"1 ' HISTORY OF SCOTS AFFAIRS. THE THIRD VOLUME. ABEIIDEEN: PRINTED AT THE CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICE. HY WILLIAM BENNETT. X : HISTORY OF SCOTS AFFAIRS, From M DC XXXVII to M DC XLI. JAMES GORDON, PARSON OF ROTHIEMAY. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. in. ABERDEEN PRINTED FOR THE SPALDING CLUB. M DCCC XLI. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PACK Pkeface, vii FaC-SIMILE, XV Various Readings, xxi Errata, '. xxvi History of Scots Affairs : The Argument, xxvii The Fourth Booke [continued], 1 The Fyfth Booke, 171 Appendix : No. I. Proceedings in the General Assembly at Aberdeen in 1640, with regard to the Familists, 267 No. II. Proceedings in the Aberdeen Assembly with REGARD TO Dr. J AMES SiBBALD, 274 No. III. Proceedings in the Aberdeen Assembly with regard to the writings of bishop wll- liam Forbes, 283 Index, 301 PREFACE. While the Second Volume of this work was passing through the press, the Editors had the good fortune to obtain, through the courtesy of the now deceased General Gordon of Cairness and Buthlaw, the manuscript of the Memoirs to which they referred in a prefatory notice, as at one time in the possession of the learned Thomas Ruddiman. (') This is a well-preserved folio volume of four hundred and sixty- seven closely-written pages, and is undoubtedly autograph of the Parson of Rothiemay. Before it was bound up in its present form, it had consisted of ten fasciculi, each containing about twelve sheets. On the margin of the first page of every part, and in one or two places besides, the writer has marked the date when, appar- ently, he began or resumed his task, which would thus seem to have occupied him, at intervals, from the end of the year 1659 till about the spring of 1661. The first fasciculus is inscribed, " (A) Cum bono Deo Dec"^ 23 d ? H ^ 3 P.M. 1659 ;" the last, " (K) February 27 ? 1661." (2) (1) Preface to the First Volume, p. 26. " " " (2) The intermediate dates are these : Page 15, Jany 2 d 1660 ; page 47, (B) 1660" " Jany 5 ; page 91, (C) Cum bono Deo Jany 24 d (J 1660 H 6 P.M." ; page 141, "(D) Febry 8 V H 10 A.M."; page 235, "Cum bono Deo Maij 1st 1660 "; d V"; page 285, " (G) July 2 d « 1660 lib 4"; page 335, "Jany 1 $ 1661 page 375, " (I) Jany 25 ? 1661 lib. 4." B viii PREFACE. On the fly-leaf of the first quire the Author has written, " O Deus Optume Maxume a TE principium Tibi desinat" and beneath this devout aspiration, anticipating Lord Clarendon, he has transcribed, by way of motto, the well-known sentence of Cicero, " " Historic! est ne quid falsi audeat aut ne quid veri non audeat dicere A facsimile of one of the pages^ of this Manuscript will be found at the end of this notice ; and, in order that the reader may have an opportunity of comparing it with what is certainly known to be the hand-writing of Gordon, a facsimile is also given of a portion of the Discharge of his Marriage Contract,'^' a deed which bears to be written by himself. The Manuscript now recovered removes any doubts that might have existed (') as to the authorship of the notes which are found in The King's College Transcript. These, it now appears, were in all instances written by the annalist himself, although obviously at different times, as the information which they record happened to reach him, or chanced to be recalled to his memory. One class of them there is every reason to think was added at a time when he had before him a Manuscript of Spalding's History of the Troubles and Memorable Transactions in Scotland and England.^^' (1) Page 292, corresponding witli pp. 278—281 of the Second Volume. (2) Printed at length in the First Volume, Appendix to the Preface, No. II., pp. xlv —xlvii. (3) See Preface to the First Volume, p. 45. ': *; ' (4) See vol. i., p. 19, note*; p. 34, note p. 61, note p. 82, note ; p. 84, PREFACE. IX Of the " Arguments," that of the Second Book alone is found in the autograph Manuscript ; the others, as the Editors had ven- tured to conjecture,''^ have been composed by another hand, pro- bably that of the transcriber of The King's College Manuscript, or of the gentleman who superintended that work. From the siwty-fifili page of the Second Volume, downwards, the text has been printed from that of Ruddiman's Manuscript ; and there are subjoined to this notice all the Various Readings of any moment which were discovered in collating the preceding portion of the work with that authentic copy. From these it will be seen that Paterson, on the whole, executed his task not unskilfully, although, in a few instances, chiefly in the notes, the Author's somewhat peculiar handwriting had perplexed or misled him. From some cause, which does not appear, at the end of the four hundred and twenty-ninth page of the original Manuscript (corresponding with the conclusion of the first paragi'aph of the hundred and eighty- sixth page of this volume), he suddenly drops the ancient ortho- graphy, which he had hitherto followed rather scrupulously, and not only modernises the spelling, but becomes less careful generally of the correctness of his copy. It may perhaps be conjectured that, weary of the labour or pressed by time, he had availed himself of the assistance of some one to dictate to him. No trace has been found of the manner in which the autograph * * ii., • • * note ; p. 122, note ; vol, p. 210, note ; p. 216, note ; p. 225, note ; p. 226, * • * * note • ; p. 228, notes and % ; p. 233, note ; p. 234, notes and § ; p. 235, note ; p. 238, note*; p. 246, note*; p. 249, note*; p. 254, note*; p. 260, note'; p. 261, • * * ' * * note ; p. 262, note ; p. 264, note ; p. 265, note ; p. 267, note ; p. 280, note ; vol. iii. p. 128, note f. (0 Preface to the First Volume, p. 45. Manuscript came into Ruddiman's hands. It was in his keeping in the year 1753 ;(') and within a few years after his death in January 1767, it had passed into the possession of the family of Buthlaw,^^) where it has since remained. The volume bears the grammarian's ingenious book-plate/^) and on the first page is in- scribed, in his well-known handwriting : " History of Scots Affairs from the Year 1637 to 1641 in 5 Books, but the 1st wanting, probably never written, being design'd only as an In- troduction to the rest This was written by either (as is supposed) by the famous Robert Gordon of Straloch, or by Gordon Parson of Rothemay." Although this Manuscript be an original one, another copy must have existed, in the Author's handwriting, if it be held that the " ninety Sheets of Paper, in close and small Write,"W which the (1) In that year Mr. James Man writes, " as Mr. James Gordon parson of Rothemay informs us in his MS. history under the year 1637, which MS. is in Ruddiman's posses- sion." A Censure and Examination of Mr. Thomas Ruddiman's philological notes on the works of the great Buchanan, more particularly on the History of Scotland, ]i. 71 . Aber- deen, 1753. (2) On the first leaf is written •' Liber Joannis Gordon de Buthlay advocati. Edinburgi 16 Maij 1761." Mr. Gordon, a skilful antiquary and an accomplished scholar, is known as the author of a learned tract, published at Edinburgh in 1749: " De Nuptiis Ro- berti Sencscalli Scotiae atque Elizabethae Morae Dissertatio." Goodall, who has inserted " this treatise in his edition of Fordun, writes of it : Auctoris nomen non indicabat editio ; virum eruditissimum fuisse res ipsa clamabat : et quidem non alium quam Joannem Gor- donium Advooatum esse, compertum est ; quod etiam rarum ingenii acumen, juris utriusque peritia penitissima, et pressa argumenti tractatio, quae usquequaque occurrunt, vel nobis vol. i., tacentibus, satis fere declarassent." (Joannis de Fordun Scotichronicon, praef , p. v. Edinb. 1739.) An English translation of Mr. Gordon's Dissertation is included in a volume entitled " Scotia Rediviva : A Collection of Tracts illustrative of the History and Anti- quities of Scotland, vol. i. Edinb. 1826." 8vo. (3) See Chalmers' Life of Ruddiman, advert, and p. 467. Lond. 1794. 8vo. (4) History of the Illustrious Family of Gordon, vol. i.. Introduction, p. xxvii. Historian of the Gordons saw in 1 726, and which in 1 780 seem to have been in the possession of the Laird of Techmuiry/') were autograph of Gordon. The Parson of Rothiemay may have in- herited a habit, which we know to have been his father's, of mul- tiplying copies of his own writings. Since the publication of the First Volume, access has been obtained to the Register of the Provincial Assembly or Synod of Murray, from which the passages which follow, containing every notice of the Author, of any interest, have been transcribed. 27 October, 16-10. " Anent the reference frome the Presbiterie of Strathbogie, concerning the plantatioune off the kirk of Rothimay : Their having come to them a presentatioune frome the factors of the Laird of Rothimay, in his absence, being out of the cuntrie, in favors off Mr. James Gordoune, sonne to Mr. Robert Gordoune of Petlurge ; And the said Presbiterie hawing nominal Mr. William Milne, minister at Glasse, to be admitted to the said kirk, be reasone ofl' a former richt of patronage belonging to the lait Bischop of Murray, now dewolved in thair power; As lykways the Assemblie hawing receawed ane earnest supplicatione frome the parochiners of Rothimay, subscryved with a considerable number ofl' the said parochine, in favors off Mr.