by Walter Scott
NOTE TO CHAPTER XXII.
Note E.--The range of iron bars above that glowing charcoal.
This horrid species of torture may remind the reader of that to whichthe Spaniards subjected Guatimozin, in order to extort a discovery ofhis concealed wealth. But, in fact, an instance of similar barbarity isto be found nearer home, and occurs in the annals of Queen Mary'stime, containing so many other examples of atrocity. Every readermust recollect, that after the fall of the Catholic Church, and thePresbyterian Church Government had been established by law, the rank,and especially the wealth, of the Bishops, Abbots, Priors, and so forth,were no longer vested in ecclesiastics, but in lay impropriators of thechurch revenues, or, as the Scottish lawyers called them, titularsof the temporalities of the benefice, though having no claim to thespiritual character of their predecessors in office.
Of these laymen, who were thus invested with ecclesiastical revenues,some were men of high birth and rank, like the famous Lord JamesStewart, the Prior of St Andrews, who did not fail to keep for their ownuse the rents, lands, and revenues of the church. But if, on theother hand, the titulars were men of inferior importance, who had beeninducted into the office by the interest of some powerful person, it wasgenerally understood that the new Abbot should grant for his patron'sbenefit such leases and conveyances of the church lands and tithes asmight afford their protector the lion's share of the booty. This was theorigin of those who were wittily termed Tulchan [61]
Bishops, being a sort of imaginary prelate, whose image was set up toenable his patron and principal to plunder the benefice under his name.
There were other cases, however, in which men who had got grants ofthese secularised benefices, were desirous of retaining them for theirown use, without having the influence sufficient to establish theirpurpose; and these became frequently unable to protect themselves,however unwilling to submit to the exactions of the feudal tyrant of thedistrict.
Bannatyne, secretary to John Knox, recounts a singular course ofoppression practised on one of those titulars abbots, by the Earl ofCassilis in Ayrshire, whose extent of feudal influence was so wide thathe was usually termed the King of Carrick. We give the fact as it occursin Bannatyne's Journal, only premising that the Journalist held hismaster's opinions, both with respect to the Earl of Cassilis as anopposer of the king's party, and as being a detester of the practice ofgranting church revenues to titulars, instead of their being devoted topious uses, such as the support of the clergy, expense of schools, andthe relief of the national poor. He mingles in the narrative, therefore,a well deserved feeling of execration against the tyrant who employedthe torture, which a tone of ridicule towards the patient, as if, afterall, it had not been ill bestowed on such an equivocal and amphibiouscharacter as a titular abbot. He entitles his narrative,
THE EARL OF CASSILIS' TYRANNY AGAINST A QUICK (i.e. LIVING) MAN.
"Master Allan Stewart, friend to Captain James Stewart of Cardonall, bymeans of the Queen's corrupted court, obtained the Abbey 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) topay at his pleasure; and because he could not find sic security as hisinsatiable appetite required, this shift was devised. The said Mr Allanbeing in company with the Laird of Bargany, (also a Kennedy,) was, bythe Earl and his friends, enticed to leave the safeguard which he hadwith the Laird, and come to make good cheer with the said Earl. Thesimplicity of the imprudent man was suddenly abused; and so he passedhis time with them certain days, which he did in Maybole with ThomasKennedie, uncle to the said Earl; after which the said Mr Allan passed,with quiet company, to visit the place and bounds of Crossraguel, [hisabbacy,] of which the said Earl being surely advertised, determined toput in practice the tyranny which long before he had conceived. And so,as king of the country, apprehended the said Mr Allan, and carried himto the house of Denure, where for a season he was honourably treated,(if a prisoner can think any entertainment pleasing;) but after thatcertain days were spent, and that the Earl could not obtain the feus ofCrossraguel according to his own appetite, he determined to prove if acollation could work that which neither dinner nor supper could do fora 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 aswere appointed to be servants at that banquet. In the chamber there wasa 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 pleaseyou confess here, that with your own consent you remain in my company,because ye durst not commit yourself to the hands of others.' The Abbotanswered, 'Would you, my lord, that I should make a manifest lie foryour pleasure? The truth is, my lord, it is against my will that I amhere; neither yet have I any pleasure in your company.' 'But ye shallremain with me, nevertheless, at this time,' said the Earl. 'I am notable to resist your will and pleasure,' said the Abbot, 'in this place.''Ye must then obey me,' said the Earl,--and with that were presentedunto him certain letters to subscribe, amongst which there was a fiveyears' tack, and a nineteen years' tack, and a charter of feu of all thelands (of Crossraguel), with all the clauses necessary for the Earl tohaste him to hell. For if adultery, sacrilege, oppression, barbarouscruelty, and theft heaped upon theft, deserve hell, the great Kingof Carrick can no more escape hell for ever, than the imprudent Abbotescaped the fire for a season as follows.
"After that the Earl spied repugnance, and saw that he could not cometo his purpose by fair means, he commanded his cooks to prepare thebanquet: and so first they flayed the sheep, that is, they took offthe Abbot's cloathes even to his skin, and next they bound him to thechimney--his legs to the one end, and his arms to the other; and so theybegan to beet [i.e. feed] the fire sometimes to his buttocks, sometimesto his legs, sometimes to his shoulders and arms; and that the roastmight not burn, but that it might rest in soppe, they spared notflambing with oil, (basting as a cook bastes roasted meat); Lord, lookthou to sic cruelty! And that the crying of the miserable man should notbe heard, they dosed his mouth that the voice might be stopped. It maybe suspected that some partisan of the King's [Darnley's] murder wasthere. In that torment they held the poor man, till that often he criedfor God's sake to dispatch him; for he had as meikle gold in his awinpurse as would buy powder enough to shorten his pain. The famous King ofCarrick and his cooks perceiving the roast to be aneuch, commanded itto be tane fra the fire, and the Earl himself began the grace in thismanner:--'Benedicite, Jesus Maria, you are the most obstinate man thatever I saw; gif I had known that ye had been so stubborn, I would notfor a thousand crowns have handled you so; I never did so to man beforeyou.' And yet he returned to the same practice within two days, andceased not till that he obtained his formost purpose, that is, thathe had got all his pieces subscryvit alsweill as ane half-roasted handcould do it. The Earl thinking himself sure enough so long as he hadthe half-roasted Abbot in his own keeping, and yet being ashamed of hispresence by reason of his former cruelty, left the place of Denure inthe hands of certain of his servants, and the half-roasted Abbot to bekept there as prisoner. The Laird of Bargany, out of whose company thesaid Abbot had been enticed, understanding, (not the extremity,) butthe retaining of the man, sent to the court, and raised letters ofdeliverance of the person of the man according to the order, which beingdisobeyed, the said Earl for his contempt was denounced rebel, and putto the horne. But yet hope was there none, neither to the afflictedto be delivered, neither yet to the purchaser [i.e. procurer] ofthe letters to obtain any comfort thereby; for in that time God wasdespised, and the lawful authority was contemned in Scotland, in hopeof the sudden return and regiment of that cruel murderer of her awinhusband, of whose lords the said Earl was called one; and yet, oftenerthan once, he was solemnly sworn to the King and to his Regent."
The Journalist then recites the complaint of the injured Allan Stewart,Commendator of Crossraguel, to the Regent and Privy Council, averringhis having been carried, partly by flattery, partly by
force, to theblack vault of Denure, a strong fortalice, built on a rock overhangingthe Irish channel, where to execute leases and conveyances of the wholechurches and parsonages belonging to the Abbey of Crossraguel, which heutterly refused as an unreasonable demand, and the more so that he hadalready conveyed them to John Stewart of Cardonah, by whose interest hehad been made Commendator. The complainant proceeds to state, that hewas, after many menaces, stript, bound, and his limbs exposed to firein the manner already described, till, compelled by excess of agony, hesubscribed the charter and leases presented to him, of the contentsof which he was totally ignorant. A few days afterwards, being againrequired to execute a ratification of these deeds before a notary andwitnesses, and refusing to do so, he was once more subjected to the sametorture, until his agony was so excessive that he exclaimed, "Fye onyou, why do you not strike your whingers into me, or blow me up with abarrel of powder, rather than torture me thus unmercifully?" upon whichthe Earl commanded Alexander Richard, one of his attendants, to stop thepatient's mouth with a napkin, which was done accordingly. Thus he wasonce more compelled to submit to their tyranny. The petition concludedwith stating, that the Earl, under pretence of the deeds thusiniquitously obtained, had taken possession of the whole place andliving of Crossraguel, and enjoyed the profits thereof for three years.
The doom of the Regent and Council shows singularly the totalinterruption of justice at this calamitous period, even in the mostclamant cases of oppression. The Council declined interference withthe course of the ordinary justice of the county, (which was completelyunder the said Earl of Cassilis' control,) and only enacted, that heshould forbear molestation of the unfortunate Comendator, under thesurety of two thousand pounds Scots. The Earl was appointed also to keepthe peace towards the celebrated George Buchanan, who had a pension outof 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 ordiner justice couldneither help the oppressed, nor yet the afflicted, applied his mindto the next remedy, and in the end, by his servants, took the houseof Denure, where the poor Abbot was kept prisoner. The bruit flew fraCarrick to Galloway, and so suddenly assembled herd and hyre-man thatpertained to the band of the Kennedies; and so within a few hours wasthe house of Denure environed again. The master of Cassilis was thefrackast [i.e. the readiest or boldest] and would not stay, but in hisheat would lay fire to the dungeon, with no small boasting that allenemies within the house should die.
"He was required and admonished by those that were within to be moremoderate, and not to hazard himself so foolishly. But no admonitionwould help, till that the wind of an hacquebute blasted his shoulder,and then ceased he from further pursuit in fury. The Laird of Barganyhad before purchest [obtained] of the authorities, letters, chargingall faithfull subjects to the King's Majesty, to assist him against thatcruel tyrant and mansworn traitor, the Earl of Cassilis; whichletters, with his private writings, he published, and shortly foundsic concurrence of Kyle and Cunynghame with his other friends, that theCarrick company drew back fra the house: and so the other approached,furnished the house with more men, delivered the said Mr Allan, andcarried him to Ayr, where, publicly at the market cross of the saidtown, he declared how cruelly he was entreated, and how the murderedKing suffered not sic torment as he did, excepting only he escaped thedeath: and, therefore, publickly did revoke all things that were donein that extremity, and especially revoked the subscription of the threewritings, to wit, of a fyve yeir tack and nineteen year tack, and of acharter 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 Barganyand of his servants. And so cruelty was disappointed of proffeitpresent, 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, tolook more diligently upon their behaviuours, and to paint them forthunto the world, that they themselves may be ashamed of their ownbeastliness, and that the world may be advertised and admonished toabhor, detest, and avoid the company of all sic tyrants, who are notworthy of the society of men, but ought to be sent suddenly to thedevil, with whom they must burn without end, for their contempt ofGod, and cruelty committed against his creatures. Let Cassilis and hisbrother be the first to be the example unto others. Amen. Amen." [62]
This extract has been somewhat amended or modernized in orthography, torender it more intelligible to the general reader. I have to add, thatthe Kennedies of Bargany, who interfered in behalf of the oppressedAbbot, were themselves a younger branch of the Cassilis family, butheld different politics, and were powerful enough in this, and otherinstances, to bid them defiance.
The ultimate issue of this affair does not appear; but as the house ofCassilis are still in possession of the greater part of the feus andleases which belonged to Crossraguel Abbey, it is probable the talonsof the King of Carrick were strong enough, in those disorderly times, toretain the prey which they had so mercilessly fixed upon.
I may also add, that it appears by some papers in my possession, thatthe officers or Country Keepers on the border, were accustomed totorment their prisoners by binding them to the iron bars of theirchimneys, to extort confession.
