ABSTRACT
It was around this time that Lithgow composed his lengthy poem, Scotlands Welcome to her Native Sonne, and soveraigne Lord, King Charles. Wherein is contained, the manner of his Coronation, and Convocation of Parliament; The whole Grievances, and abuses of the Common-wealth of this Kingdome, with diverse other relations, never heretofore published … By William Lithgow, the Bonaventure, of Europe, Asia, and Africa.64 After
dealing comparatively brieÁ y with the À rst topic of the title, a formal welcome to the King and praise of the Scots Parliament and Kirk, Lithgow launches (at p. 14) into an encomium of the Scots (see above, Chapter I, n. 12), followed by (pp. 21-57) a lengthy denunciation of Scotland’s current woes. After lamenting the passing of the good old days of lordly hospitality (though he himself had beneÀ ted much from it during his travels through the length and breadth of Scotland) and ‘the decay of good house keeping’, he inveighs against improvident, prodigal sons; landlords absent in London for the luxurious life possible in the English capital, thereby draining Scotland of its wealth; grasping lawyers; the neglect of woods and forests; appropriation of church tithes by laymen; the ruin and decay of grammar schools; runaway marriages in England of young Scots couples avoiding the consent of their parents and pastors; the export of cattle, sheep, horses, leather and salted herrings to England; the effeminacy of young men with long hair over their necks and shoulders, ‘That many doubt, if they bee Mayds, or Men, / Till that their Beards sprout foorth, and then they ken’; the use of tobacco, ‘that base stinking weed’, the smoking of pipes by women being especially unnatural; the indecency of wearing plaids, that is, kilts; ‘Colles’ and witches; usurers; vagabonding Greeks, with their false testimonials (see above, p. 45); the scarcity of small coins; the abuse of the title ‘Lord’, when the only true ones are the Lord Chancellor and the Lord President; the ruin of castles, fortiÀ cations and royal palaces; the need for more bridges over rivers to be built (the bridge over the Tay at Perth having been twice recently washed away); corsairs plaguing the seas around Britain; abuses by royal favourites (‘Minions’); the churches in the Borders and Highlands ruinous because of the lack of stipends for ministers; and so on. An envoi enjoins the King to cherish the Scots lords, starting with Hamilton, ‘my Princely Peere; / Thy choysest Subject, and thy Cousing Deare’, but denounces the Papist lords and Pope Urban (VIII), who ‘To Masculine mis’rye was Protector’. This section of the poem thus constitutes an interesting historical document, reÁ ecting as it does current Scottish attitudes.65
