3rd of November

St Papoul or Papulus, priest and martyr, 3d century. St Flour, bishop and confessor, about 389. St Wenefride or Winifred, virgin and martyr, in Wales. St Hubert, bishop of Liege, confessor, 727. St Malachy, archbishop of Armagh, confessor, 1148.

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Born. – Lucan, Latin poet, 39 A.D., Cordova.

Died. – Constantius, Roman emperor, 361, Mopsucrene, Cilicia; Pope Leo the Great, 461; James II., king of Aragon, 1327, Barcelona; Dr Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, musical composer, 1847, Leipsic.

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On this Day in Other Sources.

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As early as the 3d of November 1584, it was, finally, resolved by Elizabeth’s government, to remove Mary to Tutbury: And Cave, one of the Cofferer’s clerks, was sent, with 500l. in his pocket, to make provision, at Tutbury castle, for Mary’s reception. But, to make a dilapidated castle fit, for the reception of a Queen, was not an easy task, with three times 500l. Lord St. John, the proposed warden, in the room of the impatient Sadler, hesitated, and delayed, for some weeks; and even at the beginning of the subsequent year, declined to accept such a charge. 

– Life of Mary, pp.281-293.

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The Lords of the Privy Council dealt with the fault of —— Forres, postmaster of Haddington, respecting a packet of his majesty’s letters which had been lost by his carelessness. It appears that Forres was bound to have fresh horses always ready for the forwarding of such packets; but on one late occasion he had sent a packet by a foot-boy, who had lost it by the way, and he had never taken any further trouble regarding it. On the ensuing 3d of November, [1635,] the Council had occasion to find fault with William Duncan, postmaster in the Canongate, and more particularly with a post-boy in Duncan’s employment, because the latter, instead of carrying his majesty’s packet to the postmaster at Haddington, had given it to ‘a whipman’ of Musselburgh, to be carried to Duncan’s house there (designing probably that it should be forwarded by another hand). The Council recommended Sir William Seton ‘to prescribe regulations to the postmasters for the sure and speedy despatch of his majesty’s packet, both anent the postmasters their constant residence at the place of their charge, and keeping of ane register for receipt of the packets.’ – P. C. R. 

– Domestic Annals, pp.228-256.

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Nov. 3 [1677]. – A great fire took place in Glasgow, by which a large part of the Saltmarket on both sides was burnt. It commenced near the Cross, through the instrumentality of a smith’s apprentice, who, being beaten by his master, set the workshop on fire at night, and fled. This conflagration was considered an equal calamity to that of 1652. It threw between six and seven hundred families out of their homes, in a ruined and starving condition. – P. C. R. 

– Domestic Annals, pp.322-337.

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On the summer day noted, the colony left Leith, in five ships, amidst ‘the tears, and prayers, and praises’ of a vast multitude of people, all interested in the enterprise, either by a mercantile concern in it, or as viewing it in the light of an effort to elevate the condition and character of their country. We are told by one who might have heard eye-witnesses describe the scene, and probably did so, that ‘many seamen and soldiers whose services had been refused, because more had offered themselves than were needed, were found hid in the ships, and, when ordered ashore, clung to the ropes and timbers, imploring to go, without reward, with their companions.’ The ships had a prosperous voyage to a point on the Gulf of Darien, which had been previously contemplated as suitable for their settlement, though the order for the purpose was kept sealed till the expedition touched at Madeira. Landing here on the 4th of November, [1698,] they proceeded to fortify the peninsula on one side of the bay, cutting a channel through the connecting isthmus, and erecting what they called Fort St Andrew, with fifty cannon. ‘On the other side of the harbour [bay] there was a mountain a mile high, on which they placed a watch-house, which, in the rarefied air within the tropics, gave them an immense range of prospect, to prevent all surprise. To this place it was observed that the Highlanders often repaired to enjoy a cool air, and to talk of their friends whom they had left behind. they purchased the land they occupied from the natives, and sent out friendly messages to all Spanish governors within their reach. The first public act of the colony was to publish a declaration of freedom of trade and religion to all nations.’ – Dalrymple’s Memoirs. 

– Domestic Annals, pp.355-378.

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Nov. 3 [1705]. – Mr John Strahan, Writer to the Signet in Edinburgh, was at this time owner of Craigcrook, a romantically situated old manor-house under the lee of Corstorphine Hill – afterwards for many years the residence of Lord Jeffrey. Strahan had also a house in the High Street of Edinburgh. He was the owner of considerable wealth, the bulk of which he ultimately ‘mortified’ for the support of poor old men, women, and orphans; a charity which still flourishes. 

– Domestic Annals, pp.379-389.

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“ELECTORAL SCOTLAND, PAST AND PRESENT.

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PRE-REFORM DAYS.

   Mr Gladstone’s recent increase of Scottish members from 60 to 72 suggests matter for reflection concerning old and new franchises of deep historical interest, and far beyond the region of mere party politics. The new freeman touches the old freeholder under conditions which have shaped out the most exciting periods of our national history. The Reformation, the Revolution Settlement, and the Treaty of Union have all had a distinct bearing on that sweeping Redistribution Act presently being wrought out with such fervent zeal by the new constituencies. Reform Bills, in Scotland at least, are much older than the period usually associated with the extension of Parliamentary rights. The traditional 45 members sent up from Scotland till the days of Earl Grey had, it is true, been provided for only at the date of union with England in 1707, but this representation was in turn associated with a much earlier and, on the whole, a more constitutional system. A very few words on this point are all that can be given here or now, while no reference whatever can be made to the origin, influence, or privileges of those burghs – royal, baronial, and parliamentary – which grew up so rapidly to be a powerful estate in the realm. Nearly 300 years before the Act was carried for uniting the Parliaments of Scotland and England (James I., anno. 1427), provision was made that every freeholder should have a voice in the election of a commissioner or representative to the Parliament in Edinburgh, or wherever else it might please the King to appoint as a place of meeting. This continued for 160 years, when, as a help to relieve lesser barons or freeholders of what they felt to be an irksome and expensive privilege, provision was made that only those possessed of a forty-shilling land in free tenancy, and had their actual dwelling or residence within the shire, should have a right to vote. Various other modifications of the franchise were made within the twenty years between 1661 and 1681, when the right of voting in counties was fixed on principles which continued down to the Union, and beyond the Union, till within the memory of many still living. Indeed, the qualification exists in one shape or another at the present day, only, happily, it is not the only qualification. Yet it is not to be disputed that the ‘faggot’ voter, a vicious survival of the old freeholder, has created much ill-feeling down to, and even during, the present election contest. By the Act of 1681 it was provided that none should have the right to vote but those who stood publicly infeft in property or superiority, and were in possession of a forty-shilling land of ‘Old Extent’ held of the King or of the Prince, distinct from feu-duties in feu lands, or, where the Old Extent did not appear, stood infeft in lands liable in public burdens for His Majesty’s supplies of £100 Scots of valued rent. The ‘Old Extent,’ it may be explained, round which so many electioneering battles came to be fought, was used in distinction to a more recent valuation of lands made for the purpose of proportioning the land-tax. ‘Holding from the Prince’ applied chiefly to lands in the shires of Ayr, Renfrew, and Bute, originally granted by Robert III. as an appanage or patrimony to his eldest son, the Duke of Rothesay, known as ‘the Prince of Scotland.’ The next change in our representative system was associated with the abolition of that spiritual estate which had undergone many troubles and humiliations since its arrogant pretensions were checked by the Reformation. In 1689, when the crown of Scotland was offered to William and Mary, an Act was passed abolishing Prelacy and all superiority of office in the Church above presbyters. An end was thus put to the estate of the clergy in the Scottish Parliament. From that time down to the Union the three estates were composed of temporal peers, the great officers of State, the barons or commissioners from the shires, and the burgesses. There was no distinction, it may be explained, into Upper and Lower House, as in England, all meeting in one chamber, presided over by one common president, and deliberating jointly upon all matters that came before them whether of a judicial or legislative nature. The same Act providing for acceptance of the crown by William and Mary increased the number of representatives for shires from 64 to 90. The burghs were continued as before – 86 – two being sent by Edinburgh and one in by every other burgh. What came to be the royal burgh of Campbeltown was not erected till 1700. Putting aside peers and officers of State, with which this article is not immediately concerned, the shires and burghs at the date of the Union in 1707 were entitled to be represented by 157 members. It should be mentioned, however, that some years before that event came about a few decaying burghs, principally on the Fife coast, had been relieved by their own desire from the duty of sending a commissioner, and could not, therefore, be included in the new scheme of representation. After considerable negotiation, and no little display of ill-feeling on the part of Scotland, it was settled that the northern portion of what was to be the United Kingdom should send to London 16 elected Peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords, and 45 Commissioners – 30 to be chosen by shires or stewartries, and 15 by 66 royal burghs grouped into fourteen districts, with the exception of Edinburgh, which was to send one on its own account. Provision was also made for giving votes to ‘wadsetters’ or mortgages, to life-renters, to heirs-apparent in possession, and a certain few others not necessary to describe. The English House of Commons at this date was made up of 513 members, 40 counties sending 80; 25 cities, 50; 167 boroughs, 334; the remainder for the most part being made up by the Cinque Ports, the universities, and Welsh counties and boroughs. The peers in the English House were 183, against 16 to be sent as representing Scotland.”  

– Glasgow Herald, Tuesday 3rd November, 1885.

– Treaty of Union Articles, Electoral Representation Pre- and Post-Union.

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LORD FOUNTAINHALL, writing apparently between 1670 and 1680, took extensive notes of the progress of the movement for the erection of the Edinburgh Merchants into a Chartered Incorporation. The volume containing, amidst a great deal of other matter, his observations on that subject, with copies of many relative documents, escaped the attention of the editors of his works. It remained anonymous, and practically unused and unknown amongst the manuscript possessions of Stirling’s Library,¹ Glasgow, until a few years ago, when a series of internal and decisive evidences led to the definitive establishment of its authorship.²

– Scots Lore, 78-84.

¹  It is catalogued as “No. M20628. Manuscripts: Historical Papers relating to Scottish affairs in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.” 

²  See article in the Scotsman, 3rd November, 1888.^*

^* The Scotsman, Saturday, 3rd November, 1888;

“MARGARET, LADY YESTER, AND HER

17TH CENTURY BIOGRAPHER

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IF the underwritten transcript from a seventeenth century manuscript, which has long been in Stirling’s Library in Glasgow, now appears in print for the first time, it will command an appreciative perusal. It contains a sketch of the life, a catalogue of the charities, and a copy of the epitaph of that Lady Yester whose memory is perpetuated in the name of one of the churches in Edinburgh. Her munificence might well have warranted the bestowal upon her of the epithet “Lady Bountiful,” and it is little wonder that in the second half of the 17th century, whilst her memory was still fresh, the industrious compiler of “A Perfect Inventar of all the pious donationes since the dayes of King Ja: the first,” when at the close of his compilation he came to record Lady Yester’s charitable gifts, departed from his rule of merely cataloguing bequests, and wrote a brief but comprehensive and generous biography:-  

MORTIFIC’ONE BE DAME MARGARET KER, LATE

LADY YESTER.

The sd. Dame Margaret Ker wes þe oldest dauchter of Mark Comendator of Newbatle ane of þe Lords of counsall and sessione þereftir E: of Louthean, procreat betwixt him and […] Maxwell ane dauchter of John Lord Herries. […] In her young yeirs She wes ffirst married be John Lord Hay of Yester And by her wise and wertuous governmt She wes instrumentall in preserving and Improveing þe sd Estate by him She had two sones Lord Hay of Yester þereftir E: of Tweddale and Sr Wm her second sone, for qm She purchased þe barronie of Linplum Her daughter Lady Margaret Hay wes first married to Alexr E: of Dumfermling Chancellor of Scotland And eftir his death wes married to James E: of Calendar The sd Dame Margaret Ker having Lived many yeirs a widow She married Sr Andro Ker yonger of ffairniebirst and procured his father to be made Lord Jedburghe besydes þe many buildings yairds and parks made be hir in all places belonging to her husband in evry parish qr athr of her husbands had any reule She Erected and built hospitalls and Schools ffirst in Dumbar besyde þe castle of Beltoune eftir She had Repaired þe castle of Beltoune as appears by this distich wrin in great Lres wrin upone stone round about þe toure  

Mænia cuncta mihi cedat manus æmula cara

fforma et materia est Margaris una mihi.

[I yield to the walls of the hands of rival dear

the form and the matter is Margaris one said to me.]

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NOVEMBER 3RD 1969 – SUB OFFICER ARCHIBALD MCLAY

WHO DIED WHILST FIREFIGHTING AT STV. STUDIOS, HOPE ST.

– Glasgow’s Cathedral & City Necropolis.