Series 1 > Diary of Sir Archibald Johnston of Wariston 1632-1639

XXIV
DIARY OF LORD WARISTON
and hir presence useful to me and mine.’ ‘ At night [29th] first
the Laird of Dune and my L. Craighal, then my Lo. Durie, then
my L. Advocat, Yester, Balmerino hard hir expresse hirselth so
pouerfully and pertinently, for the tyme and for the present
auditors, anent bischops, neu covenant, the hailing and pairting
the chyld of Gods treuth,the mainteaners or dissemblers with the
disturbers of the peace of Zion, of the perfection of this reforma¬
tion of the land both inwardly and outwardly.’ 12 November.
* Upon Mononday night, to suply my want of Sundays sermons
the Lord loosed again Margret Mitchels tounge to speak
straingly fra 2 afternoone til 3 hours in the morning, and to
aunsuer wonderfully many quaestions proponed be the Earle of
Argyle, Rothes, Glencairne, Kilpont.’ Such an impression
did she make on Wariston that he ‘ resolved to try the sam
meditation1; 4 Evin at the entreie of plunging my thoughts
and bending my sprit fixedly thairupon, I was drouned in a
bottomless deep.’1 On the other hand, Gordon2 called her
contemptuously the 4 Shee Prophetesse,’ and Professor Gardiner
described her as a mad woman.3 In the Large Declaration^
her raptures are spoken of as 4 forgeries,’ and she is said to
have been acting throughout under the instructions of the
leaders of the Covenanters, but there seems to have been no
foundation for that charge. Her power of long-continued
speaking in forcible and pointed language, and the apposite¬
ness of at least many of her observations, undoubtedly made a
deep impression upon those who heard her.
The first volume of the Diary closes with 20th September
1634. The next, so far as discovered, begins on 7th February
1637. In the intervening time Wariston acquired the pro¬
perty of that name in the parish of Currie, from his brother-
in-law, Alexander Hay, Lord Foresterseat’s son ; and his eldest
daughter Elizabeth (Eppie) was probably born in that
1 For the account he gives of his feelings and thoughts while in this spiritual
trance, see p. 385. 8 Scots Affairs, vol. i. p. 131.
3 History of England, vol. viii. p. 365. Edition 1896. 4 P. 226.