by Walter Scott
THE EARL OF CASSILIS’ TYRANNY AGAINST A QUICK
(i.e. LIVING) MAN
“Master Allan Stewart, friend to Captain James Stewart of Cardonall, by means of the Queen’s corrupted court, obtained the abbacy of Crossraguel. The said Earl, thinking himself greater than any king in those quarters, determined to have that whole benefice (as he hath divers others) to pay at his pleasure; and because he could not find sic security as his insatiable appetite required, this shift was devised. The said Mr. Allan, being in company with the Laird of Bargany, was, by the said Earl and his friends, enticed to leave the safeguard which he had with the said Laird, and come to make good cheer with the said Earl. The simplicity of the imprudent man was suddenly abused; and so he passed his time with them certain days, which he did in Maybole with Thomas Kennedie, uncle to the said Earl; after which the said Mr. Allan passed, with quiet company, to visit the place and bounds of Crossraguel, of which the said Earl being surely advertised, determined to put in practice the tyranny which long before he had conceived. And so, as king of the country, apprehended the said Mr. Allan, and carried him to the house of Dunure, where for a season he was honourably treated (gif a prisoner can think any entertainment pleasing); but after that certain days were spent, and that the Earl could not obtain the feus of Crossraguel according to his awin appetite, he determined to prove gif a collation could work that which neither dinner nor supper could do for a long time. And so the said Mr. Allan was carried to a secret chamber; with him passed the honourable Earl, his worshipful brother, and such as were appointed to be servants at that banquet. In the chamber there was a grit iron chimlay, under it a fire; other grit provision was not seen. The first course was—‘My Lord Abbot,’ said the Earl, ‘it will please you confess here, that with your own consent you remain in my company, because ye durst not commit yourself to the hands of others.’ The Abbot answered, ‘Would you, my lord, that I should make a manifest lie for your pleasure? The truth is, my lord, it is against my will that I am here; neither yet have I any pleasure in your company.’ ‘But ye shall remain with me at this time,’ said the Earl. ‘I am not able to resist your will and pleasure,’ said the Abbot, ‘in this place.’ ‘Ye must then obey me,’ said the Earl; and with that were presented unto him certain letters to subscribe, amongst which there was a five year tack, and a nineteen year tack, and a charter of feu of all the lands of Crossraguel, with all the clauses necessary for the Earl to haste him to hell. For gif adultery, sacrilege, oppression, barbarous cruelty, and theft heaped upon theft, deserve hell, the great King of Carrick can no more escape hell for ever than the imprudent Abbot escaped the fire for a season as follows.
“After that the Earl spied repugnance, and saw that he could not come to his purpose by fair means, he commanded his cooks to prepare the banquet: and so first they flayed the sheep, that is, they took off the Abbot’s cloathes even to his skin, and next they bound him to the chimney—his legs to the one end and his arms to the other; and so they began to beet the fire sometimes to his buttocks, sometimes to his legs, sometimes to his shoulders and arms; and that the roast should not burn, but that it might rest in soppe, they spared not flambing with oil (Lord, look thou to sic cruelty!) And that the crying of the miserable man should not be heard, they closed his mouth that the voice might be stopped. It may be suspected that some practisiane [partisan] of the King’s [Darnley‘s] murder was there. In that torment they held the poor man, till that oftimes he cried for God’s sake to dispatch him; for he had as meikle gold in his awin purse as would buy powder enough to shorten his pain. The famous King of Carrick and his cooks perceiving the roast to be aneuch, commanded it to be tane fra the fire, and the Earl himself began the grace in this manner: ‘Benedicte Jesus Maria, you are the most obstinate man that ever I saw; gif I had known that ye had been so stubborn, I would not for a thousand crowns have handled you so; I never did so to man before you.’ And yet he returned to the same practice within two days, and ceased not till that he obtained his formest purpose, that is, that he had got all his pieces subscryvit alsweill as ane half-roasted hand could do it. The Earl thinking himself sure enough so long as he had the half-roasted Abbot in his awin keeping, and yet being ashamed of his presence by reason of his former cruelty, left the place of Dunure in the hands of certain of his servants, and the half-roasted Abbot to be kept there as prisoner. The Laird of Bargany, out of whose company the said Abbot was enticed, understanding (not the extremity), but the retaining of the man, sent to the court, and raised letters of deliverance of the person of the man according to the order, which being disobeyed, the said Earl for his contempt was denounced rebel, and put to the horne. But yet hope was there none, neither to the afflicted to be delivered, neither yet to the purchaser [i.e. procurer] of the letters to obtain any comfort thereby; for in that time God was despised, and the lawful authority was contemned in Scotland, in hope of the sudden return and regiment of that cruel murderer of her awin husband, of whose lords the said Earl was called one; and yet, oftener than once, he was solemnly sworn to the King and to his Regent.”
The Journalist then recites the complaint of the misused Allan Stewart, Commendator of Crossraguel, to the Regent and Privy Council, averring his having been carried, partly by flattery, partly by force, to the black vault of Dunure, a strong fortalice, built on a rock overhanging the Irish Channel, where its ruins are still visible. Here he stated he had been required to execute leases and conveyances of the whole churches and parsonages belonging to the Abbey of Crossraguel, which he utterly refused as an unreasonable demand, and the more so that he had already conveyed them to John Stewart of Cardonall, by whose interest he had been made Commendator. The complainant proceeds to state that he was, after many menaces, stript, bound, and his limbs exposed to fire in the manner already described, till, compelled by excess of agony, he subscribed the charter and leases presented to him, of the contents of which he was totally ignorant. A few days afterwards, being again required to execute a ratification of these deeds before a notary and witnesses, and refusing to do so, he was once more subjected to the same torture, until his agony was so excessive that he exclaimed, “Fy on you, why do you not strike your whingers into me, or blow me up with a barrel of powder, rather than torture me thus unmercifully?” upon which the Earl commanded Alexander Richard, one of his attendants, to stop the patient’s mouth with a napkin, which was done accordingly. Thus he was once more compelled to submit to their tyranny. The petition concluded with stating that the Earl, under pretence of the deeds thus iniquitously obtained, had taken possession of the whole place and living of Crossraguel, and enjoyed the profits thereof for three years.
The doom of the Regent and Council shows singularly the total interruption of justice at this calamitous period, even in the most clamant cases of oppression. The Council declined interference with the course of the ordinary justice of the county (which was completely under the said Earl of Cassilis’s control), and only enacted that he should forbear molestation of the unfortunate Commendator, under the surety of two thousand pounds Scots. The Earl was appointed also to keep the peace towards the celebrated George Buchanan, who had a pension out of the same abbacy, to a similar extent, and under the like penalty.
The consequences are thus described by the Journalist already quoted:—
“The said Laird of Bargany, perceiving that the ordinerie justice (the oppressed as said is) could neither help him nor yet the afflicted, applied his mind to the next remedy, and in the end, by his servants, took the house of Dunure, where the poor Abbot was kept prisoner. The bruit flew fra Carrick to Galloway, and so suddenly assembled herd and hyre-man that pertained to the band of the Kennedies; and so within a few hours was the house of Dunure environed again. The Master of Cassilis was the frackast, and would not stay, but in his heat would lay fire to the dungeon, with no small boasting that all enemies within the house should die.
“He was required and admonished by those that were within to be more moderate, and not to
hazard himself so foolishly. But no admonition would help, till that the wind of an hacquebute blasted his shoulder, and then ceased he from further pursuit in fury. The Laird of Bargany had before purchest [obtained] of the authorities, letters, charging all faithfull subjects to the King’s Majesty to assist him against that cruel tyrant and man-sworn traitor, the Earl of Cassilis; which letters, with his private writings, he published, and shortly found sic concurrence of Kyle and Cunynghame with his other friends, that the Carrick company drew back fra the house; and so the other approached, furnished the house with more men, delivered the said Mr. Allan, and carried him to Ayr, where, publicly at the market cross of the said town, he declared how cruelly he was entreated, and how the murdered King suffered not sic torment as he did, that only excepted he escaped the death; and, therefore, publicly did revoke all things that were done in that extremity, and especially he revoked the subscription of the three writings, to wit, of a fiyve yeir tak and nineteen yeir tak, and of a charter of feu. And so the house remained, and remains (till this day, the 7th of February 1571), in the custody of the said Laird of Bargany and of his servants. And so cruelty was disappointed of proffeit present, and shall be eternallie [punished], unless he earnestly repent. And this far for the cruelty committed, to give occasion unto others, and to such as hate the monstrous dealing of degenerate nobility, to look more diligently upon their behaviours, and to paint them forth unto the world, that they themselves may be ashamed of their own beastliness, and that the world may be advertised and admonished to abhor, detest, and avoid the company of all sic tyrants, who are not worthy of the society of men, but ought to be sent suddenly to the devil, with whom they must burn without end, for their contempt of God, and cruelty committed against his creatures. Let Cassilis and his brother be the first to be the example unto others. Amen. Amen.”
This extract has been somewhat amended or modernised in orthography, to render it more intelligible to the general reader. I have to add, that the Kennedies of Bargany, who interfered in behalf of the oppressed Abbot, were themselves a younger branch of the Cassilis family, but held different politics, and were powerful enough in this and other instances to bid them defiance.
The ultimate issue of this affair does not appear; but as the house of Cassilis are still in possession of the greater part of the feus and leases which belonged to Crossraguel Abbey, it is probable the talons of the King of Carrick were strong enough, in those disorderly times, to retain the prey which they had so mercilessly fixed upon.
I may also add, that it appears by some papers in my possession that the officers or country keepers on the Border were accustomed to torment their prisoners by binding them to the iron bars of their chimneys to extort confession.
CHAPTER XXIII
1 (p. 221) epigraph: The lines are from Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona (act 5, scene 4) .
2 (p. 227) the industrious Henry: See “Dedicatory Epistle,” endnote 7.
CHAPTER XXIV
1 (p. 229) epigraph: The text is from John Home’s Douglas (1756; line 305).
2 (p. 234) gentle Ecclesiastica: Bois-Guilbert here associates Rebecca with the Book of Wisdom from the Apochrypha, also called Ecclesiasticus, which contains lengthy disquisitions on female virtue and moral conduct.
CHAPTER XXV
1 (p. 239) epigraph: The lines are from Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer (1773; 4.680).
CHAPTER XXVI
1 (p. 247) epigraph: The lines are written by Scott himself.
CHAPTER XXVII
1 (p. 254) epigraph: The lines are from George Crabbe’s “The Hall of Justice” (1807; lines 5-8, 27-32) .
2 (p. 269) touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets nought of evil: See the Bible, 1 Chronicles 16:22.
3 (p. 269) “They bring forward mantelets and pavisses”: [Author’s note] Mantelets and Pavisses. Mantelets were temporary and movable defences formed of planks, under cover of which the assailants advanced to the attack of fortified places of old. Pavisses were a species of large shields covering the whole person, employed on the same occasions.
4 (p. 270) “Look that the crossbowmen lack not bolts”: [Author’s note] Bolts and Shafts. The bolt was the arrow peculiarly fitted to the cross-bow, as that of the long-bow was called a shaft. Hence the English proverb—“I will either make a shaft or bolt of it,” signifying a determination to make one use or other of the thing spoken of.
CHAPTER XXVIII
1 (p. 271) epigraph: The lines are written by Scott himself.
2 (p. 281 ) Juvenal’s Tenth Satire: Better known to Scott’s readers in the form of Samuel Johnson’s imitation, “The Vanity of Human Wishes,” in which the rich traveler discovers that “Nor light nor darkness bring his pain relief / One shows the plunder, and one hides the thief” (lines 43-44).
3 (p. 283) “Here be two arblasts ... with windlaces and quarrells”: [Author’s note] Arblast, etc. The arblast was a cross-bow, the wind-lace the machine used in bending that weapon, and the quarrell, so called from its square or diamond-shaped head, was the bolt adapted to it.
CHAPTER XXIX
1 (p. 284) epigraph: The lines are from Friedrich Schiller’s Die Jungfrau von Orleans (The Maid of Orleans; 1801; act 5, scene 11 ); the translation is by Scott.
2 (p. 286) The quiver ... the shouting: The reference is to the Bible, Job 39:23-25.
3 (p. 287) “Something resembling a bar of iron, and a padlock painted blue on the black shield”: [Author’s note] Heraldry. The Author has been here upbraided with false heraldry, as having charged metal upon metal. It should be remembered, however, that heraldry had only its first rude origin during the crusades, and that all the minutiae of its fantastic science were the work of time, and introduced at a much later period. Those who think otherwise must suppose that the Goddess of Armoirers, like the Goddess of Arms, sprung into the world completely equipped in all the gaudy trappings of the department she presides over. In corroboration of what is above stated, it may be observed, that the arms which were assumed by Godfrey of Boulogne himself, after the conquest of Jerusalem, was a cross counter potent cantoned with four little crosses or upon a field azure, displaying thus metal upon metal. The heralds have tried to explain this undeniable fact in different modes; but Ferne gallantly contends that a prince of Godfrey’s qualities should not be bound by the ordinary rules. The Scottish Nisbet and the same Feme insist that the chiefs of the crusade must have assigned to Godfrey this extraordinary and unwonted coat-of-arms in order to induce those who should behold them to make inquiries; and hence give them the name of arma inquirenda. But with reverence to these grave authorities, it seems unlikely that the assembled princes of Europe should have adjudged to Godfrey a coat armorial so much contrary to the general rule, if such rule had then existed; at any rate, it proves that metal upon metal, now accounted a solecism in heraldry, was admitted in other cases similar to that in the text. See Ferne’s Blazon of Gentrie, p. 238; edition 1586. Nisbet’s Heraldry, vol. i. p. 113; second edition.
4 (p. 289) “close under the outer barrier of the barbican”: [Author’s note] Barriers. Every Gothic castle and city had, beyond the outer walls, a fortification composed of palisades, called the barriers, which were often the scene of severe skirmishes, as these must necessarily be carried before the walls themselves could be approached. Many of those valiant feats of arms which adorn the chivalrous pages of Froissart took place at the barriers of besieged places.
CHAPTER XXX
1 (p. 294) epigraph: The lines are written by Scott himself.
CHAPTER XXXI
1 (p. 303) epigraph: The lines are from Shakespeare’s Henry V (act 3, scene 1).
2 (p. 310) “... and instantly follow me”: [Author’s note] Incident from Grand Cyrus. The Author has some idea that this passage is imitated from the appearance of Philidaspes, before the divine Mandane, when the city of Babylon is on fire, and he proposes to carry her from the flames. But the theft, if there be one, would be rather too severely punishe
d by the penance of searching for the original passage through the interminable volumes of the Grand Cyrus.
3 (pp. 314-315) Whet the bright steel ... I also must perish: [Author’s note] Ulrica’s Death-Song. It will readily occur to the antiquary that these verses are intended to imitate the antique poetry of the Scalds—the minstrels of the old Scandinavians—the race, as the Laureate so happily terms them, “Stern to inflict, and stubborn to endure, / Who smiled in death.” The poetry of the Anglo-Saxons, after their civilisation and conversion, was of a different and softer character; but in the circumstances of Ulrica she may not be unnaturally supposed to return to the wild strains which animated her forefathers during the time of Paganism and untamed ferocity.
CHAPTER XXXII
1 (p. 316) epigraph: The lines were written by Scott himself; see chapter 18, note 1.
2 (p. 320) THEOW and ESNE . . . FOLKFREE and SACLESS: “Theow” and “Esne” refer to Gurth’s status as a serf, and “folkfree” and “sacless” to the freedom from serfdom now bestowed upon him by his master, Cedric. Scott borrowed the terms from a seventeenth-century text, Sir Henry Spelman’s Feuds and Tenures by Knightly Service (1641).
