William Fairlie

William Fairlie or Fairley (fl. 1570–1600) was an Edinburgh merchant and burgess.

Fairlie was frequently asked by Edinburgh town (burgh) council to survey and account for public works for the town council of Edinburgh. He was described as a "procurator" and a "collector" of the town's revenues.[1]

Career

The historian Michael Lynch has identified Fairlie as a member of an anti-Morton and anti-Ruthven faction on the burgh council in the early 1580s. His older brothers, Mungo and David Fairlie had been "queen's men" during the Marian civil war.[2]

On 17 January 1584 Fairlie and Alexander Oustian, a tailor, were made commissioners to go Alexander Beaton, Archdeacon of Lothian to ask him to surrender his benefice and the parsonage of Currie for the newly founded University of Edinburgh.[3] He was asked to raise funds to relieve those suffering from plague at Wemyss in Fife in August 1584.[4] In July 1585 he was asked to provide the "foul-clengers" on Edinburgh burgh moor, who disinfected plague victim's goods, with a staff topped with a wicker taper.[5]

Piracy

Farlie was commissioned by the town to investigate the claims of ship owners robbed by pirates. In February 1587 with the merchant John Robertson he took sworn statements from the merchants who had lost their London goods in the Sea Cat of Andrew Redpath. In July he was sent to the Convention of Royal Burghs in Dundee with instructions to get help to repel an English pirate haunting the mouth of the Firth. He was then to go Falkland Palace to get the consent of James VI for action against the pirate ship.[6]

Sailors from the Armada

On 28 October 1588 Fairlie and the Provost of Edinburgh, John Arnot of Birswick issued a pass for 46 Spanish and Italian sailors who had been shipwrecked on the coast of Ireland, and were to transported to France on the Mary Grace or Grace of God. The men had been crew or soldiers of the Ballanzara, (La Trinidad Valencera) wrecked in Ireland.[7]

In 1589 the English admiral George Beeston took a fleet to Scotland for an unknown purpose. On 1 June Beeston arrived in the Forth on the Vanguard followed by Edward Croft in the Tiger with the Achates. On 5 June some of the English crewmen came ashore into Edinburgh to shop and sightsee. Three got in fight in a tavern, one was stabbed, and as returned to Leith and their ship they were attacked by a group of Spanish sailors, survivors from the Armada shipwrecks. An English trumpet officer, was killed. Beeston and the English ambassador William Ashby had an audience with James VI on 7 June at the Palace of Holyroodhouse seeking an enquiry and justice. Ashby and Thomas Fowler wrote that the king treated the sailors honourably; James VI gave Beeston a locket set with diamonds and 100 gold crowns and gold chains and rings provided by the goldsmith Thomas Foulis to his captains.[8] James requested that Edinburgh town council give Beeston his three captains, and the English ambassadors an "honest banquet" in Nicol Edward's new house. The banquet was organised by William Fairlie.[9]

On 30 September 1589 Fairlie and others were sent to view and mark the bounds of the site for a new leper house founded by the donation of the merchant John Robertson who had vowed to found a hospice while in peril on the sea.[10]

On 18 February 1590 Fairlie, with Edward Galbraith, John Johnston, and Andrew Sclater, the town's master of work, was asked to survey St Mary's Chapel and its lands in Niddry's Wynd.[11]

Anne of Denmark

He was involved in the reception of Anne of Denmark.[12] He made an account for the gifts the town gave her, including a psalm book, a Bible, a jewel reworked by the goldsmith David Gilbert, and the canopy (or "paill") carried above her as she progressed through the town.[13] James Workman painted six staff carrying the paill. Robert Jousie supplied passementerie for the paill and purple velvet for bags for the books.[14] Fairlie was also tasked with Michael Chisholm to buy the food for a banquet given by the burgh to the Danish ambassadors, which was held in the lodging of Thomas Acheson, master of the mint, at the foot of Todrig's Wynd on 24 May.[15]

In August 1593 the burgh council sent him to Prestonpans to assess a ship belonging to Thomas Hallis which was impounded because the passengers from London were infected with plague. The passengers were isolated at Newhaven by Leith. In May 1595 he was sent to Aberlady to investigate a ship suspected of illegally exporting wheat with the assistance of the Laird of Kilspyndie.[16]

The dates of Fairlie's birth and death and details of his own mercantile business are unclear.

References
  1. James Marwick, Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh: 1573-1589 (Edinburgh, 1882), p. 326.
  2. Michael Lynch, Edinburgh and the Reformation (John Donald: Edinburgh, 2003), pp. 160, 166, 326-7.
  3. James Marwick, Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh: 1573-1589 (Edinburgh, 1882), p. 321-3, 326.
  4. James Marwick, Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh: 1573-1589 (Edinburgh, 1882), p. 346.
  5. James David Marwick, Extracts from the records of the Burgh of Edinburgh: 1573-1589 (Edinburgh, 1882), p. 432.
  6. James Marwick, Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh: 1573-1589 (Edinburgh, 1882), pp. 486-7.
  7. William Boyd, Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1586-1588, vol. 9 (Edinburgh, 1915), pp. 624 no. 532, 628 no. 538.
  8. Miles Kerr-Peterson & Michael Pearce (2020), pp. 11-2, 22-3: National Records of Scotland, Treasurer's accounts, June 1589.
  9. James Marwick, Extracts from the Burgh Records of Edinburgh: 1573-1589 (Edinburgh, 1882), p. 544.
  10. Marguerite Wood, Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh: 1589-1603 (Edinburgh, 1927), p. 6.
  11. Marguerite Wood, Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh: 1589-1603 (Edinburgh, 1927), p. 15.
  12. Lucinda Dean, ‘Enter the alien: foreign consorts and their royal entries into Scottish cities, c. 1449–1594’ in J.R. Mulryne, Marie Ines Aliverti, Anna Maria Trastaverde, Ceremonial entries in early modern Europe (Ashgate, 2015), pp. 267-295.
  13. Marguerite Wood, Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh: 1589-1603 (Edinburgh, 1927), pp. 4, 20-21: Edinburgh City Archives MS. ‘Bailies Accounts, Unlaws 1564-1664’, pp. 285-289, see external links for a transcript.
  14. Miles Kerr-Peterson & Michael Pearce, 'James VI's English Subsidy and Danish Dowry Accounts', Scottish History Society Miscellany XVI (Woodbridge, 2020), p. 4 fn. 13: Edinburgh City Archives MS. ‘Bailies Accounts, Unlaws 1564-1664’, pp. 285-289.
  15. Marguerite Wood, Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh: 1589-1603 (Edinburgh, 1927), p. 19.
  16. Marguerite Wood, Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh: 1589-1603 (Edinburgh, 1927), pp. 93-4, 133.
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