-Raj? Sds.m.s? PUBLICATIONS OF THE SCOTTISH HISTORY SOCIETY VOLUME LIX PAPERS RELATING TO THE SCOTS IN POLAND November 1915 I v PAPERS RELATING TO THE SCOTS IN POLAND 1576-1798 Edited with an Introduction by A. FRANCIS STEUART ADVOCATE EDINBURGH Printed at the University Press by T. and A. Constable for the Scottish History Society 1915 PREFACE It is very necessary to present to the members of the Scottish History Society, in an apologetic vein, the disastrously chequered history of this very much belated book. The original intention of the Council was to issue Papers relating to the Scots in Poland, a collection made by and in part edited by Miss Beatrice Baskerville, and, as it was expected that this volume would be ready in 1907-1908, its title was accordingly placed among the Society’s publications for that year. Many and serious delays occurred, however : some were caused by the awkward climatic conditions of Poland, which render the transcribing of original documents by copyists almost impossible for many months of each year, other delays were caused by the difficulty of printing exactly (as was originally intended) the Manuscripts sent in Polish or Polish Latin transcriptions by not too accurate archivists. Losses of letters in the post, and changes in the secretariat of the Society further protracted matters. Then, as could not have been anticipated, the Balkan War arose, which distracted Miss Baskerville’s attention from her book to a more active Slavonic field. Lastly, the Polish and German literati engaged later to translate portions of this unlucky work were suddenly called off to fight in the great International War of 1914, and their places were only filled eventually by gracious volunteers, who bridged over by their kindness and labour yet another difficulty which could not have been foreseen. The form of presenta- tion of this work as it is now issued was therefore greatly changed from its original arrangement, although the material used is almost the same. PAPERS RELATING TO SCOTS IN POLAND To the present volume is now prefaced an elementary intro- ductory essay, a supplementary sketch of the history of the Scots in Poland, a general introduction, which is an addition to the documents in this book rather than a close examination of them, by Mr. A. Francis Steuart, Advocate, the late Joint-Honorary Secretary of the Scottish History Society, who has been obliged by the force of circumstances to see the volume through the press. Miss Baskerville’s short intro- duction, dealing a little with the same information, but using it very differently, is now given as a preface to the papers concerning the Scottish ‘ Brotherhood ’ of Lublin. The rest of her collection is printed, as we see here, without much attempt at arrangement, and with few comments, but as fully as possible; for no one knows, after a war like the present, waged fiercely in Poland, how many of the originals may remain extant. All this is designed for the future historian interested in the subject to draw on and excavate from by his own labour as he might from a wealthy mine. The Scottish History Society owes a special debt of gratitude to Mr. J. Mackay Thomson, M.A. Edin., B.A. Oxon., whose kindness in undertaking the recensions and translations of the difficult Polish-Latin transcriptions has made the presenta- tion of some part of the original Latin text, corrupt and incorrectly copied, possible. Without his help the book would with difficulty have been issued. CONTENTS PREFACE, v, vi GENERAL INTRODUCTION by A. Francis Steuart, ix-xxxvi NOTE BY THE LATIN TRANSLATOR, . xxxvii-ix PAPERS RELATING TO THE SCOTS IN POLAND— Royal Grants and Privileges to the Scots Mer- chants, ...... 1-S8 Scots admitted to the Citizenship of Cracow, with Evidence regarding their parentage, . 39-58 Miscellaneous Extracts relating to Scots in Poland, ...... 59-91 Miscellaneous Letters, .... 92-107 The Original Records of those Scots in Poland known as the Scottish Brotherhood at Lublin. Introduction by Miss Beatrice Baskerville, 108-118 The Original Records, .... 119-289 Funds and Bequests founded by Scots in Poland, 290-232 APPENDICES— I. Polish Currency, .... 323-324 II. Miscellaneous Papers relating to the Families of Chalmers and Ross, . 325-339 III. Cracow Documents, .... 340-351 INDEX OF NAMES, 353 GENERAL INTRODUCTION In the English Parliament of 1606, when a union between England and the inhabitants of Scotland was proposed the pi-oposal met with indignant opposition. ‘The party opposing said, “ If we admit them into our liberties, we shall be over- run with them, as cattle (naturally) pent up by a slight hedg will over it into a better soyl, and a tree taken from a barren place will thrive to excessive and exuberant branches in a better, witness the multiplicities of the Scots in Polonia.’”1 These ‘multiplicities’ were certainly considerable, and were it not otherwise proved, indeed almost incredible. The inde- fatigable Clydesdale traveller, William Lithgow, who visited Poland in 1616, gives a short account of them. He comments- thus on his experience in Poland in that year ‘ Being arrived in Crocko or Crocavia, the capitall city of Polland (though but of small importance), I met with diverse Scotish Merchants, who were wonderfull glade of mine arrival there, especially the two brothers Dicksones, men of singular note of honesty and Wealth. It was my lucke here, to bee acquainted with Count du Torne (Graf von Thorn) the first Nobleman of Boheme, who had newly broake out of Pinson in Prage and fled hither from Bohemia for safety. Mathias then being Emperour, against whom hee had highly offended in boasting him in his Bed Chamber with hard and intollerable speeches. ‘This Fugitive Earle stayed me with him ten dayes. 1 Arthur Wilson, p. 34, ‘ The History of Great Britain, being the Life and Reign of King James the First, relating to what passed from his first access to the Crown till his death.’ London, 1653. X PAPERS RELATING TO SCOTS IN POLAND At last his trayne and treasure comming with many other Bohemian Barons and Gentlemen his friends, I humbly left him, and touching at Lubilinia where the Judges of Polland sit for halfe the yeare, I arrived at Warsaw, the resident place for the King Sigismond, who had newly married the «)ther sister of his former wife, being both Sisters to this Ferdinando now Emperour. He continues after an interval: ‘ Polland is a large and mighty Kingdome, puissant in Horsemen and populous of strangers ; being charged with a proud Nobility, a familiar and manly Gentry, and a ruvidous Vulgarity.’ Between Cracow, Warsaw, and Lublin, he met many compatriots. ‘ Here I found abundance of gallant, rich Merchants, my Countrey-men, -who were all very kind to me, and so were they by the way in every place where I came, the conclusion being ever sealed •with deepe draughts, and God be with you.’1 He continues to praise the Land of Poland—which suited the Scottish adventurer—in an oft-quoted passage: ‘And for auspicuousness, I may rather tearme it to be a Mother -and Nurse, for the youth and younglings of Scotland, who «,re yearely sent hither in great numbers, than a proper Dame for her owne birth ; in cloathing, feeding, and inriching them with the fatnesse of her best things; besides thirty thousand Scots families, that live incorporate in her bowells. And ■certainely Polland may be tearmed in this kind to be the mother of our Commons, and the first commencement of all •our best Merchants’ wealth, or at least most part of them.’ This handsome tribute to the Poles as the source of wealth is at least more complimentary than the constant comparison later, almost the only allusion to the Poles one finds in British ■sources, being that Parliament, when a Parliamentary debate became unseemly, was becoming a mere ‘Polish diet’;2 and this 1 The Totall Discoveries of the Rare Adventures and Painefull Perigrinations, l>y2 Wm. Lithgow, pp. 367-368. Glasgow, 1906. e.g., News Letters of 1715-16, edited by A. Francis Steuart, p. 21. GENERAL INTRODUCTION xi one could only have come from a Scot who knew the conditions of his own country and his countryman’s adopted country. But that we can know these conditions, we had, until the present volume could be issued, to rely to a great extent upon the works of a German savant who was by good fortune known to the writer of these pages, Dr. Th. A. Fischer. He, luckily for those interested in foreign parts where the Scot penetrated, in past ages, wrote two monographs, The Scots in Germany? and The Scots in Eastern and Western Prussia? both of which shed much light on Scottish travellers of the trading class in Poland. The present writer feels less scruple in referring the curious reader to them for details, and also for quoting very largely from them, for three reasons. First, they are not as ■well known as, from their learning and information, they ought to be ; secondly, he was ‘ at the biggin ’ of both ; and thirdly, that the books are difficult to understand, as they are chrono- logically rather confused, written in German-English, and have meagre indices, so that although all essential information is there waiting a discoverer, possibly their usefulness will be increased, through the assistance of this present volume, for a future historian of the Scots in Poland. Somehow, from poverty or love of adventure, one reason or another, the Scottish nation were forced to go abroad as traders from an early period. That they did so in such quantities seems to the writer to show that in early ages the population was by no means so sparse as is now generally supposed.