After consultation taken to
hear them and what answer to make, there presented us a very venerable
man of big stature, and grave and stout countenance, grey haired and
very humble like, who, after much and very low courtesie, bowing down
with his face near the ground, and touching my shoe with his hand, began
his harangue in the Spanish tongue, whereof I understood the substance;
and, I being about to answer in Latin, he having only a young man with
him to be his interpreter, [who] began and told over again to us in good
English.
[Footnote 350: The baillies of towns in Scotland are equivalent to
aldermen in England. The author here refers to the town of Anstruther, a
sea port town of Fife, on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth, of
which he was minister. There are two Anstruthers, easter and wester,
very near each other, and now separate parishes; but it does not appear
to which of these the present historical document refers: Perhaps they
were then one. - E.]
[Footnote 351: The town-house; but now generally applied to signify the
prison, then, and even now, often attached to the town hall. - E.]
The sum was, That king Philip his master had rigged out a navy and army
to land in England, for just causes to be avenged of many intollerable
wrongs which he had received of that nation.
