Plague in Scotland during the Civil Wars

Connecting with plagues in the north of England, there was a great prevalence of the infection in Scotland. After the storming of Newcastle by the Scots Covenanters in October, 1644, the plague appeared in Edinburgh, Kelso, Borrowstownness, Perth and other places. On April 1, 1645, Kelso was burned down, the fire having originated in a house that was being “clengit” or disinfected after plague in it. At Edinburgh the plague-stricken were housed in huts in the King’s park below Salisbury Crags. Collections were made for the relief of people in Leith impoverished by the plague. The epidemic in and around Perth is said to have given rise to the story of Bessie Bell and Mary Gray, who fled from the plague-tainted ground and built themselves a bower by a burn side[1102]. At Glasgow the infection was severe in the end of 1646, and did not cease entirely until the autumn of 1648. There are numerous references to it in the letters of principal Baillie of Glasgow University, of which the following are the most important[1103].

On September 5, 1645, he writes that the pest has laid Leith and Edinburgh desolate, and rages in many more places: never such a pest seen in Scotland (in his time, perhaps). About January, 1646, he writes of “the crushing of our nation by pestilence and Montrose’s victories.” At the end of that year, the plague was in Glasgow: on January 26, 1647, during winter cold, “all that may are fled out of it.” On June 2, the plague had scattered the St Andrews’ students, the principal of St Leonard’s College was dead of it, and it was killing many in the north. The same summer, principal Baillie was shut up in the town of Kilwinning, cut off, with all the inhabitants, from communication with the outer world owing to a suspicion of plague in the place. Edinburgh and Leith, which had suffered earliest, were almost free in the autumn of 1647, but “Aberdeen, Brechin and other parts of the north are miserably wasted; the schools and colleges now in all Scotland, but Edinburgh, are scattered.” Glasgow had its worst experience of plague in the summer and autumn of 1648, which were wet seasons: on August 23, “our condition for the time is sad; the plague is also in Edinburgh and Aberdeen.... At this time I grieved for the state of Glasgow.... My brother’s son’s house was infected; my brother’s house enclosed many in danger; one night near a dozen died of the sickness.... The long great rains for many weeks did prognosticate famine; but these three days past there is also a great change of weather; the Lord continue it.” The infection which began at Glasgow in January, 1647, reached Aberdeen in April, having been carried, it was said, by a woman from Brechin. It was still raging at Aberdeen in September, and there were straggling cases as late as November of the following year (1648). The deaths from plague are put down at 1600, besides 140 in the adjacent fishing villages of Futtie and Torrie on either side of the Dee mouth. This enormous mortality ensued despite the usual rigorous measures—the removal of the infected to huts on the Links and Woolmanhill, a cordon of soldiers to shut them in, a gibbet for the disobedient, and “clengers” for the infected houses[1104]. This disastrous epidemic of 1647-1648 is the last that is heard of plague in Scotland.