The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) Part 4

27, by Daniel De Foe. (Edinburgh: 1709).

The common people now screw'd up to a pitch, and ripe for the mischief designed, and prompted by the particular agents of a wicked party, began to be very insolent: It had been whispered about several days, that the rabble would rise, and come up to the Parliament House; and cry No Union; that they would take away the Honours, as they call them, viz.

the Crown etc., and carry them to the Castle, and a long variety of foolish reports of this kind. But the first appearance of anything mobish was, that every day, when the Duke[27] went up, but princ.i.p.ally as he came down in his chair from the House, the mob follow'd him, shouting and crying out, G.o.d bless his Grace, for standing up against the Union, and appearing for his country, and the like.... On the 22nd of October, they follow'd the Duke's chair quite thro the city down to the Abbey Gate; the guards prevented their going further; but all the way as they came back, they were heard to threaten what they would do the next day; that then they would be a thousand times as many; that they would pull the traitors, so they called the treaters of the Union at London, out of their houses, and they would soon put an end to the Union.

On the 23rd they made part of their words good indeed; for, as the Parliament sat something late, the people gather'd in the streets, and about the doors of the Parliament House, and particularly the Parliament Close was almost full, that the members could not go in or out without difficulty; when Duke Hamilton was coming out of the House, the mob huzza'd as formerly, and follow'd his chair in a very great number; the Duke, instead of going down to the Abbey as usual, went up the High Street to the Land-Market,[28] as they call it, and so to the lodgings of the Duke of Athole; some said, he went to avoid the mob; others maliciously said, he went to point them to their work.

While he went in to the Duke of Athole's lodgings, the rabble attended at the door; and, by shouting and noise, having increased their numbers to several thousands, they began with Sir Patrick Johnston, who was one of the treaters, and the year before had been Lord Provost; first they a.s.saulted his lodgings with stones and sticks, and curses not a few; but his windows being too high, they came up the stairs to his door, and fell to work at it with sledges, or great hammers; and, had they broke it open in their first fury, he had, without doubt, been torn in pieces without mercy; and thus only, because he was a treater in the commission to England; for, before that, no man was so well belov'd, as he, over the whole city.

His lady, in the utmost despair with this fright, comes to the window, with two candles in her hand, that she might be known; and cried out, for G.o.d'S sake, to call the guards; an honest apothecary in the town, who knew her voice, and saw the distress she was in, and to whom the family, under G.o.d, is obliged, for their deliverance, ran immediately down to the town guard; but they would not stir, without the Lord Provost's order; but that being soon obtain'd, one Captain Richardson, who commanded, taking about thirty men with him, march'd bravely up to them; and making his way with great resolution thro the crowd, they flying, but throwing stones, and hallowing at him, and his men, he seized the foot of the stair case; and then boldly went up, clear'd the stair, and took six of the rabble in the very act; and so delivered the gentleman and his family....

The city was now in a terrible fright, and every body was under concern for their friends; the rabble went raving about the streets till midnight, frequently beating drums, and raising more people; when my Lord Commissioner being informed, there were a thousand of the seamen and rabble come up from Leith; and apprehending, if it were suffered to go on, it might come to a dangerous head, and be out of his power to suppress, he sent for the Lord Provost, and demanded, that the Guards should march into the city.

The Lord Provost, after some difficulty, yielded; tho it was alleged, that it was what was never known in Edinburgh before. About one o clock in the morning, a battalion of the Guards entered the town, marched up to the Parliament Close, and took post in all the avenues of the city, which prevented the resolutions taken to insult the houses of the rest of the treaters.

The rabble were intirely reduc'd by this, and gradually dispers'd, and so the tumult ended....

The author of this[29] had his share in the danger of this tumult, and tho unknown to him, was watch'd and set by the mob, in order to know where to find him, had his chamber windows insulted, and the windows below him broken by mistake. But, by the prudence of his friends, the shortness of its continuance, and G.o.d'S providence, he escaped.

FOOTNOTES:

[27] Of Hamilton. An opponent of the Union.

[28] The Lawn Market.

[29] De Foe was known to be staying in Edinburgh as the emissary of the English Government.

D. "AN END OF AN OLD SONG" (1707).

+Source.+--_The Lockhart Papers: containing Memoirs and Commentaries upon the Affairs of Scotland from_ 1702 _to_ 1715, vol. i., p. 222, by George Lockhart, Esq., of Carnwath. (London: 1817.)

It is not to be doubted, but the Parliament of England would give a kind reception to the articles of the Union as pa.s.sed in Scotland, when they were laid before that House, as was evident from the quick dispatch in approving of and ratifying the same; and so the Union commenced on the first of May 1707, a day never to be forgot by Scotland; a day in which the Scots were stripped of what their predecessors had gallantly maintained for many hundred years, I mean the independency and soveraignty of the kingdom, both which the Earl of Seafield so little valued, that when he, as Chancellor, signed the engrossed exemplification of the Act of Union, he returned it to the clerk, in the face of Parliament, with this dispising and contemning remark, "Now there's ane end of ane old song."

"THE WEE, WEE GERMAN LAIRDIE"[30] (1714).

+Source.+--_The Jacobite Songs and Ballads of Scotland from 1688 to 1746_, p. 65. Edited by Charles Mackay, LL.D. (London and Glasgow: 1861.)

Wha the deil hae we gotten for a King, But a wee, wee German lairdie!

An' when we gaed to bring him hame, He was delving in his kail-yairdie[31]: Sheughing[32] kail,[33] and laying leeks, But[34] the hose and but the breeks; Up his beggar duds[35] he cleeks,[36]

The wee, wee German lairdie!

And he's clapt down in our gudeman's chair, The wee, wee German lairdie!

And he's brought fouth[37] o' foreign trash, And dibbled[38] them in his yairdie: He's pu'd the rose o' English loons, And brake the harp o' Irish clowns, But our Scots thristle will jag[39] his thumbs, The wee, wee German lairdie.

Come up among the Highland hills, Thou wee, wee German lairdie.

And see how Charlie's lang-kail[40] thrive, That he dibbled in his yairdie: And if a stock ye daur to pu', Or haud the yoking of a pleugh, We'll break your sceptre o'er your mou',[41]

Thou wee bit German lairdie!

Our hills are steep, our glens are deep, No fitting for a yairdie; And our norlan'[42] thristles winna pu', Thou wee, wee German lairdie!

And we've the trenching blades o' weir,[43]

Wad lib[44] ye o' your German gear, And pa.s.s ye 'neath the claymore's shear, Thou f.e.c.kless[45] German lairdie!

He'll ride nae mair on strae sonks,[46]

For gawing[47] his German hurdies[48]; But he sits on our gude king's throne, Amang the English lordies.

Auld Scotland! thou'rt owre cauld a hole For nursing siccan[49] vermin; But the very dogs o' England's court Can bark and howl in _German_!

FOOTNOTES:

[30] Written on the accession of King George I.

[31] Literally, vegetable garden.

[32] Trenching.

[33] Colewort.

[34] Outside.

[35] Shabby clothes.

[36] Grabs.

[37] Abundance.

[38] Planted.

[39] Lacerate.

[40] Unmashed cabbage.

[41] Mouth.

[42] Northland.

[43] War.

[44] Geld.

[45] Incompetent.