There appears to have occurred in Scotland _one_ instance at least of
this barbarous mode of executing justice. In his Notes to Leyden's
Ballad of _Lord Soulis_ (in the _Minstrelsy of the Border_), Sir Walter
Scott says:--
"The tradition regarding the death of Lord Soulis, however
singular, is not without a parallel in the real history of
Scotland. The same extraordinary mode of cookery was actually
practised (_horresco referens_) upon the body of a Sheriff of the
Mearns. This person, whose name was Melville of Glenbervie, bore
his faculties so harshly, that he became detested by the Barons of
the country. Reiterated complaints of his conduct having been made
to James I. (or, as others say, to the Duke of Albany), the
monarch answered, in a moment of unguarded impatience, 'Sorrow gin
the Sheriff were sodden, and supped in broo!' The complainers
retired, perfectly satisfied. Shortly after, the Lairds of
Arbuthnot, Mather, Laureston, and Pattaraw, decoyed Melville to
the top of the hill of Garvock, above Lawrencekirk, under pretence
of a grand hunting party. Upon this place (still called the
_Sheriff's Pot_), the Barons had prepared a fire and a boiling
cauldron, into which they plunged the unlucky Sheriff. After he
was _sodden_ (as the king termed it) for a sufficient time, the
savages, that they might literally observe the royal mandate,
concluded the scene of abomination by actually partaking of the
hell-broth.
"The three Lairds were outlawed for this offence; and Barclay, one
of their number, to screen himself from justice, erected the kaim
(_i.e._ the camp, or fortress) of Mathers, which stands upon a
rocky and almost inaccessible peninsula, overhanging the German
Ocean. The Laird of Arbuthnot is said to have eluded the royal
vengeance, by claiming the benefit of the law of clan Macduff. A
pardon, or perhaps a deed of replegiation, founded upon that law,
is said to be still extant upon the records of the Viscount of
Arbuthnot.
"The punishment of boiling," adds Sir Walter, "seems to have been
in use among the English at a very late period, as appears from
the following passage in Stowe's _Chronicle_:--'The 17th March
(1524) Margaret Davy, a maid, was boiled at Smithfield for
poisoning of three households that she had dwelled in.'"
According to tradition, however, the boiling, or _broiling_ rather, of
the Wizard-Earl Soulis, was still more frightful:--
"On a circle of stones they placed the pot,
On a circle of stones but barely nine;
They heated it red and fiery hot,
Till the burnished brass did glimmer and shine.
"_They rolled him up in a sheet of lead_,
A sheet of lead for a funeral pall;
They plunged him in the cauldron red,
_And melted him, lead, and bones, and all_."