ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]

"cipline of the kirk, yet the King's most gracious 1615 Majesty, who is a most religious and godly Prince, and under whose blessed government the true religion ⚫ and discipline of the kirk is established, and advanced, would not suffer such contempt and dis❝ obedience to pass unpunished! The said John Fleming, upon deliverance of the said speeches, shaking "off all fear of God, and that reverend respect which " in conscience before God, and in his duty and allegiance he owed to his Majesty, most treasonably, blasphemously, and mischantlie*, replied to the said • minister in these words: Feindt nor the King shoot 'to dead or the morn, and that he die of the falling 'sickness. And it being demanded of the said John • what moved him to utter such blasphemous and 'horrible speeches against his Majesty? made this scornful and disdainful answer, Were not the King and his laws, he had not wanted his lands; ' and therefore he cared not for the King, for hang•ing would be the worst of it?

[ocr errors]

The prisoner was not far mistaken in his prediction. He was sentenced to be hanged at the cross of Edinburgh, and his moveable goods to be forfeited.

From an obsolete French word, meschantment, wickedly, maliciously.

+ An oath, a mode of swearing.

The cause of offence which this poor man had received was the loss of a law suit.

[ocr errors]

Thomas Rois, son of the late John Rois of Craigie, for writing and publishing at Oxford, a Pasquinade against the Scots.

1618 THE prisoner was prosecuted before Mr. Alexander Colville, Justice-depute, at the instance of Sir Wil liam Oliphant of Newton, his Majesty's Advocate, who produced in Court an act of Privy Council, authorising the prosecution. 2, W9%

The prisoner was charged in the indictment with the devilish and detestable firing, feigning, blas phemous uttering, and by writ publicly exposing, ⚫ of an villainous,† infamous, and devilish writ,' &c. In this pasquinade, which was in the form of a the sis, the prisoner had maintained, that all Scotsmen, except the King, his sons, and a very few others, ought to be debarred from the Court of EnglandHe expressed his surprise, that the English, who in other respects were quick enough sighted, should suffer such an unprofitable and pernicious multitude, the very offscourings of the people, to domineer within their territories. He laid down his thesis in ten propositions, or articles, composed in Latin, and written with his own hand. He affixed it to the door of St. Mary's church in Oxford, and publicly

* I know not if the family of Rois, or Ross, of Craigie, be still extant; but their armorial bearings are described by Sir James Balfour, Lyon King at Arms in the reign of Charles I.; Nisbet's Heraldry, vol. I. p. 416.

Records of Justiciary, August 20, September 10, 1618.

offered to defend his thesis, at the universities of Pa- 1618 ris, Cambridge, or Oxford. From all these seditious and inflammatory articles, the indictment concluded, that the prisoner had acted a most unnatural part towards his own countrymen, had endeavoured to stir up the English to murder them, and had transgressed sundry acts of Parliament, viz. James I. Parliament 2. Act 48.; James II. Black Acts*, Act 100.; James VI. Parliament 8. Act 134.; Parliament 10. Act 10.; Parliament 14. Act 205.

[ocr errors]

However criminal the prisoner might be in exciting jealousies and dissentions between the English and Scots, it was truly absurd to charge him with having transgressed these statutes; for they related to the sowing dissention between the King and his people; and they were enacted before the union of the Crowns, at a time when the former of these nations was described in the statute-book, as our ancient 'enemies of England.' Not only was the prisoner innocent of transgressing these statutes, but the Court of Justiciary had surely no jurisdiction over him, in an offence which consisted in having published a 'de'testable, fireing, blasphemous thesis,' at the university of Oxford. In those times, however, it was sufficient, if some attention was paid to the forms, without the smallest regard to the principles of law and justice. King James knew, that, even armed with the terrors of the Star Chamber, he could not, in England, overwhelm the prisoner with that destruction which he meditated; he therefore embraced the illegal resolution of sending the prisoner

* i. e. printed in Saxon character.

L

1618 to be tried in his own country; a country where the transient gleams of fanaticism served only to cast a gloomy light athwart the regions of tyranny and slavery.

The indictment being read over, the prisoner judicially confessed his guilt, but declared, at the same time, that he committed this offence, while he was in a state of insanity. He craved pardon of God, the King, and his countrymen, and came in the King's will, i. e. submitted to his Majesty's pleasure. He expressed his hope, that his Majesty, being a gracious Prince, would incline to mercy, which is God's right hand, rather than to justice, which is but his left. And he entreated the Court to intercede in his be half.

Being found guilty by the jury, the Court ordained him to be taken back to prison, and to be kept in irons till the King should be informed of his conviction, and till he should suffer an exemplary punishment. The Court met again on the 10th of Sep-tember, when a warrant from his Majesty, directed to Lord Binning, Secretary of State, was produced, conform to which, sentence was pronounced on the prisoner, that he be taken to the cross of Edinburgh, and his right hand struck off; and thereafter his head to be struck from his body, his hand to be put upon the West Port, and his head on the Netherbow.

James Skene, for Treasonable Opinions and Declara

tions.

THE prisoner, who was brother to the Laird of 1680 Skene, was prosecuted at the instance of his Majes- w ty's Advocate for high treason.* He was charged in the indictment with being accessory to the rebellion headed by Balfour of Kinloch, and Hackston of Rathillet, at Air's Moss and Bothwell-bridge; with having maintained the lawfulness of that rebellion, even in presence of the Duke of York, and of the Lords of Privy Council, and those of Justiciary; with having justified the excommunication of the King, and having maintained it was lawful to kill him, &c.

The proof adduced against the prisoner was his own confession, emitted before the Duke of York and Privy Council on the 13th November, 1680, of which the tenor follows.

He said, he did not know who were rebels, but denied that he was present at the battles of Bothwellbridge and of Air's Moss. He thought the persons engaged in those insurrections were not rebels, for they were in defence of God's cause. He was not at the Torwood conventicle when the King was excommunicated, nor did he know who contrived it, but he thought the reasons of the excommunication just. He acknowledged the burning the Acts of Parliament, because they were against the Covenant; and

*Records of Justiciary, November 22, 1680.

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »