There was a court in Edinburgh dealing with small debts. The officers of the court auctioned goods to settle claims on market days at Edinburgh's Mercat Cross. In September 1600, Jonet Cheyne or Schene produced a garnet garnishing for auction which she had been given as a pledge for a loan of £84 Scots made…
Margaret Purves and George Litilljohn had a booth on Edinburgh’s royal mile, selling hats and textile accessories. They also supplied goods to stallholders known as “cramers” for resale. Much of their stock was imported from Flanders and debts for merchandise in Flemish money are listed in Margaret’s 1606 will. The business model seems very similar…
Thomas Bruce, Earl of Elgin (1599-1663) was keen to acquire a portrait that he had heard was a masterpiece, the sitter being someone he admired. He was anxious this new treasure would not be spoiled in transit. He sent these instructions to his cousin Alexander Bruce at the Hague on 15 September 1659. Bruce had…
A Dundee merchant’s letter offering dress fabrics, June 1573 Peter Clayhills wrote to Agnes Leslie, Lady Lochleven, sending her order of fabrics. He offered her summer dress fabrics, and velvet from the stock that had ‘come home’, and cloth he expected to arrive at midsummer. One fabric was 'very light for gowning in summer'. This…
Among the papers of Mary of Guise there is a record of cloth of gold bought in 1548 for three gowns for Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587). Her agent Henri Cleutin, sieur d’Oysel, was instructed to buy the fabric from merchants who supplied the French court. Cleutin, known as a diplomat, as a soldier during the…
Buying timber for building in early seventeenth-century Scotland: from Sweden or on the shore of Leith. Much timber for furniture and building was imported from Norway and Baltic sources and ports, as far east as Königsberg, now Kaliningrad in Russia.[1] Imported timber for Edinburgh and the Forth valley was stored and sold at the ‘Tymber…
Mary Dudley Sutton (1586-1644) was a cousin of Lucy, Countess of Bedford and a friend of Lady Ann Clifford. She married Alexander, Earl of Home on 11 July 1605 at Bedford House on the Strand. Latin verse in 1617 celebrated her marriage and her 'English hand' rebuilding Dunglass Castle as an example for the Union…
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