Baillie's Daughter in Law
and
her exploits in the Prison
The power and rank of the family culminated under Sir
Patrick's son, SIR PATRICK HUME, the second Baronet and first Earl of
Marchmont. This distinguished statesman and staunch Covenanter was born in
1641. He entered public life in 1665 as member for the county of Berwick, and
joined the small but faithful band of patriots who, under the Duke of Hamilton,
offered a strenuous and constitutional resistance to the wretched
administration of the notorious Duke of Lauderdale. In 1674 he accompanied
Hamilton and other leading Scotsmen to London, for the purpose of laying the
grievances of the country before the King, who in reply to their petition for
redress said, 'I perceive that Lauderdale has been guilty of many bad things
against the people of Scotland, but I cannot find he has acted anything
contrary to my interest.'
In the following year Sir Patrick was imprisoned
in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh by the Privy Council, on account of his appeal to
the Court of Session for protection against the arbitrary and illegal
assessment levied for the support of the troops in garrison. This imprisonment,
which lasted two years, so far from repressing, only seems to have lent fresh
ardour to his patriotic zeal. He was again imprisoned in 1679, and on his
release by order of the King, he became a participator in the councils of
Russell, Sydney, and other leading Whigs, who were anxious to exclude the Duke
of York from the succession to the throne.
On the judicial murder of these
eminent patriots, and the arrest of his venerable friend Baillie of
Jerviswood, Sir Patrick, knowing that he was a marked man, and that the
Government was bent on his destruction, quitted his mansion of Redbraes Castle,
and while he was supposed to have gone on a distant journey, took up his
residence in the family burial vault underneath the parish church of Polwarth.
This ancient edifice stands in a lonely sequestered spot, on a knoll surrounded
with old trees and a brawling burn at its foot, with no dwelling near it. The
place of his retreat was known only to his wife, his eldest daughter, and a
carpenter named James Winter. The only light which Sir Patrick enjoyed in this
dismal abode was by a slit in the wall, through which no one could see anything
within. As long as daylight lasted he spent his time in reading Buchanan's
Latin version of the Psalms, which he thus imprinted so deeply on his memory
that forty years after, when he was above fourscore years of age, he could
repeat any one of them at bidding without omitting a word.
The duty of
conveying food to Sir Patrick devolved upon his eldest daughter, Grizel, a
young lady of nineteen. 'She at that time had a terror for a churchyard,' says
her daughter, Lady Murray, 'especially in the dark, as is not uncommon at her
age by idle nursery stories; 'but her filial affection so far overcame the
fears natural to her sex and youth, that she walked night after night through
the woods of her father's 'policy' and amid the tombstones of the churchyard,
at darkest midnight, afraid of nothing but the danger that the place of her
father's concealment might be discovered. The barking of the minister's dog, as
she passed the manse on her nightly visits to the sepulchral vault, put her in
great fear of discovery. But this difficulty was overcome by the ingenuity of
her mother, who by raising a report that a mad dog had been seen roaming
through the country, prevailed upon the clergyman to destroy the fierce mastiff
which annoyed her daughter.
It was not always easy to secrete the victuals
which Grizel conveyed to her father without exciting the suspicions of the
domestics, and the remarks of the younger children. Sir Patrick was partial to
the national dish of a sheep's head, and one day at dinner Grizel took an
opportunity, when her brothers and sisters were busy at their kail, to convey
the greater part of one from the plate to her lap, with the intention of
carrying it that night to her father. When her brother Sandy, afterwards second
Earl of Marchmont, raised his eyes and saw that the dish was empty, he
exclaimed, 'Mother, will ye look at Grizzy While we have been supping our broth
she has eaten up the whole sheep's head' When Sir Patrick was told this amusing
incident that night he laughed heartily, and requested that in future Sandy
might have a share of the highly prized viands.
Another of the services
which this heroic young lady performed for her father at this period of her
life was conveying a letter from Sir Patrick to his friend Robert Baillie of
Jerviswood, then imprisoned on a charge of treason in the Tolbooth of
Edinburgh. Baillie, who was as eminent for his abilities and learning as for
his fidelity to his religious principles, had shared in the councils of the
English patriots, and it was of the utmost importance that intelligence should
be communicated to him respecting the state of affairs since his imprisonment.
Miss Grizel readily undertook this difficult and dangerous task, and managed it
with great dexterity and perfect success. The son of Mr. Baillie, a youth about
her own age, had at this time been recalled from Holland, where he was
educated, to attend his father's trial. In a cell in the famous old Tolbooth
these two young persons met for the first time, and an attachment then
commenced which was destined to lead to their union in happier days, when the
Revolution had expelled the tyrant and his infamous tools from the country.
Shortly after this interview the Ministers of State, who, as Bishop Burnet
says, 'were most earnestly set' on Mr. Baillie's destruction, arraigned the
venerable patriot, though he was in a dying condition, before the High Court of
Justiciary. In flagrant violation both of law and justice, he was found guilty,
on the morning of December 24th, 1684, and, lest he should anticipate the
sentence by a natural death, he was executed on the afternoon of the same day,
with all the revolting barbarities of the penalties attached to treason.
Meanwhile, on the approach of winter, Lady Hume and Jamie Winter, the
carpenter, had been contriving a place of concealment for Sir Patrick more
comfortable, and less injurious to health, than the damp and dark burial vault.
In one of the rooms on the ground-floor, beneath a bed, Grizel and the faithful
retainer dug a hole in the earth, using their fingers alone to prevent noise,
and under cover of night carrying out the earth in a sheet to the garden, and
scattering it in places where it was least likely to be noticed. The severity
of this task is evident, from the fact that when it was finished the nails were
quite worn off the young lady's fingers. In the hole thus excavated Winter
placed a box large enough to contain some bedclothes, and to afford a place of
refuge for the hunted patriot, the boards above it being bored with holes for
the admission of air. Sir Patrick lived for some time in this room, of which
his daughter kept the key, but an irruption of water into the excavation
compelled him to seek another asylum; and the search after him having become
keener after the judicial murder of his friend Baillie, he decided on making an
attempt to escape from the country in disguise.
A few hours after he had
quitted Redbraes a party of soldiers came to the house in search of him. He had
set out on horseback during the night, accompanied by a trustworthy servant
named John Allan, who was to conduct him part of his way to London. In
travelling towards the Tweed, Sir Patrick and his guide accidentally separated
in the darkness, and the former was not aware that he had quitted the proper
road till he reached the banks of the river. This mistake proved his safety,
for Allan was overtaken by the very soldiers who had been sent in pursuit of
his master. In the assumed character of a surgeon, Sir Patrick reached London
in safety, and thence made his way by France to Holland, where a number of
other patriots, Scots and English, had found refuge.