ston was

It is remarkable that Lindsay, in his Tragedie of the Cardinall, where he means to rake up every ground of reproach against Beaton, omits all allusion to breaches of chastity. We cannot doubt the

cause. The offence was so common that to dwell

The labors of the Spalding Club have made ec- | slanderous manner of living, and to remove their open clesiastical students well acquainted with the suc- concubines, as well great as small. Secundo, that cessive prelates in the see of Aberdeen. During his lordship will be so good as to show edificative exthe half-century preceding the Reformation it was ample-in special in removing and discharging himheld by some of the most remarkable men whom self of the company of the gentlewoman by whom he is Scotland has produced. Bishop William Elphin- greatly slandered; without the which be done, diverse that are partners say they cannot accept counsel and a churchman after the antique model. correction of him which will not correct himself. &c. He was a lawyer, a statesman, and a courtier of &c.-Reg. Aberd., lxi. the highest influence and power, yet never sacrificed his diocesan duties to secular cares, nor allowed the fashion of the court to secularize his life and habits. "With manners and temperance in his own person befitting the primitive ages of Christianity, he threw around his cathedral and palace the taste and splendor that may adorn religion. He found time, amidst the cares of state and the pressure of official duties, to preserve the Christian antiquities of his diocese, and to collect the memories of those old servants of the truth who had run a course similar to his own, to renovate his cathedral service, and to support and foster all good letters." The breviary of Aberdeen, compiled as well as printed by him, in 1509, when printing was not a commonplace operation, will serve as an enduring memorial of his worth; and his picture, preserved in the college of which he was the munificent founder, perhaps the oldest portrait in Scotland, fixes in our memory the great prelate and minister of state, as the thoughtful, devout, and even ascetic churchman.

upon it would have lowered the tone of horror with which the poet wished to surround his subject. Among other results of the superior education of churchmen, and that citizenship of the world which then belonged to them, it had come to pass that great prelates, directing the business of the state, heading factions, often leading them in the field, appeared to be unfrocked, and ceased to be regarded as ecclesiastics. It was not only, however, nor even chiefly, by this entire secularizing and violation of their vows, that the clergy alienated their flocks. Through several centuries the exactions of the Church had been steadily increasing. Offerings, originally voluntary, had been converted into dues of which she compelled payment. Money was exacted at all great festivals; a heavy tax was Gawin Dunbar, consecrated as Bishop of Aber- levied on every event from baptism to burial; even deen in 1519, was a lawyer and politician like El-afterwards the heavy hand of the priest was there. phinston, and, like him, munificent to his church If the deceased was wealthy, the "quot of his tesand diocese. As the builder of the bridge across tament" formed a large deduction from the succesthe Dee, which has already seen the downfall of so sion. If poor, still the heriot and the umaist many modern toy-bridges, and as the careful execcloth," i. e., the best animal and the richest garutor of Elphinston's undertakings, his memory is ment, were taken from his widow and orphans "for still held in respect in the stately old city which pious uses. owes so much to him. He was a zealous assistant

that age.

what must have been a common scandal.

66

But of the innumerable evils of a system which of the cardinal in suppressing heresy, and no more forced the people to regard the Church as an extorscrupulous as to the means than was customary in tionate oppressor, perhaps the greatest was the His mixture with the crooked politics of state of the law of marriage. Persons within eight that unprincipled court sufficed to secularize him, degrees of consanguinity-in other words, who had and, however we may doubt the testimony of Knox had a common great-great-grandfather, or greatconcerning "the old Bishop of Aberdeen," the impudent allusion of Furrour to his daughter, Mis-great grandmother-might not legally wed. But it was not the relation by birth alone that barred tress Balfour, (supra, p. 431,) plainly pointed to marriage. It was forbidden also to parties within eight degrees of affinity-that is, to those whom In 1546 William Gordon, a son of the noble marriage, or even an illegitimate intimacy, confamily of Huntley, was made Bishop of Aberdeen. nected within those degrees. The prohibition was Bishop Leslie, who was one of his chapter, de- further extended to all coming within the same describes him as "a prelate of good living"-markgrees of each other through spiritual relation, or that ing that his own standard of good life in a bishop created by baptism-which affected not only the was not lofty. The records of the see, in his time, wide cousinhoods of the baptisans and baptisatusare full of signs of the approaching storm. They but the connexions arising from the relation of godshow us steps made in two directions. There are father and godmother, as such, in regard to each a few feeble efforts by churchmen to meet the pop- other. The effects of such a tyranny must have ular clamor for reformning the lives of the clergy-been felt doubly in a country so narrow and so disto furnish instruction and especially preaching to tant as Scotland. The Archbishop of St. Andrews, the people to set their house in order. On the writing in 1554 for the information of the Pope, other hand, it was felt that the fabric was tottering, stated that such was the cousinship among the and the lords of the church rushed eagerly to Scotch families, it was almost impossible to find a scatter some of the booty among their families and match for one of good birth (honesta vel generosa kindred, and a part to make friends of "the mam- familia) that should not come within some of the mon of unrighteousness." The registers of prohibited degrees. The evil of this, says the Aberdeen are full of charters and leases, contrived archbishop, is, that "men marry on the promise or for dilapidating the benefices of the see. A still hope of a dispensation to be procured afterwards,. more notable document of Bishop Gordon's incum- but, tiring of the connection, either divorce their bency, however, is a really respectful and affec- wives, or at once put them away under pretext of tionate address to him by the dean and chapter the want of dispensation, and their inability to afford (dated January 5, 1558) urgingthe expense necessary for procuring one." not to be expected that his grace should dwell on the real hardship of that expense.

Imprimis, that my Lord Bishop cause the kirkmen within his diocie to reform themselves in all their

It was

Marriage became in fact a temporary contract, or | of delicacy and feminine expression. She was worse, a bargain from which either party might covetous of power and of money, like her brother break at pleasure. It was in theory indissoluble; and her father, and not without talent for business. but when both spouses or either tired of the bond, But-true sister of Henry VIII.—all considerations nothing so easy as to find or make an impediment of policy were thrown to the wind under the influwhich proved it null from the beginning. If by an ence of passion. She had sacrificed her sway uncommon chance the man and woman were not in Scotland, as guardian of her son, to gratify her themselves within the forbidden degrees-cousins sudden love for Angus; and when she was tired not more than eight times removed-it was hard if of him, she threw away the support of England it could not be shown, by such witnesses as were and her brother by her open amour with the Regent used in the Consistorial Court, that one of the two John Duke of Albany. It is said they meditated had had intercourse lawfully or sinfully, or was marriage, though Albany, like herself, was already connected spiritually, with a person related within married. But that proceeding was too tedious. those degrees to the other party. If such proof was Who next occupied her affections after the Regent's not ready, the fickle party had the recourse of suing estrangement and absence, we do not learn; but in for a separation on the ground of misconduct subse- 1524 she became desperately smitten with young quent to marriage. The evidence was of the vilest Henry Stuart of Avondale, and resolved at all description, and those consistorial judges satisfied hazards to marry him. Angus for some time opthemselves with "saving the law," promulgating posed her desire for a divorce, but at length yielded, old brocards of unquestioned principles, and leaving and furnished the requisite evidence of his having the parties to put in a show of proof that might "been pre-contracted to a gentlewoman (a daughter warrant their application. In their hands the of Traquair) who bore a child to him before he church courts became the common marts for matri- married the queen; and so, by reason of the premonial jobs. To them appeared the profligate hus- contract, he could not be her lawful husband." band-eager to be free to lure some beauty whom The sentence of nullity was pronounced by the he had found he could not buy except by a wedding Cardinal Bishop of Ancona on the 11th of March, ring. By their help the courtier, the Angus or 1527; and we are not surprised to learn that the Bothwell, threw aside the obstacle that came in queen's agents at Rome pingues expectant propinas, the way of an ambitious alliance. But weary wives ita quod omnes non possunt contentari cum 600 duwere as ready in this line as weary husbands. The catibus. The queen lost no time, and on the 2d monstrous state of the law unsexed women; and day of April she gave her hand to Henry Stuart, ladies of good condition, and living in high society, afterwards Lord Methven, whom she tired of almost not only sued divorces against their husbands, but as soon as she had done of Angus. They lived on impudently set forth their own guilt and shame as for some time unhappily enough. Henry VIII. the ground of them. was much scandalized by his sister's licentious use of matrimony! But Margaret had no weak scruples. She determined to be free to marry a fourth time, and for this object had recourse once more to the Church courts. She was able to prove that Methven was cousin, eight degrees removed, to her second husband Angus; and upon the plea that this constituted an affinity between her and Methven, she demanded to have her third marriage set aside. The official, either yielding to the imperious woman, or satisfied of the fact that they were within the forbidden degrees, pronounced a decree annulling that marriage, which is found written and registered in the extant volume of the record of his court. Her the young James V., however, stayed its promulgation, and prevented the additional disgrace to his family. Margaret died three years afterwards.

Mr. Riddell, in a chapter of much curious consistorial learning appended to his latest work on Scotch Peerage Law, has commented in detail upon some of the causes célèbres that illustrate the procedure and effects of such suits. This eminent legal antiquary, who knows but too well the secret history of families three centuries ago, says "nothing can be conceived more loose and depraved than the state of society in Scotland before the Reformation;" but he might safely have added, and for long afterwards-for reformation of national manners is no sudden thing, and the mischievous machinery of the courts of the old officials was freshly revived in the courts of the venerable " Superintendents" and the more formal judicature of the "Commissaries."

The evil pervaded all classes, but the highest ranks are most prominent in the records of shame. The alliance of James IV. with the daughter of Henry VII. seemed made under the happiest auspices, to give peace and union to the two kingdoms; and so at length it came to pass, but not as men devised. Margaret Tudor was married at thirteen. Her progress into Scotland and her reception by the gay and gallant James had more of chivalrous and romantic splendor than usually attends royal spousals. While the king lived, though he was not altogether uxorious, Margaret never attracted scandal. She had borne him three sons (two died infants) and was again about to become a mother when widowed by the fatal field of Flodden. She was then not twenty-four. In less than a year after the king's death-in little more than three months after the birth of their son Alexander-she married Angus, a handsome boy. Margaret was fair and buxom, and might almost have been called beautiful if we did not find from even the rude portraits of that age that her countenance was devoid

son,

Upon these divorces Mr. Riddell raises some curious speculation. We find that Angus married again as well as Queen Margaret. It may be convenient to suppose that "the gentlewoman who bore a child" was dead, but that is not known, and is not to be presumed merely from the fact of his new marriage. The same machinery used before might serve him again. He might show that some unsuspected cousinship existed between him and the" gentlewoman," or that he had had at some still earlier date a criminal intercourse with some third party sib to "the gentlewoman." Such evidence was to be had for the buying, and then "the precontract" disappeared.

Granting this solution, (says Mr. Riddell,) in what a strange predicament Angus and the parties would have been, though doubtless not incapable of being rescued from it by the devices and venality of

* Original_letter to Albany, in the Archives du Royaume at Paris.

lawyers! His marriage with the queen would then have turned out to be lawful, and after proper procedure still valid and binding-which at the same time the earl surviving the princess-would have respectively annulled those they latterly contracted. How all classes must have been more or less contaminated by such examples of the upper! But a still more material reflection suggests itself from this and the general unhinged condition of individuals-what a number of bastards there must have been !-Riddell, p. 474.

ine of Branksome is again somewhat strangely mixed up with his fortunes. He had married, as is well known, the Lady Jean Gordon, in 1565. It would seem the "handfasting" with Dame Janet was not considered an impediment to that match, Bothwell wished to set it aside; for when the nor was even worthy to be pleaded when Mary and grand-daughter of Margaret Tudor had resolved at all hazards to espouse Bothwell herself, other means were sought for removing the obstacle of an existing wife. His countess, certainly collusively, though also perhaps of her own free will, sued a divorce on the ground of his adultery with a servant-and she obtained it" with but small show of resistance." At the same time, the earl was plaintiff in a similar suit against her; and procured a decree annulling their marriage on the ground of their being sib within the fourth degree. The lady's suit was before the new, legal, Commissary Court-the jurisdiction and grounds of action both chosen to please the reformed party; the earl's, founding on the canonical nullity, was in a hastily constituted ecclesiastical court-to suit the views of those of the old faith; and that court did its work expeditiously, for the proceedings commenced on the 5th, and decree of nullity was pronounced on the 7th of May, 1567.*

Janet Betoun, the Lady Buccleuch of the Lay of the Last Minstrel, has an unfortunate preeminence in those cases where law was made to pander to passion. She was the eldest daughter of Sir John Betoun, of Creich, a branch of the respectable family of Balfour in Fife, which was brought into more than its due place by having given successive archbishops to St. Andrews and Glasgow. She was first married to Sir James Creichton of Cranston-Riddell, and was entered in the dower lands as but recently his widow in 1539. She must have married Simon Preston, the young laird of Craigmillar, soon afterwards, for in 1543 we find her suing a divorce against him in the court of St. Andrews. There was no relationship to vitiate the bond. The lady alleged no misconduct of her husband. As the ground of her suit she blushed At the time of Darnley's murder and the other not to set forth that before their marriage she had crowded events of Mary's tragedy, the Lady of had sinful intercourse with Walter Scott of Buc- Buccleuch-thrice, perhaps four times, a widowcleuch, and that Buccleuch and Preston were within ought to have been well past the turmoils of young the prohibited degrees;-ante pretensum matrimo-blood; yet in the popular belief she was still assonium inter Jonetam et Simonem contractum, honora-ciated with her former lover, Bothwell. Mr. Ridbilis vir Walterus Scott de Bulcluycht carnaliter dell says she was charged with administering magic cognovit dictam Jonetam; quiquidem Simon et Wal- philters to the queen, with a view to secure her terus in tertio et quarto gradibus consanguinitatis majesty's love to him-a very curious termination sibi mutuo attinent, et sic prefati Simon et Joneta in for a life like Dame Janet's. It is not necessary eisdem affinitatis gradibus. On that allegation, and to maintain of the Lady of Branksome that— proof of the cousinship being of course furnished, the official declared the marriage null-dantes utrique alibi in Domino nubendi facultatem. The but perhaps the learned author has no other authormotive of the suit became manifest then, if it were ity for the strange tale than one which may bear a not so before; and on the 2d of December, 1544, different construction-the well-known placard exJanet was wedded to her old paramour, Buccleuch. hibited in the streets of Edinburgh, accusing of She was by no means disgraced or slighted for Darnley's end, Bothwell, black Mr. John Spens, these incidents of her life, and only suffered scandal" who was principal deviser of the murder, and the from her reputed taste for the black art. She lived respectably with her third husband, a stout and hardy borderer, fit mate for such a partner, till his death in the night foray

When startled burghers fled afar
The furies of the Border war;
When the streets of high Dunedin
Saw lances gleam and falchions redden,
And heard the slogan's deadly yell-
Then the chief of Branksome fell.

66

She wrought not by forbidden spell;

quene assenting thairto throw the persuasion of the Erle Bothwell and the witchcraft of Lady Buccleuch." If it were allowed to speculate on such narrow grounds, it would seem more reasonable to attribute the dealings of the lady, the paramour of Bothwell, to jealousy of a formidable rival, than to a wish of securing for him the affection of the young and beautiful queen.

A few other cases will show that the machinery of the Church could be set in motion for others than crowned heads. George, first Earl of Rothes, after

After his death (in 1552) the Lady of Branksome, though not, as the Minstrel feigns, the mother of *Lady Jean Gordon, a daughter of Huntly, and a the young chief-who was of a former marriage-zealous Romanist, some years after her divorce from was, nevertheless, allowed to rule the household Bothwell married the Protestant Earl of Sutherland, and the estates of Buccleuch, and even rode at the and again upon his death Sir Alexander Ogilvie, of head of the rough clan." She was in favor and the knightly house of Boyne. She had a numerous correspondence too with the Queen Dowager, Mary family by Sutherland, and, notwithstanding her third of Guise. In the mean time she was seeking con- of fashion-continued both to enjoy the dowry of Bothmarriage, and her steadiness to her religion-then out solation in her widowhood, and, though not wedded well, and to manage most vigorously the affairs of the in face of Church, she allowed the privileges of a Sutherland earldom, till her death, at the age of husband to a dangerous man, who afterwards eighty-four. A picture of her, at Dunrobin, preserves became too celebrated. She was proved to be the high manly features of her race and country, and "quietly married or handfast" to James Earl of an expression not to be mistaken of resolution and sense. She is dressed in a sort of cowl, with a rosary Bothwell in 1559. and cross in her hand. The collar, like a man's shirtcollar of the present day, adds to the masculine char

When Bothwell's subsequent adventures bring him more prominently on the stage, the dark hero-acter of the portrait.

living for twenty years with his wife, wished to change. But their eldest son was already married to a daughter of the house of St. Clair, and that family was thus concerned for the legitimacy of the Rothes children. The parties went to work in business-like form, named arbiters, and bound themselves to abide by their award. It was settled that Rothes should take a divorce, or rather a declaration of nullity of his marriage, on the ground of his countess and himself being within the forbidden degrees. But, to take off the consequent illegitimacy, he was to depose judicially that he did not know of the sib-ness till after the birth of all his children.

of Orkney, in the General Assembly of 1570, he is charged, among other delicts, "with leaving the flock destitute without a shepherd, whereby not only ignorance is increased, but also most abundantly all vice and horrible crimes are there committed, as the number of six hundred persons convicted of incest, adultery, and fornication, in Zetland, beareth witness." Far from contradicting that character of the morals of his remote islands, the bishop's reply was limited to denying that he had abandoned absolutely the preaching of the word. The effect of the Reformation upon the manners of the clergy, whether of the old faith or of the new, was of course signal and immediate. Of its influence upon the people—of the astounding in

Times Correspondent, 12 June.

REGULATION OF TRADES IN PRUSSIA.

Another striking enough case did not come into the Commissary Court till after the Reformation-road and wide spread of new superstitions-of the but the facts had taken place at the period we are slow disappearance of the general immorality which considering. Thomas Ogilvie of Craig married we have faintly described-it is our design to treat Jannet Fraser of Lovat openly in face of the in an early number. church, and they lived together, and had "diverse bairns." Then, somewhat tiring of his first wife, he chose to add a second, Beatrix Chisholm. The banns were proclaimed in the parish church of Glenlyon, where Jannet Fraser dwelt, and she offered no opposition-" by manifest collusion." In this way Ogilvie, who had two mansion-houses on his estate, had also for some time two wives openly entertained by him, the one, Jannet, dwelling in the "Over Craig," the other, Beatrix, in the "West or Nether Craig." The suit to put an end to this bigamous display was by the fiscal or public prosecutor, and not raised by either of the ladies. Both must have been quite well aware of the circumstances all along. But it probably now suited both that the first wife should be set wholly aside; and that which they saw their neighbors do under color of law, they chose in the highlands of Perthshire to manage without the expense of the Consistorial Court.

Ce drap qu'on étend sur ceux qui se marient; d'où vient qu'on dit mettre les enfans sous le Poil, de la cérémonie qui se fait pour légitimer les enfans naturels par un subséquent mariage en les mettant sous ce Poile.

THE new trade laws, and the restrictions they have introduced as to guilds and occupations, have caused a violent quarrel between the barbers and the wig-makers! The latter claim an exclusive right, according to the statute, to cut the hair of the public; the barbers insist that their profession is not limited to shaving. The arguments on both sides had to be formally heard by the magistracy, whose judicial gravity was severely tried on the occasion. It was solemnly urged on behalf of the barbers that, in the abstract, there is no distinction between the hair of the chin and the hair of the head; the form of the instrument used to remove

The legitimation of irregular offspring by subse-it did not affect the question; whether the operaquent marriage of the parents, never very conducive tion was performed by the razor or scissors was a o morality, was set about in Scotland, as in some matter of indifference. The office of the barber countries on the continent, with remarkable ceremowas to remove superfluous hair, wherever it grew; ny. Mr. Riddell quotes a case where parties were ergo, they had as good a right to clip as to mow. married" in the face of holy kirk," in the chapel The wig-makers, evading the abstract question of of Broomhill," they holding their natural son, right, represented that the barbers do not confine called Claud Hamilton, under spousal cloth between themselves to clipping, but comb, brush, trim, curl, them." This spousal cloth, pallium, is explained oil, wash, anoint, and otherwise dress and adorn by Furetière:the heads of their customers, and that these higher branches of the art belonged of right to the wigmakers, who alone can legally create a chevelure. The barbers rejoined by an objection, as fatal as that in the celebrated case of Shylock v. Antonio, (in Shakspeare's reports.) They contended that the business of the wigmakers only began where that of the barbers ended, when there was no haiz left to cut; with perfect baldness the head became the property of the artist in perruques, and at this point the barbers were ready to abandon it, retaining only a right of property in the chin. The magistrates considered the force of the objection, and the barbers have triumphed. The above is only a reproduction of the argument really used before the court which decides such disputes, and they occur daily. It may be said that all the trades of Berlin now sue each other to establish what occupations belong to one guild and what to another. If all the claims were listened to, we should shortly arrive at an Oriental division of employ ments, and to get one article complete, it would be necessary to go to half a dozen shops for the component parts of it. Fortunately, this splitting up is no longer possible.

The custom of the "cair-cloth," or "the cloak," is still retained for the same purpose among the common people in some districts of Scotland.

We have no room for more of these curious though often revolting cases. Mr. Riddell's book is rich in them, and, forming as it does a very valuable authority for the peerage and consistorial lawyer, deserves also to be carefully perused by every student of history and manners.

Though proceedings in an expensive judicature were necessarily for the most part had by people of some wealth, it would be easy to show that the upper classes had no monopoly of vice. The records of all the Church courts immediately after the Reformation furnish a loathsome picture of the dissoluteness of the lowest. For instance, in articles presented against Adam Bothwell, Bishop

Again, in relation to the actual extent of the science, and the positive effects produced by its progress, much may be gathered from the size of the body of literature which is now devoted to the ex17. Arsberättelser om Framstegen i Physik och Ke-planation of its various applied branches. Not only mie. Af J. J. BERZELIUS. 27 digra band. Stockholm: 1821 till 1848.