James Mosman
James Cockie was made a free man at the same time, and the event was recorded in the craft minutes by Thomas Ewyn.
The purpose was to ensure the reputation of the goldsmith's craft and the consistency and worth of gold and silver products made and exchanged.
The craft deacon would help clients and makers agree of the prices of elaborate products, including 'curious works of silver such as goblets, cups, pieces with double colour overgilt, graven or chiselled with antiques [renaissance style ornament], mazer, basin, or laver, eucharist, great crosses, flagons, cruet, chandler [lamp], saltfat [saltcellar] and "trownsam", raised works and overgilt'.
[4] One of the craft records includes a list of materials used by goldsmiths in the 16th century, giving some idea of their use of technology and technique, "hanmilling of all cuilouris (enamel) to be sett under the staines of ringis, subleim argiston, antemonium sublimatum, tent, sandesier, haloume (alum), caperowes (copperas), salpeiter (saltpetre), verdigris, aqua fortus (acid), symound (solder), winstaine, brounstaine (brimstone), saigbanis, croithes, quicksilver, hormalaye (ormolu, a gilding technique).
"[5] Soon after Mosman became a full member of the craft, he and his wife Marion Arres were given permission in May 1557 by Mary of Guise to extend the cellars of another house they owned under the High Street.
[18][19] In 1570, James Mosman and Mariota Arres bought the lands of Currie and Longherdmanston (Hermiston) from Edward Hume and Christine Frog.
[28] The two goldsmiths helped raise money for the Captain of the castle, William Kirkcaldy of Grange, on the security of the jewels of Mary, Queen of Scots, which were used as pledges for loans from her supporters.
[33] On the day the castle fell to an English army led by William Drury, many of Mary's jewels were in Mosman's hands as pledges, and he passed them to Kirkcaldy of Grange,[34] who placed them in a chest wrapped in a cloth, "an evill favored clowte",[35] or in his hose.
[43] Mosman seems to have entrusted a sum of money to the soldier Andrew Lambie, Captain of Linlithgow Palace in May 1573, intending him to give it to his father-in-law, the lawyer Alexander King.
[44] Mosman's property was forfeited for a time,[45] and granted to John Carmichael, younger of that Ilk, who was a trusted lieutenant of Regent Morton.
[46] His son John Mosman, Janet King, and James Cockie's children were given pacifications by the Parliament of Scotland in October 1581.
[48] A communion cup made by John Mosman in 1585, (probably the elder), used at Rosneath Kirk survives, and is held by the National Museums of Scotland.
An earlier will inventory, made at the death of his first wife Katherine Sym in 1586, includes unset diamonds, rubies, sapphires, turquoises, pearls, and garnets.
In November he wrote to Mary asking for a reward as the son of her "grace's master coiner and true subject", enough to start a trade and support his brothers and sisters.
[53] John Mosman was interviewed in London by the Scottish poet and spy William Fowler, who found him plain and simple and fit only for carrying letters.
Fowler advised Walsingham that Mosman could be caught carrying letters of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the French diplomat La Mothe Fénelon in a ship at Gravesend.
[55] The English ambassador in Scotland, Robert Bowes wrote to Walsingham in June 1583 that John Mosman was ready to go by "privily by land to London, with good store of letters" for Michel de Castelnau.
[56] Coded letters mentioning Mary's intention to reward John Mosman with 100 Écu were discovered in the Bibliothèque nationale de France and deciphered in 2023.
