Series 1 > Letters and papers illustrating the relations between Charles the Second and Scotland in 1650

138 CHARLES II. AND SCOTLAND IN 1650
‘The Deel fa me,’ etc., ‘The Deele blaw me blind,’ ‘The
Deele rive me,’ ‘ God’s curse light on me,’ etc.
4. For the keeping holy the Lords day : although they
pretend to be zealous observers of it, yet to my observation I
have not known any of them to spend that day in religious
exercises, onely in a bare cessation from labour and work, and
walking and gazing up and down, spending their time in laziness
and vanity.
5. For the honour due to parents, as also to their magistrates
(more then for feare), I cannot observe any (of 129 Kings that
have raigned over them not one hundred have died in their
beds). Filial love or respect in their children towards their
parents being like their parents’ love to them, which is like
Jockey’s advice to Jany, ‘ Throw away the beme, and save the
baggage, God may send mare bernes but nere mare baggage.’
6. They are most eminent for murdering in a cowardly and
treacherous way, and in that manner murdered a servant of
Col. Duckenfield’s at Lenton bridge neer Haddington, and have
cut the throats of others in a barbarous manner, so soon as the
army hath been drawn off from them.
7. For the committing of adultery, the Kirk Bukes of some
of the ministers, which we have found, wil shew the names of
their parishioners that have stood in the stoole from time to
time, which is sufficient to declare them to be very frequently
and commonly committed ; and many have fallen into relapses
after they have undergone that punishment. Whoredome and
fornication is the common darling sin of the Nation.
8. For filching, picking and stealing, it is so common
amongst them that the young bernes which are newly crept
out of the shel will usually prole away bisket, cheese, or what
else they can lay their hands on, when they come where provi¬
sions are dealing out, or to meddle with any things that are
portable.
9. For their bearing of false witnesse against their neighbour:
although we find them unanimous against us, and so farre from
betraying one another, that they wil not tel the truth ; yet fol¬
lies and falsities in their discourses, it is so natural and common
to them, that they doe as often speak lies as words, so that a
man can hardly tel when they lie, and when speak truth : yet