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A MERRIE JEST

[From Scottish Wars]

"The History of Sutherland", written by Sir Robert Gordon, the avowed adversary of the Caithness Sinclairs, gives us an extraordinary instance of the spirit of wanton cruelty and mischief in which hostilities were carried on three centuries ago. Since the defeat of Summerdale, Caithness and Orkney had ceased to hold amicable intercourse, and a rooted hatred which had frequently broken out into open strife, had long existed between the Earls of those countries.

In the year 1608 some of the Earl of Orkney's servants had been forced to land in the county of Caithness "by a contrary wind and vehement storm of weather. First, the Earl of Caithness made them drunk; then, in a mocking jest, he cause sheave the one side of their beards and one side of their heads; last of all, he constrained them to take their vessel and to go to sea in that stormy tempest! The poor men, fearing his further cruelty, did choose rather to commit themselves to the mercy of the senseless elements and raging waves of the sea, then abide his fury. So they entered the stormy seas of Pentland Firth (a fearful and dangerous arm of sea between Caithness and Orkney), whence they escaped the fury thereof, by the providence and assistance of God, who had compassion on them in this lamentable and desperate case, and directed their course; so that they landed safely in Orkney. This affront and indignity was highly taken by the Earls of Orkney, who complained thereof to THE KING and his Council. His MAJESTY did write to the Council of Scotland to punish the Earl of Caithness severely, after due trial, as having committed a fact against his authority. But when both the Earls of Caithness and Orkney came to Edinburgh, ready to inform one against another, they agreed all their private quarrels, by the mediation of friends, least they should reveal too much of either's doings ! So this controversy was past over with silence; and some acknowledgement was made by the Earle of Caithness to the Earl of Orkney, as a satisfaction for abusing his servants;" etc.

The historian of Sutherland quaintly remarks: "Only one example of this crime I do remember. The servants of David, King of Israel, were so entreated by Hanun, King of the Children of Ammon. The Earl of Caithness thus far exceeded Hanun, that not satisfied with what himself had done, he forced the Earl of Orkney his servants to take the sea in such a tempest, and exposed them to the extremity of the raging waves; whereas Hanun suffered King David his servants to depart home quietly after he had abused them"

The Earl of Caithness at length brought ruin upon himself and family, by endeavouring "to make the Lord Forbes weary of his lands in Caithness". This benevolent purpose he tried to effect by constant oppression of his tenants and servants, in virtue of his office of Sheriffship, which he had obtained from the Earl of Huntly on his marriage with Lady Jean Gordon, his sister. He secretly caused incendiaries burn all the corn standing in the corn-yard of Sansett in November 1615; and to remove suspicion from himself, industriously rumoured abroad that the fire-raising had been done by Mackay's tenants, with whom the Forbes were then at feud.

A LEGEND OF STROMA

[From History of Caithness]

There is an amusing legend in an old topographical work on Scotland, which says that a dispute once arose between the Earls of Orkney and Caithness as to which county Stroma belonged. Instead of deciding the quarrel by the arbitrament of the sword, the chiefs on both sides agreed to refer the decision of the matter to an experiment in natural history. Some venomous animals - of what kind we are not told - lived in Stroma. A certain number of them were shipped at the same time as colonists to Orkney and Caithness. Those that were brought to Caithness took kindly to the soil as to a congenial habitat; while those that were sent to Orkney, from the unfavourable effects of the climate on their constitution, sickened and died. By this singular fact Stroma was adjudged to Caithness.

During the Norse period Stroma - the Straumsey of the Sagas - was important as an Orcadian outpost, and had a governor appointed to reside in it. The Sinclairs soon after their accession to the Earldom of Caithness, obtained by royal grant the property of the island. In 1574 George Sinclair of Mey was served heir of entail to his brother William, of various lands, inter alia Stroma. The island was noted for its non-putrefying properties. In a vault of the Kennedys of Carmucks the remains of the dead were converted into mummies by the continual saltish air caused by the rapid tides of the Pentland. Murdo Kennedy used to beat the drum on his father's body, and seating it at table, by pressing the foot, "made the figure move". Numbers of other bodies were suspended by nails on the walls, etc.

ROSLIN CASTLE

This air is identical with one known as "The House of Glams", though which title has the better right to the air is not manifest. The air of "Roslin Castle" was used for the Masonic elegy on the death in 1778 of William St.Clair, "the last Rosslyn". Hewitt has written some lines of a rural nature which generally are attached to the air, viz.:

'Twas in that season of the year,
When all things gay and sweet appear,
That Colin, with the morning ray,
Arose and sung his rural lay:
Of Nannies charms the shepherd sung,
The hills and dales with Nannie rung;
While ROSLIN CASTLE heard the swain,
And echoed back the cheerful strain.

And other three verses.

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