England ther came fome obfervations on the late comets, which promised a furder treatise called Catastrophe Mundi; (fee the obfervations befyde me,) all which helped to fright timorous melancholy peeple; and Mr. George Sinclar, the mathematician, did also call this planetary conjunction a very terrible on, in his Defcription of the weather glaffe and hygrofcope. Our winter, from November 1682 till March 1683, was rather like a spring for mildnes: if it be to be ascrybed to this conjun&tion I know not. (Vide infra p. 55.)

Mr. John Meinzies, minifter at Aberdeen, having been called by the Magiftrats of Edinburgh, to be ther Profeffor of Divinity, in place of Mr. Laurence Charteris, who refused the Teft, and having come over to Edinburgh, the Bifchop and he not agreeing, he refused to accept the call and went home. The reafons ware thought to be, That tacite reftrictions ware required of him, not to preach zealously against Poperie, or ther plots and confpiracies against princes; 2do. Some of the minifters of Edinburgh defire none of more learning or probity then themfelfes to be preachers with them. On Mr. John Strauchan is called by the Magiftrats in his place.

In this moneth of Januar 1683, was difcovered accidentally, by the removing fome feats in the Church of Halirudhouse, the vault on the foutheaft end of the Church, wheir the body of King James the 5t. lyes buried. Skeen and others, in ther Chronologies of the Scots Kings, tell us, he was buried at Halirudhouse, but the lenth of tyme and negligence had worne the particular place out of the memory of men. It was knowen to be him by the infcription on his leaden coffin. I had the curiofitie to goe and view the relics of that gallant Prince. In the pend or cell ther are fix lead coffins. The firft is King James the 5t. who dyed in the year 1542; P. 48but Drummond of Hawthorndene, in the very end of his life, tells us, this is not the place wher he was firft interred, but that King Henry the 8t of England's army having defaced his tomb and monument, he was tranfported into this vault by King James the 6, and reimbalmed; which ap

M

pears by the freschneffe of his body and the liquor about him. The fecond is his firft Quean, Magdalen, daughter to Francis the 1st. King of France, who dyed in 1537. The third is Henry, Lord Darnely, father to King James the 6 and Quean Marie's husband, who was ftrangled in 1567: by his body he appears to have been a very tall proper man; others call this bodie Seigneur David Rizio's, the Italian Mufitian's. The 4t is Ladie Jean Stewart, bastard daughter to King James the 5t and Counteffe of Argile, who dyed in 1587. The other 2 are fome of their children.

This was a humbling mortifieng fight, and a great inftance and document of mortality, and vanity of the world; all the glory of that sprightly Prince being crouded into this lowly cell, Mors fceptra ligonibus æquat: Mors æquo pulfat pede pauperum tabernas Regumque turres: Et fic tranfit gloria mundi. Many ordinary perfons have better burial places now, then what this magnanimous restles Prince hes got. If our thoughts deschended ofter unto the charnel house and fepulchres of our ancestors, their duft (the greatest their not being diftinguishable from the meaneft, as Lucian in Dialogues wittilie reprefents,) would ferve to lay the peacok feathers of our vain proud aspiring projects, which we lay in fuch a train as if we ware immortall. (See this profecute alibi.) And it might have the fame effect on us, which Virgil, (libro 4 Georgic.,) tells us, the sprinkling a little duft on bees hes, Hi motus animorum atque hæc certamina tanta, Pulveris exigui jactu compreffa quiefcent. All the inhabitants of that dark walley have lean and pale cheeks, hollow eyes, fallen nofes, and none of them wear the jewells and other deckings, with which they gliftred when they ware on life: but notwithstanding of this diffolution, we most all rife again at the great day of accounts. Our Kings of old ly but very meanly intombed. Buchanan names fome of them buried in Icolmkill, wher are alfo lying fome of the Kings of Ireland and Norroway. I faw the tombs of King Malcolme and others in Dumfermeling church yeard. The English have the moft part of ther Kings infhrined at Westminster, wher I have feen ther monuments.

In the end of Januar 1683, dyed that unwearied statsman, at Amfterdam, S. Antony Ashley Couper, Earle of Shaftsberry, of the gout in his ftomack, being a fwelling ther, ftopping the paffages of digeftion. His death afforded great joy to the Court party in England, against whom he had conjured up a male-contented spirit throw England. However, it cannot be denyed, but within halfe a year on of another, dyed 2 great Minifters of State of oppofite fydes, the Duke of Lauderdale and he, to whom we may adde for a 3rd., Chancelor Finch. Shaftsberry had fo diffeminat his principles, that the Earle of Effex, Lord Ruffell, and many others, are able to carry them on though he be gone; though fome of that very party complained, he was too hot and infolent, though he studied to walk legally, that they might not reach his life.

Urre, a brewars fervant in

On the 6t of Februar 1683, on Leith, barbarously murdered his oune wife in the night tyme; all he pretended was, that he was provocked by hir fcolding and drinking. The P. 49. Magiftrats of Edinburgh judged him, which fhews that their jurifdiction of fhireffship reaches over Leith; and he having confeffed the fact, they sentenced his right hand to be cut of, and himselfe to be hanged on the 10 of Februar, on the Shirefbrae befide Leith bridge, on the very confines betuen the Toune's territories and the Shire's. (See Carpzovius' Criminals, part shewing, a gibbet should not be fo erected in confinio as that the fhadow should reach another's land, that being a kind of indignity to him.)

page

In this moneth of Februar 1683, was argued before the Judges the cafe of the city of London's Charter of franchises by the Quo Warranto writ; (de quo, vide fupra, page 29 & 36.) That of ther right of fhireffhip was at this tyme waved, feeing his Majefty had carried the fhirefs to his mind; but the debate ran on 2 points, primo, that the city had, att her oune hand, without authority of Parliament, levied and raised money upon the citizens, for caulfay maills, and for liberty of getting out ftalls, and for felling their

waires and commodities in the mercat places of the citie (called by our Skeen pede-pulverofi and fiallangiatores chapmen) on the streets; fecundo, for prefuming by a petition to incroach fo far upon his Majesties prerogative, as to advise him to call a Parliament, after he had discharged theffe petitions as feditious. Sir George Treby, recorder for the city, anfwered the King's Attorney, that, tyme out of mind, London had bein a free corporation, with power to make statutes and by laws for regulation of themfelfes; and that any exactions they used were fortified with immemoriall poffeffion; and to the 2d it was only a fupplication, and if ther ware any fault in it, it could not involve any others but the actors into the guilt, for noxa caput fequitur; and the franchises of the city could not be indangered by it. Though the Cheiff Justice Sanders feemed not fully fatiffyed with thir defences, yet the matter was continued till Eafter terme. (See page 51 infra.) And in another cafe, it being objected against the Jurie for the toun of Worcester that fundry of them ware not capable, because not freeholders; the judges admitted them leist ther fhould be a failance of adminiftration of juftice in that place for laik of freeholders, and therfor in fubfidium they admitted others in ther place.

The English Diffenters craving a writ of appellation from the Ecclefiaftick Court of Arches, wher they ware threatning to excommunicat them, the appeal was refufed.

About this tyme, the river of Thames at London flowed tuife in a fornoon, and fwelled to a prodigious height: this was efteemed ominous, for the like had not been obferved fave a litle before King James the 6t. death in 1625. God preferve long our King! Ther was likewayes a great inundation happened at Harwich, drouning a part of the adjacent country; as alfo thunder and lightning, which is not frequent in winter, which had fyred the steeples of Yarmouth and York. 3tio. And a ferving man at Darlinton, in some distracted fitt, killed 3 of his master's children, the eldest being about 15 years of age; and being apprehended, refufed to eat

or drink. 4to. At this tyme on Le Maitre, a citizen of Paris, borne in 1565, and fo 118 years old, dyed at Paris, and was a few weeks before very P. 51. healthful and vigorous. Nature once in ane age produces fuch ane on, but 100,000's ly by the way. (See Hackwell's Apologie for the Providence of God, page ; and our Buchanan, page 40, libro primo in fine, Hiftoriæ Scotorum, of our old Lawrentius going out in his fifcher boat and leather canno at 140; and Par, brought up to London to (King Henry the 8t.) Charles the 1st. See Baker's Chronicle, page 475; Plinij Naturalis Hiftor. libro 7, cap. 48.)

On the 2a of March 1683 dyed Maxuel, Earle of Nithfdale, a papift. About the fame tyme, on Shelden discovered to the Duke of Ormond that he and others ware penfioners to Monfieur Louvoy, the great French minister of flate; and that the plot was to deliver up fome fea tounes in Ireland to the King of France's fleet, which he pretended he was fitting out against the Algerines.

5to. Aprilis 1683. The Duke of Lauderdale is buried. (Vide fupra, page 40, in margine.) The Bifchop of Edinburgh (who was once his creature, but follows all courts,) preached the fermon at Inverefk; the text was 1 Corinthi. 15, v. 55. "O death wheir is thy fting; O grave wheir is thy victory." Any errors he committed, in the end of his days, he afcribed to the gra underrowers whom he trufted beneath him, meaning his Dutcheffe and brother Halton. If he had dyed fome years fooner he had got more pomp and elogies. At the buriall place in Hadington, on of the beggers called Bell, being drunk, ftabbed another in diftributing the money that was given them by the friends. He was apprehended, and feveral ftollen things found on him, and he being made to touch the dead corps, the wound bled frefch; the toune of Hadington, (who it feimes have a Shireff's power) judged him prefently, and hanged him over the bridge the next day.

In May theirafter, came doune his Majefties pleasure and determina