Hilderston, West Lothian
[8] Hamilton obtained a specific "tack" to work mine and minerals in Linlithgowshire on 26 June 1606 (presumably after the silver discovery), and subsequently gained permission to "draw levels, waterways, sinks, conducts, shafts" and build "fire-works (furnaces), water works, dwelling houses" and cut peats and timber, to extract his Majesty's metals.
[9] Hamilton employed the English mining entrepreneur Bevis Bulmer partnered with his brother-in-law, the Scottish goldsmith and financier Thomas Foulis.
[12] He was able to use the Privy Council to browbeat other Linlithgowshire landowners, like James Ross of Wardlaw, who held Tartraven, just east of Hilderston and had refused to allow the miners on his land.
A "miner, pick-man, windaisman (winch-handler), fire-man (furnace workers) or any workman" departing without written licence was liable to arrest.
[20] On 25 November, King James gave a commission to an official from the Royal Mint, Edmund Doubleday (a tall Middle Temple lawyer said to have arrested Guy Fawkes), and Bevis Bulmer to survey the site and examine the stockpiled ore in the winter of 1607/8, and take a quantity for assay.
The Privy Council of Scotland had reservations about this apparent appropriation of private property, but John Arnot of Birswick produced Hamilton's letter agreeing to satisfy the royal commission in all points.
The Chancellor of Scotland, the Earl of Dunfermline felt all the metallurgy was beyond his expertise, and "professed plain ignorance of all experience in these subterraneall works".
Whyte said more royal commissioners were to set out for Scotland, and if all reports "prove true, his Majesty's empty coffers will be filled, and his great debts paid".
He apologised for any show of resistance to John Arnot at the end of January, which may have offended King James, "I should sooner have offered to have been buried in the bottom of the work, nor to have [rather than have] meaned to any possession to your majesties miscontentment".
Boderie linked the profits with King James's continued interest in forming a full political union between England and Scotland with one Parliament.
[30] In London, in March or Lenten term 1608, a play opened apparently on the theme of the Scottish silver bonanza, performed by the Children of the Queen's Revels at the Blackfriars Theatre, and was promptly closed after offending King James.
[32] On 8 April, the French ambassador, Antoine Lefèvre de la Boderie, mentioned it slandered James, his Scottish mine, and his favourites.
[39] The near-contemporary historian David Calderwood described the gestation of the mine's initially modest reputation over nine months, until the King was moved to send for Hamilton.
[40] In fact, James commanded Hamilton to come to London, bringing his charters for the mine, on 11 February, ten weeks after sending his commissioners north in November.
[42] The Venetian ambassador Zorzi Giustinian had heard before Christmas 1607 that James had asked his council to find the legal means to work the mine, at the instance of the Earl of Dunbar.
[45] A joke about "mines" and facial expressions had been current at the French court in 1602 after reports of discoveries of gold and silver, made by a wit or buffoon called La Regnardière or Renardière.
[48] Lady Jane Drummond wrote to Thomas Hamilton in May 1608, mentioning that she had told the queen that King James had compensated him for the mine and congratulating him on this windfall payment, and on the birth of a daughter, who he had christened Anna.
[49] Jane Drummond wrote; "I acquentit hir Maiesti with your gud luk; for the king no shuner gaive you mony for your mynd, bot God send you a chyld to bestow it on".
[52] Robert Cecil presumed the assay of sample ore examined would "little vary" in the expected yield of many thousands of tons of ore.[53] Zorzi Giustinian wrote of vain hopes of riches and exaggerated rumour.
[56] The Scottish Privy Council cancelled its act to return the keys of the mine buildings to Thomas Hamilton after the commission ran its course.
[59] Some extracts and quotations from the manuscript account books, which continue to 10 December 1610, were published in Gold Mynes in Scotland (1825) and by Robert William Cochran-Patrick in 1878.
The accounts mention the building of a refining mill for silver at Leith, but this project seems to have been abandoned in favour of the site by Linlithgow Loch.
[65] Miners who were injured or ill had sick pay at half the daily rate, including Henry Rice who was given £6 to return to Cornwall.
[72] The German expert Martin Smeddell came to meet Godolphin, summoned from working at nearby "Killeith" or Kinleith burn, a stream that joins the Water of Leith at Currie.
Palmer advised Salisbury to withhold information about the assay and prevent Thomas Knyvet at the Tower Mint releasing Scottish ore to refiners before further tests were completed.
[80] The French ambassador, Boderie, sent an agent, Robert le Maçon, Sieur de la Fontaine, who had known George Bruce of Carnock for 20 years, to inspect the mines and countryside in October 1608.
[82] After doubtful smelting experiments in an ironmaster's furnace at Maresfield in Sussex, in December, it was apparent that the Hilderston ore was of varying quality.
[87] In 1870 the mine was re-opened for investigation, no significant silver was found, and discarded nickeline or niccolite and baryta from the older workings was shipped to Germany to be processed for nickel and barium.
He heard that the collier Sandy Maund had found a piece of heavy "red-mettle" veined with threads or hairs and a curious brown spar-stone near the Hilderston burn.
He showed the rocks to a more knowledgeable friend, Robert Stewart (bailie of Linlithgow) saying, according to Atkinson, that he had found them in the "Silver burn" by Cairnpapple.
