At Edinburgh, in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, is a brank said to be from a town in East Fifeshire, having a rowel-shaped gag. In the year 1560, it was decided by the Town Council of Edinburgh, that all persons found guilty of blasphemy should be punished by the iron brank. In North Britain, it appears to have been used for punishing persons guilty of immorality. On the 7th October, the Kirk-Session of Canongate sentenced David Persoun, convicted of this offence, to be "brankit for four hours," while his associate in guilt, Isobel Mountray, was "banisit the gait," that is, expelled[298] from the parish. Only a week previously, the same Kirk-Session had issued a proclamation that all women found guilty of this lawlessness "be brankit six houris at the croce."
We close this chapter by directing attention to the Bishop's brank, kept at St. Andrews, respecting which a singular story is told. A woman in a humble walk of life, named Isabel Lindsay, stood up in the parish church of St. Andrews, during the time of divine service, when Archbishop Sharp was preaching, and declared that when he was a college student he was guilty of an illicit amour with her. She was arrested for this statement, and brought before the Kirk-Sessions, and by its members sentenced "to appear for a succession of Sundays on the repentance stool, wearing the brank."
FOOTNOTES:
[43] Dobson's "Preston in the Olden Time," 1857.
[44] "The Reliquary," October, 1860.
[45] Morris's "Obsolete Punishments of Shropshire."
Riding the Stang.
