History of Civilization in England, Vol. 3 of 3. Henry Buckley

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‘Sir James Turner, that commanded them, was naturally fierce, but was mad when he was drunk; and that was very often.’ Burnet's History of his own Time, vol. i. p. 364. Kirkton (History of the Church, p. 221) says: ‘Sir James Turner hade made ane expedition to the west countrey to subdue it to the bishops, in the year 1664; another in the year 1665; and a third in the year 1666; and this was the worst.’ Full particulars will be found in Wodrow's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 373–375, 411, vol. ii. pp. 8, 17, vol. iii. pp. 264, 265. ‘This method of dragooning people to the church, as it is contrary to the spirit of Christianity, so it was a stranger in Scotland, till Bishop Sharpe and the prelates brought it in.’ vol. i. p. 401.

Sir James Turner, whose Memoirs, written by himself, were not published till thirty years ago, relates an anecdote of his own drunkenness in a strain of maudlin piety well worthy of his career. Turner's Memoirs of his own Life, Edinburgh, 1829, 4to, pp. 42, 43. At p. 206, this impudent man writes: ‘And yet I confesse, my humour never was, nor is not yet, one of the calmest; when it will be, God onlie knoues; yet by many sad passages of my life, I know that it hath beene good for me to be afflicted.’ Perhaps, however, he may take the benefit of his assertion (p. 144), ‘that I was so farre from exceeding or transgressing my commission and instructions, that I never came the full length of them.’ Considering the cruelties he committed, what sort of instructions could his superiors have given to him?

‘Sir James Turner lately had forced Galloway to rise in arms, by his cruelty the last and former years; but he was an easy master, compared with General Dalziel, his ruffians, and Sir William Bannatyne, this year.’ Wodrow's Church of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 62. Dalziel ‘cruelly tortured whom he would.’ p. 63. One woman ‘is brought prisoner to Kilmarnock, where she was sentenced to be let down to a deep pit, under the house of the dean, full of toads and other vile creatures. Her shrieks thence were heard at a great distance.’ p. 64. Two countrymen were ‘bound together with cords, and hanged up by their thumbs to a tree, there to hang all night.’ Ibid. Sir William Bannatyne's soldiers seized a woman, ‘and bound her, and put lighted matches betwixt her fingers for several hours; the torture and pain made her almost distracted; she lost one of her hands, and in a few days she died.’ Ibid. ‘Oppressions, murders, robberies, rapes.’ p. 65. ‘He made great fires, and laid down men to roast before them, when they would not, or could not, give him the money he required, or the information he was seeking.’ p. 104. See also Crookshank's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 204–207. The History is based upon Wodrow's great work, but contains many facts with which Wodrow was unacquainted. See Crookshank, vol. i. p. 11. Respecting the outrages in 1667, there are some horrible details in a book published in that very year, under the title of Naphtali, or the Wrestlings of the Church of Scotland. See, especially, the summary at p. 174: ‘wounding, beating, stripping and imprisoning mens persons, violent breaking of their houses both by day and night, and beating and wounding of wives and children, ravishing and deflowring of women, forcing wives and other persons by fired matches and other tortures to discover their husbands and nearest relations, although it be not within the compass of their knowledge, and driving and spoiling all their goods that can be carried away, without respect to guilt or innocency.’

‘That whosoever without licence or authoritie forsaid shall preach, expound Scripture, or pray at any of these meetings in the ffeild, or in any house wher ther be moe persons nor the house contains, so as some of them be without doors (which is hereby declared to be a feild conventicle), or who shall convocat any number of people to these meetings, shall be punished with death and confiscation of ther goods.’ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. viii. p. 9, edit. 1820, folio. This was on the 13th August 1670.

The immediate pretence being, to do away with appeals. See Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iv. pp. 72–74.

‘Savage hosts of Highlanders were sent down to depopulate the western shires, to the number of ten or eleven thousand, who acted most outrageous barbarities, even almost to the laying some counties desolate.’ A Cloud of Witnesses for the Royal Prerogatives of Jesus Christ, edit. Glasgow, 1779, p. 18. But most authorities state the number to have been eight thousand. See Kirkton's History, p. 386; Arnot's History of Edinburgh, p. 154; Burnet's History of his own Time, vol. ii. p. 134; Denholm's History of Glasgow, p. 67; and Life and Sufferings of John Nisbet, in Select Biographies, published by the Wodrow Society, vol. ii. p. 381. Chalmers, however, in his Caledonia, vol. iii. p. 592, says 10,000.

‘They were indemnified against all pursuits, civil and criminal, on account of killing, wounding, apprehending, or imprisoning, such as should oppose them.’ Crookshank's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 337, 338.

Short and imperfect notices of this ‘Highland Host,’ as it was called at the time, may be found in Kirkton's History, pp. 385–390, and in Crookshank's History, vol. i. pp. 354, 355. But the fullest account of the enormities committed by these barbarians, is in Wodrow's great work, collected from authentic and official documents. See his History of the Church of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 375–413, 421–432, vol. iii. pp. 76, 79, 486. They were provided beforehand with implements of torture. ‘They had good store of iron shackles, as if they were to lead back vast numbers of slaves, and thumb-locks, as they call them’ (i. e. thumb-screws), ‘to make their examinations and trials with.’ vol. ii. p. 389. ‘In some places they tortured people, by scorching their bodies at vast fires, and other wise,’ vol. ii. p. 422. Compare Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 88. ‘Neither age nor sex was exempt from outrage, and torture was freely employed to extort a confession of hidden wealth.’ And, at p. 91, ‘The Highlanders, after exacting free quarters, and wasting the country for three months, were dismissed to their hills with impunity and wealth.’

‘Indeed, the whole of the severity, hardships, and bloodshed from this year’ (1661), ‘until the revolution, was either actually brought on by the bishops, procured by them, or done for their support.’ Wodrow's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. i. p. 223. ‘It was our prelates who pushed the council to most of their severities.’ p. 247. ‘The bishops, indeed, violently pushed prosecutions.’ Crookshank's History of the Church, vol. i. p. 298. In 1666, ‘As to the prelates, they resolved to use all severities, and to take all imaginable cruel and rigorous ways and courses, first against the rest of the prisoners, and then against the whole west of Scotland.’ Row's Continuation of Blair's Autobiography, pp. 505, 506, edit. Edinburgh, 1848. This interesting work is edited by Dr. M'Crie, and published by the Wodrow Society.

In 1688, ‘the bishops concurred in a pious and convivial address to James, as the darling of heaven, that God might give him the hearts of his subjects and the necks of his enemies.’ Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 193.

‘After the Duke of York came down in October’(1680), ‘the persecution turned yet more severe.’ Wodrow's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 225. ‘Persecution and tyranny, mainly promoted by the Duke of York's instigation.’ Shields' Hind let loose, p. 147. ‘Immediately upon his mounting the throne, the executions and acts prosecuting the persecution of the poor wanderers, were more cruel than ever.’ p. 200.

This was well known in Scotland; and is evidently alluded to by a writer of that time, the Rev. Alexander Shields, who calls James, not a man, but a monster. See Shields' Hind let loose, 1687, p. 365. ‘This man, or monster rather, that is now mounted the throne.’ And a monster surely he was. Compare Crookshank's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 66, where it is mentioned that, when Spreul was tortured, ‘the Duke of York was pleased to gratify his eyes with this delightful scene.’ Also, Wodrow's History, vol. iii. p. 253, and Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 116. ‘According to Burnet, the duke's pleasure at witnessing human agony was a cold, and, as it were, a speculative pleasure, as if he were present for the purpose of contemplating some curious experiment. But James was so excitable a man, that this is hardly likely. At all events, the remarks of Burnet have a painful interest for those who study these dark, and, as we may rejoice to think, these very rare, forms of human malignity.’ ‘When any are to be struck in the boots, it is done in the presence of the council; and upon that occasion, almost all offer to run away. The sight is so dreadful, that without an order restraining such a number to stay, the board would be forsaken. But the duke, while he had been in Scotland, was so far from withdrawing, that he looked on all the while with an unmoved indifference, and with an attention, as if he had been to look on some curious experiment. This gave a terrible idea of him to all that observed it, as of a man that had no bowels nor humanity in him.’ Burnet's History of his own Time, vol. ii. pp. 416, 417.

Shields (A Hind let loose, p. 186) describes the boots, as ‘a cruel engine of iron, whereby, with wedges, the leg is tortured, until the marrow come out of the bone.’ Compare Naphtali, or the Wrestlings of the Church of Scotland, 1667, p. 268: ‘the extraordinary compression both of flesh, sinews, and bones, by the force of timber wedges and hammer.’

In 1684, Carstairs was subjected to this torture. See his own account, in a letter printed in Wodrow's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. iv. pp. 96–100. He writes (p. 99): ‘After this communing, the king's smith was called in, to bring in a new instrument to torture by the thumbkins, that had never been used before. For whereas the former was only to screw on two pieces of iron above and below with finger and thumb, these were made to turn about the screw with the whole hand. And under this torture, I continued near an hour and a half.’ See also the case of Spence, in the same year, in Burnet's History of his own Time, vol. ii. p. 418. ‘Little screws of steel were made use of, that screwed the thumbs with so exquisite a torment, that he sunk under this; for Lord Perth told him, they would screw every joint of his whole body, one after another, till he took the oath.’ Laing (History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 143) says, ‘the thumbikins; small screws of steel that compressed the thumb and the whole hand with an exquisite torture;’ an invention brought by Drummond and Dalziel from Russia. For other notices, see Fountainhall's Notes of Scottish Affairs from 1680 till 1701, Edinburgh, 4to, 1822, pp. 41, 97, 101; Bower's History of the University of Edinburgh, vol. ii. p. 30; Crookshank's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 192; A Cloud of Witnesses for the Royal Prerogatives of Jesus Christ, edit. Glasgow, 1779, p. 371; and Life of Walter Smith, p. 85, in the second volume of Walker's Biographia Presbyteriana, Edinburgh, 1827.

‘In 1684, the Scottish nation was in the most distressing and pitiable situation that can be imagined.’ … ‘The state of society had now become such, that, in Edinburgh, attention to ordinary business was neglected, and every one was jealous of his neighbour.’ Bower's History of the University of Edinburgh, vol. i. p. 307.

‘Upon the 10th of March, all freeholders, heritors, and gentlemen in Nithsdale and Annandale, and, I suppose, in most other shires of the kingdom, but I name those as being the scene of the severities now used, were summoned to attend the king's standard; and the militia in the several shires were raised. Wherever Claverhouse came, he resolved upon narrow and universal work. He used to set his horse upon the hills and eminences, and that in different parties, that none might escape; and there his foot went through the lower, marshy, and mossy places, where the horse could not do so well. The shire he parcelled out in so many divisions, and six or eight miles square would be taken in at once. In every division, the whole inhabitants, men and women, young and old, without distinction, were all driven into one convenient place.’ … ‘All the children in the division were gathered together by themselves, under ten years, and above six years of age, and a party of soldiers were drawn out before them. Then they were bid pray, for they were going to be shot. Some of them would answer, Sir, we cannot pray.’ … ‘At other times, they treated them most inhumanly, threatening them with death, and at some little distance would fire pistols without ball in their face. Some of the poor children were frighted almost out of their wits, and others of them stood all out with a courage perfectly above their age. These accounts are so far out of the ordinary way of mankind, that I would not have insert them, had I not before me several informations agreeing in all these circumstances, written at this time by people who knew the truth of them.’ Wodrow's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. iv. pp. 255, 256.

‘Numbers were transported to Jamaica, Barbadoes, and the North American settlements; but the women were not unfrequently burnt in the cheek, and the ears of the men were lopt off, to prevent, or to detect, their return,’ Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 162. ‘Great multitudes banished,’ Wodrow's History of the Church, vol. iv. p. 211. In July 1685, ‘the men are ordered to have their ears cropt, and the women to be marked in their hand.’ p. 217. ‘To have the following stigma and mark, that they may be known as banished persons if they shall return to this kingdom, viz. that the men have one of their ears cut off by the hand of the hangman, and that the women be burnt by the same hand on the cheek with a burned iron.’ p. 218. These are extracts from the proceedings of the privy-council.

‘James II. favoured the Highland clans,’ Note in Fountainhall's Scottish Affairs from 1680 till 1701, p. 100. He could hardly do otherwise. The alliance was natural, and ready-made for him.

Except robbing, which, however, in one form or other, is always a part of war. In this, they were very apt. Burnet (History of his own Time, vol. i. p. 67) pithily describes them as ‘good at robbing;’ and Burton (Lives of Lovat and Forbes, p. 47) says, ‘To steal even vestments was considerably more creditable than to make them.’ Otherwise, they were completely absorbed by their passion for war. See Thomson's Memoirs of the Jacobites, vol. ii. pp. 175, 176, London, 1845.

‘Revenge was accounted a duty, the destruction of a neighbour a meritorious exploit, and rapine an honourable employment.’ Browne's History of the Highlands, vol. iv. p. 395. ‘The spirit of rivalry between the clans kept up a taste for hostility, and converted rapine into a service of honour.’ Thomson's Memoirs of the Jacobites, vol. ii. p. 229.

Hence, looking, as they did, merely at the physical qualities of individuals, the appearance of the Pretender in 1715 disgusted them, notwithstanding his splendid lineage. See some excellent remarks in Burton's History of Scotland, from 1689 to 1748, London, 1853, vol. ii. pp. 198, 199. At p. 383, Mr. Burton justly observes, that ‘those who really knew the Highlanders were aware that the followers were no more innate supporters of King James's claim to the throne of Britain, than of Maria Theresa's to the throne of Hungary. They went with the policy of the head of the clan, whatever that might be; and though upwards of half a century's advocacy of the exiled house’ (this refers to the last rebellion in 1745) ‘had made Jacobitism appear a political creed in some clans, it was among the followers, high and low, little better than a nomenclature, which might be changed with circumstances.’ Since Robertson, Mr. Burton and Mr. Chambers are, I will venture to say, the two writers who have taken the most accurate and comprehensive views of the history of Scotland. Robertson's History stops short where the most important period begins; and his materials were scanty. But what he effected with those materials was wonderful. To my mind, his History of Scotland is much the greatest of his works.

A curious description of their appearance, given by the Derby Mercury in 1746 (in Thomson's Memoirs of the Jacobites, vol. iii. p. 115), may be compared with the more general statement in Anderson's Prize Essay on the Highlands, Edinburgh, 1827, p. 128. ‘Cattle were the main resources of the tribe – the acquisition of these the great object of their hostile forrays. The precarious crops gave them wherewithal to bake their oaten cakes, or distil their ale or whisky. When these failed, the crowded population suffered every extreme of misery and want. At one time in particular, in Sutherland, they were compelled to subsist on broth made of nettles, thickened with a little oatmeal. At another, those who had cattle, to have recourse to the expedient of bleeding them, and mixing the blood with oatmeal, which they afterwards cut into slices and fried.’