Gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 1

404
GLASGOW.
of a commotion, Archbishop James Beaton
acted with much more prudence than cou-
rage. Seeing that there was little safety in
this country, he collected all the valuable ar-
ticles of the cathedral, including all the writings
and documents pertaining to the see, and> in
1560, retired to France. He was afterwards
constituted ambassador in that country from
Scotland, by Queen Mary and King James
VI. who, in 1588, restored him to the tem-
poralities of the see. He, however, remained
in France, where he died in 1603, after be-
queathing every thing he took from Glasgow,
to the Scots College at Paris, and to the
monastery of the Carthusians, to be returned
to Glasgow so soon as its inhabitants returned
to the mother church, — a circumstance which
never has, and never will take place.
In 1567, Glasgow was visited by Queen
Mary, on the occasion of her husband, Darn-
ley, being infected by the small pox, which he
caught at this town, where it was epidemic at
the time. Two yeats after, when on her flight
to Dumbarton from confinement in the castle
of Lochleven, she was intercepted, and her
forces defeated by the Regent Murray, who,
at the time, happened to be holding courts of
justice in Glasgow, and marched with 4000
troops from the town, to meet her at Lang-
side, a village two or three miles south of the
city.
After the principles of the Reformation had
been fully established in the town, the houses
of the prebends were either sold or gifted to
court favourites. The manse of the prebend
of Cambuslang, situated on the south side of
Drygate, was given to the Earl of Glencairn,
who, in 1635, sold it to the city of Glasgow,
and the magistrates afterwards converted it in-
to a house of correction. The religious houses
in the town were in a similar manner saved
and put to proper uses. Some of the manses
of the prebends still exist.
Though only once dignified by the sitting of
a parliament, Glasgow was honoured by being
frequently the seat of the ecclesiastical synods,
which, from the character of the age, were fully
of more moment than the visits of royalty-
One was held, April 1581 .another in June 1609;
and a third, and by far the most remarkable,
on the 21st day of November, and subsequent
days, 1638, when by an act of singular bold-
ness the whole episcopal system introduced by
Charles I., and fortified by his utmost power,
was declared null and void, and the presbyte-
rian polity restored in its place. Influential as
this important event has subsequently proved,
it was some years before Glasgow obtained any
quiet, being visited and fined by Montrose, and
in 1645 made the place of execution of three of
the royalist gentlemen taken prisoners at Phi-
liphaugh.
We are now called on to remark the dif-
ference betwixt the behaviour of the magis-
trates of Edinburgh and Glasgow in the mat-
ter of the famous " Engagement," one of the
strangest transactions in which the Scottish
nation had acted a part at this unhappy period.
Three times the Scotch had sent out an army
against King Charles for the protection of
their religion, until at length he was brought
near to the close of his career ; and now dread-
ing the ascendency of the Independents, the
nation became suddenly divided as to the pro-
priety of taking up arms in his behalf. The
clergy strongly opposed such a measure, ana
influenced a number of the burghs in the same
opinion, but the parliament thought otherwise,
and ordered levies to be made throughout the
kingdom. Distinguished for several years as
zealous presbyterians, and fearing the re-eleva-
tion of Charles to the throne, unless their pe-
culiar system of church polity were firmly gua-
ranteed, the citizens, and especially the magis-
trates and council of Glasgow, stood foremost
in resisting the contribution ordered by the
estates. While the Edinburgh magistracy
paid their contribution of L.40,000 Scots, by
borrowed money, and afterwards attempted to
resist payment to the lenders because the same
was contracted for " an uncovenanted purpose,"
the guardians of the community of Glasgow at
once resisted making the slightest contribution,
and for their contumacy were imprisoned for
several days, as well as being more severely
punished by the quartering upon them of four
j regiments of horse and foot, who were ordered
I to live in bodies of ten, twenty, and thirty
j men, on individual members of the magistracy,
I council and session. Events showed that the
I levies of the Engagement were of no avail, the
j army under the Marquis of Hamilton being
| defeated, the number of 10,000 of his sol-
diers being sold to the plantations at two
shillings a-head, and the king being beheaded
shortly afterwards, January 30, 1649. In
the year 1650 Glasgow was visited by Crom-
well.