\J 5 3> r- 8 8 9 6 'F«-*I ■- ' !>*/*•'• ^*S >'- » i >x "i-^'i 7' I THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES ^>e")»^ ■;■<•■■-■''':■ /e ,' 'V-\:a- i^: S**-<'v! L^J 2i»^1 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS Printed by Neill <£; Company, Edinburgh, FOR DAVID DOUGLAS LONDON .... SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO., LIM. CAMBRIDGE . . . MACMILLAN AND BOWES. GLASGOW . . JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS BY DAVID MACEITCHIE AUTHOR OF "the GYPSIES OF INDIA," ETC. EDINBUEGH: DAVID DOUGLAS 1894 [All Rights reserved.] 2.15' CONTENTS. PAGE Introduction, vii CHAPTER I. Dark and Fair Gypsies — Tinkers or Tinklers — The Yetholm Tinklers — A Privileged Class — " The King's Kindly Tenants " of Lochmaben, . . 1 CHAPTER 11. The Paws — Sorners — Gypsies and Other Nomads, . 13 CHAPTER III. Saracens in Galloway — The Importation of Gypsies — Moors and the Morrice Dance — A Gypsy Captain IN East Lothian, ....... 20 CHAPTER IV. James iv, of Scotland and the Gypsies — Earl George OF Egypt — Aberdeen and the Faws in 1540 — A Gypsy Schism — Gypsy Thieves at Haddington in 1540 — " Letters for expelling of Egyptians," 1541 — Privy Council Writ of 1553 — The Lawlors in England, '29 CHAPTER V. The " Lawful Business " of Gypsies — Faring-Man's Law — Gypsy Law enforced by Scottish Crown — A Shetland Trial of 1612 — CIypsy Violence, . 46 G92169 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. PAGE Strolling Players at Roslin — Tinkers and Jongleurs — " SoRCiERS, Bateleurs, et Filous," ... 56 CHAPTER VII. A " Charge upon the Egyptians," 1573 — " Strong and Idle Beggars " punished — Edicts of 1576 and 1579 — A Gypsy Band at Glasgow in 1579 — Witchcraft in 1588 — Legislation against N'omadism — Penal Servitude in the Past, ...... 62 :i< CHAPTER VIII. The Crime of Harbouring Gypsies — Moses Faw's Sup- plication — Four Faws sentenced to Death in 1611 — Anti-Gypsy Enactments, 1611-1617 — Elspeth Maxwell and her Sons, ..... 77 CHAPTER IX. Lord Gray and the Gypsies — Trial of John Faw and Others in 1616 — A Royal Act of 1616, . Pardon — Anti-G yps y CHAPTER X. Trial of Eoslin Gypsies in 1624 — Banishment of John Stewart and James Faw — Transportation of Gypsies to America — The Cairo of Barullion — A Famous Gypsy Funeral, ..... 97 CHAPTER XI. The Countess of Cassillis Story — Formidable Character op Gypsy Gangs — Captain "William Baillie and his Band — A Record of Crime — Miscarriage of Justice — The End of a Turbu- lent Life, ........ 108 INTRODUCTION. nnHE idea of the present work, as well as its title, was -■- suggested to me by Mr Henry T. Crof ton's English Gypsies lender the Tttdors, a pamphlet issued under the auspices of the Manchester Literary Club, in 1880. Mr Crofton subsequently embodied this pamphlet, with much supplementary information, in a paper entitled " Early Annals of the Gypsies in England," which appeared in the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society ; ^ and all who have read that admirable paper have realised that it contains, condensed within a very small space, an immense array of historical facts relating to the Gypsies of England, during the reign of the Tudors. But a study of Scottish Gypsies under the Stewarts has the advantage of embracing a much longer stretch of time than the Tudor period, as the era of Stewart rule, beginning with the accession of Eobert II. in 1371, did not actually come to an end until the death of Queen Anne, in 1714. In another respect, moreover, it is of advantage to select this period; because although Mr Walter Simson's History of the Gypsies'^ gives an excellent account of the Scottish section of the race, yet his descriptions relate chiefly to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Undoubtedly that History contains also a number of earlier references, but these are comparatively few. To Simson's History, however, the present writer owes an immense debt, for all 1 Vol. i. pp. 5-24 Edinburgh, 1888-89 ; printed by T. & A. Constable. * London and Edinburgh, 1865 ; very fully edited by Mr James Siiuson. VIU INTRODUCTION. kinds of information regarding the Gypsies, in Scotland and elsewhere. While taking as my model Mr Crof ton's Tudor monograph, and stimulated still further by the profound historical re- searches of M. Paul Bataillard, researches which have occupied that student of the Gypsies for half a century,^ I have, how- ever, allowed myself a little more latitude than either of these writers, indulging occasionally in discursive remarks, inevitably suggested by some of the more important of the historical quotations. But it is to be understood that even these observations do not pretend to answer every question to which the facts cited give rise, or to offer anything like a final solution of the Gypsy problem. That problem, in the opinion of the present writer, has never been satisfactorily solved ; and this study of the Scottish Gypsies cannot claim to do more than assist in the ultimate unravelling of this intricate question. From Mr Francis Hindes Groome's In Gypsy Tcnts^ I have gleaned many important facts relating to my subject ; and to that writer I am indebted for various other references and hints which may not be specially acknowledged in the following pages. I have only to add that most of the historical statements in this work will be found in a series of papers contributed by me to the Joiirnal of the Gypsy Lore Society ^ in 1890-91. 1 How deeply, and with what painstaking precision, M. Bataillard has studied the question of " The Immigration of the Gypsies into "Western Europe in the Fifteenth Centuiy," may best be realised by English readers by con- sulting the papers contributed by that scholar to the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society (vols. i. and ii.). [As these pages are going to press, I have to record with regret the death, on 1st March, of this veteran tsiganologue.'] - Edin- burgh, 1 881. ^ It may be stated that this Journal, so frequently referred to in the present work, can be consulted at any of the four principal libraries of Edinburgh, as well as at several of the leading English and foreign libraries. SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS. CHAPTER I. IN considering the Gypsies of Scotland, one is met at the outset by the difficulty of ascertaining the exact sense in which that word has been used. The genuine Gypsy, the swarthy, fortune-telling Eomany of our fairs and race-courses is unmistakeable ; but the term " Gypsy " has been and still is loosely applied to many people of fair com- plexion, who cannot speak a word of Romanes, and whose chief claim to be so designated is that they lead a wandering, unsettled life. These latter are also known by various other names ; of which the most popular in Scotland are tinker or tinJder, — and, in earlier times, caird, — as also liorner, mugger {i.e., potter), and faio, — these last terms being more specially limited to the Border districts. The difficulty of defining a Scottish Gypsy will be realised if we turn to the observations made by Baron Hume with regard to this subject. " Touching the proof of such a charge," he says, " it is not sufficient to prove, in general, that the pannel [the accused] is habite and repute a sorner, or a vagabond, or a thief, or that he is addicted to those pilfering and vitious courses, which are common to Egyptians [i.e., Gypsies] with other wandering and dissolute societies. The special opinion of him as an Egyptian, or one of a different breed from the other inhabitants of this land, must be estab- lished ; and this proceeding on those noted and peculiar circumstances of manner and appearance by which, in all countries that they have visited, this loose and lazy race have so remarkably been distinguished. Among these are the black eye and swarthy complexion ; a peculiar language A 2 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS. or gibberish, intelligible only to themselves ; the practice of palmistry and fortune-telling ; and the custom of living (so far as the climate will permit) in the open air, and in solitary places." ^ So far, this seems distinct enough. But the numerous Gypsy trials on which Hume comments are themselves sufficient proof that " the black eye and swarthy complexion " was either wholly awanting in many cases, or else it was also common to the accused " Egyptian " and to many of the non-Gypsy inhabitants of Scotland. For, if the distinction was one of race, why should it have been necessary to prove that the accused was a Gypsy ? It would not be necessary, in any modern trial, to prove that a negro was a negro, or a Chinaman a Chinaman. Moreover, in those Gypsy trials, it frequently happened that the accused was acquitted of " being an Egyptian ; " a decision which obviously could never have been given had the question been one of race. Further, we see from the following descriptions that certain notorious " Gypsy " families in Scotland were not at all distinguished by " the black eye and swarthy complexion." " The principal names of the Gypsies residing at Yetholm," says a writer of the year 1835," " are Faa, Young, Douglas, and Ely the. The two latter are the most numerous, but they are evidently not of the same race. The Douglasses, the Faas, and the Youngs are generally dark-complexioned, with black hair ; while the Blythes mostly are light-haired and of fair complexion." Again, the minister of the parish of Borthwick, in Midlothian, writing in 1839, states that the village of Middleton was formerly " one of the chief seats of the tinkers or Gypsies," and refers to the contemporary representatives of those people in the following terms : — " We have already said that these do not now exist as a separate tribe in Middleton, but are much intermingled by marriage with the common people of this and the neighbouring parishes. In some in- stances they have accomplished matches of a yet higher kind. Their prevailing names are Baillie, Tait, and Wilson In occasional instances, the dark complexion and well-formed 1 Hume's Commentaries on the Law of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1844, vol. i. pp. 474, 475. ^ Stephen Oliver, Rambles in Northumbcrlaiul, London, 1835, p. 270. DARK AND FAIR GIPSIES. 3 features and sparkling eye of the purer race may be dis- covered : but, in general, their colour is rather cadaverous, or of a darkish pale ; their cheek-bones high ; their eyes small and light coloured ; their hair of a dingy white or red colour, and wiry ; and their skin drier and of a tougher texture than that of the people of this country." ^ From this last sentence, it is clear that the writer, although he speaks of much intermixture by marriage, regards, even the wdiite- skinned Gypsies as belonging to a special caste, distinct from " the people of this country." And in this he agrees exactly with the writer whose description of the Yetholm families has just been quoted. The Blythes at Yetholm and, " in general, ' the Middl^ton Gypsies, in the earlier part of this century, were fair-haired, white-skinned people. But, at the same time, distinctly " Gypsies." If " the black eye and swarthy- complexion " was necessary to establish the charge of " being an Egyptian," those people and their forefathers would have got off scot free. Yet, in everything that rendered them obnoxious to the settled people of Scotland they did not differ in the slightest degree from their brother-Gypsies of dark complexion. One example illustrating this curious condition of affairs may be cited here. " On 10th May 1732," says Hume,"^ " Mary Alston, alias Yorstoun (a noted Gipsy name), was tried on a charge of being an Egyptian ; but was acquitted of that charge, and convicted of stealing plaids at a fair, for which she was transported." There are several interesting particulars connected with this personage. Her husband was a celebrated Gypsy, named Matthew Baillie, who succeeded his father " Captain " William Baillie in the leadership of one section of the South-Scottish Gypsies, on the death of the latter in November 1724.'^ This Matthew Baillie was the great-uncle of a certain Jane liaillie, whose grand-daughter, Jane Baillie Welsh, became the wife of Thomas Carlyle. Matthew Baillie is described by Mrs Carlyle as " the last of the Gypsies ; could steal a horse from ^ New Statistical Account of Scotlaiul, vol. i., " Edinljurglishire," Ediiilmrfli, 184.'), pp. 184, 185. ^ Op. rit., vol. i. p. 474, note 2. ^ n,. ^y,,^ muideied by two brot]inr-Gyj).sies at Ncwarthili, Laiiark.shire, His sou Matthew was hau'^ed at Laiiaik, as pointed out by Mis Carlyle. 4 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS. under the owner if he liked, Ijut left always the saddle and bridle ; a thorough gentleman in his way, and six feet four in stature ! " She also says : — " By the way, my uncle has told me that the wife of that Matthew Baillie, Margaret Euston ^ by name, was the original of Sir W. Scott's Meg Merrilees." There are various incidental matters of interest in these references. But the point to be noted at present is that a woman who bore " a noted Gypsy name," who was the wife of a famous Gypsy leader, and the mother of four well-known Gypsy men (for Mrs Carlyle is in error in describing their father as " the last of the Gypsies "), and who was formally " tried on a charge of being an Egyptian," was nevertheless " acquitted of that charge," although she was sentenced to transportation as a thief. This fact alone denotes that to be a Scottish Gypsy or " Egyptian " was not necessarily a matter of race or complexion. One finds a like difficulty in defining a " Gypsy " when the question is considered under other aspects. The beHef presently held by most students of the Gypsies is that the fifteenth century marks the date of their first appearance in Western Europe ; and it is certain that no evidence has yet been produced to show that the term " Gypsy " or " Egyptian " was used before that date in that part of Europe. But there is this to be considered, that genuine Gypsies have often been spoken of as " tinkers " (chaudronniers) on account of the occupation with which they have long been associated ; and that, although there is no known mention of " Gypsies " in the British Islands prior to the fifteenth century, there are many earlier references to " tinkers " or " tinklers," as they are called in Scotland. " It is at present by no means certain when the Gypsies made their first appearance in England," observes Mr H. T. Crofton. " Tinkler can be traced back to about the year 1200. Tinker and Tinkler were not uncommon titles at that time. Between the years 1165 and 1214 James ' Tinkler' held land ^ Eustou, Yowston, Yorstoun, Y'orkston, and Alston are the variants given by different writers. Mrs Carlyle, however, is exceptional in calling her "Margaret," not "Mary." It may be added that the Carlyle references to those Baillies will be found in vol. ii. of Mr Fronde's Letters and 3Iemorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle, p, 54, and in vol. ii. of Carlyle's Eeminiscences, pp. 103 and 128. TINKERS OR TINKLERS. 5 in the town of Perth {Liber Ecdesie clc Scon, Edinburgh, 1843) ; in 1265 ' Editha le Tijnckcre ' Hved at WalHugford, in Berkshire {Hist. MSS. Com. 6th Eeport, 1878) ; in 1273 a ' Thicker ' and ' William cle Tyncher ' lived in Huntingdon- shire (Lower's Patronym. Brit, from Himd. Eot.) ; and before 1294 ' Ralph Tinder ' had a house at Morpeth, in Xorthum- berland {Hist. MSS. Com. Qth Rcpoi^t, 1878). All these seem to have had fixed abodes, and not to have been of the same itinerant class with which we now associate all tinkers, and which used to require the epithet ' w'andering ' to distinguish them." ^ To the same purpose as the opinion expressed in this last sentence is ]\Ir Crof ton's observation made elsewhere,^ that " all Gypsies may be pedlars, brasiers, or tinkers, but the reverse may not follow." While it is quite true that although many Gypsies are tinkers, yet all tinkers are not necessarily Gypsies, an argu- ment which applies to the past as well as to the present, it must be pointed out that the possession of a fixed abode does not preclude the " tinker " from being also a " Gypsy." As an illustration of this we ha\e the case of a well-known Scottish Gypsy of last century, who was the possessor and occupier of a house in the small town of Biggar, Lanarkshire.^ That this man was a representative of the caste known as " tinklers " or " Gypsies " there can be no doubt. If he was not a Gypsy, then Simson's History (which certainly construes that word too hberally) is altogether erroneously named, and none of the people described by him were really Gypsies. A similar instance is that of William Marshall, whom Sir Walter Scott refers to ^ as " the Caird [Tinker] of Ijarullion, ^ English Gypsies under the Ttcdors, Manchester, 1880, pp. 1, 2. ^ Notes and Queries, July 8, 1876 (5th Series, vi.). ^ This was Matthew Baillie, son of the Matthew Baillie who figures in Simson's History of the Gypsies, 1865, pp. 196-228, and wlio has already been referred to as the brother of an ancestor of Mrs Carlyle. His house is mentioned in Biggar and tlic House of Fleming (FMinbnrgh, 1867, pji. 413, 414), where it is stated that "the back entrance has his initials, M, B., and the date 1752, along with the letters M. E. , C. I., and a mason's mark. The title-deeds bear that the property was disponed to 'Matthew Biiillie, indweller in Biggar, and Margaret Campbell, his spouse, in conjunct fee and liferent, and to John Baillie, eldest son of the s;iid Matthew Baillie by his first marriiige, in fee as to one- half, and to Rachel and Elizabeth Baillie, daughters of the said Mattliew Baillie and Margaret Campbell, as to the other half.' " * In his "Additional Note " to Guy Maniicring. 6 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS. King of the Gypsies of the Western Lowlands," who is pictured as living in a cottage at Polnure, in Galloway, in 1789/ Now, Loth of these men, who were imdouhtedly Gypsies if Scotland contained any Gypsies during the eighteenth century, combined the position of house-dweller with that of vagrant. Many similar modern examples, in the British Islands and on the Continent, might be adduced ; but that would lead us from the point. "VMiat is of more importance is to observe that the two house-dwelling " tinkers " just mentioned were not exceptional specimens of their class. A whole street at Kirk-Yetholm was called " Tinkler Eow " because it was inhabited entirely by those very people who spent their summers as wandering tinkers. Mention may also be made of a Tinkler Eow in Edinburgh and a Tinkler Eow in Newcastle,^ while an allusion made by an English writer of the sixteentli century shows that certain streets in Southwark, London, were then inhabited by tinkers.^ But, in the absence of any strong indication that the in- habitants of those streets in the towns just named were not merely sedentary tinsmiths, these examples may be passed over. It is sufficient to remark that the dwellers in the " Tinkler Eow " of Kirk-Yetholm were those very people who, living a nomadic life during the greater part of the year, have always been regarded as most unquestionably Scottish Gypsies. Of these Yetholm " tinklers " a writer of the year 1 847 says : — " Tliey have physical marks in their dusky complexion, their Hindoo features, and their black penetrating eyes, pecuhar to themselves, and still broader peculiarities of a moral kind which defy all doubt as to their being in a very emphatic sense Gypsies." ^ If this writer is to be trusted. 1 BlackiooocVs Magazine, August 1817. ^ Referred to in Richardson's Local Historian's Table Book, London, 1844, vol, iv. p. 207. ^ See The Rogues and Vagabonds of Shaksperes Youth, compiled by Messrs Yiles and Furnivall for the Early English Text Society, reprint of 1880, pp. 35 and 59. The sixteentli-century writer (Harman) there quoted states that in order to recover a caldron of his which had been stolen he sent one of liis men to London, " and there gave warning in Sothwarke, Kent Strete, and Baimesey Streete, to all the Tynckars there dwelling, that if any such caudron came thether to be sold, the bringar thereof should be stayed, and promised twenty shyllings for a reward." ^ Gazetteer of Scotland, Edinburgh, 18i7, s.v. "Kirk- Yetholin." THE YETHOLM TINKLERS. 7 these Yetholin " tinklers " were racially Gypsies ; but it ought to be stated that these people are now dispersed, and therefore nothing can be done in the way of verifying this description, which is not borne out by the complexion of the late " Queen Esther," or her still surviving daughter. Esther, however, was really a member of the Blythe clan, described by the writer of 1835, previously quoted, as " mostly light-haired and of fair complexion." This consideration, indeed, qualifies to a certain extent the description just cited. Nevertheless, the testimony of the writer of 1847 is quite in agreement with that obtained by Mr Hoyland thirty years earlier. " So strongly remarkable is the [Yetholm] Gypsey cast of countenance, that even a description of them to a stranger, who has had no opportunity of formerly seeing them, w^ill enable him to know them wherever he meets with them." " The progeny of such alliances [marriages between Yetholm Gypsies and non-Gypsies] have almost universally the tawny I complexion and fine black eyes of the Gypsey parent, whether father or mother." Moreover, the Yetholm language, as recorded by Baird and Simson, is so clearly a dialect of Eomanes, that it entirely bears out the belief that at one time or another those Kirk -Yetholm people and their language were essentially Gypsy. "I have known the colony between forty and fifty years," says a writer of about the year 1816.^ "At my first remembrance of them they were called the Tinklers (Tinkers) of Yetholm, from the males being chiefly then employed in mending pots and other culinary utensils, especially in their peregrinations through the hilly and less populous parts of the country Their residence is at Kirk- Yet- holm, and chiefly confined to one row of houses or street of that town, which goes by the name of Tinkler Eow. Most of them have leases of their possessions, granted for a term of nineteen times nineteen years, for paymeift of a small sum yearly, something of the nature of a quit-tent. There is no tradition in the neighbourhood concerning- the time when the Gypsies first took up their residence at that place, nor whence they came. Most of their leases, I believe, were granted by ^ Quoted by Hoyland in liis Historical Survey of the Gypsies, Yoik, 1816, p. 98 et seq. 8 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS. the family of the Bennets of Grubet, the last of whom was Sir David Bemiet, who died about sixty years ago." In order to understand still better the position of these people, it is necessary that the following additional statement, by the same writer, be quoted : — " I remember that about forty-five years ago [about 1770], being then apprentice to a writer [solicitor],^ who was in use to receive the rents as well as the small duties of Kirk-Yetholm, he sent me there with a list of names, and a statement of what was due ; recom- mending me to apply to the landlord of the public-house, in the village, for any information or assistance which I might need. " After waiting a long time and receiving payment from most of the feuers, or rentallers, I observed to him that none of the persons of the names of Faa, Young, Ely the, Fleckie, itc, who stood at the bottom of the list for small sums, had come to meet me according to the notice given by the Baron Officer ; and proposed sending to inform them that they were detaining me, and to request their immediate attendance. " The landlord, with a grave face, inquired whether my master had desired me to ask money from those men. I said, ' Not par- ticularly ; but they stood on the list.' ' So I see,' said the landlord ; ' but had your master been here himself, he did not dare to ask money from them, either as rent or feu-duty. He knoivs that it is as good as if it ivere in his pocket. They ivill pay when their own time comes, hut do not like to pay at a set time ivith the rest of the Barony; and still less to be craved." ^ "I accordingly returned without their money, and reported progress. I found that the landlord was right. My master said with a smile that it was unnecessary to send to them, after the previous notice from the Baron Officer ; it was enough if I had received the money, if offered. Their rent and feu-duty was brought to the office in a few weeks. I need scarcely add, those persons all belonged to the tribe." From these extracts, then, it will be seen that the Yetholm Gypsies of 1770 were a privileged class, hokbng their allot- ments, or cottages, " for payment of a small sum yearly ; something of the nature of a quit-rent." No pressure was brought to bear upon them, as upon the other tenants, when they did not come forward with their rents upon the stated day. And these possessions were held upon leases granted by the former lords of the manor, whose line ended about the year 1755 ; and these leases were issued for the long period of three hundred and sixty-one years. ^ Evidently in the neighbouring town of Kelso. - Italicised in original. A PRIVILEGED CLASS. » Although other interesting accounts might be quoted with regard to the Yetholm Gypsies, it is enough to pass from the statements just made to the consideration of another section of the same people, situated also in southern Scotland. " The name of Tinkler continues to be found in old charters to a comparatively late period," says one writer, in the course of a discussion upon this question. " Thus it appears in an old charter, of which I have an extract before me, re- ferring to the lands not far from Hightae, where the Gipsies — the Faas, the Kennedys, &c., ' the King's kindly tenants,' as they were called — long lived, and where some of their descendants, I believe, are still living. The charter is dated May 31, 1439, the third year of James II. It is by John Halliday of Hodholm (now Hoddam), by which he wadsetts [mortgages] his lands called Holcroft, a coteland, which was sometime belonging to William de Johnstone, and two oxgangs of land, which are called the Tynkler's lands, in the tenement of Hodholm and lordship of Annandail, to John de Carrutheris, Laird of Mouse wald, for 10 1., money lent him ' in his grete myserie,' dated Mousewald." ^ This evidence of Mr Eamage's, if it be reliable throughout, is certainly the most important contribution to this question. The mere mention of " the Tynkler's lands " in a charter of 1439 is, taken by itself, of minor importance ; because we have already seen that there are references of that kind as early as the twelfth century. But when Mr Eamage implies that the Tinklers there alluded to were of the well-known Scotch Gypsy tribes of Faa and Kennedy, and that these Faas and Kennedys were no other than " the king's kindly tenants " of Lochmaben, he points to the residence of Gypsies .in that part of Scotland as far back as an era that might almost be styled " prehistoric." We know that the district he speaks of, which is included under the more compre- ^ Mr C. T. Ramage, Notes and Queries, January 15, 1876 (5th Series, v.). " The remainder of Mr Ramage's statements in this place may as well be given here, since it funiislics anotlier though a more modern instance of the same kind. He adds: — "The name also Tj/?d-eWans Maling [i.e.. Tinkler's mailing or farm, from the word /?iaj7 = reut], near Inchinnan, appears in au old document, dated April '23, 1530, in a dispute between the Countess- Dowager of Lennox and John Sympill of Fulwod, quoted by Sir W. Fraser in his work entitled The Lennox (vol. ii, p. 235)." 10 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS, hensive name of Lochmaben, liad a large Gypsy population in the eighteenth century.^ And Mr Eamage says, in effect, that this population was no other than the peculiar and privileged caste known as " the king's kindly tenants." ; The " kindly tenants " of mediaeval Scotland are defined as /" feudal tenants, termed Icindly, from the circumstance of their being natives, born on those lands which had been possessed by their ancestors for many generations. Such persons were seldom ejected, so long as they paid the almost nominal rents of those lands, which they were thvis permitted to occupy by a sort of hereditary title, after the decease of the former tenant. They were styled Nativi in old charters," ^ Such were " kindly tenants " in general. Those specially known as " the king's kindly tenants of Lochmaben " are thus mentioned by Sir Walter Scott : — "I cannot dismiss the subject of Lochmaben without noticing an extraordinary and anomalous class of landed proprietors, who dwell in the neighbourhood of that burgh. These are the inhabi- tants of four small villages, near the ancient castle, called the Four Towns of Lochmaben. They themselves are termed the king's rentallers, or kindly tenants ; under which denomination each of them has a right, of an allodial nature, to a small piece of ground. It is said that these people are the descendants of Robert Bruce's menials, to whom he assigned, in reward of their faithful service, these portions of land, burdened only with the payment of certain quit-i'ents, and grassums, or tines, upon the entry of a new tenant This possession, by rental, or by simple entry upon the rent-roll, was anciently a common and peculiarly sacred species of property granted by a chief to his faithful followers Fortunately for the inhabitants of the Four Towns of Lochmaben the maxim that the king can never die prevents their right of pro- perty from reverting to the Crown [An attempt having been made last century to dispossess them,] the rentallers united in their common defence ; and, having stated their immemorial possession, together with some favourable clauses in certain old Acts of Parliament, enacting that the king's poor kindly tenants of Lochmaben should not be hurt, they finally prevailed in an action before the Court of Session The kindly tenants of Loch- maben live (or at least lived till lately) much sequestered from their neighbours, marry among themselves, and are distinguished from each other by sobriquets, according to the ancient Border i Simson, p. 381, note, "Some of these villages [in the south of Scotland] are almost entirely occupied by Gypsies. James Hogg is reported, in Black- wood's Magazine, to say that Lochmaben is 'stocked ' with them." ^ Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, Edinburgh, 1833, vol, iii. p, 366, note. "THE king's KINDLY" TENANTS OF LOCHMABEN." 11 custom. You meet among their writings with such names as John Out-bye, Will In-bye, White-Fish, Eed-Fish, &c. They are tena- ciously obstinate in defence of their privileges of commonty, Arc, which are numerous. Their lands are, in general, neatly enclosed and well cultivated, and they form a contented and industrious little community. "Many of these particulars are extracted from MSS. of ]Mr Syme, writer to the signet. Those who are desirous of more information may consult Craig, De Feudis, lib. ii., dig. 9, sec. 24." ^ To Scott's account may be added a reference to another writer, who states that the ancestors of " kindly tenants " in general were of the class of " villcyns (adscripti glchm), literally slaves," and that tliose of Lochmaben were probably freed at the end of the thirteenth century ; after which " they got the name of free tenants, and afterwards the king's kindly tenants." This writer mentions the principal surnames of those Lochmaben people, among which are many well- known South-Scottish names, common to Gypsies and to non-Gypsies. It is noteworthy that he does not include the name of " Faa " among these.^ Neither of the writers last quoted give any hint that they regarded " the king's kindly tenants of Lochmaben " as Gypsies, or even as tinkers. This silence is undoubtedly not to be ignored. On the other hand, James Hogg, who was intimately acquainted with the Scottish Borderland, states that Lochmaben was " stocked " with Gypsies ; while Mr Eamage says outright that those " kindly tenants " were Gypsies, and had dwelt there from time immemorial. What is even more important is the fact that this peculiai' Lochmaben caste existed on a footing nearly identical witli that of the Yetholm Gypsies. In either case, we have a privileged class of " rentallers," holding their property on " an almost nominal rent," and understood to have occupied that position for an unknown number of centuries. When, therefore, the peculiar position and unknown history of the Yetholm " Tinklers " is considered, together with the peculiarities attaching to the possibly kindred caste ^ Tlie Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, note to "The Loelimaben Harper." ^ For this reference see Lochmahen Five Hundred Years Ago, by tlie Rev. W. Graham, Edinburgh, 1865, ch. vii. See also Bell's Dictionary of the Law of Scotla.iui, 7th ed., Edinburgh, 1890, s.v. " Kindly Tenants, or Rentallers," and "Lochiualii'ii." 12 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS. at Lochmaben, and with the known existence of " Tinklers " in Scotland as far back as the twelfth century (as witnessed by documents — not to speak of tradition and archaeology), it is difficult to avoid the deduction that Gypsies were known in Scotland as early as the twelfth century. Only, it is necessary to prove first that " Tinkler " is truly synonymous with " Gypsy." And this is very far from being proved at present. There is no doubt that " tinker " or " tinkler " has very often been employed as equivalent to " Gypsy." For example, the parish of Eaglesham, in Eenfrewshire, is stated to have been formerly much " oppressed " by " Gypsies, commonly called tinklers, or randy beggars."^ And the writer of an article in an Edinburgh journal of the year 1818 speaks of " the Gypsies, or Tinklers, as they are generally called in the county of Lanark." Of this usage there can be no question. Further, the swarthy complexion of the "tinkler" is seen, for example, in the song which Simson gives as sung by Scottish peasant -mothers to their babies— " Hush ye, hush ye, dinna fret ye, The black Tinkler winna get ye." Nevertheless, distinct evidence has not hitherto been pro- duced to show that the " tinkler " of the centuries preceding the fifteenth was of swarthy complexion, and those who are disposed to believe that he was not are quite entitled to assume that incoming Gypsies of true Eomani blood have leavened an earlier white-skinned " tinker " stock within the last three or four centuries. ^ statistical Account of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1791, vol. ii. 124. CHAPTER II. IT is evident, therefore, that the word " tinker " or " tinkler," although often applied to genuine Gypsies, cannot be regarded as actually synonymous with " Gypsy." A similar uncertainty attaches to the word " faw." Under the forms Faw, Faa, and Fall it has figured conspicu- ously as a Gypsy surname for about four centuries, especially in connection with the Border districts. " In Northumber- land," says one writer,^ " the name has become generic for the whole tribe of travelling tinkers and muggers, who, in that county, are much more frequently called Faas than Gypsies." So mucli is this the case that Wright, in his Provincial Dictionary, defines " Faw " as signifying " an itinerant tinker, potter &c. ; " and Halliwell, in quoting the Cumberland term of a " Faw-gang," or " a gang of faws," refers to a certain "Francis Heron, King of the Faios^ who was buried at / Jarrow in 1756. " One thing is certain," observes a wrij^er in Wilson's Tales of the Borders^ " that the name Faa not bnly was given to individuals whose surname might be Fall, but to the Winters and Clarkcs — id genus omne — Gipsy families well known on the Borders." In this general sense the word has been employed by Mr Walter Besant, in a Christmas tale (1882), wherein he says :- — " There were waggoners to talk with, friendly hawkers, whom the people call muggers [i.e., potters], and faws, or tinkers, who are too often robbers and pilferers."^ Fuller evidence in the same direction is fur- nished by Mr Joseph Lucas, in his Yetholm History of the ^ Stephen Oliver, Rambles in Northumhcrland, London, 1835, p. 271. ^ See "The Faa's Revenge." •* In his novel oi Dorothy Fur stcr, the scene of which is laid in Northumberland, Mr Besant makes a notewortliy reference (p. 3.) to "ghosts, spectres, witches, warlocks, elves, demons, fairies ov faws, want's, warnings, and other strange manifestations and mysterious powers ; " hut he offers no explanation for the identity thus suggested between the terms " fairy " and " faw." 14 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS. Gypsies} where he gives a series of extracts from Sykes's Local Records (1833) ; and as these throw considerable light upon the subject t-hey may fitly be quoted here : — (Vol. i. p. 196) — 1750, Aug. 27. — James Macfidum, alias Mac- farlane, was executed at Durham for robbing Robert Hopes, a boy about ten years old This man and woman were part of a fjanrj of Faivs who, for many years, had infested that neighbour- hood. (P. 201)— 1752, Apr. 13. — The following felons from Morpeth Gaol were put on board the Owner's Goodwill, Capt. Moorland, in order to be ti'ansported to So. Carolina for seven years, among 17 — viz., J. Fall and Margaret, his wife ; William Fall and Jane, his wife These felons were part of the very numerous gangs of Faws who infested the county of Northumberland, and who were incessantly shopbreaking and plundering. Fourteen were adver- tised as having returned within two years, and were again lurking about Northumberland. See also E. Mackenzie. History of Nev;- castle, 1827, vol. i. p. 57. (P. 203)—] 752, July 1 1.— Seven of the gang of Faws, who had been a terror to Rothbury and its neighbourhood, were apprehended, and sent to Morpeth Gaol. Several more were pursued to the mountains ; but could not be come at. Various of the goods belonging to the owniers of siiops which had been broken into at Morpeth, etc., were found in their possession. (P. 209)— 1754, Aug. 24. — A woman named Elizabeth Rochester made her escape from Durham Gaol. She was one of the gang of Faivs, or strolling depredators, who infested the northern counties at this period. (P. 213)— 1756, Jan. 13.— In the burial register of Jarrow Church under this date, occurs "Francis Heron, king of y^ Faws" (Sharpe, Chronicon Mirabile). (P. 261) — 1767, Apr. 18. — Richard Clark was executed at York for breaking into a house near Knaresborough. As this man was one of the Faw-gang which so long infested the county of Northumber- land, it may not be uninteresting to relate the particulars of his life [which the writer therefore proceeds to do]. Another reference to the same people is given in Tom- linson's Comprehensive Guide to Northumherland, p. 309 : — " One Margaret Crozier was murdered, 29th Aug. 1791, at Haws Pele, 3 miles N. of Elsdon, by William Winter, a desperate character, 'at the instigation and with the assistance of two female faws (vendors of crockery and tinwork) named Jane and Eleanor Clark, who, in their wanderings, had experienced the kindness of Margaret Crozier. The day before, they had rested and dined in a sheepfold, and they were identified by a shepherd boy who had taken parti- 1 Kelso, 1882, pp. 127, 128. THE FAWS. 15 cular notice of the number and character of the nails in Winter's shoes, and also the peculiar gulley or butcher's knife with which he had divided the food. All three were hanged at Newcastle, and Winter's body was hung in chains within sight of his victim's house." Winter is thus described by another writer : — " This man belonged to a family which was one of the worst of a bad gang oi faws, itinerant tinkers, who formerly infested this jDart of Northumberland in considerable numbers, robl)ing and threatening the small farmers, who would not allow them to lodge in their out-houses, and who did not, either in jDrovisions or money, 23ay them a kind of hlack-maiL Winter is described, by the country peoi^le who remember him, as a tall, powerful man, of dark com- l^lexion, wearing his long black hair hanging about his shoulders, and of a most savage countenance. The appearance of this ruffian in a small village was a signal for the inhabitants to close their doors ; Avhile he, as if proud of the terror which he inspired, would keep walking back and forward, with his arms a-kimbo, on the green." ^ From these various extracts it is evident that the name " Faw " has long been used on the Borders to denote the Gypsy or semi-Gypsy castes,^ although the people spoken of as " Faws " bore, in a great many cases, such surnames as Winter, Clark, Heron, or Eochester, and only occasionally were actually named " Fall," otherwise " Faw." This circumstance may be explained in two ways. It is quite possible that one influential family, distinguished by t*Pr^ surname of Faw, or Fall, had imposed that name upon all the inferior families over which it held sway ; or that the non- Gypsy population, recognising that Faw, or Fall, was one of the most famous names among the Gypsies, had applied it loosely to the whole people. Such a usage exists, or lately existed, in Yorkshire, where Bos well, or Bosvile, is a cele- brated Gypsy surname. From this fact has arisen the local saying " as black as a Bozzle," which denotes, as pointed out by Mr F. H. Groome, " as black as a Gypsy," — not neces- 'sarily one bearing the name of Boswell. Similarly, I am informed that the arrival of " the Kennedys " in Thornliill, or one of the neighbouring villages of Dumfriesshire, was understood by everyone to mean the arrival of " the Gypsies," ^ Oliver's Rnmhlcs in Northutnherland, London, 1835, p. 113. ^ Mr Thomas Davidson, to whom I am indehted for tlie extract from Tomlinsoii's Guide, informs me that this usage still obtains in Northumberland. 16 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS. Kennedy being the surname of most of them in that quarter. On the other hand, the word may be derived from the Anglo-Saxon fah, faio, or fall, signifying " parti-coloured." A good illustration of the use of this adjective is found in the name of the town of Falkirk, which, often yet pronounced as FcC or Fatv-'kixk, was formerly written " the Faw-kirk," and in Latin and Gaelic was respectively known as Varia Capella and Eaglais Bhreac. In all three languages the adjective signifies " parti-coloured," and there are several good reasons for assuming that it was in this sense that " faw," or " fall," was first applied to Gypsies. But whichever of these may be the right explanation of the origin of this usage, it is evident that it is one of old standing. And from this fact one might draw an inference pointing again to the conclusion that Gypsies have been in this country for a longer period than is generally imagined. Describing the Yetholm Gypsies one writer says : — " Nearly the whole of them are ' muggers,' wandering dealers in earthenware ; "^ and we have seen that Wright defines a " faw " as " an itinerant tinker, potter" &c. Now, there is a passage in Blind Harry's Wallace (book vi. lines 435-460) which describes an encounter between Wallace and an itinerant potter, somewhere between Culter and Biggar, in Lanarkshire. According to Border terminology, this man was a " faw " ; therefore, if the testimony of Harry the Minstrel is worth anything, — and, of course, it is far from being authoritative, — there were " faws " in the Biggar district during the thirteenth century, as certainly there were some centuries later. Similar deductions might be drawn if one were to consider such terms as caird, or homer, both appropriately given to Scottish Gypsies, but both indicating castes and occupations of very old date in Scotland. Much also might be said on the subject of itinerant " kaulkers," and " keelers," or " keel- men," otherwise " ruddlemen." It could be shown that Gypsies have often been associated with, and in some cases identified with, those wandering vendors of ruddle, or haematite, — castes that have existed in these islands for a very long period. But although Gypsies have, in a great many cases, followed occupations such as these, it is 1 Gazetteer of Scotland, 1847, s.v. " Kirk- Yetholm." SORNERS. 17 impossible to assert that all who followed such occupations were Gypsies. Equal doubt attaches to certain references which Mr Crofton and others have assumed as possibly, if not probably, indicating Gypsies ; for example, an Act of the Scottish Parliament of the year 1449 directed against " sorners [people who forcibly quartered themselves upon others], over-liers, and masterful beggars, with horse, hounds, or other goods." This Act, it has been pointed out,^ aims at a class answering to the earlier Gypsies of the Continent, as described by Krantz ; and there is no doubt that the comparison is a true one. Moreover, we find that when " Egyptians " eventually come to be named in the Scottish Acts of Parliament, the Act directed against them is also directed against people addicted to the habits which the edict of 1449 aims at sup- pressing. Not only that, but these habits, and other characteristics of such people, are precisely the liabits and characteristics of the Scottish Gypsies as these are portrayed in Simson's History. But, again, this difficulty occurs. If we accept the Act of 1449 as referring to Gypsies, although it does not name them, then there is no reason why we should limit ourselves to so modern a date as 1449 for evidence of the presence of Gypsies in Scotland, because there are very good grounds for believing that the class of people legislated against in 1449 had existed in Scotland for a long period prior to that date. Whether such people were really Gypsies has never been convincingly demonstrated. The crime of " sorning," however, was so closely associated with the Gypsies that Baron Hume specially considers it when discussing the crime of " being an Egyptian." And, as his remarks throw considerable light upon the position of the Gypsies, in the latter part of the Stewart period, they are deserving of quotation here. He observes as follows : — " Along with tliat of being an Egyptian, we may rank the kin- dred, and also capital offence of Sorning ; being one of the many evil habits' to which that profligate and sturdy crew have every- where been addicted. By sorning we understand the masterful taking of meat and drink without payment ; a thing which in the former undisciplined condition of this country (happily very different from what it now is) was easily accomi^lished by those ^ See vol. i. of the Journal of the Gypsij-Lorc Society, p. 6. B 18 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS. numerous bands of dissolute and lawless people, more especially in remote and solitary situations, where they chiefly haunted, by the very terror of their looks and language, and their known violent and revengeful temper. The state of Scotland in this respect was indeed deplorable, if we may trust the description that is given of the numbers and the manners of those vagabond fraternities, by one who was able to judge and had opportunity of knowing. Fletcher of Salton affirms, in a treatise written in 1698, that the numbers who lived as vagabonds, even in ordinary times (and in that year of dearth they were twice as many) amounted to at least a hundred thousand ; who might be seen on all occasions of public meeting, both men and women, perpetually drunk, cursing and blaspheming, and fighting with each other ; who lived without any regard or subjection to the laws of the land, or even those of God and nature ; fathers incestuously accompanying with their own daughters, the son with the mother, and the brother with the sister ; ■" and of whom no magistrate could discover that ever they were baptised, or which way one in a hundred of them died. ' They were not only (says he) a most unspeakable oppression to poor tenants (who if they give not bread or some kind of provision to perhajDS forty such villains in one day, are sure to be insulted by them), but they rob many poor peojjle, who live in houses distant from any neighbourhood.'"^ It seems pretty clear that the people described by Fletcher of Salton were the Scottish Gypsies. His account may be one-sided, and indeed it is, — for he ignores many other aspects of Gypsy life. But any reader of Simson's History will see that the Gypsies described by him as vagabonds and " sorners " in the eighteenth century, were very distinctly the representatives, and presumably the descendants, of Fletcher's seventeenth-century vagabonds and " sorners." As already pointed out, however, the term " sorner " is too com- prehensive to be held as equivalent to " Gypsy." After consideration of the various statements made in this and the preceding chapter, the point to be established seems to be this — Did Gypsies inhabit Scotland for a much longer period than is popularly supposed, although (for one reason or another) they are not designated by the name of ^ A writer in Blackwood's Magazine, April, 1817, speaking of the Teviot- dde and Tweeddale Gypsies during the eighteenth century, states: — "The crimes that were committed among this hapless race were often atrocious. Incest and murder were frequent among them." Compare also the accusation of incest in the trial at Scalloway, in 1612, cited p. 53, post. And it may be added that this also is one of the crimes attributed to the English Gypsies by Dekker {Lanthorne and Candle Light, 1609). - Hume, O}). cit., vol. i. p. 475. GYPSIES AND OTHER NOMADS, 19 " Egyptian " until the fifteenth century ? Or did they enter Scotland for the first time in the fifteenth century, and, find- ing there an already-existing caste of nomadic, " magic-work- ing " tinkers, muggers, pedlars, ballad-singers, mountebanks, &c. (as unquestionably there was), proceed to affiliate them- selves with those castes, whom they eventually leavened to a considerable degree with Romani blood and Eomani speech ? As a matter of personal opinion I may say that the former of these two questions is the one which, for various reasons, I am disposed to answer in the affirmative. But those who take the opposite view have much to say in support of their belief. It is certainly the case that no instance of the application of the term " Gypsy " or " Egyptian " to any caste within the British Islands at any period preceding the fifteenth century has yet been brought to light. Having thus considered, to at least as great an extent as our space allows, the question of Gypsy-like castes not styled " Gypsies " or " Egyptians," we may pass on to examine the various references to people so designated. CHAPTEE III. THE earliest period at which Gypsies are definitely stated to have inhabited Scotland is the latter half of the fifteenth century. But even here the evidence is traditional rather than historical. That is to say, if there is any contemporaneous document proving the statements to be presently quoted, that document has not yet been brought forward. However, in spite of the want of positive con- firmation, these traditional accounts have too much value to be overlooked. Two dates in particular are singled out — the period 1452-60, and the year 1470. The event placed in the first of these periods has already been noticed by Simson,^ Crofton,^ and others. The scene of its occurrence was the province of Galloway, in the south-west of Scotland, and one of the principal figures was the young heir of the then impor- tant family of Maclellan of Bombie, whose ancestral estate lay near the town of Kirkcudbright, in that province. It is in the history of this family, afterwards ennobled with the title of " Lord Kirkcudbright," that one learns of this tradition ; and one account is that given by Crawfurd, a genealogist of the beginning of last century. Crawfurd states^ that, after having been forfeited in the middle of the fifteenth century — " The Bai'ony of Bonihie was again recovered by the Jfaclellans, as the Tradition goes, after this Manner. In the same Eeign [that of James II. of Scotland], says an Author of no small credit (Sir George Mackenzie in his Baronage MS.) it liapi^ned that a Com- pany of Saracens or Gipsies from Ireland infested the country of Galloivay ; whereujoon the King emitted a Proclamation, bearing, That whoever should disperse them, and bring in their Captain dead or alive, should have the Barony of Bombie for his Reward. So it 1 History, ji. 99. - Tudors, p. 3. » The Peerage of Scotlatid, Edinburgh, 1716, p. 238. SARACENS IN GALLOWAY. 21 chanced that a brave young Gentleman, the Laird of Bomhie's Son, fortun'd to kill the Person for which the Reward was promised, and he brought his Head on the point of his Sword to the King, and thereui^on he was immediately seized [vested] in the Barony of Bomhie ; and to perpetuate the ^Memory of that bra^•e and remark- able Action, he took for his Crest a Move's Head on the jDoint of a Sword, and Think On for his Motto." Although Crawfurd is not the first in chronological order who mentions this tradition, he is here quoted first because he unhesitatingly applies the term " Gypsy " to the " Moors " or " Saracens " of his story. What were his grounds for believing that the three terms were all equally applicable does not appear. It will be seen that the very writer whom he quotes does not speak of those people as " Gyjisies." The writer referred to — Sir George Mackenzie, a famous Scottish lawyer of the seventeenth century — in the course of a treatise upon Crests, observes that — " Sometimes it [the crest] represents some valiant Act done by the Bearer, thus MdeU.and of Bomhie did, and now the Lord Kirk- cudbright [his ennobled descendant], does bear a naked Arm, sup- porting on the point of a sword a Mores head ; because Bomhie [the ancestral estate] being forfeited, his Son kill'd a More, who came in with some Sarazens to infest Galloway ; to the Killer of whom the King had promised the Forfeiture of Bomhie; and thereuiDon was restored to his Fathers land, as his Evidents yet testilie." ^ Here, it will be 'seen, the term " Gypsy " is not employed ; and this is noteworthy, as the passage just quoted was written i:hirty-six years earlier than Crawfurd's version, Mackenzie here speaks of the leader of the depredators as " a Moor who came in with some Saracens to infest Galloway." " Moor " (Lat. maurus) has within recent times become somewhat restricted in its meaning, but when Sir George Mackenzie wrote it signified any person of dark complexion. The English settlers in New England, for example, spoke of the American Indians as " Moors." ^ " Saracen " also appears to have had a tolerably wide appli- cation at one time, and although sometimes applied to Gypsies (notably in France), it can hardly be held to denote, of itself, anything more definite than " foreigner," or perhaps ^ 77tc Science of Herauldry, by Sir George Mackenzie of Ross-haugh, Knight, Edinburgh, 1680, p. 90. - News from Nevi Ewjland, London, 1676 ; reprinted at Boston and Albany, U.S., IS.'iO ami 1865. 22 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS. especially an Eastern foreigner. However, another version of Sir George Mackenzie's shows that in this instance he regarded the whole of those " Saracens " as dark-skinned men, or " Moors." This version appears to be the " Baronage MS." referred to by Crawfurd ; although, curiously enough, it does not employ the term " Gypsy " introduced by that writer. As it differs slightly from those already quoted, this account may also be given. After describing Lord Kirkcudbright's armorial bearings, Sir George Mackenzie proceeds: — " His predicessor was M'Lellan of Bom by. Ther is a tradition that one of his predicessors being forfaulted [forfeited], his air [heir] having killed a moar who hade brought in a ship full of mores to Galloway, and against whom the King hade emitted ane proclamation that who ever should bring in the mores head should have the lands of Bomby then in the King's hand by forfaltur, gott his fathers lands again, and took for his crest the mores head upon a dager bleeding, and for his motto these w^ords, Think On, because he desyred the King to think on his promise." ^ From these accounts, then, it appears that a tradition was prevalent in Galloway two centuries ago, according to which that district had been ravaged, two centuries earlier, by a band of Moors or Saracens, styled " Gypsies " by a writer of the year 1716. And of such importance were these people that a royal proclamation was issued, offering a manorial estate to whoever should slay th» " Saracen " leader. As it happened, the fortunate \n.ctor was the young heir of the family which had owned this estate before its forfeiture ; and he thereupon was " restored to his fathers' land, as his evidents yet testifie." It is possible that these " evidents " may still be in existence at the present day, in which case they would surely throw some light upon the event.^ But one thing apparent is, that if the " Moors " of the story were really " Gypsies," then Gypsies occupied a very much more important position four centuries ago than at any subsequent date. Neither in this century nor in the last would a landed estate have been held out as a reward for the capture of a Gypsy chief in any country of Europe ! ^ " Collections of the Most Remarkable Accounts that relate to the Families of Scotland, by Sir George Mackenzie, His Majesty's Advocate." — Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, MSS. 34/3/19. - The title of Maclellan, Lord Kirkcud- bright, has been dormant since the death of the ninth lord iu 1832 ; but the family charters may have been preserved. THE IMPORTATIOX OF GYPSIES. 23 But it is not by any means made clear that the swarthy depredators of 1452-60 were Gypsies. And Simson does well to point out that the Algerian corsairs were accustomed to make descents upon the British coasts even so recently as the seventeenth century.^ It is true that the question of the ethnological ingredients of these " corsairs " would here have to be considered ; and one writer asserts ^ that a race of North African " Zingari " figured prominently among the conquerors of Barbary and Spain. Gypsy corsairs in the Eed Sea and the Indian Ocean we have already heard of; but to regard the Algerine pirates as, in any degree, " Gypsies " is an idea that will less readily find favour. Xevertheless, the belief that the " Gitanos " were descended from the Moors had a good many supporters in Spain at one time. And it is remarkable that while the British Isles were for centuries subject to the depredations of swarthy pirates from Algiers, who received white renegades into their ranks, and who pre- sumably left some traces of their blood in those places where they lauded, yet no trace whatever of an Arabic form of speech is found in these islands (outside of the domain- of science). Whereas the Gypsies, who figure visibly as swarthy marauders, " land-pirates " at the least, at the very same period, and who also admitted renegades into their ranks, have unquestionably left their mark both in the speech and the physique of certain British castes. Moreover, it is to be noted that the English Parliament passed an Act in 1554, by which anyone " importing " Gypsies into England after 31st January 1555 should forfeit forty pounds, while "any Gypsy so imported who remained in England one month should be deemed a felon, and forfeit his life." ^ From this it is evident that a practice of " importing " Gypsies had become intolerable in England in 1554, and it is quite reason- able to suppose that a similar state of things had existed in Scotland. Whatever the grounds for Crawfurd's statement that the ^ This well-known fact, mentioned by Mr Stanley Lane-Poole in his Barhary Corsairs, has received some additional comments in the Journal of the Royal Society of Antif[uaries of Ireland, vol. i.. No. 2, 1890, pp. 167, 168. It appears that tlie Algerines of 1631-36 were frequently spoken of as "Turks." 2 Gyp. -Lore Soc. Jour., ii. 200. ^ Mr H. T. Crofton, Gyp. -Lure Sac. Jour,, i. 13. 24 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS. Galloway "Moors" or" Saracens " of 1452-60 were " Gypsies," he wrote at a time (1716) when the Gypsies of Galloway were still a formidable body, acting under a certain famous leader whose family are said to have been "tinklers in the south of Scotland time out of mind." If Crawfurd merely assumed that the Galloway GyjDsies of 1716 were the representatives of those " Moors " who had similarly terrorised that province in the fifteenth century, the assumption was natural enough. But the whole history of that memorable incident must be more closely inquired into before any decisive conclusion can be drawn. Certainly the later versions given by tradition do not do much towards dispelling the obscurity.-^ Although it is impossible to do justice to the subject within our present limits, it is necessary to add, in support of the foregoing remarks, that very much may be said on behalf of the theory that the terms Moor, Morisco, and Morris, or Moorish, have probably been applied, in a good number of cases, to Gypsies. More than one reference could be added which seems to indicate that the Morris-dance was kept up in England till the present century, notably by the Gi/psies. And this association seems to have been distinctly recognised in Scotland. Thus, an annotator of the Poems of James I. ^ Kirkcudbright tradition tells of a certain " Blackimore," " Black Morrow," or " Black Murray," who inhabited a wood near that town, still known as the "Black Morrow Wood." "Antiquarians say the sum of 50^. was offered by the king for his head, dead' or alive ; that one of the M'Lellans of Kirkcudbright took to the wood single-handed with a dirk, found the outlaw sleeping, and drove it through his head. With the cash he bought the estate of Bamiagauchen, in Borgue ; the foundation of the ' head on the dagger' in the M'Lellan's coat of arms." So snys a local writer of the year 1824 (Mactaggart, in his Gallovidian Encyclopedia,, reprinted London and Glasgow, 1876, s.-y. " Black Morrow "). Another writer states : — "Tradition affirms that the Outlaw above alluded to w'as a foreigner — a runaway from some vessel which had put in at the Manxman's Lake ; that he used to cross the Dee in a small boat, to the opposite coast of Borgue, where he committed many depredations." And so on with the story of his death at the hands of young Maclellan [Historical aiid Traditional Talcs, le calling themselves Egyptians, or any other that feign themselves to have knowledge in physiognomy, palmistry, 1 "A well-known Gypsy trick," says Mr Lucas [Yeihobn Illatory of the Gypsies, p. 145). It is thus referred to by another writer (Robert Bell, in a note to Hudibras, part iii. canto ii.): — "Fast and loose, formerly called pricking at the belt or j:;irdle, a cheatinj^ game still in vogue amongst trampers and impostors at fairs There are numerous allusions to this game in the dramatic writings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries." 64 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS. or other abused sciences, whereby they persuade the people that they can tell their weirds [destiny], deaths, and fortunes, and such other fantastical imaginations shall be taken, adjudged, deemed and punished as strong beggars and vagabonds." ^ Although the Act inckides other varieties of the vagrant class, not here specified, as coming under the denomination of " idle and strong beggars and vagabonds," it is e^ident that the clauses just quoted are pointed directly at Gypsies. As if it were not sufficient to state that the fact of their being " Egyptians " brought them within the meaning of the Act, several of their most salient characteristics are particu- larised ; so that apparently no excuse was left them for pleading exemption. " The punishment before specified " was, that any one found contravening this Act after 1st June 1574 was to be imprisoned, and, if convicted, to be "scourged and burnt throw the gristle of the right ear with a hot iron of the compass of an inch about." ^ But if " some honest and re- sponsible person " agreed to take the offender into his service, the penalty was not enforced. Should he, however, quit this service before the expiry of a year, against the will He cites the following apt reference made by Shakespeare {Antony and Cleopatra, Act IV. Scene 10) : — " this false soul of Egj'pt Like a right Gypsy hath, at fast and loose, Beguiled me to the very heart of loss." ^ In this and similar extracts I have modernised the spelling. ^ The Act of 1424 against "beggars and idle men," of which the above is little more than an amplification, orders such people "to labour and pass to crafts, for winning of their living, under the pain of lurning on the cheek, and banishing of the country." That of 1449, for "the away-putting of sorners, feigned fools and vagabonds," decreed '^ t\ia.t their ears he nailed to the tron [the weighing-post of the public market-place], or to another tree [or beam], and their ear cut off, and [themselves] banished the country. And if thereafter they be found again, that they be hanged." None of such enactments were repealed. On the contrary, the above Act of 1574 recites in its preamble the penalty of the loss of the culprit's ear. And, although the Act last named substitutes the burning of the right ear for the penalty of burning on the cheek (1424) or the loss of an ear, yet it will be seen (pp. 100-1, post), that in 1636, as also at Banff in 1700, certain convicted Gypsies were condemned to be burnt upon the cheek ; while in 1714 a Gypsy woman was nailed by the ear "to a post at the cross ; " and although it is not stated that her ear was thereafter cut off, this act of mutilation was practised up till the beginning of the eighteenth century ; Simson's History, p. 203). STRONG AND IDLE BEGGARS PUNISHED. 65 of his employer, the convicted person was to undergo the allotted punishment, if apprehended. For sixty days there- after he was free from a repetition of that punishment, but if he remained after that time " in his idle and vagabond trade of life," he was then condemned to " suffer the pains of death as a thief." Like several of its forerunners, the Act of 1574 provided, by means of local taxation, for the " sustentation of the poor and impotent," as well as for the " punishment of strong and idle beggars." What it aimed at was to discriminate between helpless and innocent distress, and that indigence which, without begging or stealing, would have been the fate of " persons living idly and fleeing labour." But its most severe clauses did not apply to those who were under four- teen or above seventy years of age.^ For the children under fourteen who could not plead bodily weakness, the Act provided a species of slavery akin to that to which the full-grown " sturdy beggar " was liable. For it ordained that " If any beggar's child, being above the age of five years and within fourteen, male or female, shall be liked of l^y any subject of the realm of honest estate, the said person shall have the child by order and direction of the ordinary judges bound [i.e. ai^prenticedl with him, if he be a man-child, to the age of twenty-four years, and if she be a woman-child to the age of eighteen years ; and if they depart, or be taken or enticed from their master or mistress' service, the master or mistress to have the like action and remedy as for their fee'd servant and apprentice, as well against the child as against the taker or enticer thereof." This, it may again be repeated, applied to any contravener of the Act, G-ypsy or Gentile ; but it is quite plain that all the little Gypsies in Scotland were thereby made liable to a youth of enforced servitude; unless their parents adopted a settled and reputable way of living. The Gypsies, however, seem to have laughed Privy Coun- cil and Parliament alike to scorn. For, in the year 1576, the Lord Regent and his Privy Council found it necessary to issue another " charge " in even stronger terms than tlie first. After quoting, in its preamble, the edict of 1573, this order states that the former " has not only wanted execution, ^ Thft limits obser\'e(l also in the Act of 1424 (c. 42. " The age, mark, and pain [penalty] of beggars "}. E 66 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS, but also the said idle vagabonds have continued in their wicked and mischievous manner of living, committing murders, theft, and abusing the simple and ignorant people with sorcery and divination, to the great offence of God and contempt of our Sovereign Lord's authority." Accordingly, the Council direct letters to be issued to all the sheriffs and other representatives of the Government throughout Scot- land, commanding them That thay and every ane of thame within thair awin boundis and jurisdictioun, serche and seik the saidis ydle vagabound and coun- terfaited people ealland thame seliEs Egiptianis, and present tliame within the Tolbuith of Edinburgh, to suffer tryell and jugement for sic crymes and offenssis as thay ar delaitit and suspectit of, betuix the dait heirof and the fyftene day of October nix to cum, nocht- withstanding ony licence or privilege that thay can pretend, as the saidis officiaris will answer to oure Soverane Lord upoun thair obedience and diligence at thair uttirmest charge and perrell ; certifeing thame quhilkis salbe found remysse and negligent heirin, — in caise ony of the saidis ydle and vagabound people may be provin to be permittit to wander and remane within ony of thair offices and jurisdictionis eftir the said day, — the saidis ordinar officiaris sa suffering and permitting thame, and not apprehending and presenting thame within the said Tolbuith of Edinburgh betuix and the said day, as said is,— thay salbe repute and haldin as favouraris and sustenaris of thevis and murtheraris, and callit and persewit thairfoir according to the generall band and the panis of the same execute upoun thame with all rigour in exernpill of utheris.^ Such an enactment as this — wherein Gypsies are without exception treated as " thieves and murderers " — ought to have cleared the country of them altogether, one would think. More especially as the very officers of the law — sheriffs, lords of regality, and others — were to be held liable to the severest penalties that could he exacted from " sustainers " of thieves and murderers, if it could be found that any Gypsies were in existence within the bounds of their jurisdictions after 15th October 1576. And yet the Gypsies were not rooted out ! On the contrary, we see some of them living apparently quite at ease in one of the northern counties of Scotland in the very year following the issue of this terrible decree. This appears from a reference in a celebrated trial of the year 1590 — the trial of Lady ^ Pp. 555-56 of the Rccjister of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. ii., A.D. 1569-78 : H.M. Register House, Edinburgh, 1878. EDICTS OF 1576 AND 1579. 67 Fowlis for " certain crimes of witchcraft." In this trial, the fifteenth " point " of the " dittay " against Lady Fowlis accused her of sending her servant " to the Egiptianis, to haif knawledge of thame how to poysoun the young Laird of Fowles and the young Lady Balnagoune." This happened in 1577 ; and although Lady Fowlis' trial did not take place till 1590, her servant had long before been convicted of this offence " and burnt for the same," It may be noted that the Gypsies seem merely to have been appealed to for advice, as the actual poison itself (rat-poison) was bought from " Thomas Eoiss, merchant in Aberdene, in Eigne." ^ From the Privy Council edict of 1576, it is evident that not only the " Charge " of 1573, but also the very explicit Act of the Parliament of 1574 had " wanted execution." Accordingly, the Privy Council issued in 1576 those direc- tions to the sheriff's and officials throughout Scotland which, as already noted, declared the very officials themselves as guilty of " favouring and sustaining thieves and murderers," if they were found remiss in their duty of searching out and bringing to justice the " Egyptians " within their jurisdiction. Notwithstanding this, the Gypsies continued to exist in Scot- land, as may be seen from the Lady Fowlis incident, just quoted ; and as is still more strongly proved by the passing in 1579 of another Act "for punishment of strong and idle beggars, and relief of the poor and impotent." This Act was very closely a copy of its precursor of 1574. Like it, it begins by referring to " sundry lovable Acts of Parliament," previously passed for the same purpose, and, like it, it includes " the idle people calling themselves Egyptians " (with other descriptive clauses obviously denoting them) as among the " persons meant to be idle and strong beggars and vagabonds, and worthy of the punishment before specified." Like that of 1574, also, this Act explains its existence by stating that its forerunners " in times bypast have not been put to due execution through the iniquities and troubles of the times Ijypast [referring to the very disturbed state of Scotland], and by reason that there was not heretofore an order of punishment so specially devised as need required." ^ See Pitcairii's Criminal Trials in Scotland, Eilinbiirgli, 1833, vol. i. part ii. pp. 192-201 (specially p. 196). 68 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS. It re-enacts also the laws as to the enforced servitude of " sturdy beggars " and their children ; and in short, it is practically a repetition of the Act of 1574. One additiona. statement, resulting perhaps from the fact that James VL though only a lad, was now at the head of affairs, is to the effect that " the said beggars, besides the other inconvenients which they daily produce in the commonwealth, procure the wrath and displeasure of God for the wicked and ungodly form of living used amongst them, without marriage or baptising of a great number of their bairns." It cannot be positively affirmed, however, that there is any indication that the Gypsies, any more than others of " the said beggars," are here denoted ; or, indeed, that the reference applies to them at all. As for the apology " that there was not heretofore an order of punishment so specially devised as need required," for the suppression of those nomadic and " idle " castes, it is ludicrously feeble ; certainly in the case of the Act last mentioned. For it was merely an echo of that of 1574, which, if put into force, would have settled the whole question within a year. So far as it related to Gypsies, they had not a loophole of escape. Not to take into account several other clauses which struck at them indirectly, the mere declaration that " Egyptians " were to be held as " masterful idle beggars and sorners " was virtually a condemnation of the whole race, without the necessity of another word. For, by an Act of 1455, " sorners " were declared to be " thieves or reivers," and, as such, subject to death, whenever apprehended. A previous Act, of 1449, had condemned them to banishment in the first instance, and death if they were again found in Scotland. And as early as 1424 they were condemned to banishment. In fact, the worst features of Gypsydom could have been stamped out at once by means of existing laws, without the need of the name " Egyptian " ever appearing in an Act of Parliament. But besides all this, they had already been explicitly dealt with in the Privy Council edicts of 1576 and 1573, and the intervening Act of 1574. And even these, distinct and forcible as they were, were not necessary. For the " Letters to the Sheriffs and Boroughs for Expelling of Egyptians " from Scotland, which at the command of the A GYPSY BAND AT GLASGOW IX 1579. 69 King and his Privy Council were sent to these authorities throughout the country, in June 1541, contained warrant enough to leave no Gypsy in the land after the expiry of that year. Tiius, the excuse pleaded in the preambles of the Acts of 1574 and 1579 was really no excuse at all. Of anti- Gypsy legislation there had been, and there was yet to be, more than enough. The fault did not lie in the absence of " an order of punishment so specially devised as need required," but in the inability of the Government to put into force the many such orders that had long existed. The Parliament which passed the Act last refeiTed to began its sittings at Edinburgh on the 22d of October 1579. An entry made in the records of Glasgow in the previous summer shows us the presence of a Gypsy band in that city, at that date, (And it may be noticed, in passing, that it clearly illustrates what has just been said as to the futility of the enactments previously made.) Among certain " Extracts from the Eecords of the Burgh of Glasgow, a.d. 1573-1642," ^ appears this entry : — " 31 ,hdy 1579. — Robert BailHe, capitane of certane Egiptianes, wes reddy for himself and his cumpany to ansuer at the instans of Johne Pollok, Gi'eyn, for ony cryra, quha comperit nocht to persew and thairfor protestit for releve thairof." Down to the present day, Baillie has been a famous name among the Scottish Gypsies, and it was so forty years before the date of the above reference.^ Whether the Robert Baillie who figured at Glasgow in 1579, ought to be identified with the " Eobert Bayly " of 1569 who underwent chastise- ment for vagrancy, at Higham Fen-ars, in Northamptonshire,^ is matter for conjecture. It is not at all unlikely, at any rate, that the " captain " of the Gypsy band at Glasgow, in 1579, was the same person as a certain " Capitane Baillie " ^ Glasgow, printed for the Scottish Tjiirgh Reconls Society, 1876 (p. 75). 2 In the Privy Council Writ of 1540, wliere " Towla Bailzow " and " Geleyr Bailzow" appear among the rebels .against John Faw's authority. This fomi of the oame is used by Scott in The Heart of MuUothian, where (chap, li.) " Annaple Bailzou, a beggar and fortune-teller" figures. But the more common forms in recent centuries were Baiizie or Bailyo (the Scotch "z" being simjily "y"), and Baillie. That all these forms are variants of the Norman Bailleul or Baliol is undoubted. ^ See Gijp.-Lorc. Sue. Jour., i. 1, p. 17, 70 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS. who was hanged at Edinburgh on 4th December 1594, " for counterfetting the Great Seall agains the merchants." ^ Counterfeiting was a favourite Gypsy weakness ; indeed, a later representative of the same family, a William Baillie, (always to be remembered as one of the progenitors of Jane Welsh Carlyle) who was also a celebrated Gypsy " captain," was accused in the year 1699, and again in 1715, " with being art and part in forging and using a forged pass or certificate." He, however, was more fortunate than his namesake of 1594 ; as he succeeded in obtaining an acquittal. Still more probably akin to the William Baillie of 1699, and the Gypsy captain of 1579, is that " Williame Bailzie, Egiptiane," whose spouse figures in a trial of the year 1616, as noticed on a later page. The Act passed in the autumn of 1579, — which, however, did not come into force till 1st January 1580, — evidently made very little impression. For, in 1587, the Scottish Gypsies are still visible, living their old life. On 11th October of that year a proclamation was made at Holyrood- house " of a High Court of Justiciary to be held in his Majesty's [James the Sixth's] own presence, for trial of great crimes all over the realm." This was fixed for the 27th of November. It is stated in the proclamation that " his Majestie intendis to be present in his awne persoun in the try ale and punishment of sic enormiteis as cravis maist spedy refor- matioun : thay ar to say, murthour, slauchtar, fyreraising," and so on with a list, ending with " soirning [masterful begging], deforcementis of officiaris, forgeing, inbringing and outputting of fals cunyie [i.e. coin], witchecraft or seikaris of responssis or help at witcheis,^ caryaris of forbiddin guids furth of the realme, convocationis, and the wicked and counterfute theveis and lymmaris calling thame selffs Egiptianis." In the catalogue of " enormities " specified in the proclamation there ^ " Birrel's Diary" ; in Dalyell's Fragments of Scottish History, Edinburgh, 1798. - On a subsequent page will be cited an instance of an Aberdeen tailor who "confessed that he made inquiry at the Egj-ptians for a gentle- woman's gown which was stolen out of his booth," and who consequently had to undergo Church discipline " in respect of his consultation with witches." Both in that case, and in the above instance of Lady Fowlis, we have ilhis- trations of what was meant by " witchcraft or seekers of i espouses or help at witches." WITCHCRAFT IN 1588. 71 are many which may not have been practised by Gypsies ; but some of those just quoted certainly were/ A witchcraft trial of the year 1588 contains what is evidently a casual Gypsy reference. The accused woman stated that she " learned her craft " from her kinsman a certain William Simpson, who was a native of the town of Stirling, and whose father was the king's smith. This William Simpson " was taken away from his father by a man of Egypt, a giant, being but a child, who had him away to Egypt with him, where he remained to the space of twelve years ere he came home again." She affirmed that he (Simpson) " was a great scholar and doctor of medicine," and that "soon after his home coming," he "healed her of her disease in Lothian, within the town of Edinburgh, where she repaired to him." ^ It may be added that Scott, in his Letters on Demonology (Letter V.), has no hesitation in explaining " a man of Egypt " as " a Gypsy." In spite of all these enactments authorising them to suppress, or even to extirpate the "Egyptians," the officers of the law still proved themselves unable or unwilling to grapple successfully with the difficulty. Eor tlie twelfth Parliament of James the Sixth, which met on 5th June 1592, found it necessary to frame a statute " for remeid of the great contempt, disordour and wrang, quhilk lies bene in diverse partes of this realme, in default of keeping and execution of the gude lawes and actes of Parliament maid of before, be the Schireftes, and vtheris judges ordinar, their deputes and clerkes " ; and what these officials were then ' 1 For the above, see pp. 217-18 of vol. iv. of the printed Jlcgistcr of the Privy Council of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1881. The same vohime has many references to "strong and idle wandering beggars," " sorners, brigands and masterful vagabon*e Johnne Faa, Eobert Faa, Samuell Faa, Johnne Faa younger, Andro Faa, "Williame Faa, Piobert Broun, Gawin Trotter, all Egiptianis, Vagaboundis, and common Tlievis, &c." On the 29th of January, their widows and children were also " dilaitit " before the Court for the same offence of being " Egyptians." They are described in the following terms : — "Helene Faa, the relict of vmq'^ [i.e. the late, or deceased] Capitane Johnne Faa ; Lucrece Faa, spous to James Broun ; Elspetli Faa, brether-dochter [niece] to the Capitane ; Katharene Faa, relict of vrnq'*^ Eduard Faa ; ]\Ieriore Faa, spous to James Faa ; Jeane Faa, the relict of vniq^*^ Andro Faa ; Helene Faa, the relict of vmq''' Robert Campbell ; Margaret Faa, dochter to vmq'* Eduard Faa ; Issobell Faa, the relict of vniq'*^ Piobert Brouu ; Margaret Vallantyne, relict of Johnne Wilsoun ; Elspeth Faa, dochter to vmq^*^ Henrie Faa Alexander Faa, sone to Eduard Faa, Johnne Faa and Francie Faa, sones to vmq'*^ Capitane Johnne Faa, and Harie Broun, brother to vmq^« Robert Broun." These also were found guilty ^ and sentenced to suffer death by drowning, but their fate was referred to the King's pleasure, by a letter of the Privy Council, written to the King on the day of their conviction. The King took five or six weeks to think the matter over; but when the con- demned Gypsies heard the tenor of his reply, they no doubt thought it worth waiting for. The royal letter, addressed to the Scottish Privy Council, and dated at Hampton Court, 13th March 1624, is as follows: — " We haue vnderstood, by your Letter of the 29 of Januar last, that a nomber of these Thieves and counterfooted Vagabondis, commonlie callit Egiptiaxis, being appreliendit be your directioun, war thereftir put to a Criminall tryell, and being lawfuUie con- victed, that eight of the men wer executed, and that the rest, being aither childrene and of lesse-age, and wemen with chyld, or 1 "The assize for the maist part liiidis, tliat the persoues on panoll, are vagaboundis, and repute and holden for Egyptianis, and be their remaining within this kingdome, and nocht removeing tliaimeselfis furtli yrof, oiiforrne to the act of Parliament, findis thaime, and cverie ane of thainie, gihie and culpable of contravening thereof." 100 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS. geving sucke to childi'ene, Ye haue therfore committed thair persones to prissone, superceicling the executione of the Sentence pronunced aganis thame, till yee should acquaynte ws, and know oure further jDleasoure thairanent. Ix whiche regaird, these are to certelie to yow, that as "We allow well of the course taiken for executeing of the men, so now, in colde bloode (these children and weemen haueing beene soe long kepte prisoneris), and cheflie in respect of that which yee wryte to be the present estaite of most part of these weemen, We can not bot inclyne to pittie and com- passion of them. Wherefore, as We ar willing that their lyues be spared, soe that nather thame selues, nor any others of that kynd may be therby emboldnd to presume vpone our clemencie, yee sail caus thame act them selues to depairt, with thair childrene, furth of that our kingdome,^ between and such a competent day as yee shall think fitting, for that effect, to i^rescriue ; vnder the payne of death, to be inflicted (without any forder process or dome) vpone them, whersoever they can be apprehendit within our said kingdome, efter the said day. Axd for your putting them to libertie (nochtwithstanding the Sentence pronunced against them), vpone condition foirsaid, these shalbe vnto yow a Warrant sufficient," &c."- The year 1636 furnishes us with the following item : — " Apud ED^, 10 iSTovembris, 1636. 'Forsameikle as Sir Arthure Douglas of Quhittinghame haveing latelie tane and apprehendit some of the vagabound and counterfut theives and limmars, callit Egyptianis, he presentit and delyverit thame to the Shereff- principall of the shirefdome of Edinburghe, within the con- stabularie of Hadington, quhair they have remained this month, or thairby ; and quhairas, the keeping of thame longer within the said Tolboith, is troublesome and burdenable to the toun oj Hadington, and fosters the saids theives in ane opinion of impunitie, to the incourageing of the rest of that infamous byke * of lawless limmars to continow in their thei'vish trade : Thairfoir, the Lords of Secret CotaueU. ordaxs the Shireff of Hadinton or his deputs to pronunce Doome and Sentence of Death aganis so manie counterfoot Theives as ar men, and aganis so manie of the weomen as wants children, Ordaning the men to be Hangit, and the weomen to be Drowned : and that suche of the weomen as hes children to be Scourgit throw the burgh of Hadinton and Brunt ^ It may be noticed that, the laws of his two kmgdoms being distinct and separate, this letter of the King's only applied to Scotland. Thus, the released Faws had simply to cross the Border into Northumberland, and there resume their former life ; with this advantage, that, so far as English laws were concerned, they had a "clean record " to begin with. This, it is very probable, was the course they adopted. - For this letter, and the trial of these G}-psies, see Pitcairn, iii. 559-62. ^ " Usually applied to denote a hive or nest of wasps, wild bees, or hornets. " JOHX STEWART AND JAMES FAW, EGYPTIANS. 101 IN THE CHEEKE : ^ And Ordauis and commandis the Provest and Baillies of Hadinton to cans this doome be execute vpon the saidis persons accordinglie." ^ On 25th September 1637, the Lord Justice-General con- sidered and disposed of the case of " John Stewart sone to Xiniane Stewart of Stokwall in Glasgow and James faa sone to Moysie faa, bayth egipsianes, Quha grantit thame selffis to be Egipsianes and that thai had bene followeris and keipit companie with the egipsianes thir nyne or ten yeiris bygane." It was stated on behalf of the prisoners that, since their capture, they had made supplication to the Privy Council to spare their lives, promising that they would voluntarily go and serve in the wars abroad, and never again return within " His Majesteis haill dominiones," If their prayer be granted, they bind themselves to go " with all possible diligence in companie of Colonell Eobert Stewart or ony uther colonell or capitane as sail tak thame To serve thame in the weiris, Quha sail be answerable for thame and geve band and assur- ance to my lord Justice Generall for thair transpourt and away passing furth of this Kingdome with the said Colonell or Capitane." The prisoners also bind themselves " nocht to leave the service of the said Colonell or Capitane nor to ryn away or escaip frome thair said service directlie nor in- directlie." The Lord Justice-General accordingly returned the prisoners to the custody of the Edinburgh magistrates, until " the said Colonell or Capitane tak thame off the saidis bailzeis handis to the effect above written."^ Among certain " articles and desires " laid before the Scottish Parliament by the Commissioners of the Church of Scotland in 10-41, the tenth in number states that — "It is humbly desired tliat order may be taken with sturdy beggars, Egyptians, and vagabonds, and a solid course be hiid down for removing the liorrible vilhmies committed by such persons in all time coming." ^ This appeal did not apparently meet with a response till 1647, when the following " Answer " is (inter alia) recorded : — ' The old punishment specified in the Act of 1424, against " beggars and idle men," - Pitcairn, iii. 594-95 (quoted by him from the Privy Council Register). ^ Justiciary Records. ^ Thomson's Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. v. (ed. 1870), p. 646rt. 102 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS. " Item, for the overture anent the restraining of idle and sturdy beggars and gypsies, The estates [of Parliament] ordain the i^ro- curator of estate to consider all the Acts of Parliament made to that purpose, and to rejDort their opinion to the next session of Parliament what is further necessary to be done to make these Acts effectual in time coming." ' The records of the burgh of Stirling show that a capture of Gypsies was made there iu 1656. This is testified to by these two entries : — " 1656, March-September Item, payit for ropes to bind the Egyptianes, £0. 2. 8 : Item, to the hangman to go throw with them, £1. 10. 0."^ The ominous payment to tlie hangman seems to indicate that they were sent to Edinburgh for trial, and perhaps for execution. Or it may be that they lingered on iu the gloom of the Edinburgh Tolbooth till the following summer, and that they formed the subject of these entries : ^ — " Upon the 10 day of lunij 1657, ane Egyptiane callit Phaa wes execute upon the Castlehill of Edinburgh for murthour." " 10 July 1657. Sevin Egyptianes, men & women, were scurgit throw Edinburgh, and banisched this natioun, with certi- ficatioun gif thai returned within the same, they sould be execute to the death." In 1661, "Commission and Instructions" were issued anew to justices and constables, by Act of Parliament, with the view of arresting Gypsies and other vagrants. And it is evident from subsequent references that a great many Gypsies must have been deported to the British " planta- tions" in Virginia, Jamaica, and Barbadoes during the second half of the seventeenth century. That they had there to undergo a temporary, if not a " perpetual " servitude, seems very likely ; for certain merchants and planters who applied to the Privy Council in 1714 for permission to take them, did so with the avowed intention of using them as labourers. To what extent the people of those places to-day are possessed of seventeenth-century Gypsy blood is an interesting, though perhaps a delicate question. The following passage, which, under the date November 1665, occurs in Eobert Chambers's Domestic Annals of 1 Op. cit., vol. vi. p. 7635. - This extract, contributed to Gyp.-Lore Soc. Jour., ii. 64, by Mr A. Henry Constable, is from p. 321 of the Appendix to Extracts from the Records of the Royal Burgh of Stirling (Glasgow, 1890). 3 Nicoll's Diary, 1650-67 (published by the Banuatyne Club), pp. 198 and 200. TRANSPORTATION OF GYPSIES TO AMERICA. 103 Scotland from the Reformation to the Eevolution (1858, vol. ii. p. 304), denotes very clearly the condition of Scotland, so far as regards its nomadic castes, during the second half of the seventeenth century :— " The light regard paid to the personal rights of individuals was shown by a wholesale deportation of poor people at this time [1665] to the West Indies. The chronic evil of Scotland, an oppressive multitude of idle, wandering people and beggars, was not now much less afflicting than it had been in the two preceding reigns. It was proposed to convert them to some utility by transferring them to a field where there was a pressing want of labour. On the 2d of November, George Hutcheson, merchant in Edinburgh, for himself and copartners addressed the Privy Council on this subject, ' out of a desire as weel to promote the Scottish and English plantations in Gemaica and Barbadoes for the honour of their country, as to free the kingdom of the burden of many strong and idle beggars, Egyptians, common and notorious thieves, and other dissolute and looss persons banished and stigmatised for gross crimes.' The petitioners had, by warrant of the sheriffs, justices of the peace, and magis- trates of burghs, apprehended and secured some of these people; yet, without authority of the Council, they thought they might ' meet with some opposition in the promoting and advancing ,so good a work.' It was therefore necessary for them to obtain due order and warrant from the Council. " The Council granted warrant and power to the petitioners to transport all such persons, ' providing always that ye bring the said persons before the Lords Justice-Clerk, to whom it is hereby recommended to try and take notice of the persons, that they be justly convict for crimes, or such vagabonds as, by the law of the country, may be apprehended, to the effect the country may be disburdened of them.' " Two months later James Dunbar, merchant, bound for Barbadoes, was licensed to take sundry ' vagabonds and idle persons, prisoners in Edinburgh, content to go of their own accord.' " It will be observed that those mercliants modestly refrain from saying that they took all this truul)le "out of a desire as weel to promote " their own interests as anything else. [04 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS. I but it is obvious that they were securing thereby, at very little cost, a caste of " perpetual servants " whose condition in the West Indies was little better than that of slaves. The year 1671 is notable in Scottish Gypsy annals as the date given for the birth of William Marshall, a famous chief of the Galloway Gypsies. If the alleged date of his birth be correct, he lived to a truly patriarchal age ; for it is certain that his death took place in 1792. Sir Walter Scott accepts the date of his birth as correct ; so also did the editor of the Ncio Annual Bcgistcr, in which peiiodical his death was noticed as one of the " Principal Occurrences ' of that year ; and the inscription on his tombstone, still standing in the old churchyard of Kirkcudbright, is in these words : — " The Eemains of William Marshall, Tinker, who died 28th Xov. 1792, at the advanced age of 120 years." Assuming, then, that he really was born in 1671, he spent the first forty- three years of his life under the Stewarts, and therefore — especially as he was quite a celebrity, in his way— he may be fitly noticed in these pages. The following are some of the statements made regarding him, gleaned from various sources. He was born in the parish of Kirkmichael, Ayrshire, in or about the year 1671. " He was of the family of the Marshalls, who have been tinklers in the south of Scotland time out of mind. He was a short, thick-set little fellow, with dark quick eyes ; and, being a good boxer, also famous at the quarter-staff, he soon became eminent in his core," i.e. among the Gypsies. Eeferring to what he recollected of his early life, when an old man, the account in the Ncio Annual Register says : — " He retained his senses almost to the last hour of his life ; and remembered distinctly to have seen King William's fleet, when on their way to Ireland, rid- ing at anchor in the Solway frith, close by the Bay of Kirk- cudbright, and the transports lying in the harbour. He was present at the siege of Derry ^ [1689], where having lost his uncle, who commanded a king's frigate, he returned home, enlisted into the Dutch service, went to Holland, and soon after came back to his native country." " Willie had been ^ Another writer says: "The fact never was doubted, of his having been a private soldier in the army of King "William, at the battle of the Boyne." THE CAIRO OF BARULLION. 105 pressed or enlisted in the army seven times," says Sir AValter Scott, " and had deserted as often ; besides three times running away from the naval service." Another writer states that, on one occasion : — " He and his gang bemg in the neighbourhood of Glasgow when there was a great fair to be held in it, himself and two or three more of his stamp, hav- ing painted their faces with T^cd^ they went to the fair and enlisted, getting each so much cash. They then deserted to their crew in the wild mountain glen, leaving the soldiers without a single cue [clue] whereby to find them." On another occasion, when he was serving as a soldier in " the wars ill Flanders" (or, according to one version, when he was " a private in some of the British regiments which served under the great Duke of Marlborough in Germany, about the year 1705"), he told his commanding officer, who was of a Galloway family, that he intended deserting in a few days, as he wished to attend the annual Fair of Keltonhill, froui which he had never been absent. And desert he accordingly did. A favourite haunt of his gang was the " Corse o ' Slakes," a wild mountain pass between Cairnsmoor and Cairnhattie ; and from the neighbouring Fell of Barullion he obtained his popular title of "The Caird of Barullion." *' For a great period of his long life he reigned with sovereign sway over a numerous and powerful gang of Gypsy tinkers, who took their range over Carrick in Ayrshire, the Carrick Mountains, and over the stewartry and shire of Galloway ; and now and then they crossed at Donaghadee, and visited the counties of Down and Deny,". in Ireland. In 1712, he and his followers were defeated by " a powerful body of tinkers from Argyle or Dumbarton," whose terri- tories he was encroaching upon, and " many died of their wounds " after the battle. In 1723, he appears as the leader of the " Levellers," a party composed of peasants and small farmers, as well as Gypsies, who, resenting the action of certain landed proprietors in enclosing common lands, proceeded to knock down and " level " the offending stone- dykes. In 1750, Anne Gibson, " daughter of William ^ Ruddle. Tliis proceeding on tlie jiart of the Gypsies seems clearly to indicate a survival of the custom of painting the lace before going on the war-path. 106 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS. Marshall, the gipsy and robber who had long harassed Galloway," was transported to " his Majesty's plantations." IMarshall's descendants were " prodigiously numerous." " He had been seventeen times lawfully married," says Sir Walter Scott ; " and besides such a reasonably large share of matri- monial comforts, was, after his hundredth year, the avowed father of four children, by less legitimate affections." " It seems that he had both the good and bad qualities of man about him in a very large degree. He was kind, yet he was a murderer — an honest soul, yet a thief — at times a generous savage — at other times a wild Pagan. He knew both ci\dl and uncivilized life — the dark and fair side of human nature." " I would like to be excused from the performance of any such task as drawing the character of Billy Marshal," says one who had met him ; and, after paying a tribute to his better qualities of mind and body, he goes on : — " It be- comes my duty to add that (from expediency, it is believed, not from choice), with the exception of intemperate drinking, treachery, and ingratitude, he practised every crime which is incident to human nature. Those of the deepest dye, I am afraid, cannot with truth be included in the exception ; in short, his people met with an irreparable loss in the death of their king and leader ; but it never was alleged that the moral world sustained any loss by the death of the man." Eobber and murderer though he was, an " Egyptian " by habit and repute, if ever there was one, we find hun in the year 1789 living comfortably in a cottage " at the hamlet or clachan of Polnure, a spot beautifully situated on the burn or stream of that name," in the south of Wigtownshire ; and we have the assurance of Sir Walter Scott that " he subsisted, in his extreme old age, by a pension from the present Earl of Selkirk's grandfather," ^ — though Scott omits to state for which of his virtues it was granted. Nor does the weight of nearly six-score years appear to have subdued and chastened his real nature. It is true that the gentleman who Aisited him in 1789 records how the old Gypsy " admonished me to ' tak care o' my han', and do naething to dishonor the gude stock o' folic that I was come o' ;' " but when this youth and ^ This was Dunbar Hamilton, afterwards Douglas, fourth Earl of Selkirk (1723-99). A FAMOUS GYPSY FUNERAL. 107 his friends revisited the cottage late that night, the old scamp was roaring out a ribald song, heartily chorussed by some of his gang who were drinking with him. He died at Kirkcudbright on 28th November 1792, and, as already stated, was buried in the churchyard there ; his tombstone having two ram's horns and two " cutty-spoons," crossed, sculptured on the back. " A great concourse of people of all ranks attended his funeral, and paid due respect to his astonishing age. The Countess of Selkirk, who, for a course of years, had liberally contributed to his support, on this occasion discharged the expense of his funeral." These are the words of a writer in the New Annual Register, who therein differs slightly from Scott as to the source of ]\Iarshairs pension. In other details connected with his latter end there are also some contradictory statements. One local historian says that he " was buried in state by the Hammer- men, which body would not permit the Earl of Selkirk to lay his head in the grave, merely because his Lordship was not one of their incorporated tribe ; " while another asserts that " Lord Daer [tlie Earl of Selkirk's second son] attended his funeral as chief mourner, to the churchyard of Kirkcud- bright, and laid his head in the grave." Such is an outline of the career and character of one of the most remarkable of Scottish Gypsies ; ^ and if many of the statements made regarding him seem to us anomalous and incomprehensible, that fact does not render him the less typical of the caste to which he belonged, ^ These various accounts are taken from — Scott's "Additional Xote " to Guy Mawiiering ; New Annual Register, 1792 ("Principal Occurrences"); Scots Magazine, Dec, 1792 ; ll'Taggart's Gallovidian Encyclopedia (s.v. " Billy Marshall" and "Corse o' Slakes ") ; Mackenzie's History of Galloway, vol, ii, p, 403 ; and Blackivood's Magazine (August 1817). Marshall's death is also mentioned in Chalmers's Caledonia, and there are several references to him in Simson's History of the Gipsies, in W. Brockie's Gypsies of Yctholm (Rutherford, Kelso, 1884), and in the Life of James Allan — a Northunihriaii Gypsy — published at Newcastle. CHAPTER XI. THEEE years after the birth of " The Caird of Barullion " another notable G-ypsy trial took place at Edinburgh. It is referred to incidentally by Maclaurin (Lord Dreghorn), who, when speaking " Of Jurors,"^ states that formerly " they were brought ex vicineto, i.e., from the neighbourhood of the place where the pannels [the accused] dwelt, however distant," and who, in illustration of this fact, observes : — " In the case of the Faas, tried at Edinburgh in 1674, for sorning, murder, etc., ten of the jury were brought from that part of the country in which the crimes had been committed." The autumn of 1677 witnessed a Gypsy fray in Tweed- dale, which, considering that there was scarcely a dozen combatants on either side, was fought with great des- peration. It is thus described by a local writer of the year 1715:2— " Upon the first of October 1677, there hai^pened at Romanno,^ in the very spot where now the Dovecot is built, a Memorable Polymachy betwixt two Claims of Gipsies, the Fawes and Shawes, who had come from Haddingtoun Fair, and were going to the Hare- stains to meet two other Clanns of those Eogues, the Baillies and Browns, with a resolution to Fight them ; they fell out at Romanno amongst themselves, about divideing the Spoyl they had got at 1 Arguments and Decisions, Edinbiu'gh, 1774, p. xxvii et seq, - Dr A. Pennecuik, in his Description of the Shire of Twcaldale, Edinburgh, 1715, pp. 14, 15. ^ A suggestive and appropriate name for a Gypsy battle. The lands of Romanno belonged to a family bearing that surname, which became extinct in the male line about the beginning of the sixteenth century. THE BALLAD OF " JOHNNY FAW." 109 Haddington, and fought it Manfully ; of the Fawes -were four Brethren and a Brother's Son ; of the Shawes, the Father with three Sons, with several Women on both sides : Old Sandie Faw, a Bold and jDroper fellow, with his Wife then with Child, were both kill'd Dead upon the place, and his Brother George vei-y dangerously Wounded." The chronicler adds — "February 1678. Old Eobin Shaw the Gipsie, with his three Sones, were hang'd at the Grass-Me[r]cat [in Edinburgh] for the abovementioned murder, committed at Eomanno, and John Faw was hang'd the Wednesday following for another murder." Froni the contemporary MS. of a celebrated judge, it appears that the Faws and Shaws had intended to " chase " the Browns and Baillies back into Ireland, whence (it is stated) they had come. The execution of old Shaw is placed on 6th February, and the second execution on the 13th, when " one of the Faws, called Eobert [not John] Faw, being convict of having killed one Young, a caird or tinker in Aberdene, was also hang'd." ^ The traditional story of the elopement of a Countess of Cassillis with a certain " Johnnie Faw, the Gypsy laddie," is popularly placed in the first half of the seventeenth century. The story is of old standing, as is also the ballad which has helped to perpetuate it. But, according to Sir William Fraser, it has no historical basis to stand upon. That writer ^ points out that the Lady Cassillis identified as the heroine of the ballad and tale died greatly regretted by her husband, after twenty-one years of married life. And he maintains that the " great respect and tenderness for the memory of the Countess Jane " which the Earl evinced, " is quite inconsistent with the story of her elopement with the Gipsy King." It might be urged that this is a matter of opinion ; and that, the Gypsy lover and his band having 1 Historical Notices of Scottish Affairs (printed for the Bannatyne Chib), Edinburgh, 1848, p. 187. See also the Privy Council Rcrjistcr, and Sinison's History, pp. 188-89. From these executions of 1678 it is evident that it was now becoming "usual to take cognisance of murder amongst the Egyptians." (Compare the plea urged in the trial at Scalloway in 1612, p. 53 ante.) " In his Memorials of the Montfjomerics, Earls of Eijlinton (Edinburgh, 1859), vol. i, pp. ix-xii. 110 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS. been hanged in front of the castle (as tradition states), the escapade may have been overlooked and eventually almost forgotten. Or, the correctness of the tale may be questioned only as regards the date fixed upon. The tradition is certainly deep-rooted. As a ballad it is very widespread, and as a story it still clings to the scene of the alleged adventure ; where a ford ^ across the Eiver Doon bears the name of " the Gypsies' Steps." But there is apparently no historical evidence to bear out the story." This also is the view taken by Professor Child, who, in his English and Scottish Popular Ballads (Part VII., Boston, 1890), gives eleven different versions of the ballad (while a twelfth variant was recently obtained by Mr John Sampson from some English Gypsies ; for which see Gyp.-Lore Soc. Joicr., ii. 84-85). A casual reference in one version of the Paw-Cassillis tradition suggests another Gyspy incident. The arrival of the Gypsy lover at the Countess's home is thus descriljed :— " One evening as she was taking her accustomed walk on the battlements of the castle of CassiUis, on the left bank of the Doon, she descried a band of Gypsies hastily approaching. Such bands were very common at that period, but the number and suspicious appearance of this company were calculated to create considerable alarm On arriving at the house, however, instead of offering violence, they commenced some of their wild strains," and so on with the tale.^ This reference to the formidable appearance then presented by a band of Gypsies is quite borne out by the many references in the statutes to their predatory habits, to the " insolencies " they committed, and to the fact that they went armed, and would " even attack the lieges with hagbuts and pistolets 1 More probaljly a series of stepping-stones. - Even sucli a detail as the existence of a certain piece of tapestry commemorating the event (Anderson's Scottish Nation, i. 607) receives no confirmation at the present daj' ; as I am assured that no such tapestry exists in the castle referred to, or is remembered by the representative of the family. Curiouslj' enough, a piece of tapestry representing an incident in the life of these same Gypsy Faws, but of later date, is stated by Mr Simson {History, p. 237) to have been preserved in a Fifeshire family, of good social position, with whom they had intermarried. ^ Anderson's Scottish Nation, i. 607. FORMIDABLE CHARACTER OF GYPSY GANGS, 111 when opposed." ^ And the fears ascribed to the Countess of Cassillis at the sight of the Gypsy band are (whatever the truth of that tradition) quite in agreement with the following anecdote :- — " A writer in BlacJcivoocVs J/agazine mentions that the Gipsies late in the sev^enteenth century, broke into the house of Pennicuik []Mid-Lothian], when the greater part of the family were at church. Sir John Clerk, the proprietor, barricaded himself in his own apartment, where he sustained a sort of siege — firing from tlie windows upon the robbers, who fired upon him in return. One of them, while straying through the house in quest of booty, happened to ascend the stairs of a very narrow turret, but, slipiDing his foot, caught hold of the rope of the alarm bell, the ringing of which startled the congregation assembled in the parish church. They instantly came to the rescue of the laird, and succeeded, it is said, in apprehending some of the Gipsies, who were executed. Thei'e is a written account of this daring assault ke])t in the records of the family."^ Such traditional stories as these, wliich, whether themselves authentic or not, are founded on an actual condition of thino-s help one to realise the necessity for that long succession of anti-Gypsy enactments, so often ignored and so fitfully enforced. And a very partial knowledge of the feuds and jealousies that long animated the great nobles of Scotland, enables one to understand that when one of these exerted his influence to save an accused Gypsy from conviction, or when — in the face of prohibitory laws — he " resetted " and sustained a Gypsy band for weeks, or even months at a time, he was really securing for himself a not unimportant body of adherents, for occasions of private revenge or (as in the case of the Earl of Crawfurd) of treasonable revolt. The acknowledged leader of the Baillie tribe in the latter ' For confirmation of this practice, even in the eighteenth century, see .Simson's History, p. 205, note. In passing, it may be noticed that Sir "Walter Scott had recognised the formidable character of the Gypsy gangs in times anterior to liis own, when, in describing the a]>pearance of a certain old Scottish manor-house, he employs these words : — " Neitlicr did the front indicate absolute security from danger. There were loop-holes for musketry, and iron staiichions on the lov;er windows, probably to repel any rovin" band of Gipsies, or resist a predatory visit from the caterans of the neigh- bouring Highlands" {Wavcrlcy, ch, viii.). ^ Simson's History, pp, 195-90, See also Mr John J, Wilson's Annals of Penicuik, Edinburgli, 1S91. 112 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS. part ofthe seventeenth century, and until his death in 1724, was the celebrated " Captain William Baillie." " He appears in no very creditable light in the records of the Presbytery of Biggar [in the south of Scotland]. On the 9th of June 1695, Margaret Shankland, being summoned, compeared before that reverend court, and judicially confessed the crime of adultery with William Baillie, the Gipsy." ^ He is elsewhere styled " William Baillie, brazier, commonly called Gipsy. "^ The fact that a man so styled should also be " known all over the country " ^ as " Captain Baillie " or otherwise as " Mr Baillie," and that he should have, as he is stated to have had, the bearing and breeding of a gentleman, forms not only an illustration of the superior position of high- caste Gypsies in former times, but it also indicates that the " brazier " caste had not, in the seventeenth century, entirely lost the importance which, as Mr C. G. Leland has pointed out,* it once possessed. The account which Mr Simson, senior, ^ gives of this celebrated chief is well worth tran- scribing here : — " The extraordinary man Baillie, who is here so often mentioned, was well-known in Tweeddale and Clydesdale ; and my great- grandfather, who knew him well, used to say that he was the handsomest, the best dressed, the best looking, and the best bred man he ever saw. As I have already mentioned, he generally rode one of the best horses the kingdom could produce ; himself attired in the finest scarlet, with his greyhounds following him, as if he had been a man of the tirst rank He acted the character of the gentleman, the robber, the sorner, and the tinker, whenever it answered his purpose. He was considered, in his time, the best swordsman in all Scotland. With this weapon in his hand, and his back at a wall, he set almost everything, saving firearms, at defiance. His sword is still j^reserved by his descendants, as a relic of their powerful ancestor. The stories that are told of this splendid Gipsy are numerous and interesting. " Before any considerable fair, if the gang were at a distance from the place where it was to be held, whoever of them were appointed to go went singly, or, at most, never above two travelled together. A day or so after, Mr Baillie himself followed, mounted ^ Biggar and tlie House of Fleming, Edinburgh, 1867, p. 404. - Simsou's History of tlie Gipsies, p. 206. ^ Ibid., p. 203. * Gyp-Lore Soc. Jour., ii. p. 322. Mr Leland speaks of the workers in bronze, but this is a distinction without any real difference, the Gypsies being notable bronze-workers. 6 History, p. 202 ; also p. 197. CAPTAIN WILLIAM BAILLIE AND HIS BAND. 113 like a nobleman ; and, as journeys in those days wei'e almost all performed on horseback, he sometimes rode for many miles with gentlemen of the first respectability in the country. And as he could discourse readily and fluently on almost any topic, he was often taken to be som6 country gentleman of j^roperty, as his dress and manners seemed to indicate." But the Justiciary Eecords for the years 1G98 and 1G99 throw a lurid light upon the doings of " this splendid Gypsy " and his followers, during tlie previous quarter of a century ; and from the evidence given by witnesses in two of the most notable trials during this period, one learns fully the true meaning of such terms as " sorning," " masterful oppres- sion," and " masterful begging," so often used with reference to Gypsies. In December 1698 and June 1699 this " Captain William Baillie " and his gang were arraigned before the High Court of Justiciary, and were duly tried and sentenced. For some reason, the Gypsy leader was tried separately, in June 1699, being himself in custody at Dumfries when his followers were brought before the Court in December 1698. But, except that certain additional charges were made against William Baillie, the later trial was to a great extent a repe- tition of that of the preceding December. The names of those who were brought to justice on the first of these occasions were: — "John Baillie, Elder [i.e. senior], Helleu Andersone, Spouse to William Baillie, Elder, James, William, Patrick, Henry, Mary and Margaret Baillies,^ Children to the said William Baillie and Hellen Andersone, and William Baillie, sone to the deceast Patrick Baillie." Tiicse were only a portion of the baud, which was described as number- ing as many as thirty persons, on some occasions, although, as a rule, so many were not seen together. Those prisoners, then, were indicted as " vagabonds and Gypties," and as " vagabonds, sorners, and common thieves," having, says the indictment, " taken to your selves the name of iEgyp- tianes as descended to you from your forefathers under the name of Baillies," and " commonly using amongst your selves ^ It was formorly the custom in Scotland to add the plural "s" where more than one of the same surname were named. H 114 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS. the Canting Languadge of ^gyptianes." Together with this general accusation, there were various specific charges of theft, robbery and murder, the details of which cannot be fully entered into here. It appears that this band had been previously apprehended in 1697, but had been liberated on their leaders granting a bond, dated 22d April 1697, by which they bound themselves and their followers never to be seen again in the parish of Crawford, Lanarkshire, where they had been captured, and wherein they made their chief resort. But, in spite of tliis, they had " since frequently haunted and been seen in the said paroch ; " where they followed the old high-iianded, overbearing, and violent Gypsy ways, taking up, to quofe the accusing words of the indict- ment, " your lodging within the bounds forsaid, Soraetymes in one place and some tymes in another, by force and vio- lence, offering, when refuised Quarters, fire and suord, And having with you horses, Grey hounds and other dogs, Guns, pistolls, Swords, Durks and other Weapones. And where you lodged ther was alwayes great loss of goods sustained by the Countrey about, As of Sheep, hens, Cornes, drawen out of Stacks and stollen out of barnes, fowell stollen, with cloathes, houshold plennishing and other goods. And you have bein seen coming from tlie mountaines about breaks of day. And im- mediatly therafter ther hes bein found upon the saids moun- tains the skins, heads, or intralls of new slain sheep. And when your persones hes bein searched and ryped for stollen goods. The same hath bein found upon you." Further, " as to particular Murders and thefts," they are accused of having, about the year 1670, murdered the servant of a local laird, on Tinto Hill, and having despoiled the body, buried it there ; also of having murdered Patrick Baillie, a fellow-Gypsy,^ in 1672. Also of having, in the year 1697, attacked a certain countryman " and beatt him almost to death, if he had not been rescued out of your bloody hands." And of ha\dng frequently threatened one "William Yeitch of Smithwood, in Lanarkshire ; " and particularly," one day in February or March 1697, " you came in a great company and in hostile manner, with swords, pistolls, and Gunns, to murder the said 1 This is noteworthy, in view of indications that it was previously " not usual to take cognisance of murder amongst the Egyptians." A RECORD OF CRIME. 115 William and his family, And attempted to make a breach upon the house for that effect, But finding the house a strong old built tower, you were therby hindered." Another charge was that when, one night some years previously, the Earl of March had been robbed at Nidpath Castle, in Peeblesshire, " you the said Egyptians " arrived on the following night at " Kirkhope House in Crawford muire with back burdens and armefulls " of clothes which (inferentially) were those stolen from Lord March. For these and many other minor offences, as well as for being notorious " Egyp- tians," this band of Baillies was now brought to account. The witnesses w^ho gave evidence against them were all in agreement as to their being " Egyptians " by common repute, " speaking amongst themselves a Jargon Canting ^Egyptian Languadge which none but themselves understood." One witness testifies that he has always known John Baillie to be a Gypsy, and " he remembers that he [John Baillie] was following and in company with old James Baillie his father, also a knowen and repute Egyptian about thretty years agoe. And he was teaching him to handle his arras." The same witness states that he and five others gave chase to the Gypsies, on the occasion of their capture in 1697, and succeeded in dragging James Baillie from his horse ; after which they pursued and overpowered " William Baillie, sone to old William, who had a gunn, and offered to make resistance." On 15th December the Assize returned their verdict, and on the 19th the Lord Justice-Clerk and Commissioners sentenced all the prisoners to death, with the exception of Margaret Baillie ; ordaining that John Baillie should be hanged on a gibl)et at the Gallowlee, between Leith and Edinburgh, his body thereafter being " hanged up in Chaines." The other doomed Gypsies were to be hanged in the Grass- market, on 6th January 1699. Tiiere seems no reason to doubt that this sentence was fully carried into effect. On 26th June 1699, the chief of the band, "William Baillie, Elder, a vagaband goeing under tlie name of yEgyptian, and now prisoner in the tobuith of Ed'.," was brought before the High Court of Justiciary. He was charged witli having, for several years past, along with a 116 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS. number of other Egyptians, " wandered up and downe in severall places of the Kingdome as Idle vagabonds, Under the name and owning your Selfe, at least knowen, repute and holden to be one of these wicked people called ^gyptianes." And the indictment goes on categorically to accuse him of the offences charged against his followers in December, in the same terms. " As also yow the said William Baillie being pitched upon to goe to Flanders with the recruites that were sent there, and being put aboard a ship in Borroustainess road, And yow having Combyned with others of the recruites yow made a Mutiny in the ship wherof yow was the chief ringleader. And yow and others that Joyned with yow having Commanded the Ship and killed a serjant and severall other men that opposed you, Yee runn the ship aground upon a sand bank under Culross, And having made a Floatt of Dealles, Yow came ashoar. And some of the Countrey people offering to secure yow, yow killed a plough- man by a stroke with your musket on the head. And so escaped. As also you did committ many other thefts, murders and robbries." The evidence given by the witnesses in this case also quite bore out the justice of the general accusation. Baillie was " by the common report of the Countrey always called and esteemed ane Egyptian," and known "not only to be ane ^Egyptian but the Captain of them." " And that he ordinarily was armed with Sword, pistol! and Gunns [sic] and that he was in arms when he was apprehended, and made resistance by presenting his pistolls against those who came to take him." His savage nature is clearly seen, also, in the account of an attack made by him and his people on some countrymen, when, "after several Countrey people had gathered, and that the gypsies were sett off, William Baillie the pannall floorished his sword about his head in a threatening manner, and told that what they had gotten was but ane arles penny [an earnest] of what they might expect." One would think that if any man deserved hanging it was this William Baillie. Yet the jury only found him guilty of being a Gypsy and the Captain of the Gypsies, and of " strikino; and wounding " one of the countrvmen referred MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE. 117 to. And the sentence was that he should be transported for life ; having previously undergone the trivial degradation of standing for two hours at the Tron of Edinburgh, " with a paper on his face declaring his guilt," and being thereafter " burnt on the right Cheek with a hott Iron." Although this sentence was passed on 28th June 1699, he remained in Edinburgh nearly three months longer ; as is testified by the following reference in Chambers's Domestic Annals : ^ — "William Baillie, 'ane Egyptian,' prisoner in the Tolbooth of Elinburgh, but regarding wliom we hear of no specific crime or offence, was summarily ordered (Sept. 12, 1699) to be transported in the first ship going to the plantations, the skipper to be allowed a proper gratuity from the treasury, and at the same time to give caution [security] for five hundred merks that he would produce a certificate of the man being landed in America. — Privy Council Record." If he ever was " landed in America," it is evident he did not remain there for the rest of his days. For this same William Baillie again appears as brought to justice sixteen years later. In September 1715, he and his brother (?) John Baillie are arraigned as Egyptians, liable to death under the Act of 1609 ; and, moreover, William is charged "with being art and part in forging and using a forged pass or certificate." It is further set forth against him "That he had been formerly, in 1699, convicted of the same crimes, and sentenced by the justiciary to be hanged : That the Privy Council had commuted this sentence into banishment ; but under the express condition, that if ever he returned to this country, the former sentence should be executed against him ; and that he gave bond, under the penalty of 500 merks, ' to obtemper the same, by and attour [besides] undergoing of the said pains of death in case of contravention thereof.' Which sentence, and appointment of the Privy Council, he had manifestly contravened by his returning again to Scotland." The arguments for the defence need not be repeated here. It is enough to record tliat, on 7th September 1715 — " The jury brought in a special verdict as to the sorning, but said nothing at all as to any other point : all they found i^roved was, That William, in March and April 1713, had taken i^ossession ' Vol. iii. (1861), p. 116. 118 SCOTTISH GYPSIES UNDER THE STEWARTS. of a barn without consent of the owners ; and that during his abode in it, there was corn taken out of the barn ; and he went away without paying anything for his quarters, or for any corn during his abode, which was for several days ; and that he was habite and repute an Egyptian, and did wear a jDistol and shable [a kind of sabre]." " Upon this, Hejitemher 8, 1715, the pannels were dismissed from the bai\" ^ A most amusing non scquitur ; which would be quite inexplicable, in the face of the immense array of statutes making every " Egyptian " liable to death, were it not for the fact that the ends of justice were defeated over and over again by the private influence which the Gypsius undoubtedly possessed.^ It does not seem to be quite apparent whether " William Baillie " who was tried as a Gypsy in July-August 1714, and who was then sentenced to transportation, was this same incorrigible William Baillie who had been sent to America in 1699, and who was again tried and " dismissed from the bar" in 1715. It is quite likely that he was. There seems no reason why he should not have continued to live in a chronic condition of trial and acquittal until he ended his earthly career in the natural way, and amid the lamentations of the great, as did his contemporary and colleague AVilliam Marshall. But he who had laughed the gallows to scorn throughout his life was doomed to die a bloody death, at the hands of his own fellow-Gypsies. ^ Maclauriii's Arguments and Decisions, &c., Edinburgh, 1774, pp. 57-9. ^ In Simson's History (pp. 121, 20.5, 213, 470), it is stated that this William BaiUie was nearly related to the important landed family of Baillie of Lamington ; and, commenting upon this, Mr James Simson cites (pp. 470-71) " a somewhat similar case, related by a writer in Blackwood's Magazine." It appears that "Tarn Gordon, the captain of the Spittal Gypsies, [at Berwick] and his son-in-law, Anonias Faa," had been seized " in the very act of stealing sheep ; when the captain drew a knife, to defend himself. They were convicted and condemned for the crime ; ' but after- wards, to the great surprise of their Berwickshire neighbours, obtained a pardon, a piece of unmerited and ill-bestowed clemency, for which, it was generally understood, they were indebted to the interest of a noble northern family of their own name ; ' " indicating the Duke, or rather the Duchess of Gordon. In like manner, the otherwise astounding immunity from punish- ment enjoyed by the Galloway Gypsy Marshall, could be attributed to a blood relationship with the Earl of Selkirk, whose reasons for bestowing a pension upon this hoary reprobate have never been given. THE END OF A TURBULENT LIFE. 119 On the afternoon of the 12th of Xovember 1724, " about sun-setting," " three of those idle sorners that pass in the country under the name of Gypsies " rode up to the door of a tavern in the village of Newarthill, in Lanarkshire, and, dismounting, entered the house. The names of these three were William Baillie, James Kairns, and David Pinkerton. They got a room for themselves, and there they sat for some time, drinking and talking, — " talking a jargon " which the landlord " did not well understand." Eventually, they came to high words, and then to blows, and the landlord, rushing in, found Kairns and Baillie struggling on the floor. Whereupon he " threatened to raise the town upon them, and get a constable to carry them to prison." At this, "Kairns and Pinkerton called for their horses, William Baillie saying he would not go with them." The two others, having mounted their horses, ordered the landlord " to bring a chopin of ale to the door to them, where AYilliam Baillie was standing, talking to them." This the innkeeper accordingly did, and having "filled about the ale," he " left them, thinking they were going off." At this juncture a villager, who had been in another room in the tavern, came to the door, "where he saw Wilham Baillie standing, and Kairns and Pinkerton on horseback, with drawn swords in their hands, who both rushed upon the said William Baillie, and struck him with their swords ; whereupon," this witness avers, " the said William Baillie fell down, crying out he was gone ; upon which Kairns and Pinkerton rode off: That the declarant helped to carry the said William Baillie into the house, where, upon search, he was found to have a great cut or wound on his head, and a wound in his body, just below the slot of his breast: And declares, he, the said William Baillie, died some time after." ^ Mr Simson states that Baillie's wife, a certain Piachel Johnstone, and his son, then a boy of thirteen, swore to bring his murderers to justice. Certain it is, that " David Pinkerton, alias ^Maxwell, John Marshall, and Helen Baillie, ' For this incident see Simson's History, pp. 206-7. Tlie extracts from the Justiciary Reconls, notably in tlic Baillie trials of 1698 and 1699, are here taken from the original Books, which, by the courtesy of G. L. Crole, Esq., Clerk of Justiciary, I have ha