Ruthven correspondence

XXX11 INTRODUCTION.
1644. was no decisive result on either side, the Royalists had to retreat
to Reading, and E/uthven returned to Oxford. 1 Here, on 27th
Created Earl May, he was raised to the English peerage, drawing his title as Earl
o rent or . ^ Brentford from the scene of his last success. But while gaining
fresh honours in England, his countrymen were endeavouring to
rob him of those he possessed in Scotland ; on 26th July he was
His forfei- there declared to be again forfeited, together with the Earl of
in'scotlanT Crauford and his old companion in arms Lord Eythin, and bis coat
of arms was on the next day broken by Lyon King of Arms at
Edinburgh in presence of the Parliament and also at the Cross. 2 And
on the following day all sums of money due to these three Lords
were ordered to be applied to payment of public debts, while those
due to Buthven were specially assigned over to Lord Balmerino, in
return for sums which had been lent by him to the Parliament.
His goods in In the month previously Buthven's effects at his house of Yair
seized 11 ^ anc ^ ^ n ^ s lodgings at Leith had been inventoried and sequestrated
by an order from the Committee of Estates (p. 87 infra), but, for-
tunately for him, the commission to search bad been given to his
old friend Pringle, together with the Bailie of Selkirk ; and we learn
from a letter from the former, written in 1649 (p. 116), how it was
that there was little else found for the Committee of Estates to seize
but beds and chairs and chests and some kitchen furniture. Eor all
that could possibly be buried or hidden was safe in Pringle' s custody
before he began, doubtless with a becoming solemnity of face and de-
meanour, to execute his Edinburgh commission ; "Jewells, chaines,
money, bedding, naiprie, household plenishing," clothes, cabinets,
had all been removed to the house at Whytbank, or buried in boxes
in the earth, where they lay till the cords that bound them rotted
and the locks were spoiled. 3 The beds and chests, however, were
1 Lloyd seems to say that Ruthven was wounded in this battle in the leg.
2 Balfour's Annals, iii. 235, 237.
3 An inventory of the plate which had been previously taken into the safe keeping of
Lawson, the Earl's factor, and Pringle, is printed at p. 80.