Weir’s is not a solitary case. On the 19th of August in the same year, Henry Dick, ‘in Bandrum,’ was adjudged to lose his head for a transgression in connection with the sister of his wife, this offence being regarded as incest, and misinterpreted as a breach of a well-known text which is still the basis of an English law. In July 1649, Donald Brymer for the same offence was sentenced to the same punishment. It is worthy of notice that, in June 1643, Janet Imrie, who had been the paramour of two brothers, was for that reason condemned to be beheaded.
One of the most remarkable of a large class of cases of this kind was that of Alexander Blair, a tailor in Currie, who had married his first wife’s half-brother’s daughter.[17] For this offence, under reverence for the same misinterpreted text, he was condemned to lose his head! (September 9, 1630.)
It is deplorable to see these severe punishments inflicted for acts which neither interfere with any principle of nature, nor tend in any way to injure the rights of individuals or to trouble society. At the same time, the marriage of first-cousins, which tends to the deterioration of the race, was not forbidden.[18] And offences of real consequence, as affecting the condition of individuals, were visited with comparatively light penalties. Thus, on the same day when Alexander Blair, tailor in Currie, was sentenced to lose his head for marrying his first wife’s half-brother’s daughter, William Lachlane was adjudged to banishment for life for bigamy. The jurisprudence of the country on these points was mainly guided by a few semi-religious or rather superstitious views, while the voice of God through nature no one thought of listening to or applying.
1629. May 14.
Died Jean Gordon, remarkable in our history as the lady whom James Hepburn Earl of Bothwell divorced in 1567, in order to be enabled to ally himself to Queen Mary. She survived that frightful time, in peace and honour, for sixty-two years, exemplifying how durable are calmness and prudence in comparison with passion and guilt. Since her separation from Bothwell, she had been the wife of two other husbands—first, Alexander Earl of Sutherland; and second, the Laird of Boyne. ‘A virtuous and comely lady, judicious, of excellent memory, and of great understanding above the capacity of her sex; in this much to be commended, that, during the continual changes and particular factions of the court in the reign of Queen Mary, and in the minority of King James VI., (which were many,) she always managed her affairs with so great prudence and foresight, that the enemies of her family could never prevail against her, nor move those that were the chief rulers of the state at the time, to do anything to her prejudice; a time indeed both dangerous and deceitful. Amidst all these troublesome storms, and variable courses of fortune, she still enjoyed the possession of her jointure, which was assigned unto her out of the earldom of Bothwell, and kept the same until her death, yea, though that earldom had fallen twice into the king’s hands by forfeiture in her time.... By reason of her husband Earl Alexander his sickly disposition, together with her son’s minority at the time of his father’s death, she was in a manner forced to take upon her the managing of all the affairs of that house a good while, which she did perform with great care, to her own credit, and the weal of that family.... She was the first that caused work the coal heugh beside the river of Brora, and was the first instrument of making salt there. This coal [now interesting chiefly in a geological point of view, as connected with the oolitic formation] was found before by Earl John, father of Earl Alexander; but he, being taken away by an untimely death, had no time to enterprise this work. This lady built the house of Cracock, where she dwelt a long time.’—G. H. S.
This character, though drawn by the partial hand of a son, may be accepted as on the whole a true, as it is certainly a pleasing description, of the divorcée of Bothwell. The lady was buried in Dornoch Cathedral
July 18.
1629.
A service to property depending at this time before the Court of Session between the Earl of Cassillis and the Earl of Wigton, these nobles appeared in Edinburgh, each with a multitude of followers, who paraded the streets in a tumultuous manner, and with such demonstrations of animosity as must have recalled the days of James VI. to many an anxious citizen. The Privy Council met in alarm, and appointed a committee to go and admonish the two litigant nobles about these unseemly appearances. It was enjoined that, while in town waiting on the service, they should not appear on the streets with more than twelve followers each, and that in peaceable manner, nor come to the bar with more than six, dismissing all others who had not known occasion to be present. At the same time, the noblemen who were the friends of the several parties were ‘to forbear the backing of them at this time,’ on pain of censure as ‘troublers of his majesty’s peace.’—P. C. R.