When Mrs Margaret Rose, daughter of the Laird of Kilravock, was married in 1701, there was an account from Francis Brodie, [Sidenote: 1701.] merchant in Edinburgh, for her wedding-clothes, including seventeen and a quarter ells of flowered silk, £11, 13_s._; nine and a quarter ells of green silk shagreen for lining, £2, 14_s._; six and a half ells of green galloon, 19_s._ 6_d._; with other sums for a gown and coat, for an under-coat, and an undermost coat; also, for a pair of silk stockings, 12_s._; a necklace and silk handcurcher, 8_s._; and some thirty or forty other articles, amounting in all to £55, 8_s._ 9_d._ sterling. This young lady carried a tocher of 9000 merks—about nine times the value of her marriage outfit—to her husband, John Mackenzie, eldest son of Sir Alexander Mackenzie of Coul. At the marriage of Anne Dalrymple to Mr James Steuart, ‘the bride’s favours were all sewed on her gown from top to bottom, and round the neck and sleeves. The moment the ceremony was performed, the whole company ran to her, and pulled off the favours; in an instant, she was stripped of them all. The next ceremony was the garter [we have seen what it cost], which the bridegroom’s man attempted to pull from her leg, but she dropped it on the floor; it was a white and silver ribbon, which was cut in small parcels, [a piece] to every one in company. The bride’s mother then came in with a basket of favours belonging to the bridegroom; those and the bride’s were the same with the bearings of their families—hers, pink and white; his, blue and gold colour.’ ‘The company dined and supped together, and had a ball in the evening; the same next day at Sir James Steuart’s. On Sunday, there went from the President’s house to church three-and-twenty couple, all in high dress. Mr Barclay, then a boy, led the youngest Miss Dalrymple, who was the last of them. They filled the galleries of the [High] Church from the king’s seat to the wing loft. The feasting continued till they had gone through all the friends of the family, with a ball every night.’[291] [Sidenote: MAR. 14.] It was not yet three years since the people of Scotland were dying of starvation, and ministers were trying to convince their helpless flocks that it was all for their sins, and intended for their good. Yet now we have a commission issued by the government, headed as usual with the king’s name, commanding that all loads of grain which might be brought from Ireland into the west of Scotland, should be staved and sunk, and this, so far as appears, without a remark from any quarter as to the horrible impiety of [Sidenote: 1701.] the prohibition in the first place, and the proposed destruction of the gifts of Providence in the second.[292]