Cuestionario

According to The Complaynt of Scotland, a polemic attributed to Robert Wedderburn, Vicar of Dundee, three “vehement plagues” afflicted Scotland in the mid sixteenth-century: “the cruel invasions of our old enemies, the universal pestilence and mortality, that has occurred merciless among the people, and the contention of diverse of the three estates of Scotland.”676 Of these, it was war and pestilence that struck Dundee and Haddington particularly hard during the 1540s, leaving scars that would be felt for decades. Many people were killed, whole tracts of buildings were destroyed, and the local economies were crippled. Several Scottish authors writing immediately after the disastrous 1540s attributed these misfortunes to God’s wrath; though we have no direct evidence of their thoughts, it is quite possible that the townspeople did too. There may not be a direct link between the misfortunes of the 1540s and the Reformation of 1560, but the effects of the disasters on the mentality of the survivors should be taken into account, as they attempted to avoid further discord and divine punishment.

Wars and War Scares 1520-47

Since their disastrous defeat at the battle of Flodden in 1513 the Scots had been reluctant to attack England, though in the early 1520s the regent, the Duke of Albany, tried to rouse the Scots to play an active part in their alliance with France, and troubles along the border were endemic throughout the period. Crises once a decade seemed to be the norm, but the burdens placed on the townspeople increased dramatically in the 1540s.

Haddington

As Haddington was situated on the main route between the English border and

Edinburgh it was a frequent victim of war. Sometimes the town itself was attacked or occupied by

the English, more often it was an assembly point for Scottish forces, and frequently its inhabitants were called up to military musters. These summons occurred whenever there was sabre-rattling, a royal expedition against unruly subjects or actual war. In the early sixteenth century, these crises threatened Haddington once a decade, in 1522-3 and 1532-3. During the first episode, it was the Scots, mustering at Haddington, who refused to cross the border as part of a French- English war.677 In the 1530s it was Haddington which expected to be attacked, though the English invasion never materialized.678

War became a reality from 1542 on, however. Henry VIII had been rebuffed in his attempt to negotiate with James V at York in 1541, which left his northern flank unsecured when he decided to return to war on the Continent.679 Starting in 1542, therefore, he launched a series of assaults intended to secure hegemony over Scotland, either through a negotiated settlement or brute force. In August of that year the men of Haddington were summoned to join an army at Lauder, probably the same one which defeated an English raiding force at Haddon Rigg.680 In late October the English burned Kelso, and in November the Lords of Council met in Haddington, possibly as a result of measures taken to see off this invasion.681 The burghers of Haddington took the threat of war very seriously, and beginning in August 1542 placed a watchman on the tolbooth, every man in the town either taking his turn or hiring a replacement.682 On 12 December 1542, a little more than two weeks after the disastrous defeat at Solway Moss and two days before the death of James V, all men in Haddington and other sherrifdoms along and near the eastern border were ordered to be ready “at the height of this next morning” “to pass forward for resisting of the Englishmen.”683 Apparently a renewed English invasion to take advantage of Scottish weakness was feared, though the attack never came. Haddington nevertheless

increased its level of preparation, ordering a ditch to be constructed on the north side of the town

677 _{Gervase Phillips, The Anglo-Scots Wars 1513-50 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1999), 138-143; Accounts of the Lord High}

Treasurer of Scotland, 5: 201, 211, 227.

678 _{Phillips, The Anglo-Scots Wars 1513-50, 146-7; Acts of the Lords of Council in Public Affairs, 391; Accounts of the}

Lord High Treasurer of Scotland 6:106, 108, 109, 136.

679 _{Phillips, The Anglo-Scots Wars 1513-50, 147.}

680_{Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland 8: 116; Phillips, The Anglo-Scots Wars 1513-50, 148.} 681_{Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland 8: 137; Phillips, The Anglo-Scots Wars 1513-50, 150.} 682 _{HAD/4/6/5 Haddington Court Book 1530-55, f173, 175.}

on 19 December.684 The burghers tightened their watch system, and in December 1542 and again in October 1543 fines were mandated, the council specifying in that “none shall be taken to be a watchman but an man,” suggesting that perhaps boys or women were being hired to perform this chore.685

In spite of these invasion fears, 1543 was fairly quiet, as a truce with Henry VIII had been bought with the Treaty of Greenwich, which promised the infant Queen Mary to the English prince Edward. Haddington, regardless, continued to maintain its system of watchmen and additionally posted a man at each gate.686 In January 1543-4, a payment of £2 each was authorized for a detachment of 24 men sent to Edinburgh to join Lord Bothwell - though this payment was not universally agreed to, being made by “the most part of the town.”687 War resumed in 1544, as the Scots refused to follow through with the Treaty. Men were summoned to be ready to join the army in April 1544, presumably to meet the invasion of the Earl of Hertford which departed Newcastle on 1 May.688 This force was not successful in fending off the English, and Haddington, along with much of the rest of the Lothians, was burnt by the invading army.689 During this invasion, the English left placards informing the Scots that they could “thank their cardinal for this.”690 It is hard to say if this propaganda actually turned the Scots against Beaton, but it may have left an impression of religious discord as a source of war.

The invasion of 1544 was just a prelude to the wars to come. The men of Haddington were mustered again in November and December 1544, as well as February 1544-5, when the Scots won a minor victory over a small English invading force at Ancrum Moor.691 Several levies were organized in 1545 with summons going out to Haddington in March (this army was to assemble at Haddington), May, July, August and September.692 The repeated summonses may have also helped spread the plague that was contagious that year. In August 1546 men were

684 _{HAD/4/6/5 Haddington Court Book 1530-55, f175.}

685 _{HAD/4/6/5 Haddington Court Book 1530-55, f175, 175v, 185.}

686 _{HAD/4/6/5 Haddington Court Book 1530-55, f185; Phillips, The Anglo-Scots Wars 1513-50, 157.} 687 _{HAD/4/6/5 Haddington Court Book 1530-55, f188v.}

688 _{Phillips, The Anglo-Scots Wars 1513-50, 162; Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, 8:284.} 689 _{Phillips, The Anglo-Scots Wars 1513-50, 167.}

690_{Letters and papers Henry VIII, vol. 19, part 1, no 188.} 691 _{Phillips, The Anglo-Scots Wars 1513-50, 170-1.}

692_{Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, 8:284, 332, 339, 351, 353, 362, 374, 397, 401, 407; Phillips, The}

ordered to join the army at St Andrews to participate in the siege of the castle which had been occupied by the assassins of Cardinal Beaton, in September and October they were placed on alert to join the governor in St Andrews, and in November and December they were once again ordered to join the siege.693 In May 1547 the Haddingtonians were ordered to Edinburgh to resist the English.694 Oddly, no record exists of any summons to the battle at Pinkie Cleugh, in

September 1547. Perhaps the record was simply lost, or the men of the East Lothians left to organize their own defence along the main English invasion route. After seeing only occasional military service, and no actual fighting for thirty years, the wars of the 1540s must have placed a heavy burden on the Haddingtonians, with repeated tours on field armies, a constant rota for local defence, added taxes and the burning of the town in 1549. The worst was still to come, however.

Dundee

Dundee was also called on to mobilize men, money and supplies in response to the war scares of the 1520s and 1530s. In October 1523 for example, the Dundonians were ordered to provision a boat with bread, butter, cheese, ale and fish to be sent to the camp at Eyemouth.695 In January 1532-33 Dundee was ordered to provide 36 men and £108 a month to the army gathered to defend against the English, the second highest contribution after Edinburgh.696 In1539 Dundee also contributed £333 for Border defence.697 There was less urgency in Dundee, which was further away from the border, than in Haddington in response to the wars of the early 1540s. In May 1544 220 soldiers were raised or passed through Dundee and Perth, heading to Glasgow.698 As the crisis intensified in 1545 at least two summonses were issued, to the armies at Roslin Muir and Lauder, and presumably Dundonians were involved (possibly on both sides) at the siege of

693_{Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, 8:480, 9:31, 32, 41.} 694_{Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, 9:76.}

695_{Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, 5: 231.} 696_{Acts of the Lords of Council in Public Affairs, 391.}

697_{Records of the Convention of Royal Burghs of Scotland, 518; Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, 7:249.} 698_{Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, 8:293.}

St Andrews castle in 1546.699 As in Haddington few references survive to a muster for Pinkie in September 1547, but when the English captured Broughty castle in September 1547 war truly came to Dundee.

Plague

In the midst of (and possibly because of) these military confrontations plague arrived in Scotland. Plague outbreaks usually killed between 10 to 33% of the population of an infected area, and 60 to 80% of those infected, but also apparently spread randomly, striking some towns, households and individuals but not others.700 The very randomness of the disease inclined people to interpret it as God’s will, inflicted on the people because of sin of either a national or local variety.701 As Paul Slack observes, “Religious remedies were normally placed first. Repentance and prayer ‘should be preferred above all other medicines’ in order to pacify the first cause of epidemics.”702 The plague which affected Scotland was likely the same outbreak which struck London in 1543, spread throughout southern England in the following year and peaked, in England, in 1546-7.703 In Scotland the Diurnal of Occurents reported that “In this time the pest was wonder great in all burghs towns of this realm where many people died with great lack and want of victuals.”704 Although we cannot know how many people died, twenty years later the memory of the plague of 1545 was still fresh in people’s minds.

699_{Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, 8:402, 431.}

700 _{Although Audrey Beth-Fitch suggested that pneumonic plague, which has a mortality rate of almost 100%, may have}

been more common in Scotland than elsewhere. Audrey-Beth Fitch “Assumptions about Plague in Medieval Scotland”

Scotia 11(1987) 30-40: 30.

701 _{Paul Slack, The Impact of Plague in Tudor and Stuart England (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985), 16, 26, 87,}

108.

702 _{Slack, The Impact of Plague in Tudor and Stuart England, 29 (citing T. Paynel, A most profitable treatise against the}

pestilence [ ? 1534], sig. Avr).

703 _{Slack, The Impact of Plague in Tudor and Stuart England, 66, 84.} 704_{A Diurnal of Remarkable Occurrents, 39.}

Haddington

The fear of plague first appears in Haddington’s sixteenth-century records in 1530, when the Saturday market was cancelled on account of fears of the pestilence raging to the west.705 In 1538, the council ordered that any inhabitant of the town who had any sickness in his house should immediately “schwa it to ye baillies” under pain of banishment from the town. The baillies also cancelled the fair of St Mythawell, and all dogs were to be put out of the town.706 These were merely preventative measures, however, and there is no evidence of a major plague episode in either of these years.

The plague did strike Haddington in the spring of 1545. Plague was usually at its worst between July and October, when the fleas which transmitted the disease thrived in the warmer weather.707 On 23 April the council took a series of anti-plague measures, expelling all poor folk, except for those born in the town who were to receive a token allowing them to receive alms.708 Proclamations such as this suggest that even a medium-sized town like Haddington must have received a fairly large influx of poor immigrants. All swine were also to be put out of the town, the owners having fifteen days to do so after which anyone would be allowed to kill any pigs they found.709 In October, all sick people were ordered to be moved outside the town, to the south side of St John’s port (gate).710 No sick person was to return inside unless proven to be cured, or ‘clengit’ by the “principal clenger,” and whoever broke the statute was to be executed. Sick people were also to be inspected by the provost and baillies.711 Another act, which called for all those suspected of being infected to leave the town within forty-eight hours, on pain of having their goods seized, half to the provost and baillies and half to the informant, has not been preserved in the records; however, in December 1545 George Forrois (likely Forrest) accused John Ayton and

705 _{HAD/4/6/5 Haddington Court Book 1530-55, f2v.} 706 _{HAD/4/6/5 Haddington Court Book 1530-55, f90.}

707 _{Slack, The Impact of Plague in Tudor and Stuart England, 8.} 708 _{HAD/4/6/5 Haddington Court Book 1530-55, f209v.} 709 _{HAD/4/6/5 Haddington Court Book 1530-55, f209v.} 710 _{HAD/4/6/5 Haddington Court Book 1530-55, f213v.} 711 _{HAD/4/6/5 Haddington Court Book 1530-55, f214.}

‘his complices’ of breaking the act. Whether they did so by concealing a sick person or by keeping the seized goods themselves is unknown, but the scandal was enough for Ayton to be deprived of his office of baillie.712

Though we have no record of how many people died, the 1545 plague was devastating enough to still be remembered in 1564 when, “the whole council having in their remembrance the great and unrecoverable damage hurt hardship and despoliation of this burgh and of the great ruing of the inhabitants there of in the year of God (1545) be the pest” they banned linen from Danzig from entering the town, on the fears that it was carrying the contagion.713 Adam Cokburn was ordered warded in the Tolbooth for violating this act, though he ungallantly blamed the offence on his wife.714

Dundee

Most of what we know about the 1545 plague in Dundee comes from Knox’s account of George Wishart’s presence in the burgh. An associate of Wishart’s, Knox can be considered a near, if not direct witness. According to him, Wishart had first preached in Dundee in 1544, but was expelled from the town, prophesying as he left that

“I am assured that to refuse God’s Word, and to chase from you his messenger, shall not preserve you from trouble; but it shall bring you into it. For God shall send you messengers who will not be afraid of horning, nor yet of banishment….If it be long prosperous with you, I am not led with the spirit of truth. But and if trouble unlooked for apprehend you,

acknowledge the cause and turn to God, for he is merciful. But if ye turn not at the first, he shall visit you with fire and sword.715”

According to Knox, the plague began only four days after Wishart issued this prophecy. Once the news reached Wishart in Kyle he returned to Dundee to aid the afflicted, and hoped that they would pay more attention to his message, reportedly saying: “Perchance this hand of God will

712 _{HAD/4/6/5 Haddington Court Book 1530-55, f214.} 713 _{HAD/2/1/2/1 Burgh Minutes 1554-80, f38.} 714 _{HAD/2/1/2/1 Burgh Minutes 1554-80, f38.} 715 _{Knox, Works, 1:126.}

make them now to magnify and reverence that word which before (for fear of men) they set at light price.” The sick had been quarantined outside the town’s East port and as Wishart preached there, “the whole sat or stood within [the town], the sick and suspected without the Port.”716 Apart from preaching, Wishart apparently gave physical assistance, visiting, comforting and supplying food and drink.717 We have no burgh records for this period, and there is no way of separating out the deaths caused by the plagues from those caused by the English invasions. This next trial descended on Dundee and Haddington almost immediately, giving the inhabitants little time to regroup and recover.

War 1547-1550

In 1547 Protector Somerset of England renewed Henry VIII’s war on Scotland. The ‘War of the Rough Wooing’ was intended to secure the marriage of the Scottish Queen Mary to the English King Edward, creating a British dynastic union. Having agreed to the marriage at the Treaty of Greenwich in 1543, the Scots reneged. Henry VIII, and then Somerset were determined to gain the marriage one way or another, and by 1547 Somerset had developed a strategy of military occupation. By establishing fortified strongholds at key points, the English could control important areas of Scotland and secure the allegiance of some local Scots by a process known as ‘assuring.’ An ‘assured’ Scot promised to obey the King of England and oppose his

enemies.718 The English hoped that promoting Protestantism would gain the support of like- minded Scots, and by 1547, the oath of assurance also included a pledge to “utterly Renownce and forseik the usurped pour of the Bysshope of Rome and his successours for ever.”719 This strategy of persuasion was soon set aside by more immediate military needs, with unfortunate consequences for both Dundee and Haddington. The change in strategy was most troublesome

716 _{Knox, Works, 1:129.} 717 _{Knox, Works, 1:130.}

718 _{Marcus Merriman “The assured Scots: Scottish collaborators with England during the Rough Wooing” Scottish History}

Review 47(1968) 10-34: 11.

719 _{Although Merriman concludes in his study of assurances that there was not a strong connection between assuring and}

interest in reforming ideas, in both Dundee and Haddington those who were most involved in collaboration appear to have had Protestant sympathies, or at least, connections to those who did. Merriman “The assured Scots,” 13-14.

for the pro-Protestant, anglophile Scots who fell into disrepute as a result of their association with the heavy-handed English.

Haddington

Along with predicting misfortune for Dundee, George Wishart may have also foretold the tribulations which were to fall on Haddington in 1548 and 1549. Despairing that only a hundred or so people came to hear him preach in Haddington, Wishart had reportedly predicted in early 1546 that

“Fearful shall the plagues be that shall ensue for this thy contempt. With fire