It is rather remarkable, that so early as 1527, there appears to have been a general arrangement for cleaning the city of Edinburgh at stated times, and with a profit to the corporation. In that year, there is an entry as follows in the Council Record of the city: ‘The gait-dichting, and duties thereof, is set this year to come, with the aventure of deid and weir, to Alexander Pennicuik, for the soum of £20, to be dicht and clengit sufficiently ilk 8 days anes, with a dozen of servants.’ Pennicuik is enjoined to ‘tak nae mair duties for the dichting thereof, except and allenarly of fish, flesh, salt, and victuals.’[378]
May 13.
The king having proposed that ‘the most notorious and lewd persons’ in the middle shires (Borders) might be ‘sent to Virginia, or some other remote parts,’ the councillors answered that it was not necessary, because the country was now reduced to ‘obedience and quietness;’ and it might even prove detrimental, seeing that many who were ‘in danger of the laws for auld feids,’ but had latterly been at peace, might, if they heard of such a design, ‘mak choice rather to loup out and become fugitives, nor to underly the hazard and fear of that matter.’
Notwithstanding the peace and obedience described as now existing, scarcely two years had elapsed when we find evidences that the king’s proposal was found to be rational and of promise. In April 1620, ‘a hundred and twenty of the broken men of the Borders were apprehended by the landlords and wardens of the Middle Marches, at the command of the Privy Council, and sent to the Bohemian wars, with Colonel Andrew Gray.’[379]—Bal.
June 2.
1618.
The Privy Council issued a commission to certain gentlemen in Irvine, to try two persons of that burgh accused of witchcraft. In the recital on which the commission proceeds, it is set forth—‘that John Stewart, vagabond, and Margaret Barclay, spouse to Archibald Deane, burgess of Irvine, were lately apprehendit upon most probable and clear presumption of their practising of witchcraft agains John Deane, burgess of Irvine, and procuring thereby the destruction of the said John, and the drowning and perishing of the ship called the Gift of God, of Irvine, and of the haill persons and goods being thereintill: likeas the said John Stewart, upon examination, has clearly and pounktallie confessit the said devilish practices, and the said Margaret, foolishly presuming by her denial to eschew trial and punishment, doeth most obdurately deny the truth of that matter, notwithstanding that the said John constantly avows the same upon her,’ &c.[380]
It appears that Margaret Barclay had conceived and expressed violent hatred of her brother-in-law, John Deane, and his wife, in consequence of their raising or propagating a scandal against her. John Deane’s ship having been lost at Padstow, on the English coast, and John Stewart, a spaeman, having spoken of this fact before it was known by ordinary means, a suspicion arose that the latter had been concerned in some sorcery by which the vessel had suffered. On his being taken up, a confession was extorted from him, that he had taught magical arts to Margaret Barclay, by which she had brought about the loss of the vessel; and he narrated a ridiculous scene of enchantment as having occurred on the shore, with the devil present in the form of a lady’s lapdog, Margaret Barclay being the principal actor. Margaret was then apprehended, as also one Isobel Tosh, whom Stewart described as an assistant at the evil deed. Margaret’s servant-girl, a child of eight years of age, and Isobel Tosh, were, apparently through terror, induced to make admissions supporting Stewart’s statement. A most tragical series of incidents followed. Isobel Tosh, trying to escape from prison, fell and hurt herself so much that she died in a few days. Stewart hanged himself in prison. Margaret Barclay, tortured by the laying of weights upon her limbs, confessed what was laid to her charge; and though she denied all when relieved, yet was she condemned and executed, finally returning to an acknowledgment of guilt, which can only be attributed to hallucination. Throughout all this affair—to all appearance consisting of a series of forced accusations and confessions, till reason at length gave way in the principal party—the Earl of Eglintoun, so noted afterwards as a Covenanter, took part along with the commissioners; while the assistant parish clergyman, Mr David Dickson, and several other ministers, most of them noted in the annals of the time as men of extraordinary piety, assisted in working on the religious feelings of the accused to induce confession. It does not seem ever to have occurred to any of these well-meaning persons, lay or clerical, that a worthy duty in the case would have been to inquire into the facts, and judge by collating them, whether there was any ground whatever for the accusation.[381]