James Mosman or Mossman (died 1573) was a Scottish goldsmith. He and his son John Mosman were supporters of the cause of Mary, Queen of Scots. James Mosman was executed in 1573 for counterfeiting coins in Edinburgh Castle.P. F. Tytler, History of Scotland, 7 (Edinburgh, 1842), p. 388. John Mosman carried letters for Mary, Queen of Scots, and was under surveillance by Francis Walsingham.
Early career in the craft He was a son of John Mosman, a goldsmith working in Edinburgh. He married Mariota Arres, and secondly in 1571, Janet King. Mosman and Arres rebuilt the John Knox House on the High Street in Edinburgh. Moubray House is adjacent to the west. James Mosman was made a free man of the Edinburgh goldsmith craft on 1 May 1557, and as was customary he paid for a banquet. James Cockie was made a free man at the same time, and the event was recorded in the craft minutes by Thomas Ewyn.Jean Munro & Henry Steuart Fotheringham, Edinburgh Goldsmith's Minutes: 1525–1700 (Edinburgh: SRS, 2006), p. 23, A19.
Free men of the goldsmith craft were required make an oath and answer an examination. The questions discussed weights and measures in Scottish and English use, and fineness in grains, deniers, and carats. 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.Jean Munro & Henry Steuart Fotheringham, Edinburgh Goldsmith's Minutes: 1525–1700 (Edinburgh: SRS, 2006), p. 17–19. The craft had a body of rules and statutes. These included guidance on pricing works made for a client or "owner" in silver or gold. 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'.Jean Munro & Henry Steuart Fotheringham, Edinburgh Goldsmith's Minutes: 1525–1700 (Edinburgh: SRS, 2006), p. 214 C29, (modernised here).
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)."Jean Munro & Henry Steuart Fotheringham, Edinburgh Goldsmith's Minutes: 1525–1700 (Edinburgh: SRS, 2006), pp. 214–215, C30.
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. This house was on the south side of the Royal Mile between houses belonging to Alan Dickson and Richard Hoppar.Register of the Privy Seal: 1556-1567, 5:1 (Edinburgh, 1957), p. 27 no. 125.
On 16 December 1558, Mosman weighed and valued the treasures of St Giles' Kirk including the reliquary of Saint Giles' arm bone.James Marwick, Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh: 1557-1571 (Edinburgh, 1875), pp. 27-8 In 1564, the burgh council paid him 40 shillings for a timber staircase removed from the Blackfriar's monastery.Robert Adam, Old Accounts, 2 (Edinburgh, 1899), p. 178.
Mosman and Mary, Queen of Scots James Mosman gained an extra responsibility in the craft in July 1563, when Thomas Ewyn, as Deacon, and the other master goldsmiths elected him box master. The box master was a kind of treasurer, holding the money collected from members of a craft. The craft decided to make a new box for the money with two keys. The craft's hallmark punch would be kept in the box.Jean Munro & Henry Steuart Fotheringham, Edinburgh Goldsmith's Minutes: 1525–1700 (Edinburgh: SRS, 2006), p. 23, C41.
James Mosman and his workshop made gold chains for Mary, Queen of Scots, to give as diplomatic gifts,James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer: 1559-1566, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1916), pp. 344, 352, 360. and for this work, in 1561, Mary gave his servant workmen a reward of money known as drinksilver.Accounts of the Treasurer: 1559-1566, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1916), p. 76. He was an Assay Master at the Scottish mint and made dies for the coinage.Donald Smith, John Knox House: Gateway to Edinburgh's Old Town (Edinburgh, 1991), p. 21. Other mint officers included, David Forrest, General of the coin house, Andrew Henderson, warden, John Balfour, comptroller warden, and James Gray, sinker or maker of dies. Grey was another goldsmith, he sold pearls to Mary and refashioned and mended a basin and laver for her.James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer: 1559-1566, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1916), p. 492.
In April 1566, Mosman sold the queen rings and other pieces which were probably intended as presents to her attendants.James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer: 1559-1566, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1916), pp. 76, 344, 352, 360, 492. In 1567 he was converting a piece of Mary, Queen of Scots' jewelry when she was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle.William Boyd, Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 4 (Edinburgh, 1905), p. 616. Mosman gave this chain set with little diamonds, which he was making into a hairband garnishing, to Robert Melville, and his brother Andrew Melville of Garvock took it to the captive queen.Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of Scotland: Mary Stuart, 6 (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1856), pp. 31–32: Joseph Robertson, Inventaires de la Royne Descosse (Edinburgh, 1863), p. clvi.
In May 1568, Mosman was made Deacon of the Edinburgh Goldsmith Craft.Jean Munro & Henry Steuart Fotheringham, Edinburgh Goldsmith's Minutes (Edinburgh: SRS, 2006), p. 27, A35. When Mary was at Bolton Castle in August 1568, her English keeper Francis Knollys mentioned that her household included a goldsmith. Knollys worried that this man might counterfeit seals from wax impressions for forged letters.Joseph Bain, Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1563-1569, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1900), p. 481 no. 768: Thomas Wright, Queen Elizabeth and her times, 1 (London, 1838), p. 294 The identity of this goldsmith is unknown, it may have been Mosman, who could have travelled in England at this time with Andrew Melville, or possibly the French goldsmith "Ginone Loysclener" who worked for Mary in July 1565.Charles McKean, "Renaissance in the North", J.M. Fladmark, Heritage and Identity: Shaping the Nations of the North (Routledge, 2015), p. 141: Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland, 11 (Edinburgh, 1916), pp. liv, 373.John Daniel Leader, Mary Queen of Scots in Captivity (Sheffield, 1880), pp. 35, 185.
Currie and Hermiston
In 1570, James Mosman and Mariota Arres bought the lands of Currie and Longherdmanston (Hermiston) from Edward Hume and Christine Frog. A royal charter for the property was certified by a relative, the notary "sir" John Mosman who frequently appears in the registers of royal grants.John Maitland Thomson, Register of the Great Seal of Scotland, 4 (Edinburgh, 1886), p. 497 no. 1928 He was also clerk of court of the Admiralty of Scotland. His title "sir" was a courtesy title used by Scottish graduates. He was described as a notary in the diocese of Glasgow in 1548.John Maitland Thomson, Register of the Great Seal of Scotland, 4 (Edinburgh, 1886), p. 329 no. 1451. It is often said that James Mosman the goldsmith was knighted in 1565, and used the title "Sir", but there is no evidence for this, the charters record him as an Edinburgh burgess.Donald Smith, John Knox House: Gateway to Edinburgh's Old Town (Edinburgh, 1991), pp. 21, 28, 72.
The charter for Currie also mentions a sasine of another goldsmith Nicolas Sym.Daniel Wilson, Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time, 2 Edinburgh, 1891): John Maitland Thomson, Register of the Great Seal of Scotland, 4 (Edinburgh, 1886), p. 497 no. 1928.Peter Miller, "John Knox and his Manse", PSAS (1891), pp. 141, 153. Some of these lands were forfeited in 1573,Peter Miller, "John Knox and his Manse", PSAS (1891), p. 141: John Maitland Thomson, Register of the Great Seal of Scotland, 4 (Edinburgh, 1886), p. 560 no. 2135 but were recovered by John Mosman, the goldsmith's son, who sold them to James Forrester of Corstorphine in 1582.James Balfour Paul, Scots Peerage, 4 (Edinburgh, 1907), p. 89
Mariota Arres died in 1571, and soon after James Mosman married Janet King. She was a daughter of Alexander King, an Edinburgh advocate.David McOmish, 'A Community of Scholarship', Steven J. Reid & David McOmish, Neo-Latin Literature and Literary Culture in Early Modern Scotland (Brill, 2017), p. 63.
Marian Civil War James Mosman remained loyal to Mary when she was exiled in England. He worked in Edinburgh Castle with another goldsmith James Cockie making coins for Mary's supporters who held the castle during the "Lang Siege" of the Marian Civil War. Cockie and Mosman were relations by marriage.Lyndsay McGill, "Scottish Renaissance Jewels in the National Collection: making and makers", Anna Groundwater, Decoding the Jewels (Sidestone, 2024), p. 109. On 21 March 1572/3, Mosman was at Morham, a witness to the will of Agnes Sinclair, Countess of Bothwell, mother of Patrick Hepburn, 3rd Earl of Bothwell."Letters of Assedation to Agnes Countess of Bothwell", Bannatyne Miscellany, 3 (Edinburgh, 1855), p. 304.
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. Mosman may have been a Catholic, as some of Mary's supporters in the castle were.Lyndsay McGill, 'Scottish Renaissance Jewels in the National Collection: making and makers', Anna Groundwater, Decoding the Jewels (Sidestone, 2024), p. 109. As the crisis continued, Mosman lost his job as Master of the Royal Assay at the mint in April 1572,Harry Potter, Edinburgh Under Siege, 1571–1573 (Stroud: Tempus, 2003), p. 97: Michael Lynch, Edinburgh and the Reformation (Edinburgh: John Donald, 2003), p. 345: Donald Smith, John Knox House: Gateway to Edinburgh's Old Town (Edinburgh, 1991), p. 25. and his property was declared forfeit at a meeting of Parliament at Holyrood Palace on 30 April 1573.Thomas Thomson, Diurnal of Occurrents (Edinburgh, 1833), pp. 330–331. Regent Morton later wrote that Mosman and Cockie "made the conterfeit money".P. F. Tytler, History of Scotland, 7 (Edinburgh: Tait, 1842), p. 388.
Mosman and his colleagues set up an alternative mint in the castle to coin silver, while Regent Morton minted coins at Dalkeith.Michael Lynch, Edinburgh and the Reformation (John Donald, 2003), p. 147. The chronicle known as the Diurnal of Occurrents says that the coins minted in the castle were finer in silver content than the Dalkeith money, which undercut the castle operation.Thomas Thomson, A diurnal of remarkable occurrents that have passed within Scotland (Edinburgh, 1833), pp. 297–98, 345
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,HMC, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Salisbury at Hatfield House, 2 (London, 1888), no. 148. who placed them in a chest wrapped in a cloth, "an evill favored clowte",John J. Reid & Alexander J. S. Brook, 'The Scottish Regalia', PSAS (December 1889), p. 54: Inventaires (Edinburgh, 1863), p. clii. or in his hose.Thomas Wright, Queen Elizabeth and her times, 1 (London, 1838), p. 482