In a previous post I wrote about the intriguing Peter Goldman, doctor and scholar, who wrote a Latin poem - Description of the Desolation of Dundee - about the pestilence which affected Dundee in the early 17th century. (The full article can be found here.) This seems like an opportune time to have a look again at the general subject of pestilence and pandemics which, of course, are nothing new. One of the earliest Scottish artistic reactions to the sudden and terrifying appearance of pandemic was the great Robert Henryson's poem An Prayer for the Pest, which begins:
As it was in Henryson's Dunfermline, so it was in Goldman's Dundee. In between these two poetic reactions to the pestilence there was Hercules Rollock, who experienced and wrote about the plague in Edinburgh. Some of his poetry was included in the same 17th century compilation of neo Latin Scots verse which also included Goldman's poems, Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum (1637), though Rollock's descriptive verse De Peste Edinburgi, was written in 1585. The plague had arrived in Fife in 1584 and was spread to the capital by the following year. It ravaged through Edinburgh and indeed much of Scotland.
Rollock's poem shows a bustling city inflicted by the plague through God's will as a result of their sinning. His keen observations on the effect of the plague on the populace include hastily departing from the town - 'the fleeing troop of powerful citizens' -, though many stalwart citizens remains to help. Those who fled, Rollock warned, would be found by God, who 'will hunt [them] down with a keen-witted search'. The city was quickly put on quarantine and people barred from entry. Meetings in public, ‘quhairby infectioun daylie aryses’, were also banned. Rollock gave graphic descriptions of corpses being disposed of in the dead of night and other details about the dread calamity which befell the capital. But he ends the poem on a positive note, with the disease being cleared from the city.
Hercules Rollock was the newly installed principal of the High School in Edinburgh when the pestilence hit the burgh. According to William Steven, he was 'a man of genius and superior classical attainments'. He was born in Dundee around 1556, the eldest son of a burgess of Dundee named George Rollock (who died around 1569). Hercules matriculated at St Andrews University in 1564 and graduated in 1568. According to William Stevens, he was appointed a regent of Aberdeen University in 1562 (though this date may be incorrect) and afterwards went to England, but on the way there by sea was caught by pirates and robbed of his valuable books. He went to Europe and studied at Poitiers in France. When he returned to Scotland he based himself in Dundee again , and was operating as a notary public and also given an official role as commissary before the role was taken away and he migrated to Edinburgh and becoming master of the grammar schools there at the end of May 1584. There are notices of legal proceedings involving Rollock in the local burgh records of Dundee. Some of these involve his own family. In 1580 he was ordered to deliver to Margaret Rollok, relict of James Lovell, chirurgian, in the name of the lawful barnis of the said James, £20. In 1567, Lovell and Hercules Rollok were both witnesses to a deed for George Rollok, who was Hercules' father, so that it is likely that James Lovell's wife was a sister of Hercules. The Rollock family more generally will be considered later on.
Rollock's days in charge were numbered. A recently agreed increase in school fees was rescinded and he was charged with failing to maintain proper discipline. He was sacked from his position and unsuccessfully sued for damages at the Court of Session. He died in January 1599, having in the interval made a living by practising law.
In a previous post I mentioned the apparent feud between Gilbert Wedderburn, from a prominent Dundee family, and one branch of the Rollock kindred. In the 1540s Gilbert slew two members of the family and was obliged to flee the burgh and settle in Leith.
Beyond Dundee, the family held some lands in Angus. On 21st May, 1582, James Rollock, heir of George of Duncrub, his father,was retoured in the corn mill of Cambiston, in the barony of Downie £6 13s 4d; and in the half lands of Chapeltown of Balgowie or Over Corstoun- 4 merks, on 27th January. The barony of Downie subsequently came into possession of the Maules of Panmure. At the end of the century Sir Walter Rollock, and his sons Andrew and Alexander, was in dispute with the Gardyne family over property in Angus. Robert Rollock was ordained minister of Murroes in 1618, and was deposed in 1639 for the maintenance of universalist doctrines, and for non-residence.
Some of the family, while still distinguished citizens in the Dundee area, were involved in feuding and lawlessness. On 27th march 1602, John and Robert Mudie had to pay as surety the sum of £1000 not to harm William Rollock of Balbeggie. There was a further dispute three years later when factions came to loggerhead about representation to the town council, demonstrating it was mainly a disagreement about mercantile revenues. A claim was submitted to Commissioners of the Burghs but was rejected in July 1604. Dundee's magistrates later complained to the Privy Council that William Rollock, Walter Rollock, Robert Fleschour, James Finlaysoun and associates were stirring up 'the common multitude be the pretence and cloak of reform' and had tried to get 'the crafts to shake off their obediance to the magistrates and prevailed on them to hold public meetings and subscribe bands against the magistrates'. The Privy Council ordered the offenders to be committed to 'free ward' in a number of towns. They were, however, released shortly afterwards and the agitators are said to have set up 'seditious mutyneis'.
Records show a dispute in Dundee in October 1605, when Andrew Lamb, Commendator of Coupar, was commissioned to settle a dispute between James Wedderburn, son of the town clerk, and Robert Rollock. The nature of the dispute was not recorded and nor were any of the principal parties found at fault. However, a mariner named David Blyth had encouraged Rollock in his opposition to Wedderburn and:
Bridging The Continental Divide. Full text of Rollock's poem and English translation.
Nine Trades of Dundee
Karen Jillings, 'Hercules Rollock and the Edinburgh Plague of 1585,' The Bottle Imp, Issue 15, https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2014/06/hercules-rollock-and-the-edinburgh-plague-of-1585/
Steven J. Reid, 'Murder, Mayhem and the Muse in Jacobean Edinburgh: introducing Hercules Rollock (c. 1546-1599),' https://www.dps.gla.ac.uk/features/display/?fid=rollock1
Steven J. Reid, '"Quasi Sibyllae folia dispersa": the Anatomy of the Delititae Poetarum Scotorum (1637),' in Fresche fontanis : studies in the culture of medieval and early modern Scotland, ed.
Janet Hadley Williams; J Derrick McClure (Newcastle, 2013), pp. 397-414.
Timothy Slonosky, 'Civil Reformations: Religion In Dundee And Haddington C.1520-1565,' Phd. thesis, University of Pennsylvania (2014).
William Steven, The History of the High School of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1849).
O eterne god, of power infinyt,
To quhois hie knawledge na thing is of obscure
That is, or was, or evir salbe, perfyt,
in to thy sicht, quhill that this warld indure;
Haif mercy of us, Indigent and peure;
Thow dois na wrang to puneiss our offens:
O Lord, that is to mankynd haill succure,
Preserve us fra this perrelus pestilens.
As it was in Henryson's Dunfermline, so it was in Goldman's Dundee. In between these two poetic reactions to the pestilence there was Hercules Rollock, who experienced and wrote about the plague in Edinburgh. Some of his poetry was included in the same 17th century compilation of neo Latin Scots verse which also included Goldman's poems, Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum (1637), though Rollock's descriptive verse De Peste Edinburgi, was written in 1585. The plague had arrived in Fife in 1584 and was spread to the capital by the following year. It ravaged through Edinburgh and indeed much of Scotland.
Rollock's poem shows a bustling city inflicted by the plague through God's will as a result of their sinning. His keen observations on the effect of the plague on the populace include hastily departing from the town - 'the fleeing troop of powerful citizens' -, though many stalwart citizens remains to help. Those who fled, Rollock warned, would be found by God, who 'will hunt [them] down with a keen-witted search'. The city was quickly put on quarantine and people barred from entry. Meetings in public, ‘quhairby infectioun daylie aryses’, were also banned. Rollock gave graphic descriptions of corpses being disposed of in the dead of night and other details about the dread calamity which befell the capital. But he ends the poem on a positive note, with the disease being cleared from the city.
Hercules' Dundee Origins
Hercules Rollock was the newly installed principal of the High School in Edinburgh when the pestilence hit the burgh. According to William Steven, he was 'a man of genius and superior classical attainments'. He was born in Dundee around 1556, the eldest son of a burgess of Dundee named George Rollock (who died around 1569). Hercules matriculated at St Andrews University in 1564 and graduated in 1568. According to William Stevens, he was appointed a regent of Aberdeen University in 1562 (though this date may be incorrect) and afterwards went to England, but on the way there by sea was caught by pirates and robbed of his valuable books. He went to Europe and studied at Poitiers in France. When he returned to Scotland he based himself in Dundee again , and was operating as a notary public and also given an official role as commissary before the role was taken away and he migrated to Edinburgh and becoming master of the grammar schools there at the end of May 1584. There are notices of legal proceedings involving Rollock in the local burgh records of Dundee. Some of these involve his own family. In 1580 he was ordered to deliver to Margaret Rollok, relict of James Lovell, chirurgian, in the name of the lawful barnis of the said James, £20. In 1567, Lovell and Hercules Rollok were both witnesses to a deed for George Rollok, who was Hercules' father, so that it is likely that James Lovell's wife was a sister of Hercules. The Rollock family more generally will be considered later on.
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| Later view of Dundee from the south |
Drama at the Grammar School
In 1595, Rollock was removed from his post at the school because it was claimed his pupils there were acting violently. There was a custom called Barring Out at some schools of the period, whereby bands of pupils armed and barricaded themselves in school as a holiday approached in the hope of forcing the authorities to grant them extra holiday. An incident of this kind happened in 1580 and the burgh leaders were obliged to step in and end it. On the 15th September 1595, violence broke out again at the school. A group of people had asked for a week's holiday, called a 'privilege', but when it was turned down some of these 'gentilmenis bairnis' swore revenge. When Rollock rocked up at the school next day, it was closed against him and he had to summon a magistrate. Despite threats from inside, magistrate John Macmoran allowed his men to attack the entrance with a battering ram. He was shot in the head by a pupil, one William Sinclair, son of the Chancellor of Caithness. The barricade ended and the boys were locked up for seven months before coming to trial. Although the trial records are lost, it seems the juvenile culprits were all acquitted.
The Rollock Family in Dundee
One of the earliest noticies of the family in connection with Dundee is in the records of the Parliament of 1481. Among those attending was David Rollock from Dundee. Timothy Slonosky notes the prominence of various members of the Rollock family in Dundee during the 16th century, with representation on the various institutions within the burgh, but he admits that the relationship of the individuals is difficult to disentangle. Four members of the family served multiple terms as burgh councillors during the century. In the 1520s there were two people named Rollock represented. James Rollock and George Rollock are names included in a letter from king James V on 17th July, 1526, granting a charter to the Holy Blood altar in the kirk of Dundee. The multiple family members serving as officials between 1550 and 1563 seem to have been descended from George Rollock, who was treasurer of the burgh between 1520 and 1523. Another George was born in 1498 and died in 1562. His son was also called George. This branch held lands in Dudhope and also 'Kynreiche'.
A David Rollock was kirkmaster of Dundee and, in 1531, was involved in a dispute with William Silver over his claim to the parish clerkship of Dundee, a claim that pitted the Bishop of Brechin against the burgh. Another prominent family member was James Rollock, one of a number of prominent citizens who were brought to law for espousing the new reformed religion. At the same time, other prominent Protestants were targeted and forced to flee. George Wishart fled from Montrose into England. John Wedderburn and his brother James fled to Europe. A burgess of the burgh, Rollock was 'condemned for certain heresies'. But, rather than face condemnation, the well off merchant fled to Holland and became a businessman at Campvere. His brother David took over some of his belongings in Dundee. James became an active part of the exiled Scottish business community in the Low Countries town and assumed the role of 'Portar of Camfeir'.
In a previous post I mentioned the apparent feud between Gilbert Wedderburn, from a prominent Dundee family, and one branch of the Rollock kindred. In the 1540s Gilbert slew two members of the family and was obliged to flee the burgh and settle in Leith.
Beyond Dundee, the family held some lands in Angus. On 21st May, 1582, James Rollock, heir of George of Duncrub, his father,was retoured in the corn mill of Cambiston, in the barony of Downie £6 13s 4d; and in the half lands of Chapeltown of Balgowie or Over Corstoun- 4 merks, on 27th January. The barony of Downie subsequently came into possession of the Maules of Panmure. At the end of the century Sir Walter Rollock, and his sons Andrew and Alexander, was in dispute with the Gardyne family over property in Angus. Robert Rollock was ordained minister of Murroes in 1618, and was deposed in 1639 for the maintenance of universalist doctrines, and for non-residence.
Some of the family, while still distinguished citizens in the Dundee area, were involved in feuding and lawlessness. On 27th march 1602, John and Robert Mudie had to pay as surety the sum of £1000 not to harm William Rollock of Balbeggie. There was a further dispute three years later when factions came to loggerhead about representation to the town council, demonstrating it was mainly a disagreement about mercantile revenues. A claim was submitted to Commissioners of the Burghs but was rejected in July 1604. Dundee's magistrates later complained to the Privy Council that William Rollock, Walter Rollock, Robert Fleschour, James Finlaysoun and associates were stirring up 'the common multitude be the pretence and cloak of reform' and had tried to get 'the crafts to shake off their obediance to the magistrates and prevailed on them to hold public meetings and subscribe bands against the magistrates'. The Privy Council ordered the offenders to be committed to 'free ward' in a number of towns. They were, however, released shortly afterwards and the agitators are said to have set up 'seditious mutyneis'.
Records show a dispute in Dundee in October 1605, when Andrew Lamb, Commendator of Coupar, was commissioned to settle a dispute between James Wedderburn, son of the town clerk, and Robert Rollock. The nature of the dispute was not recorded and nor were any of the principal parties found at fault. However, a mariner named David Blyth had encouraged Rollock in his opposition to Wedderburn and:
Mr ANDRO found fault with him, and callit him ane evil neighbour, and said he suld accuse him as ane stayer of the peace of the town. DAVID answerit that he carit nocht for his challenge, he had been before the Privie Council of before, and he knew quhat a man Mr ANDRO wes; and that he [DAVID] wes as honest a man as Mr ANDRO, and that his father wes as honest as Mr ANDRO his father; and farder, say it that he knew Mr ANDRO would rail against him in the pulpit as Mr JAMES ROBERTSON did, but he cair'd nocht for it; and utherwayes misbehavit himself very irreverntly to Mr ANDRO.Blyth was placed in ward and the main parties were bound over to keep the peace.
Some Sources
Bridging The Continental Divide. Full text of Rollock's poem and English translation.
Nine Trades of Dundee
Karen Jillings, 'Hercules Rollock and the Edinburgh Plague of 1585,' The Bottle Imp, Issue 15, https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2014/06/hercules-rollock-and-the-edinburgh-plague-of-1585/
Steven J. Reid, 'Murder, Mayhem and the Muse in Jacobean Edinburgh: introducing Hercules Rollock (c. 1546-1599),' https://www.dps.gla.ac.uk/features/display/?fid=rollock1
Steven J. Reid, '"Quasi Sibyllae folia dispersa": the Anatomy of the Delititae Poetarum Scotorum (1637),' in Fresche fontanis : studies in the culture of medieval and early modern Scotland, ed.
Janet Hadley Williams; J Derrick McClure (Newcastle, 2013), pp. 397-414.
Timothy Slonosky, 'Civil Reformations: Religion In Dundee And Haddington C.1520-1565,' Phd. thesis, University of Pennsylvania (2014).
William Steven, The History of the High School of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1849).
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