Beatrix, and the other accused persons, were thrown into the jail of the burgh by the minister and magistrates, with a guard of drunken fellows to watch over them. Beatrix steadily refused to confess being a witch, and was subjected to pricking, and kept awake for five days and nights, in order to bring her to a different frame of mind. Sorely wounded, and her life a burden to her, she at length was forced, in order to be rid of the torment, to admit what was imputed to her. It will thus be observed that the humane practice maintained during the whole of the late cavalier reigns, of only accepting voluntary confessions from persons taxed with witchcraft, was no longer in force. The poor woman afterwards avowing that what she had told them of her seeing the devil and so forth was false, ‘they put her in the stocks, and then carried her to the Thieves’ Hole, and from that transported her to a dark dungeon, where she was allowed no manner of light, or human converse, and in this condition she lay for five months.’ During this interval, the sapient magistrates, with their parish minister, were dealing with the Privy Council to get the alleged witches brought to trial. At first, the design was entertained of taking them to Edinburgh for that purpose; but ultimately, through the humane interference of the Earl of |1704.| Balcarres and Lord Anstruther,[[359]] two members of council connected with the district, the poor women were set at liberty on bail (August 12). This, however, was so much in opposition to the will of the rabble, that Beatrix Laing was obliged to decamp from her native town. ‘She wandered about in strange places, in the extremity of hunger and cold, though she had a competency at home, but dared not come near her own house for fear of the fury and rage of the people.’
It was indeed well for this apparently respectable woman that she, for the meantime, remained at a distance from home. While she was wandering about, another woman, named Janet Cornfoot, was put in confinement at Pittenweem, under a specific charge from Alexander Macgregor, a fisherman, to the effect that he had been beset by her and two others one night, along with the devil, while sleeping in his bed. By torture, Cornfoot was forced into acknowledging this fact, which she afterwards denied privately, under equal terror for the confession and the retractation. However, her case beginning to attract attention from some persons of rank and education in the neighbourhood, the minister seems to have become somewhat doubtful of it, and by his connivance she escaped. Almost immediately, an officious clergyman of the neighbourhood apprehended her again, and sent her back to Pittenweem in the custody of two men.
Falling there into the hands of the populace, the wretched woman was tied hard up in a rope, beaten unmercifully, and then dragged by the heels through the streets and along the shore. The appearance of a bailie for a brief space dispersed the crowd, but only to shew how easily the authorities might have protected the victim, if they had chosen. Resuming their horrible work, the rabble tied Janet to a rope stretching between a vessel in the harbour and the shore, swinging her to and fro, and amusing themselves by pelting her with stones. Tiring at length of this sport, they let her down with a sharp fall upon the beach, beat her again unmercifully, and finally, covering her with a door, pressed her to death (January 30, 1705). A daughter of the |1704.| unhappy woman was in the town, aware of what was going on, but prevented by terror from interceding. This barbarity lasted altogether three hours, without any adequate interruption from either minister or magistrates. Nearly about the same time, Thomas Brown, one of those accused by the blacksmith, died in prison, ‘after a great deal of hunger and hardship;’ and the bodies of both of these victims of superstition were denied Christian burial.
The matter attracted the attention of the Privy Council, who appointed a committee to inquire into it, but the ringleaders of the mob had fled; so nothing could be immediately done. After some time, they were allowed to return to the town free of molestation on account of the murder. Well, then, might Beatrix Laing dread returning to her husband’s comfortable house in this benighted burgh. After a few months, beginning to gather courage, she did return, yet not without being threatened by the rabble with the fate of Janet Cornfoot; wherefore it became necessary for her to apply to the Privy Council for a protection. By that court an order was accordingly issued to the Pittenweem magistrates, commanding them to defend her from any tumults, insults, or violence that might be offered to her.
At the close of this year, George and Lachlan Rattray were in durance at Inverness, ‘alleged guilty of the horrid crimes of mischievous charms, by witchcraft and malefice, sorcery or necromancy.’ It being inconvenient to bring them to Edinburgh for trial, the Lords of Privy Council issued a commission to Forbes of Culloden, Rose of Kilravock, ... Baillie, commissary of Inverness, and some other gentlemen, to try the offenders. The judges, however, were enjoined to transmit their judgment for consideration, and not allow it to be put in execution without warrant from the Council.
On the 16th July 1706, a committee of Council took into consideration the verdict in the case of the two Rattrays, and finding it ‘agreeable to the probation,’ ordained the men to be executed, under the care of the magistrates of Inverness, on the last Wednesday of September next to come. This order is subscribed by Montrose, Buchan, Northesk, Forfar, Torphichen, Elibank, James Stewart, Gilbert Elliot, and Alexander Douglas.
Aug. 25.
The functions of the five Lords Commissioners of Justiciary being of the utmost importance, ‘concerning both the lives and fortunes of her majesty’s lieges,’ the parliament settled on these |1704.| officers a salary of twelve hundred pounds Scots each, being about one hundred pounds sterling.[[360]] They had previously had the same income nominally, but being payable by precept of the commissioners of the treasury, or the cash-keeper, it was, like most such dues, difficult to realise, and, perhaps, could scarcely be said to exist.
At this time, the fifteen judges of the Court of Session had each two hundred pounds sterling per annum, the money being derived from a grant of £20,000 Scots out of the customs and interest on certain sums belonging to the court.[[361]] Five of them, who were lords of the criminal court also, were, as we here see, endowed with a further salary, making three hundred in all. The situation of president—‘ane imployment of great weight, requiring are assiduous and close application,’ says the second President Dalrymple[[362]]—had usually, in addition to the common salary, a pension, and a present of wines from the Treasury, making up his income to about a thousand a year. By the grace of Queen Anne, after the Union, the puisne judges of the Court of Session got £300 a year additional, making five hundred in all;[[363]] and this was their income for many years thereafter, the president continuing to have one thousand per annum. In the salaries of the same officers at the present day—£3000 to a puisne civil judge, with expenses when he goes on circuit; £4800 to the President; and to the Lord Justice-clerk, £4500—we see, as powerfully as in anything, the contrast between the Scotland of a hundred and fifty years ago, and the Scotland of our own time.
Aug. 30.