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

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Автор: Henry Buckley
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people who inhabited these wretched hovels, Froissart, who was by no means given to exaggeration, assures us, that the French, unless they had seen them, could not have believed that such destitution existed, and that now, for the first time, they understood what poverty really was.66

      After this period, there was, no doubt, considerable improvement; but it was very slow, and even late in the sixteenth century, skilled labour was hardly known, and honest industry was universally despised.67 It is not, therefore, surprising, that the citizens, poor, miserable, and ignorant, should frequently purchase the protection of some powerful noble by yielding to him the little independence that they might have retained.68 Few of the Scotch towns ventured to elect their chief magistrate from among their own people; but the usual course was, to choose a neighbouring peer as provost or baillie.69 Indeed, it often happened that his office became hereditary, and was looked upon as the vested right of some aristocratic family.70 To the head of that family, every thing gave way. His authority was so incontestable, that an injury done even to one of his retainers was resented, as if it had been done to himself.71 The burgesses who were sent to parliament, were completely dependent on the noble who ruled the town. Down to quite modern times, there was in Scotland no real popular representation. The so-called representatives were obliged to vote as they were ordered; they were, in fact, delegates of the aristocracy; and as they possessed no chamber of their own, they sat and deliberated in the midst of their powerful masters, by whom they were openly intimidated.72

      Under these circumstances, it would have been idle for the crown to have expected aid from a body of men who themselves had no influence, and whose scanty privileges existed only on sufferance. But there was another class, which was extremely powerful, and to which the Scotch kings naturally turned. That class was the clergy; and the interest which both parties had in weakening the nobles, caused a coalition between the church and the throne, against the aristocracy. During a long period, and indeed until the latter half of the sixteenth century, the kings almost invariably favoured the clergy, and increased their privileges in every way they could. The Reformation dissolved this alliance, and gave rise to new combinations, which I shall presently indicate. But while the alliance lasted, it was of great use to the clergy, by imparting to their claims a legitimate sanction, and making them appear the supporters of order and of regular government. The result, however, clearly proved that the nobles were more than equal to the confederacy which opposed them. Indeed, looking at their enormous power, the only wonder is, that the clergy could have prolonged the contest as they did; since they were not actually overthrown until the year 1560. That the struggle should have been so arduous, and should have extended over so considerable a period, is what, on a superficial view, no one could have expected. The reason of this, I shall now endeavour to explain; and I shall, I trust, succeed in proving, that in Scotland there was a long train of general causes, which secured to the spiritual classes immense influence, and which enabled them, not only to do battle with the most powerful aristocracy in Europe, but to rise up, after what seemed their final defeat, fresh and vigorous as ever, and eventually to exercise, as Protestant preachers, an authority nowise inferior to that which they had wielded as Catholic priests.

      Of all Protestant countries, Scotland is certainly the one where the course of affairs has for the longest period been most favourable to the interests of superstition. How these interests were encouraged during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, I shall hereafter relate. At present, I purpose to examine the causes of their early growth, and to show the way in which they were not only connected with the Reformation, but gave to that great event some peculiarities which are extremely remarkable, and are diametrically opposed to what happened in England.

      If the reader will bear in mind what I have elsewhere stated,73 he will remember that the two principal sources of superstition are ignorance and danger; ignorance keeping men unacquainted with natural causes, and danger making them recur to supernatural ones. Or, to express the same proposition in other words, the feeling of veneration, which, under one of its aspects, takes the form of superstition, is a product of wonder and of fear;74 and it is obvious that wonder is connected with ignorance, and that fear is connected with danger.75 Hence it is, that whatever in any country increases the total amount of amazement, or whatever in any country increases the total amount of peril, has a direct tendency to increase the total amount of superstition, and therefore to strengthen the hands of the priesthood.

      By applying these principles to Scotland, we shall be able to explain several facts in the history of that country. In the first place the features of its scenery offer a mark contrast to those of England, and are much more likely, among an ignorant people, to suggest effective and permanent superstitions. The storms and the mists, the darkened sky flashed by frequent lightning, the peals of thunder reverberating from mountain to mountain, and echoing on every side, the dangerous hurricanes, the gusts sweeping the innumerable lakes with which the country is studded, the rolling and impetuous torrent flooding the path of the traveller and stopping his progress, are strangely different to those safer and milder phenomena, among which the English people have developed their prosperity, and built up their mighty cities. Even the belief in witchcraft, one of the blackest superstitions which has ever defaced the human mind, has been affected by these peculiarities; and it has been well observed, that while, according to the old English creed, the witch was a miserable and decrepit hag, the slave rather than the mistress of the demons which haunted her, she, in Scotland, rose to the dignity of a potent sorcerer, who mastered the evil spirit, and, forcing it to do her will, spread among the people a far deeper and more lasting terror.76

      Similar results were produced by the incessant and sanguinary wars to which Scotland was exposed, and especially by the cruel ravages of the English in the fourteenth century. Whatever religion may be in the ascendant, the influence of its ministers is invariably strengthened by a long and dangerous war, the uncertainties of which perplex the minds of men, and induce them, when natural resources are failing, to call on the supernatural for help. On such occasions, the clergy rise in importance; the churches are more than usually filled; and the priest, putting himself forward as the exponent of the wishes of God, assumes the language of authority, and either comforts the people under their losses in a righteous cause, or else explains to them that those losses are sent as a visitation for their sins, and as a warning that they have not been sufficiently attentive to their religious duties; in other words, that they have neglected rites and ceremonies, in the performance of which the priest himself has a personal interest.

      No wonder, therefore, that in the fourteenth century, when the sufferings of Scotland were at their height, the clergy flourished more than ever; so that as the country became poorer, the spiritual classes became richer in proportion to the rest of the nation. Even in the fifteenth, and first half of the sixteenth century, when industry began somewhat to advance, we are assured that notwithstanding the improvement in the position of laymen, the whole of their wealth put together, and including the possessions of all ranks, was barely equal to the wealth of the Church.77 If the hierarchy were so rapacious and so successful during a period of comparative security, it would be difficult to overrate the enormous harvest they must have reaped in those earlier days, when danger being much more imminent, hardly any one died without leaving something to them; all being anxious to testify their respect towards those who knew more than their fellows, and whose prayers could either avert present evil, or secure future happiness.78

      Another consequence of these protracted wars was, that a more than ordinary proportion of the population embraced the ecclesiastical profession, because in it alone there was some chance of safety: and the monasteries in particular were crowded with persons who hoped, though frequently in vain, to escape from the burnings and slaughterings to which Scotland was exposed. When the country, in the fifteenth century, began to recover

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<p>66</p>

When the French arrived in Edinburgh, the Scotch said, ‘“Quel diable les a mandés? Ne savons-nous pas bien faire notre guerre sans eux aux Anglois? Nous ne ferons jà bonne besogne tant comme ils soient avec nous. On leur dise que ils s'en revoisent, et que nous sommes gens assez en Escosse pour parmaintenir notre guerre, et que point nous ne voulons leur compagnie. Ils ne nous entendent point, ni nous eux; nous ne savons parler ensemble; ils auront tantôt riflé et mangé tout ce qui est en ce pays: ils nous feront plus de contraires, de dépits, et de dommages, si nous les laissons convenir, que les Anglois ne feroient si ils s'étoient embattus entre nous sans ardoir. Et si les Anglois ardent nos maisons, que peut il chaloir? Nous les aurons tantôt refaites à bon marché, nous n'y mettons au refaire que trois jours, mais que nous ayons quatre ou six estaches et de la ramée pour lier par dessus.”’

‘Ainsi disoient les Escots en Escosse à la venue des seigneurs de France,’ … ‘Et quand les Anglois y chevauchent ou que ils y vont, ainsi que ils y ont été plusieurs fois, il convient que leurs pourvéances, si ils veulent vivre, les suivent toujours au dos; car on ne trouve rien sur le pays: à grand'peine y recuevre-l'en du fer pour serrer les chevaux, ni du cuir pour faire harnois, selles ni brides. Les choses toutes faites leur viennent par mer de Flandre, et quand cela leur défaut, ils n'ont nulle chose. Quand ces barons et ces chevaliers de France qui avoient appris ces beaux hôtels à trouver, ces salles parées, ces chasteaux et ces bons mols lits pour reposer, se virent et trouvèrent en celle povreté, si commencèrent à rire et à dire: “En quel pays nous a ci amenés l'amiral? Nous ne sçumes oncques que ce fût de povreté ni de dureté fors maintenant.”’ Les Chroniques de Froissart, edit. Buchon, Paris, 1835, vol. ii. pp. 314, 315. ‘The hovels of the common people were slight erections of turf, or twigs, which, as they were often laid waste by war, were built merely for temporary accommodation. Their towns consisted chiefly of wooden cottages,’ … ‘Even as late as 1600, the houses of Edinburgh were chiefly built of wood.’ Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. i. p. 802. Another account, written in 1670, says, ‘The houses of the commonalty are very mean, mudwall and thatch, the best; but the poorer sort live in such miserable huts as never eye beheld.’ … ‘In some parts, where turf is plentiful, they build up little cabbins thereof, with arched roofs of turf, without a stick of timber in it; when the house is dry enough to burn, it serves them for fuel, and they remove to another.’ Harleian Miscellany, vol. vi. p. 139, 4to, 1810.

<p>67</p>

‘Our manufactures were carried on by the meanest of the people, who had small stocks, and were of no reputation. These were, for the most part, workmen for home-consumpt, such as masons, house-carpenters, armourers, blacksmiths, taylors, shoemakers, and the like. Our weavers were few in number, and in the greatest contempt, as their employments were more sedentary, and themselves reckoned less fit for war, in which all were obliged to serve, when the exigencies of the country demanded their attendance.’ The Interest of Scotland Considered, Edinburgh, 1733, p. 82. Pinkerton (History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 392), referring to the Sloane manuscripts, says, ‘The author of an interesting memoir concerning the state of Scotland about 1590, observes, that the husbandmen were a kind of slaves, only holding their lands from year to year; that the nobility being too numerous for the extent of the country, there arose too great an inequality of rank and revenue; and there was no middle station between a proud landholder and those who, having no property to lose, were ready for any tumult. A rich yeomanry, numerous merchants and tradesmen of property, and all the denominations of the middle class, so important in a flourishing society, were long to be confined to England.’ Thirteen years later, we are told that the manufactures of Scotland ‘were confined to a few of the coarsest nature, without which the poorest nations are unable to subsist.’ Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 7, under the year 1603.

<p>68</p>

Thus, for instance, ‘the town of Dunbar naturally grew up under the shelter of the castle of the same name.’ … ‘Dunbar became the town, in demesn, of the successive Earls of Dunbar and March, partaking of their influences, whether unfortunate or happy.’ Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. ii. p. 416. ‘But when the regal government became at any time feeble, these towns, unequal to their own protection, placed themselves under the shelter of the most powerful lord in their neighbourhood. Thus, the town of Elgyn found it necessary, at various periods between the years 1389 and 1452, to accept of many charters of protection, and discharges of taxes, from the Earls of Moray, who held it in some species of vassalage.’ Sinclair's Scotland, vol. v. p. 3. Compare Pinkerton's History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 396; and two letters, written in 1543 and 1544, by the magistrates of Aberdeen, to the Earl of Huntly, and printed in the Council Register of Aberdeen, vol. i. pp. 190, 201, Aberdeen, 1844, 4to. They say to him, ‘Ye haf our band as protectour to wss.’

<p>69</p>

Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 225. See also p. 131; and Pinkerton's History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 179. Sometimes the nobles did not leave to the citizens even the appearance of a free election, but fought it out among themselves. An instance of this happened at Perth, in 1544, ‘where a claim for the office of provost was decided by arms, between Lord Ruthven on the one side, supported by a numerous train of his vassals, and Lord Gray, with Norman Leslie, master of Rothes, and Charteris of Kinfauns, on the other.’ Tytler, vol. iv. p. 323.

<p>70</p>

For illustrations of this custom, see Hollinshead's Scottish Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 230. Brown's History of Glasgow, vol. ii. p. 154. Denholm's History of Glasgow, p. 249. Mercer's History of Dunfermline, p. 83.

<p>71</p>

‘An injury inflicted on the “man” of a nobleman was resented as much as if he himself had been the injured party.’ Preface to the Council Register of Aberdeen, vol. i. p. xii.

<p>72</p>

See, in Macaulay's History of England, vol. i. p. 93, 1st edit., a spirited description of Scotland in 1639. ‘The parliament of the northern kingdom was a very different body from that which bore the same name in England.’ … ‘The three estates sat in one house. The commissioners of the burghs were considered merely as retainers of the great nobles,’ &c. To come down much later, Lord Cockburn gives a terrible account of the state of things in Scotland in 1794, the year in which Jeffrey was called to the bar. ‘There was then, in this country, no popular representation, no emancipated burghs, no effective rival of the established church, no independent press, no free public meetings, and no better trial by jury, even in political cases (except high treason), than what was consistent with the circumstances, that the jurors were not sent into court under any impartial rule, and that, when in court, those who were to try the case were named by the presiding judge. The Scotch representatives were only forty-five, of whom thirty were elected for counties, and fifteen for towns. Both from its price and its nature (being enveloped in feudal and technical absurdities), the elective franchise in counties, where alone it existed, was far above the reach of the whole lower, and of a great majority of the middle, and of many even of the higher, ranks. There were probably not above 1500 or 2000 county electors in all Scotland; a body not too large to be held, hope included, in government's hands. The return, therefore, of a single opposition member was never to be expected.’ … ‘Of the fifteen town members, Edinburgh returned one. The other fourteen were produced by clusters of four or five unconnected burghs electing each one delegate, and these four or five delegates electing the representative. Whatever this system may have been originally, it had grown, in reference to the people, into as complete a mockery as if it had been invented for their degradation. The people had nothing to do with it. It was all managed by town-councils, of never more than thirty-three members; and every town-council was self-elected, and consequently perpetuated its own interests. The election of either the town or the county member was a matter of such utter indifference to the people, that they often only knew of it by the ringing of a bell, or by seeing it mentioned next day in a newspaper; for the farce was generally performed in an apartment from which, if convenient, the public could be excluded, and never in the open air.’ Cockburn's Life of Jeffrey, Edinburgh, 1852, vol. i. pp. 74–76. On the state of Scotch representation between this and the Reform Bill, compare Irving's History of Dumbartonshire, 4to, 1860, pp. 275, 276, with Moore's Memoirs, edited by Lord John Russell, vol. iv. p. 268, vol. vi. p. 163, London, 1853–4.

<p>73</p>

History of Civilization, vol. i. pp. 125–129, 373–380.

<p>74</p>

History of Civilization, vol. ii. p. 171.

<p>75</p>

We must discriminate between wonder and admiration. Wonder is the product of ignorance; admiration is the product of knowledge. Ignorance wonders at the supposed irregularities of nature; science admires its uniformities. The earlier writers rarely attended to this distinction, because they were misled by the etymology of the word ‘admiration.’ The Romans were very superficial thinkers upon all matters except jurisprudence; and their blundering use of ‘admirari’ gave rise to the error, so common among our old writers, of ‘I admire,’ instead of ‘I wonder.’

<p>76</p>

‘Our Scottish witch is a far more frightful being than her supernatural coadjutor on the south side of the Tweed. She sometimes seems to rise from the proper sphere of the witch, who is only the slave, into that of the sorcerer, who is master of the demon.’ … ‘In a people so far behind their neighbours in domestic organization, poor and hardy, inhabiting a country of mountains, torrents, and rocks, where cultivation was scanty, accustomed to gloomy mists and wild storms, every impression must necessarily assume a corresponding character. Superstitions, like funguses and vermin, are existences peculiar to the spot where they appear, and are governed by its physical accidents.’ … ‘And thus it is that the indications of witchcraft in Scotland are as different from those of the superstition which in England receives the same name, as the Grampian Mountains from Shooter's Hill or Kennington Common.’ Burton's Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. i. pp. 240–243. This is admirably expressed, and exhausts the general view of the subject. The relation between the superstition of the Scotch and the physical aspects of their country is also touched upon, though with much inferior ability, in Brown's History of the Highlands, vol. i. p. 106, and in Sinclair's Scotland, vol. iv. p. 560. Hume, in his Commentaries on the Laws of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 556, has an interesting passage on the high pretensions of Scotch witchcraft, which never degenerated, as in other countries, into a mere attempt at deception, but always remained a sturdy and deep-rooted belief. He says, ‘For among the many trials for witchcraft which fill the record, I have not observed that there is even one which proceeds upon the notion of a vain or cheating art, falsely used by an impostor to deceive the weak and credulous.’ Further information respecting Scotch witchcraft will be found in Mackenzie's Criminal Laws of Scotland, Edinburgh, folio, 1699, pp. 42–56; Correspondence of Mrs. Grant of Laggan, London, 1844, vol. iii. pp. 186, 187; Southey's Life of Bell, London, 1844, vol. i. p. 52; Vernon Correspondence, edited by James, London, 1841, vol. ii. p. 301; Weld's History of the Royal Society, London, 1848, vol. i. p. 89; Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland, edit. 1815, vol. i. pp. 220, 221; The Spottiswoode Miscellany, vol. ii. p. 41, Edinburgh, 1845; Lyon's History of St. Andrews, Edinburgh, 1843, vol. ii. pp. 56, 57. The work of James I., and that of Sir Walter Scott, need hardly be referred to, as they are well known to every one who is interested in the history of witchcraft; but Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, though less read, are, in every respect, more valuable, on account of the materials they contain for a study of this department of Scotch superstition.

<p>77</p>

Pinkerton (History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 414) says that, in the reigns of James II. and James III., ‘the wealth of the Church was at least equivalent to that of all the lay interest.’ See also Life of Spottiswoode, p. liii., in vol. i. of his History of the Church of Scotland. ‘The numerous devices employed by ecclesiastics, both secular and regular, for enriching the several Foundations to which they were attached, had transferred into their hands more than half of the territorial property of Scotland, or of its annual produce.’

In regard to the first half of the sixteenth century, it is stated by a high authority, that, just before the Reformation, ‘the full half of the wealth of the nation belonged to the clergy.’ M'Crie's Life of Knox, p. 10. And another writer says, ‘If we take into account the annual value of all these abbeys and monasteries, in conjunction with the bishoprics, it will appear at once that the Scottish Catholic hierarchy was more munificently endowed, considering the extent and resources of the kingdom, than it was in any other country in Europe.’ Lawson's Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, p. 22. See also, respecting the incomes of the Scotch bishops, which, considering the poverty of the country, were truly enormous, Lyon's History of St. Andrews, Edinburgh, 1843, vol. i. pp. 97, 125.

<p>78</p>

‘They could employ all the motives of fear and of hope, of terror and of consolation, which operate most powerfully on the human mind. They haunted the weak and the credulous; they besieged the beds of the sick and of the dying; they suffered few to go out of the world without leaving marks of their liberality to the Church, and taught them to compound with the Almighty for their sins, by bestowing riches upon those who called themselves his servants.’ History of Scotland, book ii. p. 89, in Robertson's Works, London, 1831. It is interesting to observe the eagerness with which the clergy of one persuasion expose the artifices of those of another. By comparing their different statements, laymen gain an insight into the entire scheme.