FOOTNOTES:
[664] A pretty large list of Scottish monumental effigies might still be made. Descriptions of monuments furnished to me by the Rev. J. H. Hughes, and George Seton, Esq., include nearly sixty, many of which contain two recumbent figures, and to these considerable additions might be made, while many more empty niches suffice to shew where others once have lain.
[665] Memorials of Edin. vol. ii. p. 169.
[666] Archæologia Scotica, vol. i. p. 260.
[667] Graham's Monuments of Iona, p. 19. Plate XXXIII.
[668] Transactions Cambridge Camden Soc. vol. i. p. 177.
[669] Akerman's Archæological Index. Plate XIX. fig. 6.
[670] Archæol. Scotica, vol. iv. p. 122.
[671] Smith's St. Columba, p. 45.
[672] The word Termon implies church lands, and is also used in the sense of a sanctuary.
[673] Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, 8vo, p. 252.
[675] Menstir, a reliquary; poolire, a leathern bookcase or satchel. Vide Dr. Petrie's illustrations, ibid., pp. [336]-342.
[676] Eccles. Architecture of Ireland, 8vo, p. 252.
[677] Archæological Journal, vol. v. p. 329.
[678] Burgh Records of Glasgow. Mait. Club, p. 104.
[679] Regist. Epis. Glasgu., Plates II. and V.
[680] Davidis Camerarii de Scotorum, &c., Paris, 1631. Note in Liber Col. Nost. Dom. Glasgu.
[681] Burgh Records of Glasgow, p. 100.
[682] Among the valuable ecclesiastical bells in Mr. Bell's collection are those of St. Ringan, St. Ruadan, St. Columba, St. Patrick, and the celebrated Bearnan brighde, or gapped bell of St. Brigid, so called from the gap or injury which tradition affirms it to have received when flung by St. Patrick in the midst of the venomous reptiles which he was banishing from the green isle!
[683] Inquis. at Capit. Dom. Regis Retornatum Perth., NN. 708, 880.
[684] Sinclair's Stat. Acc., vol. xix. p. 318.
[685] MS. Letter from J. Campbell, Esq. of Kilberry Castle.
[686] Airley Papers, Spalding Miscellany, vol. iv. pp. 117, 118.
[687] Regist. Episc. Aberdon., vol i. pp. 327, 328; Spalding Miscellany, vol. iv. Pref. p. xxii.
[688] Sinclair's Stat. Acc. vol. xvii. p. 377.
[689] Sinclair's Stat. Acc., vol. xiv. p. 208.
[690] Archæol. Scot., vol iii. p. 289.
[691] The Charter is printed in full in the Reliquiæ Antiquæ Scoticæ, No. xxxv. p. 150.
[692] Rev. Æneas M'Donell Dawson.
[693] Archæologia, vol. xxii. Plate XXXIII.
[694] I have ventured on two slight alterations of Sir Walter Scott's reading of the original inscription, which seem indispensable for making sense of it. What he calls "the puzzling letters Hr," there can be little doubt is the Celtic Hi, or island. The concluding words of the first part, which Sir Walter renders illdra. ipa, and then extends to illorum opera, somewhat to the confusion both of derivation and grammar, become by the simple substitution of an e for an r—letters nearly similar in the old Gothic character—ill. dea. ipa, fully admitting of the rendering above suggested. Not having seen the cup myself, I must leave the date for determination by some future observer; but from the character of the lettering it is probable that it will prove at least a century later, the ix. being more likely an m, which would assign it to the memorable year in which Malcolm, Margaret, and Edgar died. Vide note E., Lord of the Isles.
[695] Fountainhall's Historical Notices, Bann. Club, vol. ii. p. 498.
[696] Archæol. Journ., vol. iii. p. 361.
[697] Journal of the Archæological Association, vol. iv. p. 403.
[698] Archæological Journal, vol. vii. p. 81. Vide also vol. vi. p. 189.
[699] This quaint version of an old popular error forms the crest of more than one Scottish family, but there is no indication of its being introduced on the mazer as a heraldic device, or symbolic reference to its original owner.
[700] Archæologia, vol. xxxi. p. 437.
[701] Archæological Journal, vol. vi. p. 71.
CHAPTER IX.
MISCELLANEOUS ANTIQUITIES.
The numerous relics which illustrate the arts and manners of the Medieval Period have already furnished English and foreign antiquaries with copious materials for large and valuable treatises on single selected departments, nor is the field of Scottish medieval art greatly less productive. It is not, however, designed in this closing chapter to do more than select a few characteristic examples of a very miscellaneous character, which are worthy of a passing glance in a treatise on Scottish Archæology, though they pertain to a branch of the subject which can only be satisfactorily dealt with in detached monographs. Of medieval personal ornaments it would be vain to attempt the most cursory enumeration in a closing chapter; but their value as elements of medieval history is altogether different from those of the primitive periods heretofore referred to. Whatever exhibits to us the artistic skill, the ingenuity, and the personal habits of a past age, cannot be without interest to the historian; but we manifestly stand in a very different position in relation to those accessories of history when dealing with comparatively recent and literate ages.
Gold Ring, Flodden Field.
One branch of medieval art—the fictile ware—naturally possesses peculiar attraction to the Archæologist, as the offspring of the primitive arts already minutely considered. So far as may be judged of Scottish medieval pottery from the few examples preserved, it does not greatly differ from contemporary English fictile ware. One curious specimen found in 1833 at Perclewan, in the parish of Dalrymple, Ayrshire, is described as "a pitcher of earthenware like that represented in prints in the hand of the woman of Samaria, at the well of Sychar."[702] It is glazed, as is most usual with medieval pottery, of a greenish colour, and is curiously decorated on the front with the face and hands of a man in relief. From the description it appears to bear a close resemblance to a fictile vessel found at the bottom of an old well, discovered under the foundation of houses in Cateaton Street, City, London, taken down in 1841.[703]
Several fine specimens of medieval pottery were dug up a few years since on the estate of Courthill, in the vicinity of Dalry, Ayrshire, and are now in the possession of the proprietor, Andrew Crawford, Esq. Nearly at the same time a remarkable antique sword was discovered at Courthill. The blade, which was of iron, was so greatly corroded that only a fragment of it could be removed; but the handle is of bronze, in the form of a dragon, and is described as characterized by considerable elegance.
Fragments of pottery, of a similar character to the most abundant class of early English medieval pottery, were dug up at a considerable depth, during the progress of excavations on the Castlehill of Edinburgh in 1849, for constructing a large reservoir, but they were unfortunately too much broken by the workmen to admit of any very definite idea being formed of their shape. The annexed woodcut is from an example in my own possession, which was dug up a few years since in the ancient tumular cemetery in the neighbourhood of North-Berwick Abbey, East-Lothian. It measures eleven and a quarter inches in height, and about five and a half inches in greatest diameter, and is covered, both externally and internally, with the usual greenish glaze, common on contemporary English pottery. Various similar specimens appear to have been discovered in the same locality, but in most cases only to be destroyed,—such coarse earthenware being naturally regarded as scarcely worth the trouble of removing. The example figured here represents a small but very curious specimen of Scottish fictile ware, in the collection at Penicuick House, of the precise age of which we have tolerably accurate evidence. It was found on one of the neighbouring farms in the year 1792, filled with coins of Alexander III., and of Edward I. and II. of England. It measures only three and three quarters inches in height; and is perforated at nearly uniform intervals with holes, as shewn in the engraving. It is of rude unglazed earthenware, and is unsymmetrical, as represented here.
Another class of relics found in considerable numbers at North-Berwick, as well as in various other districts, are small tobacco pipes, popularly known in Scotland by the names of Celtic or Elfin pipes, and in Ireland, where they are even more abundant, as Dane's pipes. The woodcut represents one of those found at North-Berwick, the size of the original. To what period these curious relics belong, I am at a loss to determine. The popular names attached to them manifestly point to an era long prior to that of Sir Walter Raleigh and the Maiden Queen, or of the royal author of "A Counterblast to Tobacco," and the objects along with which they have been discovered, would also seem occasionally to lead to similar conclusions, in which case we shall be forced to assume that the American weed was only introduced as a superior substitute for older narcotics. Hemp may in all probability have formed one of these. It is still largely used in the East for this purpose; but Mr. C. K. Sharpe informs me that even in his younger days it was common for the old wives of Annandale to smoke a dried white moss gathered on the neighbouring moors, which they declared to be much sweeter than tobacco, and to have been in use before the American weed was heard of. I leave the subject, however, for further investigation, only adding one or two examples of the circumstances under which these Elfin pipes have been found. The ancient cemetery at North-Berwick is in the vicinity of a small Romanesque building of the twelfth century, and close upon the sea shore. Within the last fifty years the sea has made great encroachments, carrying off a considerable ruin, and exposing the skeletons of the old tenants of the cemetery, along with many interesting relics of former generations, at almost every spring tide. Notices of similar discoveries of the Elfin pipe occur in several of the Scottish Statistical Accounts under various circumstances, but some of them certainly suggestive of their belonging to a remote era: e.g.—
"Many of the ancient British encampments appear in the parish [of Kirkmichael, Dumfriesshire.] Upon some of these being opened ashes have been found, likewise several broken querns or hand-mills, and in one of them, upon the farm of Gilrig, with a partition crossing it, and which seems to have been occupied during later times, there was dug out a sword having a basket-hilt, but so much covered with rust that it was impossible to form any accurate opinion respecting its antiquity. There was also seen a number of pipes of burnt clay, with heads somewhat smaller than that of the tobacco-pipe now in use, swelled at the middle and straiter at the top."[704] Again,
"Till lately, one of those remarkable monuments of antiquity, called standing stones, stood at Cairney Mount, (parish of Carluke, Lanarkshire,) but the hope of finding a hidden treasure induced some rude hand to destroy it. It is supposed to have stood at the side of a Roman road passing from Lanark across the bridge of the Mouse beneath Cartland Crags.... A celt or stone hatchet; Elfin-bolts, (flint and bone arrow-heads); Elfin pipes, (pipes with remarkably small bowls); numerous coins of the Edwards, and of later date, have been found in the neighbourhood."[705] An example is also noted of the discovery of a tobacco pipe in sinking a pit for coal at Misk, in Ayrshire, after digging through many feet of sand.[706]
Some of the Scottish and Irish Elfin pipes are even smaller than the example figured above, and seem still better adapted for the recreations of "the good people" to whom their origin is popularly ascribed. Others are ornamented with patterns in relief, and many of them, though not generally of the very smallest size, are stamped with figures or devices. One example in the possession of Mr. C. K. Sharpe, found at a depth of many feet on the Castlehill of Edinburgh, bears the impress of the initials
TB;
L
and of upwards of seventy specimens in the collection of Mr. Bell of Dungannon, some are stamped R D, and on others are the letters G Λ, C L,
o
oHo,
and I P.
The annexed woodcut represents a still more curious relic, apparently pertaining to the same class of objects, though greatly more primitive in form and construction. It appears to be a tobacco pipe fashioned in red sandstone in the form of an animal's head, and with the perforation for inserting the straw or reed by which it must have been completed, made obliquely through one of the eyes. It was found in digging a drain at the village of Morningside, at the base of the Pentland Hills, where numerous traces of primitive population have been brought to light, and was presented to me by Dr. David Skae, Physician of the Royal Asylum there. It is figured here about two-thirds the size of the original.
In the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries there is a curious collection of Irish "Danes' pipes," precisely similar in form to those found in Scotland. A variety of examples of the same kind, found both in England and Ireland, are also figured in the Dublin Penny Magazine,[707] along with certain "clay pipe-stoppers, evidently appendages to pipes with small bowls," but which those who can still remember the obsolete fashions of the past generation have no difficulty in recognising as the periwig curlers of much more recent times than the Danes, if not the Elves! The conclusion arrived at by the writer in the Dublin Penny Magazine is, that these Danes' pipes are neither more nor less than tobacco pipes, the smallest of them pertaining to the earlier years of Queen Elizabeth's reign, when the rarity and value of tobacco rendered the most diminutive bowl sufficiently ample for the enjoyment of so costly a luxury. From this he traces them down to the reign of Charles II., by the increasing dimensions of the bowl. It is not improbable that these conclusions may be correct, notwithstanding the apparent indications of a much earlier origin, which circumstances attendant on their occasional discovery have seemed to suggest. The following description of a curious Scottish memorial of the luxury would, however, seem at least to prove that we must trace the introduction of tobacco into this country to a date much nearer the discovery of the New World by Columbus than the era of Raleigh's colonization of Virginia. The grim old Keep of Cawdor Castle, associated in defiance of chronology with King Duncan and Macbeth, is augmented, like the majority of such Scottish fortalices, by additions of the sixteenth century. In one of the apartments of this later erection, is a stone chimney, richly carved with armorial bearings and the grotesque devices common on works of the period. Among these are a mermaid playing the harp, a monkey blowing a horn, a cat playing a fiddle, and a fox smoking a tobacco pipe. There can be no mistake as to the meaning of the last lively representation, and on the same stone is the date 1510—the year in which the wing of the castle is ascertained to have been built.[708]
Ancient Claymore.
The arms and armour are no less characteristic of the medieval than of earlier periods, and are not without minuter national details well worthy of note. There was indeed from the very commencement of the Scottish medieval period in the eleventh century, to the final disarming of the Highland clans in 1746, two completely diverse modes of warfare and military accoutrement prevailing in Scotland. The old Celtic population, occupying for the most part the Highland fastnesses, retained many of the usages of their forefathers under partially modified forms, and even in the decoration of their weapons and defensive armour preserved the ancient style, which is still traceable on the Pictish monuments of Scotland. Many of the circular Highland targets of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries present exactly the same interlaced knotwork as may be seen on bosses and limbs of early crosses, and even on relics belonging to the last Pagan era. A mere glance, however, at a few characteristic examples must suffice here; and among these none is more noticeable than the old claymore with reversed guard, which is sculptured on so many of the ancient tombstones of Iona and of the Western Isles. In the portrait of James I. of Scotland, which accompanies the old folio edition of the Scots Acts, the king bears a weapon of this description. It occurs, however, on tombs of a much earlier period, and is now very rarely to be met with. One good small example is in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, and another larger and very fine specimen, the handle of which is here engraved, is in the valuable collection of W. B. Johnstone, Esq. The claymore is figured in the sculptures both of Iona and Oronsay with a considerable variety of details. In some the blade is highly ornamented, and the handle varies in form, but all present the same characteristic, having the guards bent back towards the blade. A curious variety of this peculiar form is seen in a fine large two-handed sword preserved at Hawthornden, the celebrated castle of the Drummonds, where the Scottish poet entertained Ben Jonson during his visit to Scotland in 1619. It is traditionally affirmed to have been the weapon of Robert the Bruce, though little importance can be attached to a reputation which it shares with one-half the large two-handed swords still preserved. The handle appears to be made from the tusk of the narwhal, and it has four reverse-guards, as shewn in the cut. The object aimed at by this form of guard doubtless was to prevent the antagonist's sword from glancing off, and inflicting a wound ere he recovered his weapon, and in the last example especially it seems peculiarly well adapted for the purpose. Among the curious collection of ancient weapons in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, is a sword the blade of which measures thirty-two and a half inches long, and has a waved edge, returned a short way over the back. It was discovered among the ruins of Bog-Hall Castle, near Biggar, Lanarkshire; while the handle, which is made of the section of a deer's horn, and is still more remarkable than the blade, was found at a great depth in a morass, on the property of Sir Thomas G. Carmichael, Bart., in Tweeddale.
Hawthornden Sword.
The later two-handed sword, though still so familiar to us, is perhaps the most interesting in an archæological point of view, of all the military relics pertaining to the Medieval Period. The huge, ponderous, and unwieldy weapon, seems the fittest emblem that could be devised, of the rude baron of the thirteenth century, who lived by "the good old rule" of physical force, and whose hardy virtues—not unsuited to an illiterate age—are strangely mistaken for the evidences of a chivalry such as later ages have not seen. Calmly reasoning from this characteristic heirloom, as we have done from those of remoter and less known periods, we discern in it the evidence of just such hardy, skilless, overbearing power, as history informs us was the character of the medieval baron, before the rise of the burgher class readjusted the social balance by the preponderance of rival interests. The weapon figured here is a remarkably fine and unusually large specimen of the old Scottish two-handed sword, now in the possession of George Seton, Esq., representative of the Setons of Cariston. It measures forty-nine inches in the blade, five feet nine inches in entire length, and weighs seven and a half pounds. But the chief interest of this old relic arises from the well-authenticated family traditions which associate it with the memory of its first knightly owner, Sir Christopher Seton of that Ilk, from whom some of the oldest scions of the Scottish Peerage have been proud to trace their descent. He was married to Christina, sister of King Robert the Bruce, whom he bravely defended at the battle of Methven. He was shortly after taken prisoner by Edward I., and basely hanged as a traitor. "So dear to King Robert was the memory of this faithful friend and fellow-warrior, that he afterwards erected on the spot where he was executed a little chapel, where mass was said for his soul."[709] Besides this fine example of a Scottish two-handed sword, may be mentioned that ascribed to Sir William Wallace, preserved at Dumbarton Castle; that of Sir John Graham of Dundaff, (slain 1298,) in the possession of the Duke of Montrose; another "Wallace sword" at Kinfauns Castle; and other specimens at Talyskir, in the Isle of Rasay; at Abbotsford; and in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries.
Among the most recent additions to the same collection is another remarkable weapon, which possesses undoubted historical value, and may be associated with more confidence with the great victory of Robert the Bruce than most of the relics that bear his name. It consists of the head of a battle-axe, of iron, coated with bronze, which is figured here. It was discovered in draining the morass at Bannockburn in 1785, and is considerably broken on the edge, evidently from its use upon the mailed panoply of the gallant knights who fought in that hard-stricken field. It measures eight and a quarter inches in length, and four and three quarters in height, from the point to the insertion of the haft.
Battle-Axe, Bannockburn.
Numerous other remarkable specimens of ancient Scottish arms and armour are preserved both in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries and in other public and private collections; but a mere reference to these without copious illustrations could be of little avail to the antiquary. The Scottish Museum includes a variety of specimens of the old quarrel-head, or Wallace Bolt, as it is generally termed; ancient swords, lance and spear heads, cross-bows, daggers, dirks, hunting knives, and the old Highland Lochaber-axe, with the more modern fire-arms, and other military accoutrements, including the singularly complicated purse-clasp, described by Sir Walter Scott as that of the celebrated outlaw Rob Roy, with four pistols ingeniously concealed in it for defence of the contents of the purse. Still more recent relics preserve associations with the victors of Prestonpans and the vanquished of Culloden Moor. But such objects belong perhaps fully more to the poet than to the archæologist, and are too frequently employed to add a fictitious interest to collections, the real use and value of which have yet to be appreciated.
Lochaber Axes.
Sculpture, Edinburgh Castle. Mons Meg.
Some remarkable pieces of ancient artillery also figure in Scottish history, one or two of which have escaped the perils of siege and the waste of time, though the most of them live only in the quaint records of Scottish chroniclers, like the famed Seven Sisters, cast by Robert Borthwick, the master-gunner of James IV., which did their last Scottish service on Flodden Field. A better fate has attended the still more celebrated Mons Meg, whose unwieldy proportions probably proved her safety, by inducing the impetuous king to leave her behind, when he carried the flower of Scottish chivalry to that fatal field. The ancient barrier gateway of Edinburgh Castle, built most probably soon after the siege of 1572, was surmounted with a curious piece of sculpture, occupying a long narrow panel, which is chiefly filled with representations of artillery and munitions of war, and among these Mons Meg plays a prominent part. The old-fashioned narrow wheel carriages of the sixteenth century having given place to more substantial modern artillery waggons, the highly ornamental but narrow gateway was demolished in the beginning of the present century, and one-half of its sculptured panel, figured here, now surmounts the entrance to the Ordnance Office in the Castle. At the left side is the famed Mons Meg—or, as she is designated in the list of ordnance delivered to Monk, on the surrender of the Castle in 1650, "The great iron murderer, Muckle Meg"—mounted, in all probability, on her "new cradill, with xiii stane of irne graith," which, as we learn from the Treasurer's accounts, was provided in 1497, not long after her safe return from the siege of Dumbarton Castle. This remarkable piece of ordnance is not cast like a modern cannon, but built of wrought iron hoops and bars, or staves, and with a narrow fixed chamber in the breach for containing the charge. It appears to be of enormous strength; but after doing good service for upwards of two centuries, both in peace and war, it burst on the 29th October 1680, when firing a salute in honour of James, Duke of York, on his arrival in Edinburgh; an occurrence which, as Fountainhall records, failed not to be regarded as an evil omen. This mode of fashioning artillery with separate staves and hoops is the oldest method of which we have any account, and was probably universally employed on the first introduction of gunpowder in constructing what our old Scottish poet designates, in the earliest known allusion to field artillery, crakys of war. This curious reference of the old metrical historian, Barbour, is to the first expedition of Edward III. against the Scots in 1327, and consequently may be accepted as fixing the precise date of the introduction of artillery into Scotland:—
"Twa noweltyeis that dai thai saw,
That forouth in Scotland had been nane;
Tymmris for helmys were the tane,
That t'other crakys wer of war,
That thai before heard never er:
Of thai tua things thai had ferly
That nycht thai walkyt stalwartly."
Among the specimens of ancient pieces of ordnance in the Scottish Museum is a curious pair of cannons, built in a similar manner to Mons Meg, with hoops and staves of iron, bound with copper, measuring each twenty-nine inches in length, and designed for mounting on one stock. This double cannon was formerly stationed on the walls of Wemyss Castle, Fifeshire, and is said to have belonged to the celebrated Scottish admiral, Sir Andrew Wood of Largo. Double guns of the same description, mounted on one carriage, are figured in the beautifully illuminated MSS. of Froissart, believed to have been executed about the beginning of the fifteenth century. They are also shewn on wheel carriages among the Scottish artillery at the battle of Pinkie in a very curious print belonging to the Bannatyne Club, entitled, "The Englishe victore agaynste the Schottes, by Muskelbroghe, 1547." Another piece of ancient artillery in the Scottish collection consists of a still more complicated group of cannons of similar construction, four being mounted on one carriage, and the whole united by an iron rod at the breach. They are evidently designed to be fired at once, so as to discharge a broadside on the enemy; and however tardy and inconvenient the reloading of these pieces may have been, the first broadside from a park of such artillery must have had no slight effect on an advancing foe.
The second half of the curious sculptured memorial of ancient Scottish artillery in Edinburgh, divorced from the group which includes Mons Meg, on the demolition of the barrier gateway in 1800, lay long neglected and buried in rubbish. It was at length rescued from impending destruction, and safely lodged in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries. It includes a singular group of ancient ordnance and warlike appliances; chamber pieces or patereros, with chambers or moveable breeches—frequently used separately for throwing small shot; bombards, chiefly employed for throwing great stones; a curious hexagonal cannon of large proportions, constructed, it may be presumed, of separate bars; hand-cannons, or the earliest class of portable fire-arms; with lintstocks, shot, barrels of powder, &c. Along with these are also large guns of symmetrical form, which may be presumed to represent brass cannon, as the art of casting cannon was introduced at a much earlier period than the date suggested for the rebuilding of the barrier gateway, though it is by no means improbable that the sculpture may have belonged to a still older structure. Cannon are said to have been cast even in the middle of the fourteenth century;[710] and a brass cannon is still preserved at Toulouse, made in the year 1438.
One other class of relics, singularly characteristic of medieval customs and civilisation, includes the instruments both of punishment and of torture, of which Scotland may lay claim to the questionable boast of having some peculiarly national examples. At a period when criminal punishment avowedly assumed the character of retaliation and revenge, and when torture was recognised as a legitimate means of eliciting evidence, Scotland was not behind the other countries of Europe in the full use of both. The execution at Edinburgh, in 1436, of the murderers of James I., the poet king, and especially the horrible scenes attending on the death of Sir Robert Graham and the Earl of Athole,—crowned, in fearful mockery, with a red-hot iron diadem as king of traitors,—sufficiently illustrate the ferocious spirit which went hand in hand with medieval chivalry. One of the most curious historical relics of this class is the Scottish Maiden, employed, so far as we know, for the first time in the execution of some of the inferior agents in the assassination of Rizzio. By this instrument were beheaded the Regent Morton, Sir John Gordon of Haddo, President Spottiswoode, the Marquis and Earl of Argyle, and many more of the noblest and best blood in Scotland. The Earl of Argyle is reported to have said, with a grave humour worthy of Sir Thomas More: it was the sweetest maiden he had ever kissed. It now forms one of the most remarkable national relics in the Scottish Museum, having, it may be presumed, performed its last office as the instrument of death. It is impossible to look without feelings of peculiar interest upon this ancient Scottish guillotine, so directly associated with the great of past ages; though the vindictive spirit which sought at times to give an added ignominy to a violent death cheated it of the blood of the gallant Kirkaldy, of Montrose and Warriston, as well as of others of lesser note, who figure in the Scottish chronicles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The Scottish Maiden.
The Boots and Thumbkins are two instruments of judicial torture, especially associated in Scotland with the sufferings of the Covenanters during the reign of Charles II. Neither of them, however, were invented so recently. Torture, which the Roman law permitted only to be used in compelling the evidence of slaves, bore no such limitation in medieval Europe; and the name of the Question, commonly applied to it, abundantly shews the direct purpose for which it was employed. Examples of this barbarous mode of seeking to elicit the truth are frequently to be met with in the earlier Acts of Sederunt of the Court of Session: as in a case of suspected perjury, 29th June 1579, where the King's Advocate produces a royal warrant for examining "Jhone Souttar, notar, dwelland in Dundee, and Robert Carmylie, vicar of Ruthwenis, witnes in the action of improbatioun of ane reversioun of the lands of Wallace-Craigy; and for the mair certane tryall of the veritie in the said matter, to put thaim in the buttis, genis, or ony uther tormentis, and thairby to urge them to declair the treuth." One pair of thumb-screws in the Scottish Museum, of unusually large size, is said to have been the instrument employed by the authorities of the ancient burgh of Montrose for eliciting confession; and a ruder pair, of peculiar form, in the Abbotsford collection, is figured in the illustrated edition of the Waverley Novels.[711] Sir Walter Scott has given fearfully vivid life, in his "Old Mortality," to the tribunal of the Scottish Privy Council, where such horrible appliances were last in vogue. Happily they too are consigned to the cabinet of the antiquary, telling of times which are, we may hope, as truly left behind as the aboriginal Stone Period, with its primitive arts and superstitions, and its simple sepulchral rites.
Thumb-Screws, Antiq. Museum.
The Scottish JOUGS and BRANKS are old instruments of punishment, popularly associated, for the most part, with judicial visitations of a more homely and less revolting character than those previously referred to, though not altogether free from sterner associations. The jougs, which consist of an iron collar attached by a chain to a pillar or tree, form the corresponding Scottish judicial implement to the English Stocks: applied, however, not to the legs or arms, but to the neck. They are still to be met with attached to the porch of our older village churches, or occasionally to some venerable tree in the surrounding churchyard, their application having been most frequently reserved in the olden time for the enforcement of ecclesiastical discipline. The woodcut represents a fine old pair of jougs, the property of Sir William Jardine, Bart., which were found imbedded in a venerable ash tree, recently blown down, at the churchyard gate, Applegirth, Dumfriesshire. The tree, which was of great girth, is believed to have been upwards of three hundred years old, and the jougs were completely imbedded in its trunk, while the chain and staple hung down within the decayed and hollow core. The more usual form of the jougs is simply a flat iron collar with distended loops, through which a padlock was passed to secure the culprit in his ignominious durance. Along with this may be mentioned a singular and probably unique relic of old Scottish judicature, preserved in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, to which it was presented in 1784. It consists of the brass collar of a Scottish slave of the eighteenth century. The collar is inscribed in accordance with the terms of the following verdict, which shews that the case was not singular; and having been dredged up in the Frith of Forth, it seems sufficiently probable that the unhappy victim may have chosen death in preference to the doom from which there was no other release.
Jougs, Applegirth.
"At Perth, the fifth day of December 1701 years, the Commissioners of Justiciary of the south district, for securing the peace of the Highlands, considering that Donald Robertson, Alexander Steuart, John Robertson, and Donald M'Donald, prisoners within the Tolbooth of Perth, and indicted and tried at this court, are by verdict of the inquest returned, GUILTY OF DEATH; and that the Commissioners have changed their punishment of death to perpetual servitude; and that the said pannells are at the court's disposal. Therefore the said Commissioners have given and gifted, and hereby give and gift, the said Alexander Steuart, one of the said prisoners, as ane perpetual servant to Sir John Areskine of Alva, recommending him to cause provide an collar of brass, iron, or copper, which by his sentence or doom, (whereof an extract is delivered to the magistrates of the said burgh of Perth,) is to be upon his neck with this inscription: Alexr. Steuart, found guilty of death for theft, at Perth, the 5th of December 1701, and gifted by the Justiciars as a perpetual servant to Sir John Areskine of Alva; and recommending also to him to transport him from the said prison once the next week; and the said Commissioners have ordained and hereby ordain the magistrates of Perth, and keeper of their Tolbooth, to deliver the said Alexander Steuart to the said Sir John Areskine of Alva, having the said collar and inscription conform to the sentence of doom foresaid."[712]
From another deed of gift, it appears that Donald M'Donald was bestowed in like manner on John Earl of Tullibardine.[713] No doubt the other two were similarly disposed of by gift, if not by positive sale—so very recently was slavery a part and parcel of Scottish law: feudal customs, and the singular ideas incident to the peculiar social state of the Highlands, having remained little affected by all the changes wrought on the Lowland Saxon and the Southron, until the final overthrow of the clans on Culloden Moor abruptly broke the traditions of many centuries.
The BRANKS is another Scottish instrument of ecclesiastical punishment, chiefly employed for the coercion of female scolds, and those adjudged guilty of slander and defamation. It may be described as a skeleton iron helmet, having a gag of the same metal, which entered the mouth and effectually brankit that unruly member—the tongue.[714] It is an instrument of considerable antiquity, and has probably not unfrequently been employed for purposes of great cruelty, though in most examples the gag is not designed to wound the mouth, but only to hold down the tongue. In the Burgh Records of Glasgow, for example, under date of April 1574, "Marione Smyt and Margaret Huntare" having quarrelled, they appear, and produce two cautioners or sureties, "þat þai sal abstene fra stryking of utheris in tyme cuming, under þe pane of X lib., and gif thai flyte to be brankit."[715] One very complete specimen still preserved at St. Mary's Church, St. Andrews, is popularly known as the Bishop's Branks, and is usually said to have been fixed on the head of Patrick Hamilton and of others of the early Scottish martyrs who perished at the stake during the religious persecution of James V.'s reign. This tradition, however, is not borne out by history in the case of Hamilton, and is probably the addition of a later age, though the instrument may possibly have supplied both Archbishop and Cardinal Beaton with a ready means of restraining less confirmed recusants, and thereby nipping the new heresy in the bud. But the real origin of its present title is to be traced to the use of it in much more recent times, by Archbishop Sharp, for silencing the scandal which an unruly dame promulgated openly against him before the congregation. A view of the Bishop's Branks is given in the Abbotsford edition of The Monastery, where it is described as formerly kept at St. Mary's Church. It still remains there, in the custody of the sexton, and is regarded with such general interest as is likely to secure its preservation. The annexed woodcut is drawn from another example, which was discovered in 1848 behind the oak panelling in one of the rooms of the ancient mansion of the Earls of Moray, in the Canongate, Edinburgh. The term Branks, it may be added, is also used in Scotland to designate a rude substitute for a horse's bridle and bit, formed most frequently of a halter and stick. Some few years since the frightful instrument represented below was preserved in the old steeple at Forfar, where it bore the name of the Witch's Branks or Bridle, and is described in the Old Statistical Account of the parish of Forfar as the bridle with which the wretched victims of superstition were led to execution. The field, it is added, where they suffered is pointed out to strangers as a place of curious interest. The witch's bridle was carried off from Forfar to add to the antiquarian treasures of the late well-known collector Mr. Alexander Deuchar of Edinburgh. The date 1661 is punched on the circle, along with what seems to read Angus s.[716] The object aimed at in applying so dreadful a gag to those who were condemned to the stake as guilty of witchcraft and dealing with the devil, was not so much the purposed cruelty which its use necessarily involved, as to prevent the supposed possessors of such unearthly gifts from pronouncing the potent formula by means of which it was implicitly believed they could transform themselves at will to other shapes, or transport themselves where they pleased, and thus effectually outwit their tormentors. It furnishes a melancholy index of the barbarism which prevailed in our own country at so very recent a period, that educated men could be found to give credit to such follies, or that even among the most illiterate and rude, executioners could be enlisted to apply to a woman an instrument the very picture of which is calculated to excite a shudder.
The Branks, Moray House.
Witch's Bridle, Forfar.
It would not be difficult to add to these common instruments of punishment and of torture others equally characteristic of the spirit of the age, though not brought into such general use. Registers of various kirk-sessions recently printed by the Abbotsford Club, the Spottiswoode Society, and others of the Scottish literary book clubs, disclose much curious evidence of the petty tyranny and cruelty too frequently exercised by these courts in the enforcement of ecclesiastical discipline, most frequently by means little calculated to promote reformation or good morals. In these, however, as in the traces of earlier manners which we have sought to recover, the historian finds a key to the character of the age to which they belong, and indications of its degree of advancement in civilisation, such as no contemporary historian could furnish, since it supplies elements for comparing and for contrasting the present with the past, no less available than the rude pottery and the implements of flint or bone which reveal to us the simple arts of aboriginal races. The great difference in point of value between the two classes of relics is, that those more recent indices of obsolete customs supply to us only an additional element wherewith to test and to supplement the invaluable records which the printing press supplies, while the latter are the sole chronicles we possess of ages more intimately associated with our human sympathies than all the geological periods of the preadamite earth.