A Collection and Avridgement OF CELEBRATED CRIMINAL TRIALS IN SCOTLAND. FROM A. D. 1536 To 1784. WITH HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL REMARKS. BY HUGO ARNOT, ESQ. ADVOCATE. Quae scelerum facies, O virgo, effare, quibusve GLASGOW: PRINTED BY A. NAPIER, 43, TRONGATE. PREFACE. THE Criminal Records of a Country are an historical monument of the ideas of a People, of their manners and jurisprudence: and in the days of ignorance and barbarism, they exhibit a striking, but hideous picture of human nature. The records of Scotland, in parti cular, present such a frequent display of the extravagance of the human mind, as amuses the fancy after the wearisome detail of form, and the disgusting re presentation of guilt. While those materials gratify curiosity, they also af ford useful information. They show what bitter fruits are produced under the gloomy climate of a tyrannical Government, and a superstitious Priesthood; and they afford us ample ground of consolation, when we compare those bitter fruits with the blessings which we enjoy under a free government, and in an enlightened age. To present these Trials unabridged, would be to fatigue the reader with tedious rubbish; and to deliver them without illustration or remark, would be to deprive them of that fund of entertainment and inform. ation which they ought to possess: But the manner in which I thought it adviseable to publish them has laid me under certain disadvantages, viz. the necessity' of delivering my own opinion upon a variety of difficult and important cases; and of undergoing no inconsiderable degree of labour. In the course however of my search, into voluminous, obscure, and mutilated Records, I derived great benefit and satisfaction, from the polite and cheerful assistance afforded me by the Gentlemen in all the Public Offices which I had occasion to consult; and in particular from that of Mr. NORRIS, Depute Clerk of Justiciary, and of the Messrs. ROBERTSONS, Keepers of the Records in the General Register, whose judicious and liberal aid greatly alleviated the trouble of my work, And if it shall be honoured with the public approbation, I shall think myself amply recompensed for the toil of a long and laborious research. EDINBURGH, 1st Aug. 1785. CONTENTS. TREASON. Trial of John Master of Forbess, for conspiring to assassinate King James V. for exciting a mutiny in the King's host, Page Mr. Archibald Douglass, Parson of Glasgow, for the Trea- sonable Murder of Henry King of Scots, John Earl of Gowry, and Mr. Alexander Ruthven, for con- spiring to bereave his Majesty of life, at St. Johnston, Robert Logan of Restalrig, for accession to Gowry's Con- Francis Tennent, merchant-burgess of Edinburgh, for writ- ing a seditious pasquinade against the King, Archibald Cornwall, town-officer in Edinburgh, for attempt- ing to hang up the King's picture on the gallows, Doom pronounced over the Dead Body of Francis Mow- bray, a prisoner, who was killed in his attempt to escape Trial of Mr. Andrew Crichton, for declining the authority of the King and Privy Council, John Fleeming, for slanderous speeches against the King, Thomas Rois, son of the late John Rois of Craigie, for writing and publishing at Oxford, a pasquinade agains James Skene, for treasonable opinions and declarations, Charles Lord Fraser, for high treason, in proclaiming the |