Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland

GLASGOW
minster Abbey. Despite his efforts, and notwithstand-
ing the civil power with which he was armed, the
existing clergy and laity in Glasgow, with trifling ex-
ceptions, refused to conform to the new order of things,
and the Earl of Middleton came to Glasgow, on 26
Sept. 1662, with a committee of the Scottish Privy
Council to enforce Episcopacy. They were well re-
ceived, and proceeded to investigate the complaint of
the archbishop — that none of the ministers who had
entered the Church since 1649 had acknowledged his
authority as bishop, and his prayer that the council
should issue and enforce an act and proclamation banish-
ing all those clergymen from their houses, parishes, and
presbyteries, unless they should, before a certain date,
appear and receive collation from him as their bishop.
The matter was considered at a meeting of the Privy
Council, held in the fore-hall of the college on 1 Oct. ,
and it was resolved — Sir Tames Lockhart of Lee dis-
senting, and declaring that the act would desolate the
land and excite to fever heat the dislike and indignation
with which the prelates had already begun to be re-
garded — that all such ministers were to remove from
their parishes within a month, and the people were not
to acknowledge them as their ministers, nor to repair to
hear their sermons. The meeting was, according to
Wodrow, known as ' the drunken meeting at Glasgow,
and it was affirmed that all present were flustered with
drink save Sir James Lockhart of Lee.' In their subse-
quent visits to the other towns of the West, they were
not much better, for it is recorded that in one of their
debauches they drank the devil's health at midnight at
the Cross of Ayr ; yet to such debauchees was entrusted
a task that resulted in more than 400 Presbyterian
ministers being ejected from their parishes, and led to all
the wild work of persecution that followed.
Early in 1678 the committee of council returned to
Glasgow, and had a sederunt of ten days. They were
accompanied by a band of Highlanders, about 5000 in
number, who came to be known as the Highland Host,
and whose presence was intended to enforce the wishes
of the committee. They arrived in Glasgow on 13
Jan. 1678 in the time of public worship, and were
quartered on the inhabitants. Their presence was only
to be got rid of by the subscription of a bond by which
the heritors, and the better classes of the community,
bound themselves that they, their wives, families, and
servants, with their tenants, cottars, etc., would not be
present at any of the field preachings, or hold any com-
munication with the ' outed ' ministers. Though this
made men in prominent stations responsible for the
doings of hundreds of people over whom they had no
control, yet such was the desire to get rid of the plunder-
ing and extortionate Highland Host, that the bond was
subscribed by the provost, bailies, members of council,
and the leading men of the city to the number of 153.
After their ten days' stay in Glasgow they passed on to
Ayrshire, where damage to the amount of £137,499
Scots was done, and then as the Covenanters would not
rise to give colour to a charge of rebellion, nor yet sign
the bond, except in very insignificant numbers, the
plunderers were sent to their homes. ' When the High-
landers,' says Sir Walter Scott in his Tales of a Grand-
father, ' went back to their hills, which was in Feb. 1678,
they appeared as if returning from the sack of some be-
sieged town. They carried with them plate, merchant-
goods, webs of linen and of cloth, quantities of wearing
apparel and household furniture, and a good number of
horses to bear their plunder.' As they were returning,
the Glasgow people had, however, an opportunity of re-
venge, for about 2000 of the Highlanders had to return
by way of Glasgow, and when they arrived on the S, or
Gorbals side, the Clyde was so swollen that it was un-
fordable. Thus favoured by chance, the students of the
college, and many of the inhabitants, who, either by
themselves or friends, had suffered from the former
ravages of the host, blocked the bridge, and opposed
their passage. Only 40 of the Celts were allowed to pass
at a time, and these were led along and dismissed by the
West Port, after they had been deprived of their plunder.
672
GLASGOW
A building near the bridge is said to have been nearly
filled with the ' pots, pans, bed-cloths, wearing clothes,'
coats, cloaks, etc., that were taken.
After the victory of the Covenanters at Dkumclog a
party of them marched to Glasgow, and attempted to
take it from Graham of Claverhouse, who, with the
Royal forces, had retired thither. In anticipation of
an attack the streets had been barricaded, and though
the Covenanters, attacking by the Gallowgate and
Yennel, fought bravely, they were repulsed. Their
dead were most inhumanly left lying in the streets, it is
said, by Claverhouse's express orders. After the battle
of Bothwell Brig, the Duke of Monmouth was eagerly
pressed by some of his officers to burn Glasgow, or at
least to give it up to three hours' plunder, but he would
sanction neither, and thus Glasgow escaped what meant
utter ruin. In March 1684 a number of Covenanting
martyrs suffered death at the Cross, their heads being
afterwards cut off and placed on the tolbooth. They
were buried on the N side of the cathedral. Soma
others suffered at the foot of the Howgate, where the
martyrs' fountain stands. The tolbooth was so crowded
with prisoners at the time, that they had to sleep by
turns, and a great many of the poor people, convicted
without evidence, were banished to the plantations.
When James II. succeeded to the throne, the Council
sent to the King their expressions of ' sincere joy,' and,
when late in the end of Oct. 1688 he was in difficul-
ties, a body of 1200 men was raised for his assistance ;
but these, refusing to obey the magistrates, never left
the city, and had to be disbanded in January 1689. On
the 24th of the same month, a loyal address was pre-
pared to Prince William of Orange, and, still later, a
body of 500 men (the foundation of the regiment now
known as the Cameronians) embodied according to tra-
dition in one day, was placed under the command of the
Earl of Argyll, and sent to Edinburgh to assist in guard-
ing the Estates then engaged in deliberating upon the
settlement of the Crown in favour of William and Mary.
After William's accession, when the Darien scheme
was projected, Glasgow, which had already experienced
to some extent the advantages of commerce, entered into
the speculation with great alacrity. The Council, on
behalf of the burgh, took stock to the value of £3000
sterling ; the citizens subscribed largely of their means
— many of them their all ; and not a few embarked per-
sonally in the expedition. The last of these sailed from
Rothesay Bay on 14 Sept. 1699, the four frigates that
went carrying 1200 emigrants, among whom was the
last of the old family of Stewart of Minto, once the
municipal chiefs of Glasgow, and whose decay has al-
ready been referred to. The unhappy sacrifice of the
scheme to English jealousy, and William's faithlessness
are well known. Of all the emigrants, but a score or two
of broken-down and beggared men ever reached their
native land again, and Hundreds of families at home,
who had been in affluent circumstances, were ruined.
The news reached Glasgow about the middle of 1700,
and so severely did the city suffer from the shock, that
it was not till 18 years after that her merchants again
possessed ships of their own.
Here, on the eve of the Union of the two kingdoms,
which, disastrous as it was in its first results, has since
tended to promote so greatly the prosperity of the
country, we may again pause and consider the progress
that Glasgow had made since the time of the Reforma-
tion, and that notwithstanding the famine, fires, plagues,
and disasters that we have recounted. The city seems
not to have extended its limits very far beyond the earlier
bounds, though, from the great increase in population,
the old parts must have been much more closely built,
and spaces formerly open covered with houses. The Die-
tionnaire Geographigue, published at Paris in 1705, says
it ' was large enough, but thinly peopled,' and Clelland
asserts that at the Union, Glasgow had not extended
beyond its old ports, viz. :— on the E, the Gallowgate
Port, near St Mungo's Lane ; on the W, the West Port,
at the head of Stockwell Street ; on the S, the Water
Port, near the old bridge ; on the N, the Stable Green