Domestic Annals of Scotland from the Reformation to the Revolution, Volume 2 (of 2)Chambers, Robert
History
Domestic Annals of Scotland from the Reformation to the Revolution, Volume 2 (of 2)
Chambers, Robert
Scotland -- History -- 16th century; Scotland -- History -- 17th century
This seems to have been the time when the word TORIES, since so
notable, was introduced into our island. It had been first applied to
a set of predatory outlaws in Ireland. Thus becoming familiar as a
term for brigands, it naturally was applied to a number of irregular
soldiers connected with the insurgent army of the Earl of Glencairn,
who, according to Nicoll, lay in holes and other private places, and
robbed and spoiled all who fell into their hands, ‘_ofttimes with the
purse cutting the throat of the awner_.’ The English troops bestirred
themselves to capture these Tories, and in July, _eight_ were taken out
of the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, and as many out of the Canongate jail,
besides others from Perth and Dundee, and shipped at Leith to be taken
and sold as slaves in Barbadoes.--_Nic._
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SEP. 4.]
Andrew Hill, musician, was tried for the abduction of a young pupil,
Marion Foulis, daughter of Foulis of Ravelston. One of the many
specific charges against this base fellow was, that ‘he used sorceries
and enchantments--namely, roots and herbs--with which he boasted that
he could gain the affection of any woman he pleased, and which he used
towards the said Marion.’ The jury, while condemning him for the main
offence, acquitted him of sorcery, though finding that he had been
‘a foolish boaster of his skill in herbs and roots for captivating
women.’ While the judges delayed for fifteen days to pass doom upon the
culprit, he was ‘eaten of vermin in prison, and so died.’[170]
[Sidenote: 1654.]
It was surely a very perverse love of the supernatural which caused
our ancestors to surmise the use of sorcery whenever Cupid played any
extraordinary trick. At a later time, when the Earl of Rothes, his
majesty’s commissioner, defied scandal in going about openly with Lady
Anne Gordon, it was thought he had been bewitched by her. It was also
believed that the Duke of Monmouth was spell-bound to Lady Henrietta
Wentworth, the charm being lodged in that golden toothpick case which
he sent to her from the scaffold. The means, however, thought to be
most commonly employed was a _love-philter_. In 1682, James Aikenhead,
apothecary in Edinburgh, was pursued before the Privy Council for
‘selling poisonous and amorous drugs and philters, whereby a woman had
narrowly escaped with her life, had not Doctor Irving given her ane
antidote.’ On this occasion, the case being referred to the College of
Physicians, that sapient body pronounced that it was ‘not safe to give
such medicaments, without first taking their own advice.’--_Fount._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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