June, 1596, had nearly seen a nobler victim than those usually accorded.
John Stuart, Master of Orkney, and brother of the Earl, "was dilatit of
consulting with umquhile Margaret Balfour, ane wich, for the
destructionne of Patrik Erll of Orkney, be poysoning." In the dittay she
is called "Alysoun Balfour, ane knawin notorious wich." Alisoun, after
being kept forty-eight hours in the "caschiclawis"[10]--her husband, an
old man of eighty-one, her son, and her young daughter, all being in ward
beside her, and tortured--was induced to confess. She could not see the
old man with the Lang Irons of fifty stone weight laid upon him; her son
in the boots, with fifty-seven strokes; and her little daughter, aged
seven, with the thumbscrews upon her tender hands, and not seek to gain
their remission by any confession that could be made. But when the torture
was removed from them and her, she recanted in one of the most moving and
pathetic speeches on record--availing her little then, poor soul! for she
was burnt on the Castle Hill, December 16th, 1594, and her confession
treasured up to be used as future evidence against John Stuart. Thomas
Palpla, a servant, was also implicated; but as he had been kept eleven
days and nights in the caschiclaws (or caspie-claws); twice in the day for
fourteen hours "callit in the buitis;" stripped naked and scourged with
"ropes in sic soirt that they left nather flesch nor hyde vpoun him;" and,
as he recanted so soon as the torture was removed, his confession went for
but little. So John, Master of Orkney, was let off, when perhaps he had
been the only guilty one of the three.
In October[11] of the same year (1596), Alesoun Jollie, spous to Robert
Rae, in Fala, was "dilatit of airt and pairt" in the death of Isobell
Hepburn, of Fala: and the next month, November, Christian Stewart, in
Nokwalter, was strangled and burnt for the slaughter of umquhile Patrick
Ruthven, by taking ane black clout from Isobell Stewart, wherewith to work
her fatal charm. It does not appear that she did anything more heinous
than borrow a black cloth from Isobell, which might or might not have been
left in Ruthven's house; but suspicion was as good as evidence in those
days, and black clouts were dangerous things to deal with when women had
the reputation of witches. So poor Christian Stewart was strangled and
burnt, and her soul released from its troubles by a rougher road, and a
shorter, than what Nature would have taken if left to herself. "Strange
that while all these dismal affairs were going on at Edinburgh, Shakspeare
was beginning to write his plays, and Bacon to prepare his essays. Ramus
had by this time shaken the Aristotelian philosophy, and Luther had broken
the papal tyranny."[12] Truly humanity walks by slow marches, and by
painful stumbling through thorny places!