James Somerville, younger of Drum and Cambusnethan, author of the Memorie of the Somervilles, was this day married to Martha Bannatyne of Corehouse, at Lesmahago kirk, he being nineteen, and she eighteen. The bridegroom’s own account of the affair: ‘A matchlier pair was not seen within the walls of that kirk this last century, nor a greater wedding--considering the great consternation the country had been in for some few months preceding--for nobility and gentry; there being one marquis, three earls, two lords, sixteen barons, and eight ministers present at this solemnity, but _not one musician_. They liked better the bleating of the calves of Dan and Bethel--the ministers’ long-winded and sometimes nonsensical graces, little to the purpose--than all musical instruments of the sanctuary, at so solemn an occasion, which, if it be lawful at all to have them, certainly it ought and should be upon a wedding-day, for divertisement to the guests, that innocent recreation of music and dancing being much more warrantable and a far better exercise than drinking and smoking of tobacco, wherein these holy brethren of the Presbyterian [persuasion] for the most part employed themselves, without any formal health or remembrance of their friends; a nod with their head, or a sigh, with the turning up of the white of the eye, served for that ceremony.’ [Sidenote: 1651.] It is pleasant to find that little more than two months after Worcester fight, it was possible to bring such a large and brilliant company to a wedding in Scotland. Even when the public at large is the stricken deer, there will be individual ‘harts ungalled’ who will ‘go play.’ Somerville’s description of his first visit to his bride’s house and of herself, is interesting. It was just after the rout of Dunbar, when the young Laird of Corehouse, who had been at that battle, spent a few days at Cambusnethan, and insisted on young Somerville accompanying him to the banks of the Clyde. ‘They set forth, weel furnished with hawks and dogs, which gave them much sport, the fields and ways between Cambusnethan and Corehouse being fitted for hawking and hunting. At night they came to the Corehouse, where they were courteously received by the lady, and modestly by the young ladies.... Martha, the youngest, was not seen till supper, and then came into the room in a plain country dress. The truth is, she needed nothing else, being always an ornament to her clothes when at the best.... At her age of fifteen complete, she attained to her full height, which was so far above the stature of most women, that she was accounted among the tallest of our nation, but so as that diminished nothing of her handsomeness, every part answering thereto, as a slender waist, large shoulders, big breast, henches full and round.... Her visage was long, her nose high, her brow brent and smooth as alabaster, her chin and cheeks somewhat full, with a little red, especially in hot weather. There was nothing