CHAPTER XXI.

SOCIAL CONDITIONS.

SOME idea of the social condition of Scotland may have been gathered from the pages of its general history. It could not be called happy, if compared with that of England. From the

Orkneys to the Oykel, one set of feuds was raging; others were active from the Lewes to Kintyre; others from the Borders to Peebles, Hawick, and Biggar. Where there happened to be no great feud, involving every family of the gentry, the minor lairds were fighting among themselves. There were constant sieges and burnings of houses, from the great castle to the little peel tower. Gentlemen who could not easily come at each other in the country, where every man of note rode with a company of steel-clad horsemen, would meet in Edinburgh, in silks and satins, and fight it out with swords and pistols, or simply assassinate each other without warning. Long after Douglas of Parkhead speared Captain James Stewart in the lonely vale of Catslack, he was himself stabbed in the back, near the Cross of Edinburgh, by a Stewart of Arran's kin (July 1608). This was a scene in the long vendetta of Lord Ochiltree against the house of Torthorwald, Parkhead having married an heiress of the Carlyles, and so obtained the Torthorwald title.

In the volume of the "Privy Council Register" for 1613, ten years after James ascended the throne of England, we have a list of running feuds. There are forty-two feuds, exclusive of the Highlands and Islands, and these are not feuds of the sweeping character of Huntly versus Argyll, or Stewart versus Hamilton. For example, we have a feud between Ker of Yair, on Tweed below Elibank, and the small but warlike burgh of Selkirk. From Selkirk to the pleasant house of Yair is about three miles across

the hills, and the common land of the burgh "marches" with Yair (the author conceives) on the Linglee. The provost and burgesses yearly "rode their marches" in a festive manner, as they still do, but Andrew Ker, thinking that they trespassed on his heather, planned to lie in wait for the citizens, "where upon some inconvenients will not fail to fall out," as the Privy Council observed (1613). The Council tried to smooth matters down, vainly. The people of Selkirk had, and probably have a common herdsman to look after the kye of the burgesses on the common, as the citizens of Glasgow also used at this period. This herdsman, and several citizens, vi et armis took 300 cattle, and pastured them on the lands of Yair. The usual repartee was to hough the cattle, but Ker of Yair does not seem to have adopted this course.

In.

The provost of Selkirk was not a man of mild measures. August 1613 he was Scott of Haining, the estate lying just outside the town. He was "kinsman of the bold Buccleuch," and his deputy on the Border at the time of Kinmont Willie. This gentleman arrested a woman and her son, from Leith, on suspicion of stealing cheese, and tortured them with cords, "for moving of them to confess the truth." Haining was let off for this outrage on paying a small fine. The burghs at this time preferred to elect country gentlemen as their provosts, to secure leadership in private war, and the backing of a clan. The Yair and Selkirk feud was a branch of the old Scott and Ker feud, and thus things were so arranged that simple burgesses had their share of the universal fighting, beyond what they could get by merely "whingering" each other in the market-place, as in the case of Provost Dickson of Peebles. We even find a "sometime minister" entering a house in full armour, and beginning to shoot with pistol and musket. There were feuds within clans, as of Ker of Grange and Ker of Ancrum. In Galloway matters passed busily, Gordon of Lochinvar having a feud with Kennedy of Bargany and Vaus of Longcastle. Even in civilised Fife, the focus of godliness, Lundie of Lundie was at war with Wood of Largo.

A feud which was remarked on, even at that time, as exemplary, was the Auchendrane affair. In 1597 John Mure of Auchendrane, in Ayrshire, was a gentleman much looked up to in the district for the fairness and sagacity of his judicial decisions as bailie of Carrick. He had married a daughter of Kennedy of Bargany, who was on ill terms with Kennedy of Colzean. Auchendrane was also dissatisfied

THE AUCHENDRANE MURDERS.

543 with Colzean, and so was the Master of Kennedy, brother of Lord Cassilis, the head of the Kennedys. Auchendrane, the Master, and the Laird of Dunduff, therefore, made up their minds to have the blood of Colzean. We need not enter into the merits of the quarrel. On New Year's day, 1597, Colzean was to dine, in the town of Maybole, with Sir Thomas Nisbet, and was to sleep in his own lodgings. Knowing this, Auchendrane with a party of friends hid among the trees in Nisbet's garden, and, when Colzean was walking through to his rooms, they fired a volley at him, missed him, hunted him vainly, and attacked his lodgings. Colzean, therefore, took proceedings against Auchendrane with such vigour that he was alarmed, made peace, and married his eldest son to Colzean's daughter. Before this, however, Colzean had wrecked Auchendrane's house and garden, which, it is to be feared, rankled in his mind.

In May 1602 Colzean was going to Edinburgh on legal business. Anxious to oblige, he sent a retainer to Auchendrane, asking the laird to meet him, if he had any affairs which Colzean could transact for him in the capital. If so, the laird would find him next day at Duppie, near Ayr. The servant missed the laird, who was absent from home. He therefore asked Mr Robert Mure, the schoolmaster at Maybole, to write the message in a letter to the laird. Mure complied, and sent the letter by a schoolboy, William Dalrymple. The laird was found with Mure of Cloncaird, and on reading the letter he bade the boy carry it back and say that he had not found Auchendrane at his house. He and Cloncaird then summoned a few friends of the right sort, lay in wait where Colzean was to pass (as he had informed Auchendrane), and found him riding with only one servant. They slew Colzean with swords and pistols, and took 1000 merks in gold, his gold buttons, and the rings which he wore.

This incident was only part of a very flourishing feud, in which Auchendrane induced young Kennedy of Bargany to try to destroy the house of Cassilis, of which he was the senior cadet. Bargany, consequently, had ridden past Cassilis's gate without making a call. The Earl, "resolving to die rather than digest that public indignity," assembled two or three hundred of his friends in arms. Bargany also raised a force, and attacked Cassilis, whose men lay in cover, their front protected by ditches. In attempting a charge, poor young Bargany was shot, and Auchendrane, advancing with great

544

CAPTURE OF AUCHENDRANE.

Evidence was combat was not But a dangerous

intrepidity, was severely wounded. It is believed that his failure after this to shoot the Earl of Cassilis irritated him, and induced him to murder Colzean, as has already been narrated. His retainers, who took part in that exploit, were outlawed, but the laird boldly offered himself for trial. lacking, and Auchendrane's offer of trial by taken up by any of the kinsmen of Colzean. witness was Dalrymple, the schoolboy who had carried Colzean's letter informing Auchendrane that he was to be at the place where the laird murdered and robbed him. Young Colzean was known to be interrogating this lad, whom Auchendrane therefore first immured, and then sent to Arran, afterwards packing him off to fight under Buccleuch's colours in the Low Countries. Six years later "the eye of God conveyed Dalrymple back to Ayr." The laird then bade one Bannatyne bring Dalrymple to him, at night, on the sands of Girvan, where young Auchendrane strangled the lad, and tried to bury him in the sands. The water frustrating this purpose they threw the corpse into the sea, whence, a few days later, it was cast up on shore and recognised.

As this darkling and cruel murder, if brought home to the Auchendranes, was of a type reckoned discreditable, the Auchendranes were advised by friends to commit some ordinary crime, and fly the country on the strength of that misdeed. "It was fitter they should kill Hew Kennedy of Garrishorn" (a retainer of Cassilis), "for divers probable quarrels which they had against him." This was the advice of a cousin, and Auchendrane recognised that it was both kindly meant and, in effect, judicious. Any trouble caused by the murder of Hew was such as their kindred could sympathise with, openly abetting and sheltering them. The Auchendranes, therefore, armed themselves with sword and pistol, and, finding Hew alone, attacked him. However, Hew nearly cut off young Auchendrane's hand, and was victor in the engagement. The wisdom of the king now gave Lord Abercorn a commission to apprehend old Auchendrane, who shipped Bannatyne, the witness to the Dalrymple murder, off to Ireland. He then went boldly to his trial, but failed under examination. James now ordered torture to be applied to young Auchendrane, who, with extraordinary fortitude, was silent. Public opinion, naturally, was now favourable to young Auchendrane. After all, on the worst view, he had done nothing, it was said, to harm "the person or estate of the king." He ought

SYMPATHY WITH CRIMINALS.

545

to be released on heavy bail. But, though the Privy Council pled for this, Dunfermline, backed by the king, was firm, and kept the accused in prison by sheer use of the royal prerogative. The king may retain in ward any of his subjects, who in his conscience he knows deserves the same."

Meanwhile Abercorn in Ireland caught Bannatyne, the witness in the Dalrymple case, but, on a point of honour, let him go. But Bannatyne knew that old Auchendrane had been trying to get him murdered in Ireland, so he came in and confessed. Both Auchendranes, confronted with Bannatyne, maintained their innocence. A trial was now resolved on, and the general public maintained that Bannatyne ought first to be tried alone. If convicted, and if he confessed and clave to his confession on the scaffold, "that might put them in some opinion of Auchendrane's guiltiness." For similar exquisite reasons Mr Bruce, the famous preacher, wished James to hang Henderson, the witness in the Gowrie case. But this logic was faulty; on the scaffold George Sprot maintained his confession. as to the Gowrie conspiracy, without converting a single sceptic. On July 17, 1611, the three "panels" were tried, convicted, and executed. They were undeniably guilty, but, setting Bannatyne aside, the evidence (the depositions are lost) was circumstantial, and the long detention and torture of young Auchendrane, with some informalities in the trial, increased public sympathy for these typical old Scottish malefactors.

It is never easy to be certain as to the rights and wrongs in family bickerings, like these discords among the Mures and Kennedys. No doubt there was something to be said on both sides in a quarrel which goes as far back as the roasting alive of the Commendator of Crossraguel by an Earl of Cassilis, soon after the Reformation.* The Earl had, before Colzean's murder, been on bad terms with his brother, who was a friend of the murderer Auchendrane. In September 1602, however, the noble brothers were reconciled on the following basis:-The Earl was to give his kinsman and his accomplices a yearly pension of 1200 marks, "good and thankful payment," as soon as he takes Auchendrane's life, "beginning the first payment immediately after their committing of the said deed. . . And hereto we oblige us, upon our honour." 1

These things were done in a region which, from the dawn of the Reformation, had been peculiarly enlightened, having profited by * See Appendix, "Gowrie and Restalrig.”

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