotland, Scottish Burghs Record Society (1868); Turgot, Life of St. Margaret, translated by Forbes Leith (1884); Cosmo Innes, Scotland in the Middle Ages (1860), Scottish Legal Antiquities (1872), Sketches of Early Scotch History (1861); Robertson (E. W.)> Scotland under her Early Kings; Marwick, " The Municipal Institutions of Scotland ", Scottish Historical Review (Jan- uary and April, 1904); MacKinnon, History of Modern Liberty, I (1906); Neilson, " The Motes in Norman Scotland ", Scottish His- torical Reviezv (October, 1898); MacGibbon and Ross, The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland, I (1887), and The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland, I (1896); Cochran-Patrick, Mediaeval Scot- land (1892); MacEwen, History of the Church in Scotland, I (1913); Dowden, The Mediceval Church in Scotland (1910); MacGregor Chalmers, Dabneny Kirk (1904); Edgar, History of Early Scottish Education (1893). CHAPTER IV FROM THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE TO THE REFORMATION i. Influences on the National life The influences on the national life of Scotland between the beginning of the fourteenth and the second half of the sixteenth centuries were the War of Independence and the maintenance of Scottish nationality against England, the Franco-Scottish League, the Renaissance of Culture, and the Reformation of Religion. The War of Independence preserved for Scotland its place among the nations as a sovereign state, intensified the patriotic spirit, and steeled the strength and energy of the national character. The League with France, which lasted about 250 years, exerted an appreciable influence on its language, culture, and institutions. From the political point of view the League was based on mutual self-interest. England was the enemy of both countries, and the fact that the land frontier of England, in virtue of its French possessions, bordered France as well as Scot- land, enabled both to throw their united strength for offence and defence against the common enemy, on the outbreak of war between England and one of them. In 78 INFLUENCES ON THE NATIONAL LIFE 79 the War of Independence, however, France took little or no part on the side of Scotland. It left Wallace in the lurch, while Robert Bruce maintained the struggle single handed against the first two Edwards and proved that under a resourceful national leader Scotland could vindi- cate its cause without foreign aid. Under his less-gifted son, David II, who was ill-fitted to cope with the aggressive ambition of the third Edward, the League materially con- tributed to preserve the independence which his father had so splendidly vindicated. Again, in the reign of Edward VI France helped powerfully to retrieve the disaster of Pinkie and to thwart the English policy of a forcible union of the English and Scottish crowns. On the other hand, the French connection had its disadvan- tages for Scotland in involving it in the complications of French policy, which led to the disasters of Neville's Cross in the fourteenth century and of Flodden and Solway Moss in the sixteenth. It exposed the country to a chronic warfare in connection with the ever-recurring Anglo- French conflict and long frustrated any chance of a lasting agreement with the " auld enemy ". This warfare, in conjunction with the civil strife due to aristocratic faction in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, was detri- mental to its material prosperity, and it led John Major in the beginning of the sixteenth to advocate a union on equal terms between Scotland and England. The death of James IV on the field of Flodden, in particular, as the result of his rash invasion of England for the benefit of France, was a distinct set back in the tide of prosperity which, during his reign, seemed to be carrying Scotland 80 INDEPENDENCE TO REFORMATION into a new era of development. From Flodden to the union of the crowns in 1603, Scotland seems to have receded rather than progressed in material welfare. Yet it is to this period that the two great movements — the Renaissance and the Reformation, the one intellectual, the other religious in character — exercised a moulding influ- ence on the nation and its institutions. The Renaissance is the name applied to the rebirth and development of the intellectual life which affected the whole range of human activity in Southern, Central, and Western Europe, and gave a new impulse to literature, art, science, philosophy, political thought, education, discovery. The Reforma- tion brought about a similar transformation in the sphere of religion by disrupting the mediaeval church and substi- tuting for it the national Reformed Church in the greater part of Central and Western Europe. In the first half of the sixteenth century Scotland came within the orbit of both these movements with far-reaching ultimate effects on its social and industrial life. 2. The Scottish Parliament and Aristocratic Faction It was in this period that the Scottish Parliament, in the developed sense, took its rise by the inclusion of repre- sentatives of the burghs in the old Council of the bishops and nobles. The necessities of the War of Independence obliged King Robert I, in 1326, to ask a subsidy in order to augment the revenue derived from the crown lands, feudal dues, and the customs, which had been diminished by the war. Along with the earls, barons, and other free- THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT 81 holders the king summoned the burgesses to deliberate on this matter at Cambuskenneth. The Parliament granted a tenth penny of all rents, on condition that certain grievances should be redressed. The intolerable exactions, arising from a long war and assessed without the people's sanction, must cease. The king shall levy no other " collectae " and shall diminish the dues accruing to the crown. The grant is made for his lifetime, but in case of remission in favour of individuals, it shall become null. The burghs thus acquired a voice in national policy, and especially in the economic legislation on which their in- dustrial welfare depended. Unfortunately, owing to the subsequent introduction of the system of devolving on a Committee, later known as the Lords of the Articles, the function of drawing up and presenting bills for the acceptance of Parliament, the legislative power of Parlia- ment was greatly restricted. It became a mere voting machine of such measures as the Government thought fit to lay before it. In the Convention of Royal Burghs, which grew out of the old union of the Four Burghs, trade and industry had, however, their own special guardians. " It formed ", says Mr. Marwick, the editor of the Records, " a complete and powerful organization for the protection of burghal rights and privileges, and for the promotion of whatever the burghs conceived to be for their own interest and that of the country generally ". The Parliament was, too, throughout this period fre- quently the instrument of aristocratic faction. The magnates who adhered to Bruce and his son, David II, had earned the right to profit from the confiscated lands 82 INDEPENDENCE TO REFORMATION of those who took the English side in the long struggle to vindicate and maintain the national independence. But the generosity of King Robert and his son, like that of David I to the Church, ultimately proved a questionable policy from the point of view of the national interest. By increasing the power of the great lords it weakened that of the crown and paved the way for the factious opposition of these magnates to the central government in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Parliament might enact in the name of the king; it was often powerless to enforce its decisions against magnates who, in virtue of their vast lands and the number of their vassals and re- tainers, were rather petty kings than subjects. According to the Spanish ambassador Ayala, who spent a year at the court of James IV, in 1498, two of the great lords appeared in the field with more than 30,000 men, " all picked soldiers and well armed ". And yet, he adds, they did not array more than half their men. Others appeared with 4000 or 5000 men. His statement sounds like an exaggeration, and certainly errs on the side of generosity, though he avers that he himself had witnessed these arrays. He is, however, supported to some extent by John Major, who remarks on the docility and fidelity with which the people responded to the call of their lords, whatever the occasion. " They are so kindly affected to their lords ", he says, " that 30,000 or 40,000 men will follow them at their own charges". It was against the evil of aristocratic faction that the first three Jameses had to struggle in the fifteenth century, and that made it at times difficult to maintain the independence which their fore- TRADE AND INDUSTRY 83 fathers had helped to vindicate. To murder, or carry off the king, and thus dominate the country for the time being was the policy of a Douglas, a Home, an Arran, and as the policy was actuated by a factious self-seeking spirit, the country had to pay a terrible price on such occasions in confiscation, bloodshed, anarchy, and civil war. It was too often the sword rather than debate that made or unmade laws in Scotland. Its only redeeming feature is that it tended to nurture a spirit of liberty in the people which was one day to do immense service in the ultimate battle with arbitrary Stewart Government in Scotland. Scotland was being trained in this rough fashion to become a pioneer of political liberty among the European nations and to nurture that restive spirit which, when turned into a more pacific and practical channel, proved the means of commercial and industrial development on a scale undreamt of throughout the period of faction and civil strife. 3. Trade and Industry The War of Independence adversely affected the pros- perity of Scotland for the time being. All the energy of its people was thrown into the grim struggle to maintain its independence, and Wyntoun, writing in the first quarter of the fifteenth century, pathetically laments the interruption in what we might term the golden age of national prosperity in the reign of the third Alexander. The monasteries in the valley of the Tweed— flourishing centres of trade and industry in the previous period — suffered greatly from the ravages of invading English armies, and a blight fell on the trade of Berwick. In the 84 INDEPENDENCE TO REFORMATION latter part of King Robert's reign the old prosperity seems to have revived. But the war left a legacy of international conflict which all too frequently interrupted the com- mercial relations of the two countries and led to the re- striction or the prohibition of trade across the Border. Moreover, English hostility adversely affected not only this trade, but that with other lands in which the influence of the English kings was often used to the detriment of Scottish commercial interests. In spite of this unfavour- able influence, however, there seems to have been a marked advance even in the fourteenth century in the trade of the principal burghs, to judge from a comparison of the amount of customs paid by them in the years 1329 and 1369. In these years Edinburgh, for instance, paid £439> 3*- 9 d > and £3849; Linlithgow, £149, is. and £1403; Dundee, £240, 4s. Sd. and £800; Aberdeen, £349, 105. $d. and 5^1100; Perth, £108, is. gd. and £710. Part of this remarkable increase must, however, be attributed to the debasement of the coinage, which began in the reign of David II and went on increasing, till, towards the end of the fifteenth century, the Scots pound was worth only about 6s. in English money. On the other hand, the Franco- Scottish alliance tended to further the trade with France, though there were occasional bickerings on this subject between the two countries. In virtue of this alliance privileges were from time to time conferred on Scottish merchants trading with France and, in 1558, on the marriage of Queen Mary to the Dauphin, the privilege of naturalization was extended to all Scotsmen in France, and all Frenchmen in Scotland. TRADE AND INDUSTRY 85 There was, therefore, an active export and import trade between the east-coast ports and Bordeaux and Rochelle, Rouen and Dieppe. From the former two ports Scottish merchants imported wines, fruits, and salt for the curing of fish; to the two latter they sent cured fish, horses, wool, skins, and other goods. With the Baltic and with Norway there was also a considerable trade in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when the decline of the Hansa League gave an impulse to Scottish commercial enterprise in this region. At Danzig there was a Scottish commercial colony, and in the years 1474-76 as many as twenty-four Scottish vessels entered the port. In the following century from twenty to thirty Scottish vessels were en- gaged in the Baltic trade from Dundee alone, the imports including timber, flour, grain, iron, and wax. As early as the fifteenth century Scottish pedlars carried on a large retail trade in Prussia and Poland. In the sixteenth there seems to have been a regular emigration of these packmen and their families, Lithgow, in his Travels, putting the number, with evident exaggeration, at 30,000. At all events they were numerous and pushing enough to be- come as unpopular in Poland as the Jews. The trade with Flanders, already considerable before the War of Independence, was hampered or interrupted in the fourteenth century by the Anglo-Flemish alliance, which was a set-off to the Franco-Scottish League. During the reign of Edward III Flanders espoused the English side against France and her Scottish ally. Hence the frequent transference during this century of the chief seat, or staple of Scottish trade in the Low Countries from 86 INDEPENDENCE TO REFORMATION Bruges to Middelburg in Zealand. During the fifteenth this disturbing factor was less operative, and Bruges, then at the height of its pre-eminence as the great mart for Northern and Western Europe, became the chief centre of Scottish trade with the Low Countries. The char- acter of this trade is thus described by Messrs. Davidson and Gray in their book on The Scottish Staple at Veere. " The trade with Bruges was comprehensive; indeed Bruges at the time served as a foreign depot for the export of whatever Scotland had to export, and the import of whatever was required and could not be produced at home. Accordingly to Bruges as the market in Flanders, Scotland sent wool in small quantities, cloth to such an extent as to raise the jealousy of the Hanseatics, hides, skins, and furs in large quantities, together with salmon and trout. In carrying on this trade Aberdeen and Edin- burgh were the chief places of export. From Bruges they brought in return whatever articles of luxury or of refine- ment they could afford to buy — the inevitable drugs and spices, the finer cloths and embroidery, the gold and silver work for which a gorgeous church ceremonial created some demand, sometimes wheat and provisions, and to a large extent the wines in general use. Bruges was then for Flanders the chief market for the wines of France, Spain, and Portugal, brought by sea, as well as for those on the Rhine and of Italy, brought overland. In the fifteenth century Scottish ships did not venture much on the longer voyage to Bordeaux or Rochelle, as they did later, and Bruges supplied most of their wants." With the decline of Bruges towards the end of the TRADE AND INDUSTRY 87 century and the rising prosperity of the towns of Holland and Zealand, the centre again passed to Middelburg. From Middelburg it was removed to Campvere in the beginning of the sixteenth century, though, till towards the middle of the century, Campvere had to compete with Middelburg and Antwerp for the monopoly of this trade. Hitherto, in fact, the custom of limiting the trade of Scot- land with the Low Countries to any one centre had not been invariably followed, though Bruges or Middelburg had been the main market for Scottish exports and im- ports. In 1 54 1 Campvere definitely became the Scottish staple, and this position it practically retained till the end of the eighteenth century. The duty of looking after the interests of Scottish traders at the staple and maintaining their privileges was entrusted to a Conservator, whose jurisdiction included the right to try disputes between them. Foreign trade was, however, greatly hampered during this period by piracy. The commercial conscience of the time was by no means sensitive in this matter, and English and Scots had as little scruple in committing robbery on the high seas as in taking part in a Border raid. Traders on the other side of the North Sea — Flemings, Dutch, Germans — were equally prone to help themselves to any ship and cargo which they coveted. Such outrages led to enmities and reprisals and greatly increased the risks of navigation. The system was, in fact, regularized by the issue of royal letters of marque, or licences, and it was in virtue of these licences that the Bartons carried out many a piratical exploit in the reign of James IV. It was only 88 INDEPENDENCE TO REFORMATION in the first half of the sixteenth century that piracy began to fall into disrepute, and attempts were made to repress it and compel the restitution of goods captured on the high seas. The growing improvement of the public conscience appears, for instance, in a proclamation of 156 1 forbidding the purchase of such goods brought into Leith. The trade with these lands does not seem to have varied in character during the period from that of the time before the War of Independence. It was mainly confined to the export of raw materials such as wool and hides, and of cured fish, some live stock and other farm produce, and an inferior kind of cloth, and to the import of manu- factured goods or products which Scotland did not pro- duce. Exports were subject to what was called the great customs, and it was from this source that a substantial part of the royal revenue was derived. It was, therefore, to the interest of the crown to encourage the export trade. The Acts of Parliament contain, indeed, many prohibi- tions or restrictions of this trade, but these were mostly of a temporary character, due to the exigencies of war or to scarcity, arising from famine or excessive exportation, and the consequent rise of prices. For these reasons there are frequent prohibitions of the export of victuals and other articles. The idea that material wealth con- sists in money was also responsible for this restrictive policy. It led to the passing of such acts as those of 143 1 and 1473 forbidding the export of salmon to England in return for English cloth, instead of money, on the ground that such a practice lessens the amount of gold and silver coin in the realm " to the great hurt and scaithe of his TRADE AND INDUSTRY 89 highness and his lieges ". It led also to a long series of acts during this period restricting the export of money by heavy dues or severe penalties. On the other hand, the import trade during this period was practically free from duties. " Till the end of the sixteenth century ", says Mr. Burnett in his introduction to The Exchequer Rolls of Scotland (Vol. I), " free trade in imports may be said to have prevailed in Scotland ". War or dearth, while tending to the restriction of exports, reacted the other way in the case of imports, and the policy of free importation received explicit recognition in the encouragement given to the foreign trader in such emer- gencies. In the Act of 1482, for instance, " it is statute and ordained that in time to come all strangers be treated honourably with all favours whenever they come to any port of the realm, and that none of our sovereign lord's officers nor others his lieges trouble them nor put them- selves, ships, or goods under arrest, but that they have full liberty and freedom to dispose upon their own goods and sell them to freemen without compulsion or violence ". The restrictive policy of an earlier time appears to have been abandoned in favour of one of free trade or at least moderate duties, " according to the old use and con- suetude ", no new customs, impositions, or exactions being permissible. Internal as well as export trade was hampered during this period by the tendency to regulation and restriction. The royal burghs strove to maintain their old right to exclusive trade in their respective districts, and to levy petty customs on goods entering them, though the prin- ( D 17 ) 7 go INDEPENDENCE TO REFORMATION ciple of freer commercial interchange was relatively re- cognized and upheld by the Convention of Royal Burghs, which developed out of the old court of the Four Burghs and possessed large statutory powers. The frequent con- tention between them, due to this cause, proves, however, that the principle was by no means universally observed even in the sixteenth century. Moreover, these burghs showed their exclusive spirit in striving to prevent burghs of barony from attaining the privileges possessed by their more favoured rivals, and on this question the Convention adopted an attitude of determined hostility. Their jealousy of these less privileged burghs is further apparent in the attempt to prevent by Act of Parliament ships from unlading or lading goods at any but the port of a royal burgh, and thus to debar them from a share of the export and import trade of the country. This exclusive and monopolist spirit showed itself in a variety of other ways. In a regulation adopted by Edinburgh in 1554, for in- stance, prohibiting foreign traders arriving at Leith to sell to any except freemen and burgesses of the city for the first 20 days after erecting their booths. Regrators or retailers who buy in order to sell again were not allowed to buy in the markets until the burgesses had made their purchases, and any merchant who bought a quantity of goods was obliged " to share his bargain " with other merchants who might desire to buy a portion of them, in other words he must sell to them at the same price as that at which he bought the goods. Prices were not allowed to follow the law of supply and demand, but were regulated by the magistrates. The Convention is even found in- INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 91 terfering with free commercial association by forbidding partnership between a freeman and a non-freeman (i.e. one not possessed of full civic rights in the burgh). The same spirit of petty bureaucracy, inspired apparently by the monopolists of the merchant gilds, appears in an Act of Parliament of 1466 decreeing that only free burgesses of substance might go out of the realm to engage in foreign trade. To this end the trader must have a licence, must be the owner of a certain proportion of the goods ex- ported in his vessel, and must be dressed in becoming fashion. Among the reasons adduced for this monopo- list regulation is the necessity of maintaining the reputa- tion of the country abroad. 4. Industrial Development There was no material advance during this period in the direction of developing home manufactures. The principle on which the commerce of the country was con- ducted was that of exporting its raw materials and im- porting the goods manufactured abroad out of these materials. Cloth was, indeed, made in Scotland from an early time and formed an article of export to the Baltic, the Low Countries, and France. But it was of very inferior quality and all the better sorts were imported from Flan- ders and France. The merchant gilds do not appear to have realized that it would tend to give employment to the people and enrich the nation to manufacture such im- ported goods at home out of the wool and hides which they sent abroad. They were content to earn a profit on their exports, and on the sale of the manufactured goods 92 INDEPENDENCE TO REFORMATION which their ships brought back from the industrial towns of Flanders. They looked down on the Craft Gilds, with which they maintained a long feud, and required the craftsman to renounce membership of his gild before being admitted to that of the merchants. " The merchants in their Burgh Councils and in their Conventions ", say Messrs. Davidson and Gray, " never looked at trade questions from any but their own class point of view. They were free importers and free exporters provided that the trade passed through their hands. . . . They per- sistently put obstacles in the way of industrial development at home. They fought a long and losing fight to keep down the craftsman, for whom every kind of ambition involved the renunciation of his craft. How far the close constitution imposed on the burghs in the fourteenth century was responsible for their sterility we need not attempt to decide. They were quite content with things as they were, and were satisfied that the nation should remain the hewer of wood and drawer of water for more developed peoples." In the reign of James IV an attempt was made by Par- liament to develop the fishing industry and to provide employment for the too numerous destitute and idle element of the population by enacting in 1492 that the burghs should build vessels of at least 20 tons for the fishing, and compel " stark idle men " to man them, on pain of banishment from their burgh. The burghs, however, do not seem to have energetically taken up the project. James, indeed, manifested a great interest in shipbuilding, as Robert I had done long before when re- INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 93 siding at Cardross on the Clyde, and built the biggest war-ship of the period, the Great Michael. Some advance was made in his reign in introducing new industries. Organ building and printing, at least, were both established at Edinburgh in his reign. In 1507 James granted to Walter Chapman and Andrew My Her, " burgesses of our burgh of Edinburgh ", the right to print books " after our own Scots use ". Ten years later mention is made in the Lord Treasurer's accounts of " Gilleam, organist, maker of the king's organs", which had hitherto been imported from abroad. Gold mining, we learn from The Trea- surer's Accounts and from Bishop Leslie's History, was being carried on in the Leadhills in the upper Clyde region. The records of Parliament during the fifteenth century show, too, the anxiety of the legislature to de- velop agriculture. By an act of James I (1427) every baron in the demesne lands cultivated by him, and every husbandman, who tills with a plough a piece of land held of him, are bound to sow so much wheat, peas, and beans, or pay a fine for neglecting to do so. In James II's time corn must be threshed before the last day of May on pain of the forfeiture of the unthreshed corn to the king. Every baron and his tenants are further enjoined to search out and destroy the young of wolves and to hunt the wolf four times a year, or whenever one is discovered on the barony. On the other hand, the nests and eggs of birds and wild towls fit for food, such as partridges, plovers, wild ducks, are not to be destroyed, " nor slain in moulting time when they may not fly ". But those of birds of prey— rooks, crows, herons, buzzards, hawks — which destroy corn and 94 INDEPENDENCE TO REFORMATION game, are to be harried and the birds themselves killed where possible. On this account, if their nests are not destroyed by the festival of Beltane, the trees in which they build are to be forfeited to the King and a fine of 5s. paid. Timber being a rare commodity, at least in the Lowlands, all freeholders are to plant trees, make hedges, and sow broom, " in places convenient ". These woods are protected by pains and penalties, those who steal or destroy trees being severely fined and part of the fine given to the owner of the wood as compensation for the damage done. Those who rob orchards and destroy rabbit warrens and dovecots are liable to the same punish- ment. Particular attention is given to the breeding of horses, and one English traveller tells us that " the Scots would give any price for one of our English Geldings ". Some attention was also bestowed on other industries. Goldsmiths are prohibited from alloying gold and silver with other metals, and each is bound to have a special mark on the articles he makes which are "to be of the finest of the new silver work of Bruges ". To ensure that this be done, a deacon of the Craft of Goldsmiths is em- powered to examine all such articles. Contract obliga- tions by craftsmen must be scrupulously observed. Wrights and masons who take in hand too many contracts, and for this reason neglect to fulfil them within the promised time, are to forfeit to the king a sum equivalent to the contract price, and, in addition, carry out the work at their own cost. No other craftsman, if requested, may refuse to do the job for a reasonable fee, provided he has no other work on hand. There are repeated en- INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 95 actments, with progressive penalties, against " idle men ", " masterful beggars and sorners ", gipsies, " any that make themselves fools that are not ", bards, and " other such runners about ". Forty days are allowed them to get employment as servants, or in some lawful craft, in default of which they are to be punished by having their ears cut off, and, if caught a second time, hanged. These legislative remedies for unemployment are certainly drastic enough. Unfortunately for their efficacy, it does not seem to have occurred to these Draconian legislators that a more effective expedient would have been to adopt an industrial policy which, by fostering home manu- factures, would have made it easier for this class to find work and wages. By the end of the fifteenth century and during the sixteenth this modern economic axiom seems to have been forcing itself on the attention of the law-makers, without, however, any appreciable effect in practice. The rate of wages in the later part of the period shows a considerable advance on that of the beginning of it. King Robert usually destroyed the strongholds which came into his hands. But he erected one on the Isthmus of Tarbert in Kintyre for the purpose of protecting the south-west Highlands in the event of an attack by the Lord of the Isles. In The Exchequer Rolls of his reign there is an account of the sums paid to the various craftsmen em- ployed in its erection. Robert the mason is paid a total sum of £288, is. 8d. for the mason work, besides a chalder of oatmeal and of barley. The burning of 660 chalders of lime cost £50. The wages of the men engaged in 96 INDEPENDENCE TO REFORMATION transporting it from the kiln to the castle ranged from 13d. to i6d. each per week. Neil the smith had a salary of ,£12 a year. Patrick the smith got 19s. 6d. for working 78 stones of iron, for which 16 chalders of coals, costing 21s. 4^., were used. John the carpenter earned 3d. a day, with a boll of meal and a codrus of cheese per month; Neil the plumber 8d. a day, and Donald the blocker i$d. About 150 years later, i.e. towards the end of the fifteenth century, wages had materially risen, to judge from the Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer (Vol. I). Labourers, carters, journeymen artificers, received is. a day; highly skilled workmen from 3s. to 55.; quarrymen, masons, carpenters, smiths, employed on special work from gs. to 105. per week; shipwrights doing urgent work is. 6d. a day. For the hire of a boat and its crew Ss. a day were paid, and a cart-horse might be hired for a shilling a day. 5. Impressions of Scotland and the Scots Scotland was visited during this period by a number of foreigners — soldiers, diplomatists, merchants, adventurers — who recorded their impressions of land and people. Its own historians — John of Fordoun, Major, Boece — have also left us general descriptions and observations which throw an interesting light on the social and industrial conditions of the time. Among the foreign travellers Froissart and Aeneas Silvius, the future Pope Pius II, had only a superficial knowledge of the country and their accounts are of limited value. The Englishman Hardyng and the Spaniard Ayala made a longer sojourn and were able to observe and judge more correctly. IMPRESSIONS OF SCOTLAND 97 Froissart speaks of the state of things in the latter half of the fourteenth century. To him the Scots appeared a bold and hardy race, capable of making long marches on their tough ponies and of subsisting on sodden flesh and oatcake, which each man baked for himself on a girdle carried under the flap of his saddle. The country which produced this hardy race appeared to him very poor, as compared with France and Flanders, and its capital, which, as the residence of the king, he calls the Paris of Scotland, is smaller than Tournay or Valenciennes. It has only 400 houses, and the French expedition to Scotland, which arrived at Leith in 1385 to take part in an invasion of Eng- land, had difficulty in finding lodgings in the town. Part of the troops had to be lodged in the neighbouring villages and in more remote localities. In spite of the League with France, they were not too enthusiastically welcomed by the Scots and the visit only produced mutual friction and ill-will. The account, in fact, is coloured by the ill- humour and disgust of the French with their allies. As Scotland imported most manufactured articles from abroad, the French, he says, probably with some truth, could find neither iron to shoe their horses, nor leather to make harness, or saddles, or bridles. The Scots de- manded exorbitant prices for any articles they wished to buy, and it is hardly surprising that the French lords and knights began to rue the day they had left the fine mansions and castles of France. The country in the south had been ruined by an English raid and the Scots had driven their cattle to remote fastnesses. Neverthe- less, the people made light of the fact, saying that in three 98 INDEPENDENCE TO REFORMATION days they could rebuild their houses with half a dozen poles and some boughs, and would soon have their cattle back from the hills. At the same time, he speaks of fields covered with oats and barley, through which the French cavaliers rode, instead of by the road. He notes, too, the high spirit of the peasantry, who were evidently not minded to submit tamely to such usage from even lords and knights, and robbed and murdered many of the French, who went out to forage, on their way back to camp. Scotland might appear in some respects a back- ward country compared with France, but it is evident that its peasantry were, in personal liberty and the con- sciousness of rights, in advance of that of France, where contempt and oppression of the lower classes were ap- parently a matter of course. The progress of social emancipation and the independent spirit fostered by the struggle with England help to explain the fact that, while there were periodic risings of the peasantry in England, France, and Germany from the fourteenth to the six- teenth centuries against an oppressive aristocratic caste, we hear of no insurrection in Scotland from this cause. In view of the restive and high-spirited character of the people — " Proud as a Scot ", was a French saying — the fact can assuredly not be credited to their more servile temper, but is attributable to a more advanced social state. The French knights and squires, concludes Froissart, de- parted, " cursing Scotland and the hour they had set foot there ". They called the Scots " savages ". They were, at any rate, far less servile than their own downtrodden pea- santry, whose crops they could afford to ride down at will. IMPRESSIONS OF SCOTLAND 99 Aeneas Silvius in the reign of James I is not much more appreciative. The winter season is not the best fitted for forming a favourable impression, and an Italian, shivering in the northern blast, and suffering from the effects of shipwreck and the rheumatism contracted whilst going barefoot over the frozen ground from Dunbar to the church at Whitekirkfin gratitude for his escape, naturally did not relish the climate. He tells of the poor whom he saw begging, almost naked, at the church doors and who received stones for alms. These stones were coal which, in the absence of wood, was used for fuel. The towns had no walls and the houses were for the most part con- structed without lime. In the country they were roofed with turf and the doors of those of the common people were made of hides. These people were poor, but had plenty of flesh and fish to eat. The men he pronounces to be small of stature, but bold and active, and he admired the women, who are described as comely and pleasing, if rather free in their manners. Nothing pleases them better than abuse of the English. Like the men the horses are small and are never groomed. Among the exports he mentions pearls; and he repeats some hearsay beliefs about the Highlanders, who sometimes live on the bark of trees! His information is defective and he makes some bad blunders. His own morals were not above reproach, for he left one of his numerous illegitimate off- spring behind him — a fact which evidently did not later disqualify him for election to the papal chair. A needful corrective of these rather depreciative com- ments on Scottish life is supplied by the more attractive ioo INDEPENDENCE TO REFORMATION account of' the English traveller Hardyng, who spent three and a half years in the country about the same time as Aeneas, made careful notes of its resources, and after- wards wrote them out for the information of the English king, in view of an English invasion of Scotland. He describes the Lowland country from the Border up to Aberdeen. Fifeshire from the Ochils to St. Andrews is a fruitful, prosperous region, with plenty of corn and cattle. The Carse of Gowrie is equally fruitful and so is. the country from Dundee to Aberdeen. Equally favourable is the notice of the Lowlands south of the Forth and the Clyde. The impression which he conveys is that large tracts of Lowland Scotland are well cultivated, and pro- duce corn and cattle so abundantly that an English army could easily subsist from its resources, while there are good harbours along the east coast in which the English fleet can anchor with additional supplies. This more favourable impression is confirmed by the Scottish chroniclers, John of Fordoun, and Wyntoun, re- spectively writing in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Fordoun speaks admiringly of the green meadows and fertile fields of the Lowlands which produce corn and barley, peas and beans, &c. In the Upland districts and in the Highlands the country is less pro- ductive. But even here oats and barley are grown and there is plenty of pasturage for the cattle in the glens. In the forests among the mountains deer and other wild animals abound and horses and sheep are reared in large numbers. The land is thus rich in milk, wool, fish, and game; while marble, iron, lead, and nearly all the metals IMPRESSIONS OF SCOTLAND ( 101 are found in considerable quantities. He notes the difference in language and habits between Lowlanders and Highlanders (though there was still plenty of Gaelic spoken in Lowland districts), to the advantage of the former, who are civilized, urbane, devout, peaceful, though ever ready to resist a wrong at the hands of their enemies. Lowland prejudice appears in the description of the latter as " a savage and untamed nation ", hostile to the southerner, cruel, and given to rapine, yet not without some good qualities — amenable to law if properly governed, comely in person, warmhearted, and easily led. Wyntoun gives a similar picture of a land rich in cattle and the produce of the soil. At the close of the fifteenth century the Spanish am- bassador Ayala might almost be described as biassed in favour of Scotland and its people, in his striving to gain the goodwill of his master, King Ferdinand, for James IV and his kingdom. The people are, indeed, poor and not too industrious, being prone to war, internal or foreign. But there has been a great improvement in its prosperity under the present king, of whom he gives a very flattering estimate. He grows enthusiastic over the abundance of fish, of wild and garden fruits, suitable to the climate, the quality of the corn, which grows as high as his girdle, though more land might be cultivated. The people are handsome, strong, and courageous, well-dressed, and very hospitable to foreigners, whilst much given to ostentation and spending everything to keep up appearances. Like Aeneas he was charmed by the ladies, who " are really honest ", though very bold, very good-looking and io2 INDEPENDENCE TO REFORMATION graceful, practical housewives, and wearing a headdress which is the handsomest in the world. The towns and villages are populous; the houses of the well-to-do good, all built of hewn stone with excellent doors, glass windows, a great number of chimneys, and ancestral furniture of the same type as that found in Italy, Spain, and France. The people are very partial to France and things French, and the higher classes are leavened by French culture. Evidently the friction of Froissart's time was only transient and the old League had made a deep impression on the civilization of the country. " There is a good deal of French education in Scotland and many speak the French language. For all the young gentlemen who have no property go to France, and are well received there and, therefore, the French are liked." The whole picture is meant to convey a very favourable impression to his master of the king, his kingdom, and his subjects, and though evidently drawn with this object by the practised di- plomatist, is on the whole corroborated by the official records of the period. John Major, writing in the early part of the sixteenth century, mingles criticism with appreciation. He notes the absence of walled towns, with the exception of Perth and, he ought to have added, Edinburgh. The reason, he thinks, is that the Scots are always impatient to get at the foe and are always prepared to repel him at short notice. There are, however, many strongholds. Evi- dently the old castles destroyed in the War of Indepen- dence had been by this time replaced, and those of the more powerful nobility were very formidable. The IMPRESSIONS OF SCOTLAND 103 country people live in small cottages and are disinclined to build better houses because of the prevalence of short leases of four or five years, at the expiry of which they may be evicted by the lord of the soil. This also dis- courages agriculture, since they have no interest in manuring the land and planting orchards and hedges. This mistaken policy on the part of the lords entails no small loss and damage to the whole realm. Like previous observers he notes the abundance of flesh and fish and the extensive pastures and forests of the Highlands, which nurture great flocks of sheep and deer, and a small breed of horses fit to carry a light-armed man, though incapable of carrying one in heavy armour. Many own a flock of 10,000 sheep and 1000 cattle. He tells of the fertility of Orkney and Shetland, which produce oats and barley, if not wheat, and abound in pasture and cattle, Orkney salt butter being sold cheap in the mainland. In the south forests are rare, and, therefore, coal or peat is the main kind of fuel. He repeatedly deplores the injurious effect of the ever-recurring wars with England on the material prosperity of the country, and though a patriotic Scot, would put an end to them by a union of the two kingdoms on fair and feasible terms. Equally trenchant is his criticism of the extravagant generosity of David I to the religious houses, which have long ceased to benefit agri- culture or religion, their large revenues being the object of the ambition of unworthy persons. He is the stanch champion of political liberty, which is indispensable to the welfare of the people, though he is no friend of risings like those of Wat Tyler and Jack Straw in England. He 104 INDEPENDENCE TO REFORMATION has, in fact, been described as the first Scottish Radical, and he certainly contributed something of his own sturdy appreciation of political rights to the national spirit. He shares the conventional opinion of the Highlanders as " the savage Scots " in distinction from the people of the Lowlands. They are credited with thieving proclivities and hatred of what they had come to regard as the Saxon Lowlanders. Clan feuds are common, but he does not tell us that feud and faction were equally common in the Lowlands, and the fact is that there was really little to choose in this respect as between Lowlanders and High- landers. He notes the national pride characteristic of the Scots, who according to foreign observers dearly love a pedigree. " The Scots ", says Erasmus, his contem- porary, in The Praise of Folly, " plume themselves on their noble descent or their kindred with their royal house, and I must add on their power of splitting a hair in argument ". There was no little vanity in their self-esteem. But they were not singular in this respect. He playfully gives par- ticulars of the foibles of other nations and sarcastically adds, " and thus has every nation the happiness to apply this flattering unction, that it alone is not a barbarian ". Boece also finds much to criticize in the social conditions of the early sixteenth century. He is far more rhetorical than his more matter-of-fact contemporary, and the con- trast which he draws between the social life of far-off times and that of succeeding generations, including his own, suffers from the tendency to over-colour both. His picture of the age before Malcolm Canmore is altogether too idyllic. But in picturing the vices of his own age — its IMPRESSIONS OF SCOTLAND 105 gluttony and drunkenness — he refers to facts with which he was evidently familiar, and his plain-spoken, if quaint denunciation of the prevailing intemperance in meat and drink certainly shows that the sumptuary legislation of the period was not uncalled for. In the interval from, Flodden to the Reformation the state of Scotland seems to have suffered a distinct lapse. In this interval there were two minorities — those of James V and his daughter Queen Mary. There were factions and civil war as well as war with England, which cul- minated in the devastating invasions of Hertford. In- dustry and public order suffered in consequence, and the social conditions reflected in the works of Sir David Lindsay and in the anonymous Complaynt of Scotland are distinctly depressing. Lindsay is the strenuous champion of social and political, as well as ecclesiastical reform — of the common weal and the people against the higher classes, who oppress both. What is urgently needed is "justice, polycie f and peace ", for the lack of which the nation is in most evil plight. Kings, nobles, churchmen, lairds, merchants, and, in spite of his democratic sympathies, the people itself get their share of satire and criticism. Says John the Commonweal in the Dreme — " For there is few to me that takis tent, That gars me go sae raggit, riven, and rent ". John is a homeless wanderer, and wherever he goes, whether in the Lowlands or the Highlands, " polycie ", or government, is at a discount. Everywhere murder, robbery, poverty, strife, in spite of the institution of the (DV7) s 106 INDEPENDENCE TO REFORMATION College of Justice, or Court of Session in 1532. He lays his complaint before the Spiritual Estate, but they pay no attention to him. They have no ear for the common ills of the land. The gentlemen, too, are all degenerate, and thwarted, insulted, and despised, John Commonweal vanishes from the land. The Complaynt is equally de- pressing. Being written by a cleric, it is less outspoken against the churchmen. But it is merciless in its criticism of the higher classes, especially the nobility, who reduce the people to beggary, reive from the poor man his corn and cattle, and rackrent him and turn him out of his holding. The people, though very patriotic, is evidently in a very rebellious mood on the eve of the Reformation. 6. The Regulation of Social Life, Costume, Domestic Economy The life of the people was strictly regulated throughout these centuries. How they should dress, how amuse themselves, how much they were to eat, where to lodge while travelling, were, for instance, prescribed by the legislature. Thus we read in an act of James Ps reign that travellers on horse or foot are to lodge in the hostelries in burghs or on the highways, and not with their friends, to the detriment of the proprietors thereof, under penalty of a fine of forty shillings to the king. Early closing of taverns is the subject of another act, it being " ordained that no man in burghs be found in taverns at wine, ale, or beer after the stroke of nine o'clock and the bell that shall be rung in the said burgh ". The alderman and baillies shall put all delinquents in the king's prison under penalty THE REGULATION OF SOCIAL LIFE 107 of a shilling for each case of neglect. A fine is laid on the playing of football and golf, in James the Second's reign, in order to encourage shooting with the bow (Wapenin- schaw) at each parish church on Sundays, the penalty of neglect being 2d., " to be given to them that come to the bowmark to drink ". Parliament in the same reign enacts minute regulations relative to the dress which the various classes are to wear, the realm being " greatly impover- ished through sumptuous clothing both of men and women and in special within burghs and commons to landward ". Therefore, no one living in a burgh, except alderman, baillies, and members of the Town Council and their wives, may wear silk, or costly scarlet gowns, or furrings of martens. The others are to dress fitly and according to their estates, the women to wear on their heads short kerchiefs with little hoods — the headdress so much admired by the Spanish ambassador, Ayala. Likewise the country people must dress according to regulation, labourers and their wives wearing only grey and white on working days, and on holidays only light blue, or green, or red, the price not to exceed forty pence in all. Moreover no woman may come to market or to the kirk with her face muffled so that " she may not be known " under pain of escheat of the kerchief. Clerics may also not dress above their station. The amount of food to -be consumed by the various classes was also regulated, especially in times of dearth, although the ration allowed was very liberal. In 1 55 1, for instance, Parliament enacted that an archbishop and earl should not have more than eight dishes of meat at meals; an abbot, prior, and dean not more than six; a 108 INDEPENDENCE TO REFORMATION baron and a freeholder four; a burgess three, with only one kind of meat in every dish, exception being made in the case of ecclesiastical feast days, marriages, and banquets. The costume, thus regulated according to rank, seems in the later part of the fifteenth century to have been rather picturesque. In the case of men it consisted mainly of the gown, the doublet, and hose made of various fabrics, according to the social position and the taste of the wearer. The long or " syde " gown reached to the feet, with open front and sometimes a girdle round the waist. It needed 4 or 5 ells (the ell measuring 37 inches) of broad cloth, and from 8 to 15 of narrow cloth, i.e. silk, satin, or damask. In the case of the king and the nobles, it was made of costly material and richly ornamented. The short gown reached only to the knee, and the riding gown and hawking or hunting gown seem to have been still shorter. The doublet was a close-fitting tunic, and the hose, which were fastened to it, were also tight-fitting pantaloons of woollen cloth, usually reaching to the ankles. A shorter variety reached only to the knees and was worn with socks and gaiters. A tippet or cape and a headdress consisting of bonnet, hat, or cap, and footwear of boots, shoes, and " brodkins ", or half boots, completed the dress of a gentleman. In James IV's reign the cost of making a long gown for the king was 55. and 3s. for a doublet. Before the end of the century night-gowns had come into use. Previous to this people slept in their clothes. Female dress consisted of the kirtle, a close-fitting garment reach- ing from the neck to the feet and buttoned at the wrists, THE REGULATION OF SOCIAL LIFE 109 and the gown worn over it and open in front. A stomacher which covered the breast, a collar, and the kerchief or head- dress completed a lady's attire. The cloth used in the making of these garments was, for the most part, imported from Lille or Rouen, and from England. Silks came from Italy, linen from the Low Countries. In quality and colour the dress of the higher classes differed from that of the lower. The high-priced cloth used for the former was usually coloured in black, brown, green, and scarlet. The cheaper sorts worn by the latter were grey, blue, and russet, blue being worn on holidays. From the Treasurer's Accounts of the period we are able to supplement the general notices of Scottish domestic economy given by foreign travellers. The walls of the royal palaces were, we learn, plastered and hung with cloth or arras. The floors of the dwellings of even the greatest in the land were in the fifteenth century strewn with rushes, or bent mingled with sweet herbs, but glass windows had long been in use, mention being made in The Exchequer Rolls of those in King Robert's manor-house at Cardross in the early years of the fourteenth. In the fifteenth bath- rooms were in use in the castles of the nobility as well as in the royal palaces. Grates also were coming into use, one for the king's closet and another for the queen's being furnished by a Leith smith at a cost of iSs. each. The beds were hung with costly silk, or tapestry, and covered with blankets of fustian or broad-cloth, with linen sheets. Articles of diet were relatively cheap in the fifteenth century, as the abundance of flesh and fish, noted by the travellers, would lead us to expect. An ox cost £1, and no INDEPENDENCE TO REFORMATION a whole mutton carcase could be bought for 2s. iod. t a mart, or carcase of salt beef, for 175., a hogshead of herring for 32s., 100 haddocks for 3s., a salmon for the same amount, a boll of meal for 11s., a stone of cheese for 2s. 2d. to 55., 100 cherries for ^d. to 6d. Sugar, on the other hand, which came from Italy, Sicily, Cyprus, and Alexandria, was expensive at from is. 6d. to 2s. per lb. Among the dishes relished at the royal table were crane, heron, solan goose, swan, bittern, porpoise, and seal, as well as sturgeon, venison, and partridge. Dried fruits, spices, confections, continued to be imported for the tables of the well-to-do, and their cellars contained wines from Burgundy, Gascony, and Guyenne, from Portugal, Spain, the Rhine, Cyprus, and the Levant, though claret seems to have been the favourite beverage. The importation of adulterated wines was forbidden under the severest penalties. On arrival, it was proved by the official tasters and the retail price in the taverns was fixed. Ale was the more popular drink. It was made from both oats and barley, and in the absence of hops was flavoured with ginger and other spices and aromatic herbs; brewing, quality, and selling being also strictly regulated. Its price varied with the price of malt, and in the early part of the reign of James IV it was sold at about 12s. per barrel. Beer seems to have been im- ported from Germany during the fifteenth century. At this period whisky, which appears in The Treasurer's Accounts under the name of Aqua Vitae, was apparently little used and seems to have been regarded as a drug rather than a beverage. POPULAR AMUSEMENT in 7. Popular Amusement The amusements of the people were largely bound up with the great church festivals. Yule or Christmas, Uphalyday or Epiphany, Pasch or Easter, as well as the New Year, were celebrated with great feasting and hilarity. The third and fourth Jameses, for instance, invited a large number of lords and ladies to their table on these occasions. A master of revels, who was attended by a fantastically- attired suite, presided over the Yule festivities in the royal palace, the castles of the chief nobility, and the burghs, and great licence was allowed in these boisterous cele- brations. Plays representing sacred subjects were per- formed by professional players such as " Patrick Johnson and the playaris of Lithgow " (Linlithgow), who figure in The Treasurer's Accounts of the third and fourth Jameses' reigns. Other plays of a more secular character were also given on occasion, and one of these, Lindsay's Pleasant Satire of the Three Estates, which became a classic of Scottish literature and depicts in the freest fashion the social life of the time, was acted before the king and the queen in James the Fifth's reign. The sacred or mystery plays seem to have been anything but solemnities in keep- ing with the subject and the occasion, and the parodies of sacred things permitted by the accommodating spirit of the time receives rather drastic illustration in the cele- bration of St. Nicholas Day in December. On this occasion the boy choristers of cathedrals and collegiate churches elected one of their number to play the bishop, and kept up the parody for several days, without apparently ii2 INDEPENDENCE TO REFORMATION any offence being taken at their profane antics. An im- portant part on these festive occasions was taken by the minstrels — luters, harpers, fiddlers, singers, pipers— as well as by the professional players. James III and IV were both lovers of music and liberally patronized the performers on these instruments, sending promising musicians abroad to complete their training. Dancers and acrobats figure in The Treasurer's Accounts, and the court fool was always at hand to provide entertainment for the king's guests. He was, in fact, deemed so indis- pensable a member of the royal household that he accom- panied the king on his journeys. From the municipal statutes regulating the sports, pageants, and processions of the city of Aberdeen from 1440 to 1562, we get a vivid impression of these popular displays, which included sacred as well as secular repre- sentations. Robin Hood and Little John, for instance, on the 1 st May, as well as the procession in honour of St. Nicholas, the city's patron saint, on Candlemas Day. For these processions the Town Council required the various craft gilds to nominate certain of their members, and allotted to them the parts they were to play. The dyers, for instance, are enjoined to furnish the emperor, two doctors of theology, and as many squires as may be requisite. The tailors must produce Our Lady, St. Bridget, St. Helena, St. Joseph, and the necessary squires; the skinners, two bishops, four angels, and squires; the bakers, the minstrels and also squires, and so on. Failure to comply is punished by fine, or the loss of leases held of the Council. The arrangement of these displays is placed under the super- THE RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION 113 vision of two masters of ceremonies, known as the Abbot and the Prior of Bonaccord. The matter was evidently taken very seriously by the worthy Council during the long period from 1440 to 1552, as the curious and some- times entertaining minutes relative to it show. The drunkenness and banqueting that accompanied these boisterous parodies of things sacred were, however, of very questionable benefit to both religion and morals, and in the year 1552 the Council came to the conclusion that they had better be severely restricted in the interest of both, and ultimately, after the Reformation, abolished them. Cards, dice, and backgammon seem to have been the chief domestic diversions of the period. Hunting and hawking were the favourite country sports of the king and the nobles. Shooting at the butts with the cross-bow was a patriotic obligation on all males, whilst the more common out-door recreations consisted of golf, football, skittles, and a form of tennis known as " each ". 8. Influence of the Renaissance and the Reformation In the latter part of this period Scotland came under the influence of these two movements which were to mould its future so powerfully. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the intellectual and religious life was of the mediaeval type, and shows no sign of a departure from that of the previous period. The higher education and thought were dominated by what is known as scholasti- cism, which trained the reason by applying the logic of ii4 INDEPENDENCE TO REFORMATION Aristotle to the discussion of theological and philosophical problems in strict subordination to ecclesiastical authority. Within this limit there was a great deal of intellectual activity in the universities. But from the fourteenth century it tended to degenerate into hair-splitting, mere ingenuity in argument, with far more attention to words than things. The classic literature of Italy and Greece was little studied, and science, as we understand it — the rational and experimental investigation of nature — was almost unknown, except to a rare spirit like Roger Bacon. Elementary education was confined to a little drill in grammar and arithmetic under masters who were often the ignorant and ferocious taskmasters of their pupils. In religion the dominant influence was the monastic one, which was based on the idea that the ordinary human life is antagonistic to the religious life, and that in order to serve God as perfectly as possible it is necessary to with- draw oneself from the world and live in the atmosphere of the cloister. The reaction from the prevailing system in education, in thought, in the religious life, represented by the Re- naissance and the Reformation, came comparatively late to Scotland. In Italy it was already beginning to make itself felt in the fourteenth century through Petrarch, who was its pioneer. In the fifteenth century it was exerting an influence on both culture and religion in the chief Italian cities. From Italy it spread to Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, England, and finally, in the early sixteenth century, to Scotland. Three universities — those of St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen — had, THE RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION 115 indeed, been founded in Scotland during the previous century. But the foundation of these universities is not necessarily a proof of a reaction from the prevailing system of education. They were all founded by bishops of the church, who shared the common scholastic conception of education. Their foundation shows, at least, the growing conviction that it was time to put the means of this educa- tion within easier reach of the Scottish youth. Hitherto young Scotsmen in search of a university education had been under the necessity of going to foreign lands, and in the second half of the fourteenth century Oxford had been the chief resort for this purpose. In the fifteenth, Paris, where a Scots College had been founded even in the reign of Robert Bruce for the benefit of promising Scottish scholars, took the place of Oxford, and the practice con- tinued after the foundation of these Scottish schools of learning. But the resort to Paris was expensive, and the fact that a small and comparatively poor country like Scot- land founded three universities for the higher education of its sons within 100 years reflects no little credit on the mediaeval Church of Scotland, to which this laudable de- parture was due. It took an interest, too, in elementary and secondary, as well as higher education, by establishing schools in the burghs and cathedral towns. Equally creditable is the attention which it continued to bestow on ecclesiastical architecture during this period. Unlike the thirteenth, the fourteenth century, owing to the struggle with England and its devastating effects, cannot be called a century of church building. It witnessed, however, the transition to a new style — the Second or Middle Pointed, u6 INDEPENDENCE TO REFORMATION of which Melrose and Lincluden Abbeys, and St. Machar's Cathedral at Aberdeen, which were begun in this century, are examples. In the following century Dunkeld Cathe- dral and most of the collegiate churches, such as Linlith- gow, Corstorphine, Dalkeith, are evidences of the revived interest in ecclesiastical architecture. The church may claim, too, some share of the merit of having produced the remarkable vernacular literature of which Professor Hume Brown has said without exaggeration that " no country except Italy surpassed or even equalled ". Barbour (for old Wyntoun is only a somewhat garrulous chronicler in verse) was the worthy forerunner of James I, Henryson, William Dunbar, and Sir David Lyndsay, not to mention Major, Boece, and Buchanan, who wrote in Latin. In this respect the' Scotland of these late mediaeval centuries may well invite comparison with the rest of Europe, how- ever fastidiously some of its contemporary foreign visitors might regard the homely exterior of the life and manners of its people. The merit of bringing Scotland in the early sixteenth century under the influence of the new culture belongs to a number of the young scholars who continued the practice of resorting to Paris and other foreign universities. Among these were Hector Boece, Patrick Hamilton, George Dundas, Patrick Panter, William Hay, Gavin Douglas, and, most important of all, George Buchanan, who was a humanist of European reputation before he finally returned to his native land after the establishment of the Scottish Reformation. It was in the reigns of James V and Queen Mary that its growing influence in THE RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION 117 Scotland became operative. But those of James III and IV served as a preparation for it. Both these monarchs were active patrons of the arts. In the fourth James's reign the first printing press was set up at Edinburgh. Parlia- ment showed its interest in education in the measure of 1496 enacting that all barons and freeholders should send their eldest sons to the Grammar Schools at eight or nine years of age, and afterwards for three years to the univer- sities, in order that they might have due knowledge of the laws and be* better fitted to administer justice. James himself is said by Ayala to have been an accomplished linguist, speaking besides Latin and Scots, Gaelic, French, German, Flemish, Italian, and Spanish, and to have been well versed in Latin and French histories, He also set himself to improve and enlarge the royal residences of Holy- rood, Linlithgow, Stirling, and Falkland at a time when the influence of the Renaissance was making itself felt in France in the erection of the magnificent castles of the French kings and nobles, which remain as monuments of the distinctive Renaissance Architecture. In Scotland, on the other hand, there was as yet little attempt, apart from the improvement of the royal palaces, to improve upon the towel's, or " keeps ", which had taken the place of the castles destroyed in the War of Independence. The ruins of these square, thick- walled, grim-looking towers, with their narrow windows, whose main purpose was de- fence, are a striking and somewhat forbidding memorial of this bellicose age. " The square towers or Norman keeps ", to quote MacGibbon and Ross, " which had become familiar to n8 INDEPENDENCE TO REFORMATION the Scots in their frequent invasions of the northern counties of England, naturally became their model, and all the castles of this period preserved to us are built on this plan ". Sometimes the keep was modified by the addition of a small wing at one corner in order to increase the accommodation. The hall occupied the first floor, to which access was obtained by a movable stair or ladder, and formed the sleeping- and living-room of the domestics and retainers. Above it, on the second floor, were the apartments of the lord and his family, and there was usually an upper chamber under the roof. The keep stood in a courtyard enclosed by a strong wall, and con- taining stables, barns, &c. Whilst specially character- istic of the fourteenth century, this style of tower con- tinued to be erected in the fifteenth and sixteenth. In the fifteenth, however, a new type appears in the group of buildings surrounding a courtyard or quadrangle, of which the keep in some cases forms a part. Tantallon and Doune Castles, and the royal palaces of Linlithgow, Stirling, Holy- rood, Falkland, are examples of this fifteenth-century development. In Scotland, as in other lands of Western and Central Europe, the Renaissance of culture was the forerunner of the Reformation of religion. From contemporary records we hear much of the decay of the religious life of the early sixteenth century. This testimony is so universal that there can be no doubt of the rampant decay of religion and morality. It is found in Acts of Parliament and Church Councils, and in the writings of reforming churchmen like John Major, Ninian Winzet, Quentin Kennedy, as THE RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION 119 well as of those who, like Lyndsay and Knox, became the champions of evangelical reform in opposition to the old Church. The secular clergy of all grades were, according to these acts, largely ignorant and immoral, and the monastic orders were in no better case. Apart from the religious and moral aspect of the matter, there was grave reason on economic grounds for this widespread dis- satisfaction. The church was the possessor of a large proportion of the land and wealth of the country, and it was now in the position of a decadent institution, which rendered only a very inefficient service to the State in return for its privileges and its vast wealth. The monas- teries, according to Major and other competent witnesses, had long ceased to be schools of virtue and fosterers of industry. The people were indifferent or hostile on account of the grasping spirit in which an inefficient ecclesiastical order exacted the numerous ecclesiastical dues which even the poor man had to pay. They looked upon the monks as drones and vampires, whose illgotten and misapplied gear they were determined to take for the use of the poor, as the Beggars' Summonds, for instance, shows. The nobility envied the higher clergy their great possessions, and were only too ready to take advantage of any pretext to seize these possessions. Add to this the growing strength of the partisans of the evangelical re- formation on the lines of that championed by Luther in Germany, and later by Calvin at Geneva, whose influence had begun to make itself increasingly felt in the second quarter of the sixteenth century. This influence came mainly to Scotland through men like Patrick Hamilton i2o INDEPENDENCE TO REFORMATION and George Wishart, who had come personally into con- tact with the new intellectual and religious movement on the Continent, and through the circulation of the works of Luther and Tyndale, of which the traders between the east-coast ports and the Netherlands were the medium. According to Knox some of these traders were themselves adherents of the new faith and helped to spread it. From these various causes the establishment of the Reformation in Scotland became more and more a proba- bility with the advance of the century, and their operation in seconding the efforts of reforming preachers like Hamilton, Wishart, and Knox, explains the swiftness with which the old church ultimately collapsed and the Re- formed Church was substituted for it by Act of Parlia- ment in 1560. These two movements — the Renaissance and the Refor- mation — had very important effects on the social and industrial life of the nation. The influence of the former is more observable in Scotland in the sphere of education. Humanists like George Buchanan and Andrew Melville strove to render education more effective and practical, to develop both the intelligence and the character of the pupil, to enable him to render the best service possible as a workman or a citizen. The Reformed Church, under the influence of John Knox, sought to abet their efforts in this direction by striving to set up a school in each parish and thus bring the new education within the reach of all. It also emphasized in The First Book of Discipline the duty of both Church and State to provide for the deserving poor, and championed the demand for the social better- THE RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION 121 ment of the people. Moreover, even as a religious move- ment, the Reformation had no little effect in the direction of energizing the life of the individual. Very noteworthy in this respect, is the remark of Killigrew, the English Resident in Scotland at this time. " Methinks I see the noblemen's great credit decay in this country, and the barons, burghs, and suchlike take more upon them ". It nurtured the spirit of political liberty which was one of the conditions of national progress. It substituted for the monastic conception that of the active life as the true service of God, and in this respect gave a powerful im- pulse, ultimately if not immediately, to the economic de- velopment of the country. The transference of ecclesi- astical property was not indeed an unmixed good, for the spoliation of the old church deprived the new of the means of adequately carrying out its enlightened schemes for the benefit of the people. It at least removed the abuse of providing for a degenerate clerical and monastic class a life of sloth and vice without any adequate return in efficient service to the State, and from the economic as well as the moral point of view this was so far a distinct gain. Sources: — The Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, edited by Burnett; Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland; Acts of the Parlia- ments of Scotland I and II; Ancient Laws and Customs of the Burghs I and II; Records of the Convention of Royal Burghs; Major, History of Greater Britain (Scottish History Society, 1891); Hume Brown, Early Travellers in Scotland (1891), and Scotland before 1700 from Contemporary Documents (1893); Gregory Smith, The Days of James IV (1890); MacKinnon, History of Edward HI (1900); Davidson and Gray, The Scottish Staple at Veere (1909); Cosmo Innes, Works cited at end of previous chapter; Barbour, The Bruce, edited by Mac- ' d 17 ) 9 122 INDEPENDENCE TO REFORMATION Kenzie (1909); Ross, Scottish Literature and History (1884); Hep- burn Millar, Literary History of Scotland (1903); MacKinnon, His- tory of Modern Liberty II (1906); MacGibbon and Ross, Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland, and Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland; Edgar, History of Early Scottish Education (1893). CHAPTER V FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION OF THE PARLIAMENTS The distinctive influences in shaping the national life during this period were, in the main, the union of the crowns of England and Scotland in 1603, and the long con- flict between the Presbyterian and the Episcopal systems of Church government, which had marked social and in- dustrial effects as well as involved great ecclesiastical and political issues, and culminated in the Revolution of 1689. 1. The Union of the Crowns and its Economic Effects One of the important results of the establishment of the Reformation in Scotland was the substitution of an Anglo- Scottish for the old Franco-Scottish Alliance. It was, in fact, partly in virtue of the alliance of the party of Reform in Scotland with Protestant England that this party succeeded in the attempt to overthrow both the French League and the Roman Church in 1560. The attempt of Queen Mary to maintain the old League with France in opposition to her rival, Elizabeth, and to evade the religious settlement of 1560, was finally thwarted by her deposition in 1567 and her decisive defeat at Langside 123 124 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION in the following year. Throughout his active reign as King of Scotland James VI cultivated the goodwill of England in view of his ultimate succession to the English throne as the great-grandson of Margaret, daughter of Henry VII and queen of James IV. With his actual succession in 1 603 the two kingdoms at last came under the rule of a single monarch, and the Anglo-Scottish alliance of 1560 bore fruit in their subjection to a common ruler. This subjection did not, however, necessarily imply a common participation by the subjects of either country in all the rights and privileges of the other. Whilst the crowns were vested in the person of the king, the two kingdoms remained substantially distinct, as before, under their respective governments, and economic, legal, and ecclesiastical systems. Even this very partial measure of union was in itself an advantage to both countries. On the one hand, it tended to deliver England from the old menace of Scottish hostility in the sphere of international policy, and enabled it the better to maintain its national interests against the predominance of Spain and later of France. To have Scotland as a partner under a common ruler, instead of an enemy under a separate king, as in the old days of the Franco-Scottish League, was of enormous importance in view of the coming development of England as a colonizing power. Its rising position among the European nations and its colonial expansion would have been greatly re- tarded by the continuance of the old active Anglo-Scottish enmity, which had reacted very adversely on the interests of both nations. On the other hand, it was no less a ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF REGAL UNION 125 distinct advantage for Scotland to be freed from the con- tinuous menace of war with England and the oft-recurring desolation and misery of an English invasion. Nevertheless the mere union of the Crowns was far from being an unmixed blessing, especially to Scotland. The Scottish capital suffered materially by the removal of its king and court to that of England. Though Scotland retained its separate Parliament and Government, their action was liable to be determined or hampered by English influences. It was involved in the meshes of English foreign policy and English wars, over which it had no effective control. Under the regal union England was the rival and at times the enemy of both France and Holland, and this rivalry and enmity affected very adversely the Scottish trade with both. War with either meant the interruption or the diminution of this trade, which formed the bulk of Scottish foreign commerce, and thus caused a sense of grievance, on practical grounds, which went on increasing with the century. Moreover, Scotland was denied the privilege of free trade across the Border which it was prepared to bestow on England, and freedom of trade on both sides was indispensable if the union of the Crowns was to prove a permanent bond between the two peoples. Scotland being the poorer country was par- ticularly interested in this aspect of the new relation to its " auld enemy", and the reluctance of England to re- cognize its claim to an unrestricted share in the benefits of English trade, internal, foreign, and colonial, intensified from the outset the sense of grievance under the regal union which was cherished north of the Tweed throughout 126 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION the greater part of the seventeenth century. As the richer and larger country England was inclined to adopt a rather superior tone towards its poorer neighbour. It naturally thought more of its own interests and sought to regulate matters so as to secure its own prosperity. In vain James strove to overcome its egotism by pressing on the English as well as the Scottish Parliament the project of a closer union soon after his accession. As the result of his in- sistence, both appointed commissioners to consider the question, and these commissioners presented a report recommending the abolition of all previous hostile legis- lation, the adoption of free trade with the exception of certain specified articles, a uniform tariff for goods im- ported from abroad, and free navigation for ships between their respective ports. The English Parliament, whilst abolishing all old hostile acts, refused to sanction this liberal policy, and the ratification of it by the Scottish Estates at Perth in 1607 thus became of no effect. James endeavoured to carry it out by proclamations, declaring all his Scottish subjects born after his accession to be non-aliens, &c. But this evidence of his personal good- will was a meagre substitute for the larger policy which would have materially contributed to transform a common sovereignty into the symbol of a common national in- terest. During the reigns of James VI and Charles I a new departure was made in the attempt to foster a national industry by the development of manufactures and the fisheries. Hence, in 1597, the imposition of duties on imports as well as exports in order to encourage home ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF REGAL UNION 127 industry, the appointment of a Commission on Manu- factures to develop the woollen cloth and linen industry, the grant of monopolies (patents) to individuals or com- panies for the manufacture of soap, glass, and leather, and the encouragement given to Flemish weavers and English tanners to settle in Scotland for the purpose of instructing Scottish craftsmen in better methods of workmanship. In 1633 the magistrates of Peebles decided to have spinning taught to the children of burgesses by a qualified mistress. Parliament in 1641 sought to stimulate the new policy by exempting foreign wool, dyes, and oil, necessary for the making of fine cloth, from import duties and the manu- factured cloth from taxation, and in 1645 by exempting factory masters and workmen from military service. Several factories were set up at Bonnington, near Leith, Ayr, and New Mills, near Haddington. The results do not seem to have been considerable, owing to the lack of skilled workmen and sufficient capital, and in any case the civil disorders of the later part of the reign of Charles were not favourable to industrial development. As the result of Cromwell's victories over the Covenan- ters at Dunbar in 1650 and over Charles II at Worcester in the following year, Scotland was incorporated into the English Commonwealth. It thereby received the boon of full freedom of trade, which was henceforth to enjoy mutual " privileges, freedom, and charges ". But it did not relish the Protector's drastic union policy, which was the result of conquest, though it took the form of a so- called negotiation. Owing to the heavy taxation and the restriction of foreign exports in the interest of English i*8 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION manufactures, it does not seem to have greatly prospered from this concession, and on political grounds it enthusi- astically welcomed the Restoration. But the Restoration brought with it, and even intensified, the old system of restriction. The Scots were, moreover, hard hit by the English Navigation Laws against the Dutch, which de- barred Scottish ships from any share in the English carry- ing trade. The Scottish Parliament retaliated by placing English ships under the same restrictions as far as Scottish trade was concerned. Retaliation was, however, rather a desperate remedy in the case of a poor country as against a far richer one. Parliament endeavoured, further, to stimulate industrial production on the lines of the acts of 1 64 1 and 1645, but the practical result was again meagre, though sugar and soap works were started at Glasgow, wool-carding and glass-making at Leith, and, in connection with soap boiling, several ships were fitted out for whale fishing. As a further means of remedying the low state of trade and industry Parliament made an effort to ne- gotiate a closer union with England. It prayed Charles II to appoint commissioners to discuss the question, and two commissions successively deliberated at London for this purpose between the years 1666 and 1670. As before, the negotiations came to nothing, and ten years later Par- liament again sought a remedy in renewed protective legislation " for encouraging trade and manufactures ". To this end the act of 1681 forbade the importation of linen, calico, cambric, and other articles which could be manufactured within the kingdom as well as, for sump- tuary reasons, the importation or wearing of articles of ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF REGAL UNION 129 luxury. It exempted all raw material imported for the purpose of such manufacture, and the goods so manufac- tured from duties. It conferred monopolies on the manufacturers and offered naturalization in order to attract skilled foreign artisans. This attempt at inde- pendent development seems to have had some success in the stimulation of industry. But the persecuting policy of the Government, which had provoked a series of popular risings and placed a large part of the country under martial law, was not fitted to give its industrial policy a fair chance. No country could thrive under such un- toward conditions, and, as the result of long-continued misgovernment, Scotland on the eve of the Revolution of 1689 had become deplorably indigent and impotent. The Revolution put an end to the long internal strife on political and ecclesiastical grounds by guaranteeing constitutional government, and finally establishing the Presbyterian Church of Scotland at the expense of its Episcopal rival. It did not result in securing a revision of the regal union in the interest of Scottish industrial and commercial development. Once more the Scottish Parliament emphasized the necessity of obtaining more satisfactory terms of partnership with its southern neigh- bour and nominated a commission for this purpose. Once more the proposal proved abortive owing to English op- position, in spite of the sympathy of William III, and this rebuff led the Scots to make trial again of the principle of self help in competition with an unfriendly partner. The situation as portrayed by patriotic writers like Fletcher of Saltoun and Seton of Pitmedden was, indeed, i 3 o THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION desperate enough and called for radical treatment. Ac- cording to Fletcher, the country was " sunk to so low a condition as to be despised by all our neighbours and made incapable to repel an injury if any should be offered ". In proof of this assertion he gives a very sombre picture of seaports, formerly the scenes of a thriving commerce, falling into ruin, of an ever-decreasing mercantile marine, of a decaying agriculture, of industry languishing for lack of capital. Most of the once prosperous Fife burghs, which formerly owned as many ships as are possessed by the whole country, " are in our day little better than so many heaps of ruins ". The decay of trade had adversely affected agriculture by diminishing the value of land, impoverishing the tenant, and compelling him to pay the landlord in kind. Equally dark is the economic situation depicted by Seton. It was aggravated during the last decade of the century by a series of bad harvests which reduced a large proportion of the people to beggary and drove many to emigrate to the north of Ireland to con- tribute by their thrift and energy to the prosperity of modern Ulster. According to Fletcher the number of vagrants rose as high as 200,000 and he puts the number in ordinary times at not less than 100,000. As he esti- mates the population at a million and a half, one-seventh of the whole during these terrible years, and in ordinary times one-fifteenth, must have been wandering about in idleness and misery, stealing or exacting the means of subsistence. As a remedy for these desperate social and industrial conditions he suggests the introduction of slavery on the patriarchal model. Though the numbers ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF REGAL UNION 131 are not exact and the picture seems rather overdrawn, it is substantially supported by the official evidence as to the state of a number of the burghs submitted to a par- liamentary commission. In 1692 the royal burghs agreed to share their exclusive trade privileges with the un- privileged burghs on condition of their undertaking to bear a tenth part of the taxation levied on the former. Parliament appointed a commission to adjust the terms of the agreement and the commission was bombarded with petitions from the latter pleading poverty. The inhabi- tants of Bo'ness, for instance, lament that the number of ships belonging to even so considerable a seaport was greatly reduced and half of them were owned by Hol- landers and other foreigners. Decline of trade and famine had burdened the burgh with the support of 100 families. Kelso submits that its former thriving trade has almost died out. From Prestonpans and Tranent come the same doleful story of declining trade and depopulation. The ruined walls of houses, once occupied by prosperous traders, attest the change from former opulence to squalid want. The same evils furnish other places with specious reasons for considerate dealing at the hands of the com- missioners, and some are in the unenviable position to adduce the further plea that many of their ships have be- come the prizes of French privateers during the war with France. Fletcher ascribes the deplorable decline of prosperity mainly to the union of the crowns which has been an insuperable obstacle to commercial and industrial pro- gress. " Our trade with France ", he says, " was very 132 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION advantageous by reason of the great privileges we enjoyed in that kingdom. Our commerce with Spain had been very considerable, and began during the wars between England and that nation; we drove a great trade in the Baltic with our fish, before the Dutch had wholly pos- sessed themselves of that advantageous traffic. Upon the Union of the Crowns not only all this went to decay, but our money was spent in England and not among our- selves; the furniture of our houses and the best of our clothes and equipages were bought at London; and though particular persons of the Scots nation had many great and profitable places at court, to the high displeasure of the English, yet that was no advantage to our country, which was: totally neglected, like a farm managed by servants, and not under the eye of the master." Seton agrees, but he points out that Scotsmen, by their lack of enterprise in fostering the home manufacture of their raw materials, instead of importing manufactured goods from other countries, are themselves not without a share of the blame. He denounces the prevailing corruption and selfishness of the Government and the ruling classes which use their power for personal ends, instead of for the public benefit. Agricultural depression he ascribes to the frequent sale of estates, and the fact that the seller finds it his interest to rackrent the tenants in order to raise the price, whilst the unfortunate farmer, who can find no redress in the baron courts, in which his oppressors are both judges and de- fendants, is reduced to bankruptcy and beggary. The regal union, by subordinating the interests of Scot- land to those of England, whilst Scotland was refused the THE UNION OF THE KINGDOMS 133 redress of grievances which were a consequence of this political connection, was doubtless a main source of the economic blight of so large a part of the seventeenth century. Towards its close the existing political system stood condemned, on this account, in the eyes of all classes and parties. At the same time the deplorable economic situation was also due in no small degree to the internal disorder and the misgovernment which had so long hampered the national development. 2. The Union of the Kingdoms on a Free Trade Basis With the advent of the new order of things established by the Revolution, the nation might hope, in spite of the continued handicap of an imperfect form of union, to retrieve its blighted prosperity, if not in co-operation, at least in competition with England in trade, colonization, and industry. Hence a new series of acts for the en- couragement of trade and industry which resulted in the establishment of a number of new enterprises by indi- viduals or companies during the last decade of the century, which are thus summarized by Professor Scott : "An important linen Company, known as the ' Scots Linen Manufacture', was incorporated in 1693, a silk factory in 1697, and manufactures of baizes, stockings, sailcloth, ropes, cordage, from 1690 to 1700. Two new partnerships for sugar refining were formed at Glasgpw in 1696 and 1700. A company for making white paper was established in 1694. In the department of iron, steelwork, and mining there was a number of ventures. A ' Company for 134 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION working mines and minerals in Scotland ' was formed in 1694; another for a draining engine in 1693; a foundry had been established in Edinburgh in 1686. There were two hardware companies (for making knives, scythes, &c.) at Glasgow in 1 699-1700, and a co-partnery for smelting minerals (1700) Of a more miscellaneous character were two gunpowder works (1690 and 1695), a leather stamp- ing company (1695), a company at Leith for works in horn and ivory (1695), another to carry on sawmills at Leith (1695), and a pottery company (1703) ". To finance these and similar schemes, Parliament, at the suggestion of John Holland, who seems to have been an Englishman interested in Scottish trade, established the Bank of Scotland in 1695 with a monopoly for 21 years. But the expedient which seemed to promise the most effective results in raising Scotland from poverty to prosperity was that establishing a great colonizing and trading company, in the same year, in the form of an " Act for a Company trading to Africa and the Indies ". The suggestion in this case came from William Paterson, the founder of the Bank of England, the successful West India merchant, and the advocate of universal free trade. Paterson had faith in the aptness of his countrymen for colonization, and summoned them by voice and pen to remedy their low fortune by this means. He opened to them the vista of a great free-trade colony in the Isthmus of Panama — " the key of the world " — which should afford a field for Scottish enterprise and capital, and, perhaps, direct the trade with East and West from English and Dutch to Scottish seaports. That trade would quicken THE UNION OF THE KINGDOMS 135 industry, transform Scotland into a great manufacturing and seafaring people, and revindicate her name among the nations. It was a grand scheme on paper, and was fitted to appeal to the imagination and the competitive mood of Parliament and people. The nation rushed in to buy the shares of the company, and, notwithstanding its poverty, subscribed the sum of £400,000. The bitter opposition of the English Parliament, which bullied the English shareholders into withdrawing their support, and even summoned the directors to answer at its bar for their hardihood in presuming to compete with English interests, did not suffice to shake the confidence of its Scottish sup- porters. The obstacles placed in the way of launching it by English and Dutch agents on the Continent, whither the Scots turned for subscribers after the withdrawal of the English shareholders, left them undaunted. In spite of this combination of adverse circumstances, the scheme was inaugurated by the despatch to Panama, amid the prayers and hopes of a whole people, of a trading and colonizing squadron carrying a great diversity of merchan- dise and 1500 settlers in May, 1698. This inauguration proved, unfortunately, to be a leap in the dark. From the outset the directors and their mentor, William Paterson, showed that they had not sufficiently considered both the hazards and the obstacles that lay in the way of success. Disagreement among the colonists, the opposition of the English Government, the hostility of the Spaniards, who claimed as theirs the land on which New Edinburgh was founded, and still more fatal, the terrible effects of an unhealthy climate, brought 136 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION an accumulation of disasters in their train. Two additional squadrons sailed in the following year, only to discover the melancholy failure of the first, and to abandon in their turn a settlement, which they were unable to hold against the Spaniards and unfit to colonize against the still more formidable forces of dissension and fever. The news of this abandonment was a crushing blow to Scotland, which had sunk a large part of its available capital in the effort to give effect to what had proved to be a visionary scheme. It precipitated the nation into a fury against England, to whose hostility, rather than to its own lack of experience and foresight, it attributed the disaster. It gave vent to its wrath in a torrent of passionate speeches and petitions. It demanded justice of a king whom it accused of betraying the interests of Scotland to those of England. Angry voices proclaimed the necessity for a dissolution of a partnership which bound Scotland to the heel of England. William III was as unpopular in Scot- land in 1700 as James Vllth had been in 1688. William, however, hardly deserved all the censure that was hurled upon him. To support a scheme that incurred the sus- picion of being an aggression on Spain, though it was not meant to be such, would have involved him in war with the Spaniards at a juncture of European affairs which rendered it urgently necessary to avoid war. Moreover, though William had crossed the Scots in the Darien scheme, he was an ardent advocate of justice to Scotland. He saw the necessity for Scottish co-operation with Eng- land both in foreign policy and colonization. He was convinced that, if England was to become a great com- THE UNION OF THE KINGDOMS 137 mercial and colonizing power, it must be at the price of admitting the Scottish demand for free trade. On the eve of his death he solemnly exhorted the English Parlia- ment to give justice to Scotland and cultivate Scottish co-operation by the amalgamation of the interests and privileges of both nations. His successor, Queen Anne, took up his policy, and in 1702 nominated a commission to discuss the terms of a treaty of union. The commission failed to reach an agree- ment, and its failure stirred Scottish discontent and in- dignation once more into activity and steeled the determin- ation to force better terms of partnership or dissolve the regal union. This determination found decisive expression during the session of 1703 in the Act of Security, which declared that Scotland would eventually re-establish its indepen- dence unless England met its demand for better terms of union, and, in spite of the opposition of the Scottish Government, it was passed by a large majority in August 1703. It failed to secure the royal assent, but, in the following session (1704), the majority refused to accept a counter-proposal by the Government to settle the suc- cession in accordance with the English statute, in return for some limitations of the prerogative of the future monarch of Scotland, and reiterated its adherence to its own Act. Its persistence forced the queen to give way, for England was immersed in the war of the Spanish succession, and could not afford to risk a struggle with Scotland. The Act at last brought home to the English Parliament (D17) 10 138 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION the gravity of the situation in Scotland, and it forced that Parliament to reopen the question of a closer union as the only remedy for an untenable situation. Closer union or separation were now, in fact, the only alternatives. The Lords and Commons did not relish the challenge involved in the Act, and, while empowering the queen once more to nominate a Commission to negotiate a treaty, retaliated by several measures, declaring, inter alia, all Her Majesty's subjects of Scotland aliens, unless they should within a year repeal their obnoxious Act, or agree to a treaty for " an entire and complete union ". In this emergency the lack of a spirit of compromise might easily have led to a repetition of the old sanguinary strife, that had so often desolated both sides of the Border in pre-Reformation days. This tragic contingency was happily obviated by the self-restraint and political instinct of the majority of the Scottish Parliament, which, though resenting the re- taliatory spirit of the Lords and Commons, finally agreed to the proposal for a treaty, and, after heated debates, em- powered the queen to nominate Scottish Commissioners on the i st September, 1705. In view of the results of its deliberations, this Com- mission, which met in April, 1706, and continued its sittings till towards the end of July, was certainly the most memorable Commission in British annals. On its decision hung the destiny of Great Britain and the British Empire. Had it failed to reach an agreement, British history from 1707 onwards would have run in a very different channel, and the influence of Britain as a Great Power in Europe, and as the greatest of modern colonizing nations could THE UNION OF THE KINGDOMS 139 not possibly have been what it subsequently became. Its meeting in the Cockpit at Westminster, on the 1 6th April, 1706, was, therefore, epoch-making, if ever meeting was. The English Commissioners met the demand of the Scots for commercial union with the demand for the in- corporation of the two kingdoms under an united Parlia- ment. In the face of the prevailing sentiments in both countries, sacrifice on both sides was imperative if the Commission was to avoid the failure of its predecessors. The English were keenly jealous of any Scottish intrusion into the preserve of their commerce; the Scots were equally keenly intent on preserving their Parliament, as the most cherished of their national institutions. If each persisted in maintaining its respective predilections, a dead- lock was inevitable. In order to attain a practical result, therefore, Scotland must give up its Parliament; England must yield free trade to Scotland. The Scots would fain have evaded the unwelcome alternative by a federal union on the basis of commercial equality, and they strove to persuade their English colleagues to adopt this solution. Their efforts were futile, for England would not consent to make what it deemed so great a sacrifice as commercial equality for anything less than incorporation, and even then incorporation meant for Englishmen the renuncia- tion of their Parliamentary independence. The sacrifice, when the amount of compromise, renunciation was equably considered, was thus not all on one side, and the willingness of both sides to co-operate in a policy of take and give resulted at length in the elaboration of that ever- 140 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION memorable treaty of which Parliamentary and commercial unity were the fundamentals. It was far from popular on both sides of the Border. The majority of the Scottish people regretted and resented the abolition of their Parliament, and clung to the idea of a Federal Union on Free Trade principles. To this majority it seemed like bartering away the Scottish inde- pendence which it had cost so much blood and effort to maintain. They were apprehensive, too, for the per- manence of those institutions which the treaty had left intact, especially for the maintenance of the Established Presbyterian Church. It encountered, therefore, de- termined and passionate opposition both in the Parliament House, Edinburgh, and throughout the country during the last session of the Scottish Parliament, which opened on the 3rd October, 1706, and there were riots outside Parliament as well as hot debates within before it finally received the approval of a majority of the Estates on the 16th January, 1707. The opposition to it on the part of the minority of the English Parliament was equally keen, if not so passionate, and it is a radical mistake to assume that Englishmen regarded the transaction as an insidious English conquest of Scotland. Many, on the contrary, looked on it rather as an insidious Scottish conquest of England. The truth is that for England as well as Scot- land the Union meant the surrender of some things that Englishmen as well as Scotsmen would fain have retained. For England, as for Scotland, indeed, it reserved the legal, ecclesiastical, and educational system intact. But, if Scotland lost its Parliament, the English Parliament was THE UNION OF THE KINGDOMS 141 no longer the exclusive representation of the English people. The Scottish Presbyterian Church received equal recognition with that of England as a State Church, and Scotland had at last extorted the boon which it had long contended for, viz. unrestricted freedom of trade with England and an equal share in the trade with the English colonies. Moreover, the United Kingdom displaced Eng- land from the predominant position which it had occupied in foreign policy under the regal Union, and conferred on Scotland a not inconsiderable influence in the general government of Great Britain and the English over-sea possessions. This memorable transaction preserved for Scotland its national individuality, whilst affording it the conditions of a new development — ultimate, if not immediate — of material prosperity. It rendered impossible the inter- national strife and bloodshed of pre-Reformation days. It exemplified the principle of arbitration instead of force in the settlement of international disputes, and thus afforded to Europe at large an object-lesson in the efficacy of reason and self-restraint as applied to such disputes — an object- lesson which it has only begun to try to take to heart as the result of the most damning and desolating conflict which the barbarous belief in war has ever conjured among civilized nations so called. It furnished the political con- ditions which alone could make possible the colonizing mission of the British race. It enabled Scotland, in co- operation with England, to play a far grander part in the world's history than it could have done singly, or in alliance with France or any other European nation. And it 142 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION afforded a striking illustration of the efficacy of free trade as a means of lessening the enmities of nations. The union of the Parliaments was, indeed, a sore point with those who preferred a federal union on the free trade principle, and strong arguments on practical grounds may be adduced in favour of this revision of the parliamentary union as a part of a policy of all-round Home Rule for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. But this policy was not within the range of practical politics in those far-off contentious days, and, judged by its material results for both countries, the union was a step, though not necessarily the final step, in the right direction. 3. Presbyterianism and Political Liberty The system of church government introduced at the Reformation conferred on the members of every congre- gation the right to elect their minister and the elders and deacons who assisted him in its oversight. It practically, if not formally, invested the general supervision and ad- ministration of the Church in the General Assembly composed both of clerical and lay members. Whilst appointing superintendents to establish churches and exercise supervision over them, these officials were not bishops in the old sense and were subject to the juris- diction of their brethren of the province over which they were placed (First Book of Discipline). The office was, moreover, only a temporary one, rendered necessary by the fewness of ministers, and in the Second Book of Dis- cipline which the Church adopted in 1581, and Parliament sanctioned in 1592, it was discarded in favour of a system PRESBYTER VERSUS PRELATE 143 explicitly based on the parity of ministers, and investing the government of the Church in a series of courts, with the General Assembly as the supreme court for the whole church. Whilst recognizing the rights of the State in its own sphere, and accepting its co-operation in the main- tenance of religion and ecclesiastical discipline, it laid stress on the independence of the Church in the ecclesi- astical sphere. After ten years of opposition King James gave his sanction to the system in 1592. But his personal preference was for the episcopal system which better accorded with his high notions of his royal prerogative. His favourite motto against both the Puritans of England and the Presbyterians of Scotland was " No bishop, no king ". It was an extreme notion, for the Scottish Presbyterians were the staunch adherents of a monarchy limited by the laws, and the English Puritans were not necessarily rebels against the royal authority. A large section even of his English Episcopalian subjects were not disposed to submit to the unlimited exercise of the pre- rogative. But James saw in the bishop a more pliant instrument of the royal power than in the sturdy presbyter of the type of Andrew Melville. And he was right in his conclusion. The more autocratic Episcopal system was better suited for the realization of his policy of playing the master in the State than the more democratic Presby- terian system, which not only accorded to laymen a share in the government of the Church, but sharply distin- guished between the ecclesiastical and the civil power and opposed the exercise of the royal authority in things spiritual. i 4 4 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION Hence his set policy of undermining the Presbyterian in favour of the Episcopal Church Government, which was finally established for a quarter of a century in 1612. This result was a triumph of unscrupulous royal statecraft. But it aroused widespread discontent, and the resentment was increased by the introduction some years later of certain ecclesiastical usages intended to bring the Scottish Church into greater conformity to that of England. This was the beginning of that dour opposition to the high- handed tactics of a would-be absolute king, which, in the reign of his son, the opinionated Charles I, was to lead to revolt and civil war and the temporary fall of the Stuart monarchy in England as well as Scotland. The reaction against the drastic republicanism of Cromwell and his Puritan regime in both countries produced, indeed, the Restoration of 1660. But Charles II and his brother James, who succeeded him, had learned little from the disastrous autocratic policy of their father, and the re- establishment of Episcopacy in Scotland and the persecu- tion of its opponents led to the revival of resistance and civil war, and ultimately to the Revolution of 1689, which made an end of Stuart despotism in both church and State as far as Scotland was concerned. The struggle, which lasted for fully a century, had im- portant effects on the national spirit, apart from the merely ecclesiastical contentions at issue. Some of these con- tentions, such as the divine right of Presbytery, which was a set-off to the divine right of Prelacy, the iniquity of using a set form of prayer in worship, or celebrating the great church festivals, or wearing a white surplice instead of a POLITICAL EFFECTS OF STRUGGLE 145 black Geneva gown in the pulpit, have ceased to be in our eyes the enormities they appeared to our sensitive narrow Presbyterian forbears. Those who resisted King James or King Charles to the death over these things may appear to a more tolerant age dour and fractious. They were certainly intolerant enough in their treatment of oppo- nents in the day of their own supremacy, and the more fanatic section of them, which magnified the terms of their Covenants into articles of faith, laid themselves open at times to the charge of mistaking the externals for the essentials of religion. Even so, this passionate con- viction, even when conviction may seem to us unen- lightened, is at least an evidence of the strength of char- acter, the public spirit which the long and bitter struggle tended to foster, and which it was to bequeath to the future. The beginnings of these things may be traced back to the days when the middle class and the peasantry of Scotland rallied round Knox to win and maintain the establishment of the Reformation against the Queen Regent, Mary of Lorraine, and her daughter, Queen Mary. It was the perpetuation of this spirit that finally thwarted the auto- cratic policy and methods of their descendants. More- over, the struggle had its political as well as its ecclesiastical side, and from the political point of view its importance for the development of the constitutional freedom, the democratic spirit of modern Scotland can hardly be over- rated. From this point of view the struggle of Presbytery against Prelacy as the prop of arbitrary government is of the utmost significance. It made Scotland a pioneer of political liberty at a time when absolute government was 146 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION dominant on the Continent, and prepared her sons to become the meet partners of Englishmen in the ultimate extension and defence of this liberty not only in Europe, but in the new lands beyond the seas. 4. Church Discipline and Social Life The Calvinist discipline, which formed so distinctive a feature of the Presbyterian Church Government, was fitted to nurture the strength of character and will needful for the maintenance of this far-reaching conflict. It was certainly very exacting and all-pervading. The regula- tion of national and social life by Church, Parliament, and Town Council, was no new thing. It was, as we have seen, an inherent part of the mediaeval social system which controlled every phase of the life of the individual and the community. As applied in the ecclesiastical sphere, it was not invented by John Calvin at Geneva, or John Knox in Scotland. It was simply the retention, in altered circumstances, of the penitential system of the old church. It was a legacy taken over from the middle ages. It only differs from the previous order in its more systematic and active application in the attempt to mould the moral life of the nation and the individual on what the Reformed Church deemed the true Christian pattern. The need for a reformation of social and individual life was, indeed, urgent. Social and individual morality was at a very low ebb on the eve of the Reformation, not only in Scotland but throughout Europe. The corruption and degenera- tion of the Church had long been the despairing cry of practical reformers within it, like Colet and Erasmus, CHURCH DISCIPLINE AND SOCIAL LIFE 147 Savonarola and Ximenes, not to mention the denuncia- tions of a Luther, a Calvin, a Knox, who finally renounced its communion. In the political sphere the moral sense was correspondingly weak and the dominating practical influence in the statecraft of the time was the maxim that, in the interest of the state, the end justifies the means, however immoral and unchristian. This was the stand- ard set up by Macchiavelli in The Prince, and applied in the policies of contemporary monarchs. The need of a moral as well as a religious Reformation was clamant, and it was this reformation that reformers of the stamp of Calvin strove to achieve by the system of discipline which he worked out at Geneva, and which his followers, in Scotland and other lands where Calvinism prevailed, strove to realize. Hence the strict censorship of the life of the individual and the community which Knox in- augurated in the First Book of Discipline and Melville established in the Second, and which reached its hey- day in the decade 1641-51, between the revolt against Charles I and Cromwell's victory at Dunbar, when Pres- bytery was supreme in Scotland. The First Book of Discipline, whilst leaving to the State the maintenance of order and the punishment of capital crimes, among which it specifies blasphemy and adultery as well as murder and perjury, places under the supervision of ministers and elders all offences of a more specific moral character which the civil power either neglects or has no particular mission to punish. " Drunk- enness, excess (be it in apparel or be it in eating and drink- ing), fornication, oppression of the poor by exactions, i 4 8 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION deceiving of them in buying or selling by wrong meet or measure, wanton words and licentious living, tending to scandal, do properly appertain to the Church of God to punish the same as God's word commandeth." All those guilty of such offences, as well as all criminals, it is the duty of the Church to punish by excommunication without respect of persons, if the offender refuses to ac- knowledge his offence to the ministers and other office- bearers and make public profession of repentance before the congregation. With such an excommunicated person no one, except his wife and family, may hold any inter- course, " be it in eating and drinking, buying and selling, yea, in saluting or talking with him ". Even his children may not be admitted to baptism. In the maintenance of this discipline the elders and deacons are to co-operate by exercising a strict supervision over the community, including the minister himself and their fellow office- bearers. It was strengthened by the prescription of periodic fasts of a very exacting nature. The disciplinary system thus outlined lost nothing of its thoroughness as applied during the next century and a half by the ministers and their office-bearers, known as the kirk session, who systematically practised their in- quisitorial functions. To this end the General Assembly ordained in 1648 that " every elder have a certain bounds assigned to him, that he may visit the same every month at least and report to the session what scandals and abuses are therein ". It was also part of their duty to see that family worship, which had been declared obligatory by the Assembly in 1639, was maintained in every household. CHURCH DISCIPLINE AND SOCIAL LIFE 149 They were obliged in addition to take upon themselves in turn the office of " scouts ", and go through the town or village in order to discover whether anyone was drink- ing or selling drink in the alehouses after " elders' hours ". At fairs, markets, and races, at weddings and other merry- makings they had also to act the detective in the interest of religion and morality, and report to the session the re- sults of their observations. Political opinion, at a time when politics was so closely connected with religion, was also placed under their supervision. Besides this local supervision, every parish was liable to be visited by the ministers of the Presbytery, within whose bounds it lay, for the purpose of holding an enquiry into the life and conversation of the minister, elders, and heads of families. No person was allowed to settle in a parish unless he produced a testimonial from the minister and session of that in which he had previously resided as to his good conduct. It was in some respects a necessary and salutary insti- tution in the interests of social morality and the religious life at a time when, to judge from the deliverances of ecclesiastics, who, however, were apt to err on the side of exaggeration, both were universally and scandalously deficient. Had it been applied in a truly Christian spirit and with due respect for individual liberty, it might be regarded as, on the whole, a fitting remedy for the times. The determined attempt to uproot grave social evils such as impurity, drunkenness, licence in thought and speech, and raise the nation to a higher level of morality, was altogether laudable and serviceable; and considerable 150 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION indulgence in the method employed must be allowed in view of the inherited ideas of the time. But in the hands of narrow formalists, who were inspired by the legal spirit of the Old Testament rather than by the more humanist spirit of the New, it was far from being an ideal system. It tended to encourage spying on one's neighbours, to breed the Pharisee, to enthral the community in the tyranny of the over zealous, who were disposed to confuse morality and religion with their own narrow notions of what constituted Christian conduct, to magnify trifles into heinous sins, to restrict Christian liberty, to cast a blight on innocent recreation and pleasure, to transform Sunday into a day of gloom, with incessant attendance at sermons and services, which were apt to be tedious rather than edifying. In keeping with ideas and practices inherited from the past, it was deemed necessary in the interest of Christian morality to expose transgressors, whether penitent or not, to public obloquy. If penitent, they had to appear in sackcloth before the congregation, take their place on the stool of repentance, and hear the recital of their mis- demeanour, whether great or small. If impenitent, they might be put in the " jougs " near the entrance to the church as a public spectacle to their neighbours. In case of scandal and scolding (fly ting), to which women were apparently rather addicted, the delinquent was liable to wear the " brank " at the kirk-stile on Sundays. To prevent unjust accusations of this kind, so easily made by ill-intentioned persons against their neighbours, the accuser was liable to the same punishment if he failed CHURCH DISCIPLINE AND SOCIAL LIFE 151 to prove his case, or to forfeit a sum of money which, on bringing the accusation, he was bound to " consign " or lodge with the session. Swearing was punished by fine or the " jougs ", or both, impurity by ducking or the " brank ", whilst adulterers were liable to the death penalty, though they seem usually to have got off with some lesser ordeal. In 1586 the Kirk Session of Perth appointed an official at a salary of forty shillings a year to shave the heads of fornicators, male and female. That of Glasgow some years later prescribed for first offenders of this description one day on the cock-stool, another at the pillar, and eight under ward in the steeple. For adulterers it adjudged six Sabbaths in the pillory, barefoot and barelegged, and clad in sackcloth, the guilty person to be thereafter " carted through the town ". Another device of the Glasgow Kirk Session was ducking in the Clyde by means of " ane pulley " attached to the bridge. That of St. Andrews awarded imprisonment in the steeple for a first offence of this kind, the pillory and shaving of the head for a second. That of Kinghorn in 1640 would be satisfied with no less than twenty-six Sabbaths on the stool of repentance, with standing at the kirk door all the time, in sackcloth, between the second and third bells. Drunkards seem to have been let off with custody and a fine, the fine increasing with the repetition of the offence. Card-playing and gambling are also found among the accusations before kirk sessions. That of Stirling in 1598, for instance, sent two persons, who had played at dice till four in the morning, to the magistrates to be imprisoned and fed on bread and water; 152 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION whilst Dumfries inflicted a fine of twelve shillings on a man caught playing cards on a Saturday evening. Absence from communion without due cause was another serious offence, which might involve substantial penalties. Sab- bath observance was rigidly enforced. Formerly Sun- day, except during the times of divine service, was a day of relaxation and even of business, and the practice of a strict observance was not easily established. Parlia- ment in 1579 still found it necessary to impose penalties on those who attend markets and fairs, or engage in manual labour, gaming and playing, or visit taverns and alehouses, and absent themselves from their parish church on this day. Despite pains and penalties the practices complained of continued into the next century, as Kirk Session records show. In 1627 those of Stow tell of nine millers condemned to repent publicly and each pay a fine of forty shillings for working their mills on the Lord's Day. The same penalty was imposed in 1641 by the Session of St. Andrews on a farmer for " leading corn on the Sabbath evening ". Even " watering kale ", or " carrying water from the loch ", or " playing bogle about the stacks ", or " drinking a chapon of ale " on the Sab- bath could only be atoned for by a public repentance. At St. Andrews to golf during the time of worship in- volved in 1599 the payment of ten shillings for a first offence; twenty shillings for a second; the stool of re- pentance for a third; and for a fourth, deprivation of any office held by the culprit. To discover and apprehend such absentees the St. Andrews Session in 1574 directed a baillie, an elder, two deacons, and two officers to per- CHURCH DISCIPLINE AND SOCIAL LIFE 153 ambulate the streets of the city and punish such delin- quents " according to the acts of the kirk ". Similar regulations were adopted by the sessions of Perth, Glas- gow, Aberdeen, &c. Children found playing in the streets were publicly whipped. Loitering about the church door or the churchyard, instead of going inside to hear the sermon, was also a punishable offence. So was snuff-taking during the service, the Kirk Session of St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh, for example, decreeing a fine of twenty shillings for such indulgence. So also was sleeping, and women were prohibited from attending church in their plaids, " which provokes sleeping in the time of sermon without being espied ". The narrow and persecuting spirit with which the system was maintained against dissenters, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, is especially repugnant to our more tolerant age. It was lavishly used as a means of forcing Roman Catholics to adhere to the Protestant faith. In the case of Lord Gray, for instance, who is described as " a rank papist ", and was excommunicated in 1649. Another victim was the Countess of Abercorn who was confined for " papistrie " in the Canongate prison, Edin- burgh, for three years. There were many such attempts at conversion by excommunication during the National Covenant period from 1639 onwards, and the badgering and tyrannizing of Roman Catholics by Presbyteries in order to make them profess Protestantism, in accordance with the Covenant, is a lamentable exhibition of petty bigotry. Equally so the persecution of dissenters like the Quakers in the Episcopal period after the Restora- (D17) U 154 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION tion. There was something to be said for the policy of keeping a sharp eye on aggressive Catholics in view of the underhand activity of plotting priests on behalf of the Counter Reformation. But the attempt to make the people conform in despite of conscience is a lamentable proof of the lack of a true understanding of the principle of toleration, which the Reformers themselves in the day of their struggle with Rome had proclaimed and pro- fessed to defend. Still more deplorable was the cruel treatment accorded to those accused of witchcraft and sorcery. The belief in demonology was universal in Europe. James VI prided himself on his expert knowledge of the subject and wrote a book on it. He thoroughly believed that the witches had raised a storm at sea in order to send him and his queen Ann to the bottom on the return voyage from Denmark. This insane delusion was a relic of the super- stition of pre-Reformation days, and vigorously survived into the eighteenth century. Some of the notions and practices on which it was based might, in fact, be traced back to pagan times. It was shared by both Presbyterians and Episcopalians as well as Roman Catholics, and the trial and condemnation of these pitiable victims of human stupidity went on without intermission throughout this period, whichever party happened to be supreme. Ac- cording to the belief of the age men and women, having sold themselves to the devil, could use their Satanic powers to the injury of their neighbours and practised a regular cult of the evil one. They were supposed to be able to ride through the air, to raise storms, to de- CHURCH DISCIPLINE AND SOCIAL LIFE 155 prive women and cows of their milk, to cause decline and other diseases, etc. They held assemblies at midnight in ruined churches and lonely spots, and danced to the music of the bagpipes and indulged in their horrid revels under the presidency of Satan himself, as " Tarn o' Shanter " reminds us. Many of the poor creatures charged with this offence really believed in these childish fancies. The revelations of their experiences show that they were insane or weak-minded, and they might, at worst, have been confined in an asylum. Others were innocent of the mal- practices attributed to them by their ill-intentioned or superstitious neighbours, and only confessed under cruel torture. But guilty or innocent, it mattered little. Cre- dulity was easily satisfied in the matter of evidence, and many are the instances of the application of discipline for this cause. But ecclesiastical censure was not the only ordeal to which the unfortunate delinquent was liable. The State, abetted by the Church, passed an act in 1563 against witchcraft and sorcery, adjudging those guilty of this crime to death. It took vigorously in hand the work of uprooting the evil by inflicting the horrible penalty of burning on those found guilty of it. In the hunt for witches it employed officials known as " witch-prickers ", who were supposed to be: able to dis- cover, by pricking with a pin, the spot on the body where the devil's mark was imprinted. It made use of revolt- ing tortures to extract confessions, and, as the result of its relentless crusade, its victims throughout the period are to be reckoned by the thousand. The only thing to be said in palliation of this monstrous aberration is that 156 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION it was an ingrained and universal delusion of the age, which saw in the witch and the warlock the agents of devilry pure 'and simple, and regarded their torture and death as an act of self-defence against a malignant power more terrible than the plague itself. The infliction by a church court of penalties for ecclesi- astical offences, or the use of the power of the magistrate for this purpose, is altogether repugnant to modern ideas. It was not so intolerable in those days, though even then there was opposition to this kind of ecclesiastical censor- ship. Excommunication involving civil pains and penal- ties was, indeed, a grave hardship, apart from the public obloquy and the social ostracism which accompanied it. By the old law of Scotland, of which the Reformers took advantage, it disqualified the excommunicated person from the right to hold property and made him liable to be seized and imprisoned wherever found. It is not surprising, therefore, that after the Revolution of 1689 there was a widespread disposition to moderate this abuse, and this more enlightened view received practical expression in the act of 1690 disallowing the civil disabilities involved in excommunication . 5. Architecture The Reformation period saw much havoc wrought on the sacred edifices which the skill and piety of previous generations had reared in such splendour throughout the land. The Reformers " cleansed " the cathedrals and churches of altars and images, of mass-books, chalices, and vestments. They destroyed the altars and images, DESTRUCTION OF CHURCH BUILDINGS 157 burned mass-books, and sold chalices and other articles of value. They are accused of having also destroyed the buildings thus cleansed, and it is undeniable that during the violent popular uprisings, which the policy of per- secution and the preaching of Knox produced in some places, a number of churches and religious houses, as well as their ecclesiastical furniture, were burned. So it fared, according to Knox, with the monasteries of the Greyfriars, Blackfriars, and Carthusians at Perth, of which he says that they were " so destroyed that the walls only did remain ". The same fate be- fell the neighbouring abbey of Scone, which, despite the disapproval of the Reformers, was burned to the ground, the monasteries of the Black and Greyfriars at St. Andrews, Stirling, Linlithgow, Edinburgh. The popular anger was especially directed against the monas- teries which the poor regarded as fair prey, and they had given the monks plain intimation in The Beggar's Summons of their intention to lay hands on them and their endow- ments, if they should not voluntarily surrender them for the benefit of the people. Even so, a number of these, whilst " cleansed " of altars and images, seem to have been only partially dismantled. For the destruction of those between the Forth and the Border, the Reformers were not responsible. Their destruction was the work of English armies during the preceding half century, espe- cially of that under Hertford in 1544-45, which cruelly ravaged the south-eastern region of Scotland from the Forth to the Tweed twice over. The ravage was renewed after the defeat of Pinkie, in 1547-48, and as the result 158 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION of this vandalism the abbeys of Holyrood, Newbattle, Jedburgh, Kelso, Coldingham. Melrose, besides many churches and lesser religious houses, were burned. Among the sacred buildings destroyed between the Forth and the Tay, to which the English penetrated, were the abbey of Balmerino and the churches and religious houses of Dundee. Neglect on the part of the clergy in pre- Reformation times was also, as ecclesiastical records show, responsible for the decay and ruin of many churches. The Reformers, whilst inflicting irreparable damage on many of the religious houses, appear to have contented themselves with " the cleansing " of cathedrals and parish churches. Unfortunately they allowed most of the former, and too many of the latter, to fall into decay and to become quarries for the builder, as in the case of St. Andrews. Though the Reformers were thus not responsible for a large part of the destruction of sacred buildings in Scot- land, they failed to take adequate steps to ensure the pre- servation of those which had escaped the ravages of war or the neglect of the old ecclesiastical authorities. Their failure was the more regrettable inasmuch as the erection of the new churches, subsequent to the Reformation, was guided by a prosaic utility rather than by artistic con- siderations. Religion long lost its association with art in Scotland, as is apparent from the merest glance at the post Reformation churches in comparison with the beauti- ful ruins near which they were erected. From the point of view of the higher craftsmanship, the result must be regarded as a distinct lapse, from which there has been only comparatively recently a laudable reaction in the DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE 159 attempt to make the house of God a thing of beauty as well as edification. On the other hand, it is from the Reformation period that a marked improvement appears to have begun in Scottish domestic architecture. Hitherto any trace of the influence of the Renaissance in house building has to be looked for mainly in the royal palaces. " But towards the end of the sixteenth century ", remark Messrs. MacGibbon and Ross, " the Renaissance art began to exercise a very marked and decided influence, especially in the details and the internal finishings of the buildings of the time of James VI. This influence went on steadily increasing until, during the course of the seventeenth century, it gradually, but completely superseded the old Scottish architecture ". Owing to the improvement of artillery, which rendered it futile to fortify private dwel- lings for defence, the country mansion took the place of the old keep, and the secularized church lands, which fell into the hands of the nobility, as the result of the Reforma- tion, provided them with the means of erecting more commodious and ornamental castles. The union of the crowns, by bringing Scotland into closer relation with a richer and more refined civilization, had also an influence on the change of style and on the arrangement of the interior of these castles. Nevertheless, this architecture has its distinctly Scottish character. " The design ", to quote MacGibbon and Ross again, "is of native growth . . . and forms a style quite as independent as, if not even more so than any of the Renaissance styles of the other countries of Europe ". Its more salient features are the 160 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION turrets corbelled out at every angle, plain walls with orna- mentation only of the parapets and upper parts, high- pitched roofs, picturesque chimneys, and crow-stepped gables. These features are not in themselves original. Their originality lies in the manner in which they are worked out. Some, like Amisfield in Dumfriesshire, are in the form of the old square keep on which these features are grafted. Others, like Glamis Castle, have wings added to the central square block. The distinctive plan of others, like Terpessie Castle in Aberdeenshire, consists in the two towers at diagonally opposite corners of the main block. That of others, like Blervie Castle in Morayshire, is the single tower which flanks, the main building. " Through all these modifications the idea of the old quadrilateral tower is preserved in the main body of the building, and the new features are merely adjuncts of it. Probably nowhere has this plan been so thoroughly worked out and persistently adhered to as in Scotland, and cer- tainly there cannot be a question as to the native develop- ment of these variations of the original keep ". In addition to these four variations, castles or mansions with courtyards, like Drumlanrig and Pinkie House, were erected in a more developed form than in the previous period. The Englishman, Fynes Moryson, travelling in Scot- land in 1598, remarked the improvement already in pro- gress in the dwellings of the nobility in the Lothians and Fife, the districts which he visited. He notes in particular " the ancient and stately palace of Lord Seton (at Pinkie), beautified with fair orchards and gardens, and the noble- DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE 161 men's and gentlemen's dwellings commonly compassed with little groves " in Fife. This Lord Seton was the chancellor of the period and became Earl of Dunfermline. He was, in fact, a pioneer of the improved type of mansion building in Scotland, and has left in Fyvie Castle, as well as Pinkie House, a monument of his progressive activity in this sphere. Another pioneer was the first Earl of Strathmore, who more than rivalled his fellow peer in transforming the old keep of Glamis into the magnificent pile which remains the finest monument of the baronial architecture of the period. A third was the Earl of Wintoun, who left a fine monument of his building zeal in Wintoun House. To the early seventeenth century belongs, too, Heriot's Hospital, Edinburgh, which, accord- ing to Mr. Rhind, seems to have been designed by Dr. Balcanquall, Dean of Rochester and friend of George Heriot, with the assistance of some unknown English architect. There is no definite evidence for the ascription of it to Inigo Jones. Later in the century Sir William Bruce acquired fame as the architect of Kinross House, Hopetoun House, and the transformation of Holyrood Palace carried out in the reign of Charles II. Moryson was also struck by the architectural features of the capital, especially by the spacious thoroughfare stretching from the Castle to Holyrood, the lofty houses of which, built of stone, and faced, or rather, in his opinion, defaced with wooden galleries, formed a fitting setting for this " fair and broad street ", as he calls it. The pictur- esque situation of Scotland's capital, and the imposing outline of its historic High Street, form the theme of i6 2 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION almost every English traveller in the seventeenth century who has left the record of his impressions. Some of them had seen nothing to surpass its pre-eminence in these respects in their travels on the Continent. They were also struck by the amenity of Glasgow, and remark in appreciative terms on its fine streets, imposing public buildings, its fruitful gardens and orchards, and its con- siderable trade. Thomas Morer, writing in 1689, thought it superior even to Edinburgh. " Glasgow is a place of great extent and good situation; and has the reputation of the finest town in Scotland, not excepting Edinburgh, though the royal city. The two main streets are made crosswise, well paved, and bounded with stately buildings, especially about the centre, where they are mostly new, with piazzas under them ". He was also greatly im- pressed by the ruins of the archbishop's palace and by the cathedral. " From hence to the river the city reaches, a mile in length, the half of which is upon a declension. The river is a great current, called the Clyde, and con- duces much to the riches of the inhabitants, and makes it the most considerable town of that nation. Here are several hospitals, or houses of charity, and many spires more for ornament than use. And a tolbooth, or common- hall, very magnificent (as most of them are in the towns of Scotland) for public entertainments or city business. . . . Over the river Clyde is a very fine bridge, with a great number of arches, and on the other side is a little town which is the suburbs of Glasgow ". The characteristic features of Aberdeen, Perth, Dundee, Stirling, Dumfries, Ayr, and other towns are also noticed favourably. But SCOTTISH TOWNS 163 some of these travellers are very emphatic in their con- demnation of the deplorable sanitary conditions, especially of Edinburgh, on whose streets the inhabitants throw the slops of their houses with the time-honoured cry of " Gardeloo in order to warn the passer-by, often too late, to escape a sousing. The capital seems, in fact, to have made no advance in sanitation since the days when Dunbar had expressed in facetious rhymes his disgust at its dirt and smells. Witness in confirmation of these English testimonies an Act of Parliament in 1686 enjoining the magistrates " to lay down effectual ways for preserving the said town from the nastiness of the streets, wynds, closes, and other places of the said burgh ". According to the travellers the interiors of the houses were in no better case than the streets in this respect, and the ob- noxious atmosphere which shocked them was evidently not due to the tendency displayed by some of them to asperse everything un-English. It was the natural result of vitiated air and dirty habits. Unlike the mansions of the nobility, the dwellings of the peasantry do not seem to have shared in the growing advance of domestic architecture. " The ordinary country houses ", says Ray, one of those tourists who wrote about the middle of the seventeenth century, " are pitiful cots, built of stone and covered with turf, having in them but one room, many of them no chimneys, the windows very small and not glazed ". " The vulgar houses ", says Morer, " and what are seen in the villages, are low and feeble. Their walls are made of a few stones jumbled together without mortar to cement them, on which they i6 4 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION set up pieces of wood, meeting at the top, ridge-fashion, but so ordered that there is neither sightliness nor strength; and it does not cost much more time to erect such a cottage than to pull it down. They cover these houses with turfs of an inch thick, and in the shape of larger tiles, which they fasten with wooden pins and renew as often as there is occasion; and that is very frequently done. 'Tis rare to find chimneys in these places, a small vent in the roof sufficing to convey the smoke away. So that, considering the humility (lowness) of these roofs, and the gross nature of the fuel, we may easily guess what a smother it makes and what little comfort there is in sitting at one of their fires. However, in their towns and cities the case is otherwise." 6. Domestic Life These English observers have a great deal to say of the domestic economy and social habits of the time. Some of them are so inflamed by the old enmity between the two nations that their accounts may be dismissed as libels. Others were less supercilious, though too much inclined to measure everything by the English standard. Here are two samples which may be taken as giving a fairly accurate picture of social life at the beginning and the end of the seventeenth century respectively. " Touching their diet ", says Fynes Moryson, " they eat much red colewort and cabbage, but little fresh meat, using to salt their mutton and geese, which made me more wonder that they used to eat beef without salting. The gentlemen reckon their revenues, not by rents of money, but by chauldrons of victuals, and keep many people in their families, yet living DOMESTIC LIFE 165 most on corn and roots, not spending any great quantity on flesh. Myself was at a knight's home, who had many servants to attend him, that brought in his meat with their heads covered with blue caps, the table being more than half furnished with great platters of pottage (broth), each having a little piece of sodden meat. And, when the table was served, the servants did sit down with us, but the upper mess, instead of pottage, had a pullet with some prunes in the broth. And I observed no art of cookery or furniture of household stuff", but rather rude neglect of both, though myself and companions, sent from the Governor of Berwick about bordering affairs, were enter- tained after their best manner. . . They vulgarly eat hearth cakes of oats, but in cities have also wheaten bread, which, for the most part, was bought by courtiers, gentlemen, and the best sort of citizens. . . . They drink pure wines, not with sugar as the English, yet at feasts they put comfits in the wine, after the French manner, but they had not our vinteners' fraud to mix their wines. I did never see nor hear that they have any public inns with signs hanging out, but the better sort of citizens brew ale, their usual drink (which will distemper a stranger's body), and the same citizens will entertain passengers upon acquaintance or entreaty. Their bedsteads were then like cupboards in the wall, with doors to be opened and shut at pleasure, so. as we climbed up to our beds. They used but one sheet, open at the sides and top, but close at the feet, and so doubled. Passengers did seek a stable for their horses in some other place and did there buy horse meat, and, if perhaps the same house yielded a stable, yet the payment 166 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION for the horse did not make them have beds free as in Eng- land. . . . When passengers go to bed, their custom was to present them with a sleeping cap of wine at parting. The country people and merchants used to drink largely, the gentlemen sometimes sparingly — yet the very court- iers, at feasts, by night meetings, and entertaining any stranger, used to drink healths not without excess, and (to speak without offence) the excess of drinking was then far greater in general among the Scots than the English. Myself being at the Court invited by some gentlemen to supper, and being forewarned to fear this excess, would not promise to sup with them, but upon condition that my inviter would be my protection from large drinking, which I was many times forced to invoke, being courteously entertained, and much provoked to carousing, and so for that time avoided any great intemperance ". His remarks on the drinking proclivities of all classes are borne out by the enactment on the subject in the Privy Council Records of the period. This act complains of the " huge and superfluous excess and riot in drinking of wines imported from beyond seas, specially of workmen in the towns, spending the whole day in taverns while they should be working in their shops and booths, which doth make the wife and children at home to famish of hunger ". Morer's account refers to the state of things prevailing about a hundred years later. " Their ordinary women go barefoot, especially in the summer. Yet the husbands have shoes, and therein seem unkind in letting their wives bear those hardships without partaking themselves. Their children fare no better when scarce able to go. But what DOxMESTIC LIFE 167 surprised me most, some of the better sort, lay and clergy, made their little ones go in the same manner, which I thought a piece of cruelty in them, that I imputed to the other's poverty. But their apology was the custom of the country. . . . Their bread for the most part is of oatmeal which, if thin and well baked upon broad irons or stones for that purpose, is palatable enough and often brought to gentlemen's tables. But the vulgar are not so curious, for they only water the meal into a convenient consistence, and then, making them into thick cakes, called bannocks, thoy set them before the fire to be hardened or toasted for their use. These people prepare the oats after this manner — they take several sheaves, and, setting fire to them, con- sume the straw and chaff to ashes, which, after a con- venient time, they blow away, then gathering up the grain sufficiently parched, they bruise it into meal. Their flesh is goods enough, yet I confess it will not keep as long as that in England, which they say proceeds from the large- ness, of the pores, exposing it more than elsewhere to the air and weather. Their cheese is not the best, nor butter, made in part of ewes-milk, which did not relish with us, yet we could not tempt them to forbear that mixture. Their drink is beer, sometimes so new that it is scarce cold when brought to table. But their gentry are better provided, and give it age, yet think not so well of it as to let it go -alone, and therefore add brandy, cherry-brandy, or brandy and sugar, and is the nectar of this country at their feasts and entertainments, and carries with it a mark of great esteem and affection. Sometimes they have wine (a thin-bodied claret) at lod. the muskin, which 168 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION answers our quart, but it is no more than half of the Scotch pint; and thereupon they tell us that if their drink be not so good as ours, yet their measure is. better. But the difference lies only in the terms, for the proportions are alike, and we paid as much for their chopping as for the pint here, containing the same quantity. They have poultry and fowls in convenient plenty. Among the rest there is the solan goose, a large bird, but tastes more of fish than flesh, because accustomed to the sea, and feeds there oftener than in other places. The houses of their quality are high and strong, and appear more like castles than houses, made of thick stone walls, with iron bars before their windows, suited to the necessity of those times they were built in, living then in a state of war and constant animosities between their families. Yet now they begin to have better buildings and to be very modish both in the fabric and furniture of their dwellings, though still their avenues are very in- different and they want their gardens, which are the beauty and pride of our English seats. . . . Orchards they have few. And their apples, pears, and plums are not of the best kind; their cherries are tolerably good. And they have one sort of pear, large and well tasted, but seldom had. Wall fruit is very rare. But of gooseberries, currants, strawberries, and the like they have of each; but growing in gentlemen's gardens, and yet from thence we sometimes meet with them in the markets of their boroughs. They have excellent pit- coal, so bituminous and pitchy that it burns like a candle, and is both pleasant and useful. But this is chiefly for their gentry and DOMESTIC LIFE 169 boroughs; the common people deal in peat and turf, cut and dried in the summer, and would be no bad fuel, but that at first kindling it makes a very thick and offensive smother. They are fond of tobacco, but more from the snuff-box than pipe. And they have made it so necessary that I have heard some of them say that, should bread come in competition with it, they would rather fast than their snuff should be taken away. Yet mostly it consists of the coarsest tobacco, dried by the fire, and powdered in a little engine after the form of a tap, which they carry in their pockets, and is both a mill to grind and a box to keep it in. The women of Scotland are capable of estates and honours, and inherit both as well as the males, and there- fore after marriage they retain their maiden name; but one disadvantage they lie under, that in case the husbands die without a will, they claim no thirds, which is a con- sideration awes them a little and makes them more obsequious to their husbands ". Details of the domestic economy of the seventeenth century household of the upper merchant and aristo- cratic classes may be read in the series of Account Books published by The Scottish History Society. From that of David Wedderburn, a Dundee merchant, which covers the first third of the century, we learn that a considerable variety of articles used in the household was imported from abroad. Mention is made of violet powder brought from Rochelle, of marmalade from Spain, of comfits, sugar candy, canary sugar, syrup, aniseed oil, and toffee from Flanders, France, and Spain, vinegar from Bordeaux, (I)") 12 170 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION onions and apples from Flanders, olive oil and wine from France and Spain, tobacco from the West Indies. From the same source we learn that it was the custom to give bounties to servants over and above their wages, and " tochers ", or marriage portions, on the marriage of daughters, those of two of Wedderburn's daughters being iooo merks each. According to that of Sir John Foulis of Ravelston, it was evidently not deemed derogatory to men of rank to engage in trade. " In Scotland ", re- marks Mr. Hallen, its editor, " trade was always deemed honourable, and was resorted to by men who held it to be no disgrace to the lineage — no blot on the escutcheon ". The book gives many details of the social customs of the period which it covers, from 1671 to the year of the union. " The free intercourse between the laird and the peasant, and the laird's interest in his tenants' affairs are frequently shown. Again, the city life was very different from what it is now. There were no select clubs, no palatial hotels; the baronet and the shopkeeper settled a bargain in the back shop of the latter, and he dealt with his uncles, the apothecary and the merchant, and with their sons after them. . . . He enjoyed the frequent potations of claret, sack, canary, mum beer, herb ale, warm wine and ale, and occasionally rare sorts of wine, in which he and his friends indulged. We need not infer that this denoted an in- temperate mode of life — it was the usual life of the day. Meat and drink were taken in the taverns of the city, and in company with friends, more frequently than under the r amily mahogany; it was like the modern Continental mode of living, and like it did not lead to intemperance. The EDUCATION AND CULTURE 171 bill for sack sometimes shows, like that of Falstaff, a minimum of bread, but early hours were kept; beverages such as tea, coffee, and chocolate, though not unknown, were as yrt but rarely used. Sir John was a lover of childhood. We have presented to us outlines of merry- meetings, rippling over with the laughter of boys and girls, in earlier years his children, and later on his grand- children. They went with him to Leith races, and to the wondrous elephant then on show in Edinburgh. He bought for them sweetmeats, shortbread, fruit, a football, chirping-birds, drums, trumpets, golf clubs and balls; the boy he sends to sea has a Bible and a good book to take with him in his chest, and his frequent letters show that he does not forget his home." As was customary in such households, he kept a chaplain, who was usually a probationer waiting a charge, four men and four women servants, a house tailor, a gardener and his assistants, and a shepherd. The cook, we learn, was mistress in her own sphere, and would brook no intrusion even from her master. On one occasion he pays a fine of fourteen shillings " to the cook Marie, when I went into the kitchen ". Horse racing and golf at Leith, hunting, hawking, and fishing were favourite out-door sports, whilst cards, " tables ", and dice, concerts, and the play were the chief indoor diversions. 7. Education and Culture The Education Act of 1496, directing the compulsory education of the children of the higher classes, does not seem to have been systematically carried out, and educa- 172 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION tion was consequently at a low ebb in the land on the eve of the Reformation. Considering the general ignorance of the clergy, high and low, it could hardly have been otherwise. After the Reformation the Reformed Church drew up a magnificent system of primary, secondary, and university education, which, owing to the appropriation of ecclesiastical endowments by the crown and the nobles, was, unfortunately, still born. The Church, neverthe- less, continued to devote its attention earnestly to the subject, and from time to time passed acts to further the effective teaching of the young, including instruction in " the fear of God and good manners ". It took upon itself the task of supervising the schools and ensuring that the evangelical faith should be taught in them. In this good work Town Councils co-operated, and Parliament gave, its countenance in an act concerning the schools in 1567. It was at the instigation of the Town Council of Edinburgh that a fourth university was added to the existing three by the foundation of the Town's College in 1582. An attempt, which did not materialize, was made in 1592 to provide a fifth at Fraserburgh. A year later the attempt was realized by the founding of Marischal College, in addition to King's College, at Aberdeen. In Andrew Melville university education found a capable reformer, who gave to Glasgow a more modern curriculum, and an attempt was made to improve that of the others. Educa- tional development was, however, but slow, owing to the ecclesiastical conflicts of the seventeenth century, the lack of funds consequent on the spoliation of the revenues of the old church, and the depressed state of the country. EDUCATION AND CULTURE 173 In 1 616 the Privy Council directed that a school should be set up in every parish, and Parliament in 1633 legislated to the same effect. But the remissness on the part of the bishops in carrying out this enlightened policy in their dioceses is evident from the rebuke administered to them by Charles I in 1536, though the failure is in part to be ascribed to the reluctance of the landed proprietors (heritors) to take upon themselves the obligation to pro- vide the necessary funds. In the period of its supremacy, in the middle of the century, the General Assembly again endeavoured by a series of acts to secure the benefits of a sound education to at least all children capable of profiting by it. Parliament co-operated by enacting once more in 1646 the establishment of a school in every parish, and some improvement seems to have taken place in the interval between the passing of the act and the Revolution. The fact that many could only sign the National Covenant by proxy shows how much room there was for improve- ment. Unfortunately, it was checked by the repeal of the act after the Restoration, and not until 1696 did Parliament take steps to remedy the educational neglect by a new act, modelled on that of 1646, and appointing a commission to carry it out. Again, however, there was slackness in the application of it, and in spite of the active interest of the Church, there were still as many as 175 parishes with- out a school in 1758. The Presbyterian regime was favourable to education as controlled by the Church and showed a laudable interest in its extension. But it was too narrow and in- tolerant to foster culture in the larger sense, which can 174 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION only thrive where freedom of thought prevails. In the period following the Reformation it exercised a strict censorship of the press. It took under its patronage the issue of the first edition of the English Bible printed in Scotland by Thomas Bassandyne in 1579. It encouraged the printing of books which it deemed serviceable to the Reformed Religion. It gave a pension to Robert Lek- previk, another printer, whose enterprise had proved un- fortunate. But it banned any literature not so regarded, and it insisted on deciding what it was serviceable to publish. In days when a Romanist reaction was still a possibility, as it was throughout the earlier part of the reign of James VI, such watchfulness is explicable. But it undoubtedly carried its inquisition too far in for- bidding the people to countenance the drama which an English company, headed by Fletcher, came to Edinburgh, at the king's invitation, to act in 1599. In the later period of its supremacy, as the result of the struggle with Charles I, its intolerance was even more rigid. The Episcopal regime in the second half of the reign of James VI and the early part of that of Charles I had shown its intolerance of Presbytery, and when the turn of the Presbyterians came again, they paid back the debt with compound interest. Prelacy as well as popery was proscribed, and every one who refused the Covenant was subject to grievous pains and penalties. This was the principle that prevailed till the Revolution, according as the one party or the other was uppermost. The principle of the New Testament that religion is a spiritual thing, and may only make use of spiritual means, EDUCATION AND CULTURE 175 was obscured by party passions on both sides. In the atmosphere of misguided religious zeal, liberty of thought cannot flourish. Liberal-minded theologians like Dr. John Forbes, the scholarly professor of Divinity at Aber- deen, were driven into exile. From this point of view there is not a little to be said for the drastic methods of Cromwell in curbing this fanatically intolerant spirit by closing the General Assembly for the time being. The Episcopal regime improved on this intolerant spirit by torturing and hanging Presbyterians who refused to swerve from their conscientious convictions. Advocates of toleration and moderation under the Episcopal suprem- acy, like Leighton and Burnet, were as voices crying in the wilderness. In such an age of fierce ecclesiastical contention the influence of the universities in fostering a liberal culture was limited. At the same time they produced a con- siderable number of men of distinction and some of en- during eminence in various capacities. Napier of Mer- chiston, for instance, the inventor of Logarithms, Dr Pitcairne, Sir Robert Sibbald, the founder of the College of Physicians at Edinburgh, Dr. James Gregory, the eminent mathematician and the inventor of the reflecting telescope, Sir Andrew Balfour, the founder of the Edin- burgh Botanic Garden, Dr. Robert Morrison, the botanist, and James Dalrymple, first Viscount Stair, the great lawyer. Nor did the age produce much in literature that has lived. Intellect and feeling spent themselves in political and ecclesiastical controversy which was by no means, indeed, all barren from the point of view of political 176 THE REFORMATION TO THE UNION libtrty. We can still learn much from the contentions of those who wrote as well as fought against absolutism in Church and State. But in literature proper Scotland, during this period, can boast of no Milton or Dryden, " scarcely even a Cowley or a Waller ". It may, however, be proud of its historians, of Knox, Spottiswoode, Calder- wood, Baillie, who have left not merely valuable memorials of the history of their time, but works which in some respects have high literary merit. Sources: — Acts of the Scottish Parliament for the period; Register of the Privy Council; MacKinnon, The Union of England and Scotland (1896); Scott, Joint Stock Companies, III (191 1); Keith, Commercial Relations of England and Scotland 1603-1707 (1910); "The Union of 1707 ", by various writers, published by The Glasgotv Herald (1907); Book of the Universal Kirk, or Acts of the General Assembly; Edgar, The Discipline of the Church, in Vol. V of History of the Church of Scotland, edited by Story, and Old Church Life in Scotland; Cun- ningham, Church History of Scotland (1882); Hay Fleming, The Reformation in Scotland (1910); MacKinnon, History of Modern Liberty, III (1908); Roger, Social Life in Scotland (1884); Millar, Compt Bulk of David Wedderburne, Scottish History Society (1894); Hallen, Account Book of Sir John Foulis of Ravelston, Scottish His- tory Society (1894); Dodds, Diary of William Cunningham of Craig- ends, Scottish History Society (1887); Hume Brown, Early Travel- lers in Scotland (1891), and Scotland before 1700 (1893); MacGibbon and Ross, The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland, II (1887); Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Scotland; David- son and Gray, The Scottish Staple at Veere (1909); Grant, History of the Burgh and Parish Schools of Scotland (1876); Strong, History of Secondary Education (1909); Hepburn Millar, Literary History of Scotland (1903). INDEX Abercorn, Countess of, 153. — monastery, 45. Abercrombie, Lord, 18. Aberdeen, 2, 64, 84, 86, 100, 1 12-3, 114, 116, 153, 162, 172, 175. Abernethy, 10, 48. Account Books, Scottish His- torical Society, 169-71. Act of Security, 137-8. Adamnan,biographerofColumba, 34, 39-40. -'Edwin, King, 44. iEneas, Silvius, Pope, 96, 99. African Company, the, 134. Agricola, 6, 10, 20, 24. Agriculture, mediaeval, 70-1. Aidan, King, ti. — St., 44-5. Alauna, 27. Alba, kingdom of, 13, 46, 47. Alclyd, 11, 27. Alexander I, King, 15. — II, 5 2 - 59- — Ill, 14, 52, 67, 83. Alexandria, 66, no. Allemanni, the, 34. Almond, River, 64. Amisfield, 160. Anderson, Dr. Joseph, 16-7, 20, 49-5°- Angles, s, 8, io, 11, 12, 28, 35, 44. Anglo-Flemish League, 85. Anglo-Normans, 8. Anglo-Saxon Institutions, 55-7, 71-2. Anglo-Scottish Alliance, 123-4. Annals of Ulster, 12. Annandale, 52. Anne, Queen, 137. Ann, Queen of James VI, 154. Antiquaries, Society of, 26, 31. Antonine, wall of, 25. Antwerp, 87. Arbroath, abbey of, 75. Architecture, domestic, 159-64. — effects of Reformation on, 156-9. Argyle, 4, 6, 12, 16. Arran, 16, 18. — Earl of, 83. Arthur, King, 10. Athelfrith, King, n. Augustinians, the, 74. Ayala, Spanish Ambassador, 82, 96, 101-2, 107, 117. Ayr, 64, 127, 162. Ayrshire, 52. Bacon, Roger, 114. Baillie, Principal, 176. Baithene, monk of Iona, 41. Balcanquall, Dr., 161. Balfour, Sir Andrew, 175. Balmerino, abbey of, 158. Baltic, trade with, 85, 91. Banffshire, Sheriff of, 60. Bank of Scotland, 134. Bannaventa, 30. Barbour, Archdeacon, 116. Bartons, the, 87. Bassandyne, Thomas, 174. Beauly Firth, 2, 6. Bede, 5, 7, 10, 27, 30, 36, 45. — mormaer of Buchan, 35. Beggar's Summons, the, 119, 157. Beltane, 94. Benedictines, the, 74. Berchan, pupil at Iona, 40. Bernicia, 10. Berwick, 8, 62, 63, 65, 66, 67, 71, Birrens, Roman station, 24, 25. 177 1 7 8 INDEX Blervie Castle, 160. Boece, Hector, 9, 96, 104-5, n 6. Bo'ness, 131. Bonnington, 127. Bordeaux, trade with, 85, 86. Boswell, St., 45. Bothwell Castle, 69. Brechin, 48, 75. Brendan, St., 35, 38. Brochs, the, 20-1, 68. Broichan, Druid, 42. Bronze Age, 15, 17-9. Brown, Hume, 116. Bruce family, 52. Bruce, King 1 Robert, 51, 79, 80, 81, 82, 84, 92, 95, 109. Bruce, Sir William, 161. Brude, Pictish King, 35, 42. Bruges, trade with, 86, 87, 94. Bryce, Professor, 18. Brythons or Britons, 3-6, 8, 11, 12. Buchan, 35. Buchanan, George, 9, 116, 120. Burghs, Scottish, 60-8. Convention of, 81, 90, 92. Burgundy, no. Burnet, Bishop, 175. Burnett, Mr., historian, 89. Caesar, on Britons, 22. Cainnech, St., 35. Caithness, 16, 35. Calderwood, historian, 176. Caledonians, the, 3-6, 23-4. Calgacus, Caledonian general, 10. Callernish, 18. Calvin, 119, 146, 147. Cambuskenneth, parliament, 81. Camelon, 25. Campvere, trade with, 87, 88. Candida Casa, 30. Candlemas Day, 112. Canongate, Edinburgh, 153. Cardross, 93, 109. Carham, battle of, 13. Carmelites, the, 74. Carthusians, the, 74. Celtic Institutions, 55-8, 71-2. Celts, 3-9, 21. Chapman, Walter, printer, 93. Charles I, 126, 127, 144, 145, 147, I73» «74- Charles II, 127, 128, 144, 161. Church reform and church build- ing, 74-5, 115-6. Cistercians, the, 74. Clyde, the, i, 3-6, 8, n, 13-4, 24, 27» 30, 35> 93. 100, 151, 162. Coldingham, monastery, 45, 75, 158. Colet, John, 146. Colman, St., 44. Cologne, 76. Columba, St., 10, 27, 28, 33-43, 45- Columbanus, St., 34. Comgall, St., 35. Complaynt of Scotland, the, 105. Conservator, Scottish, 87. Cormac, St., 38. Cornwall, 22. Corstorphine, 116. Costume, 108-9. Coulanges, De, historian, 55. Court of Session, 106. Covenant, National, 145, 153, 173, 174. Cowley, 176. Cramond, 25. Cromarty Firth, 2. Cromwell, 127, 144, 147, 175. Cronan, bard, 41. Culdees, the, 47, 74. Culross, abbey of, 75. Cumberland, 11. Cunningham family, 52. Curie, A. O., antiquary, 26. — J., antiquary, 24. Cuthbert, St., 44-5. Edinburgh, 153. Cyprus, no. Dalkeith, 116. Dalmeny, church of, 75. Dalriada, 4, 6, 11-2, 13, 28, 34. Dalrymple, James, 175. Damnonians, the, 27. Danes, the, 7, 47, 48. Danzig, trade with, 85. Darien Scheme, 134-6. Dauphin, husband of Queen Mary, 84. David I, King, 15, 51-2, 56, 58, 61-2, 66, 68, 73, 74, 82, 103. INDEX 179 David II, 79, 81, 84. — Prince of Cumbria, 33. Davidson and Gray, Scottish Staple, 86-8, 92. Dawston or Dawstane, 1 1 , 33. Deer, book of, 48. Denmark, 154. Dicalydones, the, 6. Dieppe, trade with, 85. Dion Cassius, 23. Dirleton Castle, 69. Discipline, First Book of, 120, 142, 147. — Second Book of, 142-3. Domestic life, seventeenth cen- tury, 164-71. Dominicans, the, 74. Donnan, St., 35. Dornoch Firth, 2. — town, 47. Doug-las, Earl of, 83. — Gavin, 116. Doune Castle, 1 18. Drostan, St. , 35. Druids, the, 18, 35-6. Drumlanrig Castle, 160. Dryburgh, abbey of, 75. — abbot of, 70. Dryden, 176. Dumbarton (Dunbrettan), 11, 27, 69. Dumfries, 152, 162. Dunbar, 1, 69, 99. — battle of, 127, 147. — Earl of, 59. — W., poet, 116. Dunblane, 75. Duncan, King of Scotland, 13. Dundas, George, humanist, 1 16. Dundee, 84, 85, 100, 158, 162. Dundrennan, abbey of, 75. Dunfermline, 75, 76. — Earl of, 161. Dunkeld, 47, 116. Dunnichen, 11. Duns Scotus, 76. Durrow, monastery of, 41, 48. Dutch, 74, 87, 132, 134. Earn, River, 10. Easter, celebration of. III. Ecfrith, King, 11. Edgar, King, 15. Edgebuckling Brae, 64. Edinburgh, 27, 45, 62, 64, 66, 69, 84, 86, 90, 93, 97, 102, 134, 153, 157, 162, 163, 171, 172, 174, 175. Edmund, serf, 59. Education in Scotland, 75-6, 113- 7, 120, 171-3. Edward I, 79. - II. 79- - HI, 79. 85. - VI, 79. Egilsay, 48. Eildon Hills, 24. Elachnave, island, 40. Elizabeth, Queen, 123. Emancipation of serfs, 60-1. England, 3, 16, 54, 59, 68, 78, 79, 88, 98, 103, 109, 114, 124, 125, 132, 136, 167. Epiphany, celebration of, 111. Episcopacy in Scotland, 129, 174. Erasmus, 104, 146. Exchequer Rolls, 89, 95. Falkland Palace, 117, 118. Faroe Isles, 38. Ferdinand, King of Spain, 101. Feudal society, 51-4. Fife, 47, 100, 160, 161. Finan, St., 44. Finnian or Finbar, 35. Fitzalan family, 52. Flanders, 85, 86, 91, 92,97, 169-70. Flemings, 8, 66, 87, 127. Fletcher, Andrew, 130-1. - English player, 174. Flodden, battle of, 79, 105. Forbes, Dr. John, 175. Fordun, John of, 67, 96, 100-1. Forfar Castle, 69. Forth, the, 3-8, io, 13, 24, 27, 36, 51, 100, 157, 158. Fortrenn, Bishop of, 46. Foulis, Sir John, Account Book of, 1 70- 1. France, 53-54, 57, 78-80, 84, 85, 86, 91, 97, 98, 102, 114, 123, 124, 131, 169-70. Franciscans, the, 74. Franco-Scottish League, 78-80, 8 4» 85, 97. 102, 123, 124. Franks, the, 34. Fraserburgh, 172. i8o INDEX Frederick II, Emperor, 76. Frisian invaders, 5, 32. Froissart, 96-98, 102. Fyvie Castle, 161. Gaelic, 3, 8, 13. Galloway, 13, 16, 20, 45, 51, 52, 74- Gallus, St., 34. Gartnaidh, Pictish king, 35. Gascony, 110. Gaul, 25, 30, 32, 34, 40, 44, 55. General Assembly, 142-3, 148, 173, 175- Geneva, 119, 146, 147. Germans, the, 25, 55, 87. Germany, 34, 54, 62, 65, 1 10, 1 14, 119. Gild, laws of the, 63-5. — merchant, the, 91-2. Gilds, craft, the, 92. Gilleam, organist, 93. Gillemichel, serf, 59. Girvan, 1. Giudi, town on Forth, 27. Glamis Castle, 160, 161. Glasgow, 64, 66, 74, 75, 114, 128, *33> *34> '5 1 . '53. 162, 172. — foundation of, 33. Goidels, the, 3-4. Gowrie, Carse of, 100. Grampians, the, 6, 10. Gratian, Emperor, 31. Gray, Lord, 153. Great Michael, the, 93. Greece, 114. Gregory, Dr. James, 175. Guyenne, no. Haddington, 127. Hakon, King, 14. Halden, the serf, 59. Hallen, Mr., 170. Hamburg, 67. Hamilton, Patrick, 116, 119, 120. Hansa league, 85, 86. — of northern burghs, 62. Hardyng, English traveller, 96, 99-100. Haverfield, Professor, 24. Hay, William, 1 16. Hebrides, 14. Henryson, poet, u6. Henry VII, 124. Heriot, George, 161. Heriot's Hospital, Edinburgh, 161. Herodian, 23, 46. Hertford, Earl of, 105, 157. Highlands, 1-3, 16, 51, 60, 70, 95. 99. 100-4, 105. High Street, Edinburgh, 161. Holland, 87. — John, 134. Holyrood, abbey of, 75, 117, 118, 158, 160. Home, Earl of, 83. Honorius, Emperor, 31. Hopetoun House, 161. Humber, the, n. Hy, 34- Iceland, 36, 38. Inchcolm, abbey of, 75. Innes, Cosmo, historian, 60-3. Inverness, 2, 10, 64, 67, 69. Iona, 34, 37-42, 43, 44. Ireland, 3-5, 13, 16, 28, 34, 38, 46. Iron Age, 15, 19-22. Italy, 34, 86, 102, 109, 110, 114. James I, 74, 93, 106, 116. — II, 93, !°7- — Ill, 14, in, 112, 117. — IV, 79, 82, 87, 92, 93, 101, no, in, 112, 117, 124. — V, 105, 108, in, 116. — VI, 124, 126, 143, 145, 154, 159, 174. — VII, 136. Jedburgh, abbey of, 75, 158. — abbot of, 70. John, King, 68. Johnson, Patrick, player, III. Jones, Inigo, 161. Justice, administration of, 71-4. Kells, monastery of, 41, 48. Kelso, abbey of, 75, 158. — abbot of, 59, 70. — town of, 131. Kennedy, Quentin, 1 18. Kentigern, St., 33-4, 45. Kildrummie Castle, 69. Killigrew, English Resident, 121. Kilwinning, abbey of, 75. INDEX 181 Kinghorn, 151. Kinross House, (61. Kintyre, 6, 95. Kirkcudbright, 45. Knox, John, 119, 120, 145, 146, i47» 157. 176. Lake dwellings, the, 21-2. Lanercost, Chronicle of, 65. Langside, battle of, 123. Largs, battle of, 14. Laurie, Sir A. C, historian, 62. Leader, River, 44. Leighton, Bishop, 175. Leith, 90, 127, 128, 134, 171. Lekprevik, Robert, 174. Leslie, Bishop, history of, 93. Leuchars, church of, 75. Levant, no. Lewis, 13, 18. Lille, 109. Lincluden Abbey, 1 16. Lindisfarne, monastery, 44. Lindsay, Sir David, 105, in, 116, 119. Linlithgow, 84, in, n6, 117, 118, 157- Lithgow, Scottish traveller, 85. Little John, play, 112. Lochaber, 42. Lochindorb Castle, 69. Lochmaben Castle, 69. Lollius Urbicus, 20, 24. Lomond, Loch, 6. London, 128, 132. Lord of the Isles, 95. Lords of Articles, the, 81. Lord Treasurer's Accounts, 93, 95, 109, no, in, 112. Lothian, East, 9, 26, 31. Lothians, the, 8, 13, 45, 51, 160. Louis IX, King, 67. Lowlands, the Central, 1-2, 8, 10, »5> 47. 57» 6°. 6 4» 94» "», 104, 105. Lubbock, Sir John, 17. Liibeck, 67. Luther, 119, 120, 147. Macchiavelli, 147. MacDonald, Dr. G., 24, 26, 32. MacErc, Fergus, 6. MacFergus, Angus, 12. MacGibbon and Ross, 159. Maiatae, the, 6. Maine, Sir Henry, historian, 56. Major, John, 79, 82, 96, 102-4, 116, 118. Malcolm II, 13, 66. — Ill, King, 15, 76, 104. — IV, 52. Manufactures in Scotland, 91-2, 126-9. Margaret, wife of James III, 14. — wife of James IV, 124. — wife of Malcolm III, 15, 46, 74, 76. Marmoutier, monastery of, 31. Martin, St., 30-1. Marwick, Sir James, 81. Mary, Queen of James V, 145. — Queen of Scots, 84, 105, n6, 123. '45- Melrose, abbot of, 70. — monastery of, 45, 116, 158. Melville, Andrew, 120, 143, 147, 172. Middelburg, trade with, 87. Milton, 176. Molendinar Burn, 33. Moluog, St., 35. Moray Firth, 2, 51, 58. — province'of, 52, 69, 160. Morer, Thomas, traveller, 162, 163, 166-9. Mormaers, 10, 56. Morrison, Dr. Robert, 175. Morvil, De, Constable, 59. Moryson, Fynes, traveller, 160-1, 164-6. Mote, the mediaeval, 68-9. Muir, Mr., on place-names, 9. Mungo, St., 33. Munro, Dr., antiquary, 21* Myller, Andrew, printer, 93. Napier of Merchiston, 175. Navigation laws, 128. Nechtansmere, battle of, n. Neilson, Dr., 68. Nennius, history of, 28. Ness, River, 44. Netherlands, The, 65, 67, 85, 86, 87, 91, 109, 114, 120. Neville's Cross, battle of, 79. New Edinburgh, 135. 182 INDEX New Mills, 127. Newstead, Roman station, 5, 24, 25- New Year, celebration of, m. Ninian, St., 30-2, 33, 36, 45. Normans, 8, 51, 55-8, 68. Norse language, 13. Norsemen, the, 7, 8, 14, 38, 46, 47» 48, 52- Northumbria, II, 13, 44. Norway, 14. — trade with, 85. Ochils, the, 100. Old Kilpatrick, 30. Orkney Islands, 6, 14, 16, 18, 36, 38, 48, 103. Oswald, King, 44. Oswiu, King, 11. Otadini, tribe, 27. Owen, King of Strathclyde, 13. Oxford, 76, 115. Palermo, 76. Panama, 134, 135. Panter, Patrick, 116. Paris, 76, 115. Parliament House, 140. — the Scottish, 80-2. Pasch, celebration of, ill. Paterson, William, 134-5. Patrick, St., 30, 34. — Confession of, 30. Peebles, 8, 127. Pentland Firth, 9, 13, 56. Perth, 64, 84, 102, 126, 151, 153, 157, 162. Petrarch, 114. Picts, the, 4-8, 9, 10-3, 28, 31, 33. 35. 46. — of Galloway, 5, 8, 12. Pinkie, battle of, 79, 157. — House, 160, 161. Pitcairne, Dr., 175. Pluscarden, abbey of, 75. Poland, Scots in, 85. Portugal, 86, 1 10. Presbyterian Church govern- ment, 129, 140, 142-3, 144-6, '73-5- Prestonpans, 131. Prior of Bonaccord, 113. Prussia, Scots in, 85. Ptolemy, on tribes in North Bri- tain, 5, 6, 9, 26, 27. Puritans, the, 143. Pytheas, 22. Ray, English traveller, 163. Reformation in Scotland, 78, 80, 105, 106, 1 13-21, 123, 156-9, 172, 174. — the Counter, 154. Regulation of social life, 106-8, 146-52. Renaissance in Scotland, 78, 80, "3- 2I » J59- Renfrew, 52. Revolution of 1689, 129, 144, 156, »73. 174- Rhind, Mr., 161. Rhine, the, 86, 110. Riada, 6. Robin Hood, play, 112. Rochelle, trade with, 85, 86, 169. Romans in Britain, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 23-6. Rona, North, 38. Ronan, St., 35. Rouen, trade with, 109. Roxburgh, 8, 62, 69. Royal Burghs, Convention of, 62. Rutherglen, 64, 66. St. Andrews, 47, 74, 100, 114, 151, 152. 157. "58. — Bridget, 112. — Clair, H., 59. — Helena, 112. — Joseph, 112. — Machar's Cathedral, 116. — Mary, 112. — Nicholas Day, in, 112. Savonarola, 147. Saxons, the, 5. Scone, abbey of, 157. Scotia, first use of name, 13. Scotland, feudal, 51-61. — kingdom of, 9-15. — population of, 9. — travellers in, 96-102. Scotsman, The, 26. Scots, the, 9, 1 1-3, 28, 46. — College, 115. Scottish people, composition of, 3-9- INDEX 183 Scott, Michael, 76. — Professor, 133-4- Seebohm, on Angles, 28. Selkirk, 8, 69. Serfdom in Scotland, 53-+, 58-61. Seton, Lord, 160-1. — of Pitmedden, 130, 132. Severus, Emperor, 4, 6. Shetland Islands, 14, 36, 103. Sibbald, Sir Robert, 175. Sicily, no. Skene on Celtic immigration, 3-4. Solway Firth, 2, 8, 9, 12. — Moss, battle of, 79. Spain, 86, 102, no, 114, 124, 135, 136, 169, 170. Spanish Succession, War of, 137. Spottiswoode, Archbishop, 176. Stair, Viscount, 175. Staple, the Scottish, 86, 87. Stennis, 18. Stirling, 62, 69, 117, 118, 151, 157, 162. Stone Age, 15-7. Stonehaven, 1. Stow, 152. Strabo, 55. Strathclyde, kingdom of, 13, 28, 33' 5 1 ' _ , . Strathmore, Earl of, 161. Sutherland, 16. Tacitus, on Caledonians, 6, 22-3, 26. Tantallon Castle, 118. Tay, the, 10, 158. Tees, the, 11. Terpessie Castle, 160. Teviotdale, 70. Theodosius, Roman general, 4. Thule, 23. Tiree, 43. Tournay, 97. Tours, St. Martin of, 30. Towcester, 30. Trade, Acts relative to, 88-91, 92-4, 126-9. — decline of, in seventeenth cen- tury, 129-33. — development of, before union, 133-4. — Free, I39~4 2 « Tranent, 131. Traprain Law, 26, 31-2. Turgot, life of Margaret, 76-7. Tweeddale, 45, 70. Tweed, the, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 56, 58, 83, 125, 157. Tyndale, W\, no. Ulster, 130. Union Commission, 138-40. — of the Crowns, 123-33. — of the Kingdoms, 133-42. — terms of, 139-41. United Kingdom, 141-2. Uphalyday, celebration of, III. Uplands, the Southern, 1-2, 45, 100. Valens, Emperor, 31. Verturiones, the, 6. Wales, 3, 16. Wallace, William, 67. Waller, 176. War of Independence, 78-80, 83, 85, 88, 102, 117. Watling Street, Roman Road, 30. Watson, Professor, on Picts, 6-7, 8, 12, 27. Wedderburn, David, 169-70. Welsh genealogies, 5. Wergeld, 71-2. Western Isles, the, 7. West Indies, 170. Whitekirk, 99. Whithorn, monastery of, 30-3. Wilfrid, St., 44. William, a serf, 59. — Ill, 136-7- — the Conqueror, 68. — the Lion, 52, 62, 68. Wilson, antiquary, 17. Wintoun, Earl of, 161. — House, 161. Winzet, Ninian, 118. Wishart, George, 120. Witchcraft, trials for, 154-6- Worcester, battle of, 127. Worsaae, antiquary, 17. Wyntoun, chronicler, 83, 100, 101, 116. Ximenes, Cardinal, 147. 1 Yule, celebration of, III. 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