BOOKS.

ROBERT CHAMBERS'S DOMESTIC ANNALS OF SCOTLAND.*

Tirr object of Mr. Robert Chambers in these ample volumes is to exhibit the private life of Scotland, including the ruling as well as the middling and lower classes, during a striking period of her annals. His purpose is to deal with e The series of occurrences beneath the region of history, the effects of tession, superstition, and ignorance in the people, the extraordinary natural ;rents which disturbed their tranquillity, the calamities which effected their wellbeing, the traits of false political economy by which that wellbeing was checked, and generally those things which enable us to see how our fore- fathers thought, felt, and suffered, and how, on the whole, ordinary life looked in their days."

The era which the work embraces is the century and a quarter between the Reformation and the Revolution. It opens with 1560, the year before the arrival of Mary Queen of Scots from France, and terminates with the last but not the least display of Scottish feudal violence, namely, the assassination in Edinburgh and in open day of Sir George Lockhart, the President of the Court of Session, by Chiesley of Dairy ; the assassin having no other motive than that the judge, in a cause which came regularly before him, had assigned an allowance from Chiesley's estate to his wife and family. The end of the affair, however, strongly marks the transition that had taken place in Scotland. In 1589 such a ruffian might have set justice at defiance, and probably bearded the government. In 1689 he was hanging in chains within three days. The larger historical events of Scotland occasionally flit before the reader, but only incidentally, as they are not the main object of the book. The broad historical characteristics of the country daring each reign from Mary to James the Seventh are distinctly marked; and perhaps in no period of the history of Scotland did changes and improvements take place so rapidly. The war and religious disturbances which, under Queen Mary and during the Regency of her son, devastated the country, gave place, on the as- sumption of the regal power by James, to religious brawling, and private hostility ; a state of things somewhat less mischievous to the people, but perhaps more contemptible towards the state. When James succeeded to the throne of England, the goverment exhibited an increased power of dealing with great offenders, not that the King of Scotland was really more powerful, but opinion ascribed to him the power of England in addition. Under Charles the First, government, especially political government, became more firmly established. Lawlessness, however, still re- mained a chronic disease of the country, above all in the highland fastnesses and on the English borders, till the exhaustion of Scot- land in the great civil wars, and the military sway of Cromwell, enabled the Government of the Restoration to rule the Lowlands with a strong not to say a tyrannical hand. The highlands were loyal; and therefore not politically troublesome to the Crown ; the local disturbances there and thereabouts arose not from rebellions subjects, but quarrelsome clans and bands of robbers. Plunder, chiefly of agricultural property by large bodies of men, continued common to times even between the Revolution and 1745-46, if not later. These plunderings, however, were rather the actions of Highland thieves, gipsies, and " broken men," than entitled to the designation of a feudal swoop. Highland chiefs might have a secret understanding with the robbers, but no longer headed them. From the social condition of the coun- try this plunder was chiefly confined to cattle, corn, or victuals ;

the operations spread over a considerable space, and robberies fell upon the necessaries of the people rather than upon the super- fluities of the rich. The following notice of a band of this sort in the year 1636 is of an earlier date than our last remarks refer to ; but the facts exhibit what was within these hundred years a social disease of Scotland, doubtless from the general poverty and want of occupation amono.° the people. The case quoted has a

poetical association, from the veritable Gilderoy being one of the gentlemen hanged.

"This was a terrible day for the broken men who had for the last few Pus been carrying on such wild proceedings in Morayland and other dis- tricts bordering on the Highlands. Lord Lorn, who soon after, as Marquis of Argyle, became the leader of the Covenanting party, had exerted himself with diligence to put down the system of robbery and oppression by which the country had been so long harassed ; and he had succeeded in capturing ten of the most noted of the catterans, including one whose name enjoys a popular celebrity even to the present day. This was Gilderoy or Gillierov ; such at least was his common appellation—a descriptive term signifying the Iled Lad—but he actually bore the name of Patrick Macgregor, being a member of that unhappy clan which the severity of the Government had driven to desperate courses about thirty years before. Another of the cap- tured men was John Forbes, who seems to have been the fiches Aehates of the notorious outlaw, James Grant. A natural son of Grant was also of the arty. These ten men were now brought to trial in Edinburgh. It was alleged of Gilderoy that he and his band had for three years past toned through the haill bounds of Strathspey, Braemar, Cromar, and countries thereabout, oppressing the common and poor people, violently taking away from them their meat, drink, and provision, and their haill guids.' TheY had taken fifteen nolt from one farm in Glenprosen ; had lain for days at Balreny, eating up the country, and possessing themselves of whatever they could lay hands on, and in some instances they had carried off the toodman himself, or the man and wife together, in order to extort money

zor their ransom.' *

te„ "If the doom of the ten catterans was duly executed—and we know no- ) the contrary—they were all, two days after, drawn backwards on a e to the Cross, and there hanged, Gilderoy and John Forbes suffering • Domestic Annals of Scotland from the Reformation to the Recolut on. By ',Om Chambers, F.R.S.E. F.S.A. &e. Published by Chambers. on a gallows ane degree higher ' than that on which their companions suffered, and further, having heads and right hands struck off for exhibition on the city ports.

"Gilderoy, as is well known, attained a ballad fame. There is a broad- side of the time, containing a lament for him by his mistress, in rude verses not altogether devoid of pathos. She says- " My love he was as brave a man As ever Scotland bred, Descended from a highland clan, A tatter to his trade.

No woman then or womankind Had ever greater joy Than we two when we lodged alone, I and my Gilderoy.' "

Throughout the whole period embraced by the book, and indeed before its commencement, the powers possessed, or, at least, assumed by the Scotch crown, and all acting in authority under it, were of the most peremptory, not to say arbitrary kind ; while the subject showed little of a subject's submission, when he had the power of resistance. A constitutional history of Scotland deduced froin. Scotch practice and illustrated by examples, would form a curious book. The object could not have the importance of Hallam's work, for its practical consequences would be nothing ; but the proceedings narrated would be curious enough. Till Jamas ascended the throne of England it seems to have been the right of every Scotch landlord to murder or make war upon the Sovereign if he could. On the other hand, authority exercised the right of fire and sword, as well as of peremptory execution, when it possessed the means. The Council seems to have wielded legislative as well as executive power ; it issued commissions to great lords to harry districts with all the so-called rights of war ; sheriffs and similar bodies take upon themselves judicial and executive authority ; even some private individuals lay hands upon a murderer taken with the bloody knife, and hang him up without further ceremony. Private or rather territorial jurisdic- tion may explain some of these peculiarities ; the necessities that spring from anarchy might justify others ; the terrible severity of some of the laws gave enormous legal powers when they could be enforced. Still many of the executions or other formal doings seem to be merely arbitrary and ex proprio Mall, especially where the poor were concerned, or persons suspected of witchcraft or Papistry. Here is an instance of highhanded doing ; for though the laws against gipsies were stringent enough, we doubt whether a gipsy, merely as a gipsy, was punishable with death ; and cer- tainly not to save the cost of keeping him. "Korember 10, 1636.—The Privy Council, learning that a number of gipsies had been seized a month before, and thrown into jail at Haddington, decreed that, whereas the keeping of them longer there is troublesome and burdenable to the town,' therefore the sheriff or his depute should pro- nounce sentence of death' against so many of thir counterfeit thieves as are men, and against so many of the women as wants children, ordaining the men to be hangit, and the women to be drowned ;' while such of the wo- men as has children should be scourged through the burgh.' "

" Border thieves" were treated even more summarily, a whole batch being thus disposed of in February 1637.

"A commission, headed by the Earl of Traquair sat at Jedburgh on the day noted, when whole droves of culprits came before them, and were dealt with in the most rigorous manner. The number hanged was thirty ! Five were burned, and as many fined. Fifteen were banished from the country, under caution never to return. IV bile fifteen were cleansed,' forty were declared fugitives for non-appearance, and twenty dismissed with assurance that they should be treated in a similar manner if they failed to bring for- ward caution before a particular day."

Harsh as these proceedings look, even if judged by the contem- porary practice of England, they were probably excusable on the plea of necessity, and popular among the peaceable subjects who had been spoiled, or lived in dread of it. For centuries, parts of Scotland, or the whole kingdom, had been continually engaged in war of some kind, and martial law was really a normal condition. In 1687, the Edinburgh magistrates, in obedience to public opin- ion, exercised a rigour confessedly beyond the law and in a civil matter.

"In compliance with 'a general outcry and complaint' from the public, the magistrates of Edinburgh called up the butchers and vintners, and fined them for extortion. It was in vain that these men set forth that there was no rule or law broken, and that when they bought dear they must sell dear. It was held as a sufficient answer to the butchers, that they did exact large profits, besides using sundry arts to pass off their meat as better than it was, and they regrated the market by taking all the parks and enclosures about Edinburgh, so as to prevent any from furnishing ' but themselves. It was alleged of the vintners, that they exacted for a prepared fowl triple what it cost in the market; they sold bread purposely made small; they charged twenty-four pence for the pound of sugar, while the cost to them- selves was eightpence, and even so in the measure of tobacco.' "—Foun. Instances are given in the book of the rebellion, or at least of the armed opposition of nobles against the sovereign : examples of armed resistance to the administration of the law for private and particular purposes are numerous ; as well as the exercise of pri- vate war and the existence of bands engaged in open marauding. We do not think that the passages exhumed by the industry of Mr. Robert Chambers give such a striking and graphic picture of the times as some of the documents published by the Spalding Club, though moat of these last relate to an earlier period, than 1560. Witchcraft and extraordinary crimes are exhibited in plenty ; but Scottish witchcraft is a subject that has been treated at considerable length by various writers. A like remark may be made as to Scottish criminal trials, Mr. Pitcairn's volumes having made them readily accessible. Perhaps, too, Mr. Chambers does not always sufficiently discriminate between crime that however extraordinary in degree, is general in its nature ; and crime that is peculiar to Scotland in the times he is illustrating, or whose mode of execution is characteristic of the age. The murder of Alexander Lines of Cromy is by no means singular in its objects ; for the removal of an obitacle to the possession of property has been at all times a motive for " taking off." The circumstances belong to Scotland in the sixteenth century. Two landed pro- prietors in the position of gentlemen riding forth at the head of an armed band avowedly to commit murder—the cry of " a Gor- don," which roused the victim from his sleep and brought him. forth to slaughter—the matter-of-course way in which a mere youth stabs his antagonist—the legal impunity of the chief mur- derers, and the indifference even of filial vengeance to the mere "eiders and abetters" are peculiar to Scotland in the sixteenth century. "John Innes, of that Ilk, being childless' entered, in March 1577, into a mutual bond of tailyie with his nearest relation, Alexander Innes, of Cromy, conveying to him his whole estate, failing heirs-male of his body. and tang the like disposition from Cromy of his estate. There was a richer branch of the family represented by Robert Lines of Innermarky, who pined to see the poorer preferred in this manner. 'So loud were his expressions of displeasure, that 'Cromy, who was the gallantest man of his name, found himself obliged to make the proffer of meeting him single in arms, and, laying the tailyie upon the grass, see if he durst take it up—in one word, to pass from all other pretensions, and let the beat fel- low have it.'

" This silenced Innermarky, but did not extinguish his discontent. He began to work upon the feelings of the Laird of Innes, representing how Cromy already took all upon himself, even the name of Laird, leaving him no better than a masterless dog—as contemptible, indeed, as a beggar—a condition from which there could be no relief but by lauding the usurper out of the way. This he himself offered to do with his own hand, if the laird would concur with him; it was an unpleasant business, but he would undertake it, rather than see his chief made a slave. By these practices, the weak laird was brought to give his consent to the slaughter of an inno- cent gentleman, his nearest relation, and whom he had not long before re- garded with so much good-will as to admit him to a participation of his whole fortune.

" There wanted nothing but a conveniency for putting their purpose in execution, which did offer itself in the month of April 1580: " Cromy had gone to Aberdeen and was detained there by the illness of his son. Messages sent to his wife by his servants, en- abled the plotters to learn where Cromy lodged and how he was attended.

" 'Wherefore, getting a considerable number of assistants with him, he [Ltinermarky] and Laird John ride to Aberdeen ; they enter the town upon the night, and about midnight came to Alexander's lodging. " The outer gate of the close they found open, but all the rest of the doors shut. They were afraid to break up the doors by violence, lest the noise might alarm the neighbourhood ; but choiced rather to raise such a cry in the close as might oblige those who were within to open the doors and see what it might be.

" The feuds at that time betwixt the families of Gordon and Forbes were not extinguished; therefore they raised a cry as if it had been upon some outfall among these people, crying, "Help a Gordon—a Gordon" ! which is the gathering-word of the friends of that family. Alexander, being deeply interested in the Gordons, at the noise of the cry started from his bed, took his sword in hand, and opening a back-door that led to the court below, stepped down three or four steps, and cried to know what was the matter. Innermarky, who by his word knew him, and by his white shirt discerned him perfectly, cocks his gun, and shoots him through the body. In an instant, as many as could get about him fell upon him, and butchered him barbarously.

" ' Innermarky perceiving, in the meantime, that Laird John stood by, as either relenting or terrified, held the bloody dagger to his throat, that he had newly taken out of the murdered body, swearing dreadfully that he would serve him in the same way if he did not as he did, and so compelled him to draw his dagger, and stab it up to the hilt in the body of his nearest relation, and the bravest that bore his name. After his example, all that were there behoved to do the like, that all might be alike guilty. Yea, in prosecution of this, it has been told me that Mr. John limes, afterwards of Coxton, being a youth then at school, was raised out of bed, and compel- led by Innermarky to stab a dagger into the dead body, that the more might be under the same condemnation—a very crafty cruelty. " ' The next thing looked after was the destruction of the sick youth Robert, who had laid that night in a bed by his father, but upon the noise of what was done, had scrambled from it, and by the help of one John of Coloreasons, or rather of some of the people of the house, had got out at an unfrequented back-door into the garden, and from that into a neighbour's house where he had shelter, the Lord in his providence preserving him for the executing of vengeance upon these murderers for the blood of his father.

" Then Innermarky took the dead man's signet-ring, and sent it to his wife, as from her husband, by a servant whom he had purchased to that purpose ordering her to send him such a particular box, which contained the bond of tailyie and all that had followed thereupon betwixt him and Laird John, whom, the servant said, he had left with his master at Aber- deen, and that, for despatch, he had sent his best horse with him, and had not taken leisure to write, but Bent the ring.

" ' Though it troubled the woman much to receive so blind a message, yet her husband's ring, his own servant, and his horse, prevailed so with her, together with the man's importunity to be gone, that she delivered to him what he sought, and let him go. " There happened to be then about the house a youth related to the family, who was curious to go the length of Aberdeen, and see the young laird who had been sick, and to whom he was much addicted. This youth bad gone to the stable, to intercede with the servant that he might carry him behind him ; and in his discourse had found the man under great re- straint and confusion of mind, sometimes saying he was to go no further than Rinnairdy, (which indeed was the truth,) and at other times that he be- hoved to be immediately at Aberdeen. This brought him to jalouse [sus- pect], though he knew not what ; but further knowledge he behoved to have, and therefore he stepped out a little beyond the entry, watching the servant's coining, and in the by-going suddenly leaped on behind him, or have a satisfying reason why he refused him. The contest became each betwixt them, that the servant drew his dirk to rid him of the youth's trouble, which the other wrung out of his hands, and downright killed him with it, and brought back the box, with the writs and horse, to the house of Innes, or Cromy, I know not which. " As the lady is in a confusion for what had fallen out, there comes another of the servants from Aberdeen, who gave an account of the slaugh- ter, so that she behoved to conclude a special hand of Providence to have been in the flint passage. Her next course was to secure her husband's writs the best she could, and fly to her friends for shelter, by whose means she was brought with all speed to the king, before whom she made her

corn.

plaint.'

" The son of the murdered man was taken under the care of the Earl of Huntly, who was his relation ; but so little apprehension was there prosecution for the murder, that Innermarky, five weeks after the event, obtained from his chief a disposition of the estate in his own favour. vepw'e or three years after, however, the young Laird of Cromy came north with a commission for the avenging of his father's murder, and the Leilralee Innes and Innermarky were both obliged to go into hiding. For a time the the latter skulked in the hills, but wearying of that, he got a retreat e' structed for himself in the house of Edinglassie, where he afterwards fold. shelter. Here young Cromy surprised him in September 1584. The sew; young man who had killed his servant was the first to enter his Paimeg- for which venturesome act he was all his life after called Craig-in-/Jai/. Innermarky's head was cut off, and, it is eaid, afterwards taken by emirs widow to Edinburgh, and cast at the king's feet."

Mr. Chambers pays particular attention to the religious cha. racteristics of the country, from the time when Knox regarded Mary's arrival with feelings as gloomy as the weather, till an Edinburgh mob on the news of the Revolution broke into the chapel of Holyrood, and the houses of some Catholic nobility, to destroy all the evidences of Popish idolatry they could Taken altogether the religious picture is the most complete in the work, and worthily precedes Mr. Burton's continuation of the same subject in his "History of Scotland" since the Revolution. Mr. Chambers does full justice to the conscientious motives of the ascendant Presbyterians; but his leanings are all against them, and in favour of the persecuted Romanists. Upon the hypocrisy and moral evils of compulsory conformity he is powerful; we doubt whether he quite brings out the absurdity or burlesque of the matter, when, especially under Cromwell's tolerating govern_ ment, the Presbyiery got hold of a hardened sinner who made a ioke of penance. The tyranny and unnatural interference of the Presbytery and the manner in which they forced the civil power to aid them, the author exhibits clearly. " The Marquis of Douglas, formerly Earl of Angus one of the greatest and wealthiest of the nobility, was a Catholic ; and his wife, a daughter of the first Marquis of Huntly, was a not less firm adherent of the ancient faith. For many years past, the presbytery of Lanark had acted as an in- quisition over them, sending. deputations every now and then to Douglas Castle, to deal with them for their conversion, intermeddling with their domestic affairs, and threatening them with excommunication if they did not speedily give 'satisfaction.' With great difficulty, and after many con- ferences, they had prevailed on the Lady lifarquase to attend the parish church, and allow her children to be instructed in the Presbyterian cote. chism : a mere external conformity, of course, but involving a homage to the system which seems to have pleased the ecclesiastical authorities. It took six years to bring the marquis to an inclination to abjure popery and sign the Covenant; and great was the rejoicing when he performed thie ceremony before the parish congregation. A moderator of presbytery re. ported his great contentment' in seeing his lordship communicate and give attentive ear to the sermons. Seeing, however, that the lady remained

i immovable, the reverend court deemed it necessary to demand of the noble pair that their children should be secluded from them, in order that assurance might be had of their being brought up in the Protestant religion. This seems to have been too much for the old peer. He plainly broke through all engagements to them, by going and joining Montrose. " As his lordship fell into the hands of the Estates, by whom he was im- prisoned in Dumbarton Castle, the presbytery obtained an increased power over the lady. They now brought her before them, to examine her tench- ing her 'malignancy and obstinate continuance in the profession of popery' Imagine the daughter of the superb Huntly, the mother of the future head of the chivalric house of Douglas, forced to appear with bated breath and whispering humbleness' before the presbytery of Lanark ! She really did give them such smooth words as induced them to hold off for a little while. But they soon had occasion once more to bewail the effects of their manifold expressions of lenity and long suffering towards her, which they saw at- tended by no effect but disobedience.' The process for her excommunica- tion and the taking away of her children wasp' full career in January 1646 and yet by some means which do not appear,. it did not advance. "Meanwhile the marquis had been suffering a long imprisonment for his lapse with Montrose, and his estate was embarrassed with a fine of 50,000 merks. It had become indispensable for the good of his family, that he should be somehow reconciled to the stern powers then ruling. At the be- ginning of 1647, the descendant of those mail-clad Douglases who in the fifteenth century shook the Scottish throne, was found literally on his knees before the Lanark presbytery, expressing his penitence for breach of covenant, and giving assurance of faithfulness in time to come. The Estates consequently contented themselves with one half of his fine, and an offer of the use of his lands for the quartering of troops, and he was then liberated."

Of processions Mr. Chambers gives enough, but for those who like them, not too much. There are frequent glimpses of customs and social economy as indicated by burgh and other regulations, complaints of scarcity, notices of plenty, and statistics of prices. The author also indulges in some needless strictures on the Scot- tish political economy of the time, which was no worse than in other places. Of racy superstitions the instances are numerous. Grants of privilege or monopoly for the establishment of (what are now) necessary arts and manufactures, as paper, printing, soap-making, newspapers, mark the time of their introduction. The strange backwardness of Scotland, however, is perhaps best clown by the surprise of the populace of Edinburgh at an eques- trian statue so late as 1685 ; that is, if Sir John Lauder rightly understood their remarks ; for they might have been ironical. "The equestrian statue of Charles II., .which had cost 10001., though only formed of lead, was set up in the Parliament Close, Edinburgh. The vRI- gar people, who had never seen the like before, were much amazed at Some compared it to Nebuchadnezzar's image, which all fell down and shipped, and others foolishly to the pale horse in the Revelations, .1 as that sat thereon was death.' --roan. Foreign contemporary notices of Scotland during the period treated are few and of little account. Taylor, Pope's " Swan of Thames," is no great authority, and the needy poet seems to have been favourably biassed by the hospitality he met with. Ben Jenson contemplated an account of his visit to Drummond of Hawthornden, but unfortunately for posterity did not execute his

on. Ray the naturalist visited Scotland in 1661, and has in* tenti

left the best generalized account we believe extant up to that time. in the Itineraries which he has left, he gives, besides zoological obser- ...dons, some notes on general matters. ' The Scots, generally (that is, the ''wer sort), wear, the men blue bonnets on their heads, and some russet; he women only white linen,.. which hangs down their backs as if a napkin re pinned about them. When they go abroad, none of them wear hats, party-coloured blanket which they calla plaid, over their heads and were

a NI,

shoulders. The women, generally, to us seemed none of the handsomest. They are not very cleanly in their houses, and but sluttish in dressing their meat. Their way of washing linen is to tuck up their coats, and tread them with their feet in a tub. They have a custom to make up the fronts of their basest even in their principal towns, with fir-boards nailed one over an- ether, in which are often made many round holes or windows to put out *einem& [called shots or shot windows]. In the best Scottish houses, even the king's palaces, the windows are not glazed throughout, but the uppeand only, the lower have two wooden shuts or folds to open at plea- oure admit the fresh air. The Scots cannot endure to hear their country or countrymen spoken against. They have neither good bread, cheese, or drink. They cannot make them nor will they learn. Their but- tarts very indifferent, and one would wonder how they could contrive to make it so bad. They use much pottage, made of coal-wort, which they call keal, sometimes broth of decorticated barley. The ordinary country houses are pitiful cots, built of stone, and covered with turves, having in them but one room, many of them no chimneys, the windows very small holes, and not glazed. In the most stately and fashionable houses in great tortes, instead of ceiling they cover the chambers with fir-boards, nailed on the roof within side. They have rarely any bellows or warming-pans. It is the manner in some places there to lay on but one sheet as large as two, turned up from the feet upwards. The ground in the valleys and plains hears good corn, but especially beer-barley, or bigge, and oats, but rarely wheat and rye. We observed little or no fallow grounds in Scotland ; some layed ground we saw which they manured with sea-wreck, (sea-weeds.) The people seem to be very lazy, at least the men, and may be frequently observed to plough in their cloaks. It is the fashion of them to wear cloaks, when they go abroad, especially on Sundays. They lay out most they are worth in clothes, and a fellow that has scarce ten groats besides to help himself with, you shall see him come out of his smoky cottage clad like a gentleman.' " The Domestic Annals of Scotland is beyond all question a very valuable repertory of curious and characteristic matter, the in- terchange of subjects, arising in part from the strict chronological arrangement, preventing dryness by giving great variety. Whether the book perfectly succeeds in accomplishing what has of late often been tried but not yet achieved, a popular view of the his- tory of Scotland, may be queitioned. With some omissions and some modernizing of spelling, Mr. Chambers presents the words of his original authorities as often as he can. Either the require- ments of space, the dryness or literalness of the originals, or some other cause has often induced him to reproduce this matter or considerably curtail his originals. Hence, though the form is in- artistical, the impression is frequently not so vivid as is left by original documents, while the chronological separation of subjects weakens the effect. In the author's prefatorial remarks on the risk of generalizing too broadly on insufficient grounds, and the sacrifice of truth to literary effects we quite agree. Still as men are con- stituted they.must either form their own conclusions from the evi- dence at large, or take the verdict of another man. The Do- mestic Annals is something between wind and water. It is not the representation of the artist mind, nor is it the original from which he professes to draw, and upon the-whole is more curious as a book than complete as a national picture.