THE COLLEGE OF JUSTICE.
"No! in an accursed spot--our magic tree,
Where devils from of yore their sabbath keep--
Has all this been contrived; there did she sell
Her soul to the eternal fiend, to be
With brief vain-glory honoured in this world.
Bid her stretch forth her arm, and ye will see
The puncture, by which hell hath marked its own."
SCHILLER'S _Maid of Orleans_
The summer solstice was passed.
Heavily and louringly the 15th of July dawned over Edinburgh; and one
hour after the portes were unclosed, the Right Honourable Knight, Sir
Simon Preston of Craigmillar, the new Lord Provost of the city and
Admiral of the Forth, entered by the Kirk-of-field Wynd, sheathed in
full armour, with a party of horse; when, conformably to the orders
of his eminence the cardinal, John Muckleheid, senior bailie, joined
him with three hundred archers--the same burgher-archers who had
lined the streets exactly two months before, on the entrance of Queen
Magdalene.
A tumult was expected; very few merchants or chapmen opened their
booths on this morning; and those between the Bell-house and the Tron
remained closed. Sir John Forrester's guards were doubled at the
palace, the Mint, the castle-gate, and elsewhere; and after arming
themselves with more than usual care, vast crowds of burghers poured
towards the Exchequer Chambers, or _'Checquer Chalmers_, as they then
named them. The stacks of heather, broom, whins, and of other fuel,
which were then permitted to encumber the street, either as being the
property of householders, or for sale, bore each on their summit a
load of urchins, whose yells and outcries served to increase the
general clamour.
A flag was flying on the steeple of the Tolbooth, which had been
built fifty years before, by John Mercer, master mason; and thirteen
shops (formed at the same period), in the vaults below the edifice,
remained closed and barricaded.
The respect his garb ensured him, and the liberal manner in which he
said "Pax vobiscum" to all, enabled the anxious and excited Father
St. Bernard, on leaving his dormitory in the house of the
prebendaries, to force a passage through the dense crowd which
occupied the High-street, around the Exchequer, the Tolbooth, and
Council-house, spreading even down the steep churchyard of St. Giles.
The provost's kinsman, Sir Andrew Preston, of Quhite-hill and
Gourtown, with a squadron of horsemen, overawed the crowd. Clad in a
suit of rich armour, he rode up and down the thoroughfare with his
long lance, ordering and threatening some, or courteously giving
admittance to others. The priest procured a place within the large
hall of the Exchequer, where, for some reason now unknown, the trial
of his unhappy penitent was to take place. A strong guard of archers
occupied the hall-door and the turnpike-stair below, permitting none
to enter without the closest scrutiny, lest armed Setons or Douglases
might penetrate into the heart of the place; for rumours of rescue
were abroad in the city.
Roofed with beams of oak, painted and gilded, the hall was lighted by
two rows of windows, lozenged and stained with brilliant coats of
arms. Those on the east faced the dark buildings of a narrow close;
those on the west overlooked the churchyard of St. Giles; thus, as
the sun could not (until mid-day) penetrate its recesses, the light
within the hall, at the early hour of eight, when the court began to
assemble, was of the most subdued and sombre kind.
At the upper end were fifteen chairs, behind a bench, all covered
with scarlet cloth, whereon sat Walter Mylne, abbot of Cambuskenneth,
lord president of the recently instituted, and then eminently
obnoxious court of judicature, with his fourteen lords--viz., the
abbot of Kinloss, the rector of Ashkirk, the provosts of Dunglass and
of the Holy Trinity; the deans of Brechin, Restalrig, and Dunbar, who
sat on his right hand; while the remaining seven, who were
laymen--the knights of Balwearie, Lundie, Easter-Wemyss, Oxengangs,
and of the Highriggs, Sir Francis Bothwell, and Otterburn of Auldhame
(a cousin of Redhall)--sat upon his left. These were the first
fifteen senators of the College of Justice in Scotland; and, save the
churchmen, few of them could sign their names. They were all men
advanced in life; and, with their black caps and scarlet gowns,
looked grimly over the half circular bench, which was raised on a
dais several feet above the floor of the hall.
Headed by Lord David Hamilton (a son of the Earl of Arran), their
chancellor, or, as we would now turn him, their foreman, the jury,
which was principally composed of Hamiltons, occupied a recess on one
side of the hall; while the ten advocates, in gowns of Paris black,
with a number of sworn notaries, had the privilege of occupying the
other. A tall wax candle, painted over with religious emblems,
burned on the right hand of the president; and coldly its light fell
upon his pinched and stern features and the gold crucifix which
glittered upon his breast.
Before him, on one hand, was a table where the clerks of court sat,
intrenched up to their ears in papers; on the other stood an uncouth
machine, covered by a black cloth. There was something in its aspect
that made the blood run cold; it was the rack, with other instruments
of torture. They were then in full use by the new court, but were
last applied in Edinburgh by order of William III., whom the Scottish
people will ever remember as the assassin-king--the butcher of
Glencoe.
Near this, in a large arm-chair, hidden from the view of all save the
lords, sat Redhall, buried in thought.
Macers in black gowns, and archers in steel caps, were visible here
and there; but everywhere behind the bar was a dense crowd, whose
heads were overlooking each other in close rows, like piles of
cannon-shot. The whole court sat in the form of a horseshoe; and
every lord's mouth, and every juryman's too, bore some resemblance to
the same figure; for gloom, anger, and severity were impressed upon
them all.
The bar enclosed the ends of this great horseshoe; and there, between
two arquebusiers of the king's guards, sat Lady Jane Seton.
Destitute of every ornament save an amber rosary, she was plainly
attired in a deep-skirted and close-bodied dress of blue silk, with
hanging sleeves, each of which, from the elbow, had three rows of
broad lace; and beneath these, from elbow to wrist, her round white
arms were bare. A simple angular cap, of that graceful fashion which
we see in the old portraits of Anne Boleyn, covered her head. She
was pale as death, and the plain braids of her dark, almost
black-brown hair, made her seem paler still. She had become
fearfully thin and hollow-cheeked, but the character of her beauty
was rather increased than impaired by this attenuation.
There was an expression of intense sadness in her quiet and limpid
eye, and of sorrow on her lip; but there were times when her eyes
flashed and her lip quivered with surprise and contempt, or a cloud
of horror would descend upon her brow at the various proceedings of
this new court, and the bitter humiliation to which it subjected her.
But now, nearly broken in spirit, crushed, and feeling that she was
for ever degraded by the frightful accusation brought against her, in
general she was careless of what was done, or said, or thought of her.
There was something antique in her beauty; but nothing could be
softer, purer, or more delicate than its aspect.
In silence she heard the low muttered revilings and exclamations
around her; when harassed by the stern questions of the hardhearted
and the credulous, or confounded by their energy and ferocity, their
determination and their sophistry, she became utterly silent, and
sought to bend all her thoughts on inward prayer.
A maze was before her eyes, and amid the maze were fifteen scarlet
spots, her fifteen judges; a confused murmur was in her ears, but
amid that murmur she could hear the beating of her own heart. In its
inner recesses there was but one thought--_Roland_; and her heart
only shrunk when her chain rattled; for they had chained her.
She was a witch!.....
Many a familiar face was in the crowd, yet not one deigned to look on
her with kindness or with friendship. The terrible accusation had
frozen the hearts of all; thus she saw less perhaps of sorrow than of
indignation in every face; while, generally, a silence the most
profound reigned throughout the whole assembly.
In Scotland trials for sorcery were mere formalities; the same blind
terror and insane credulity which brought forward the accusation and
hurried on the decision, led at once to the frightful condemnation.
When first indicted, Jane had some hope of mercy, and that her
perfect innocence might avail her; for sorcery was then a new crime,
and there were many who totally denied its existence; but the moment
she entered the court, and looked on the faces of her judges, and saw
that there were eight Hamiltons in the jury-box, she felt that her
doom was written, and gave herself up for lost--as the majority of
votes form the opinion of a Scottish jury.
The proceedings of the Supreme High Court of Justiciary in 1537, the
year of its birth, were, in detail, widely different from what they
are to-day; and such was its informality, that there was not one
witness for the defence, the counsel for which based his arguments
solely on the blameless life, the innocence, and conscious rectitude
of the accused.
"I am innocent!" Jane would sometimes repeat to herself; "and they
dare not punish me--God will not permit them!"
The clerk of the court now stood up to read the indictment, which was
written on a strip of parchment:--
"Jane Seton, most falsely designated lady and of Ashkirk, thou art
delated by the king's advocate for procuring the death of umquhile
the queen's grace (whom the blessed Lord assoilzie!) by sorcery and
incantations procured from hell; thou art accused of having a
familiar spirit; of having renounced thy baptism, and having upon
thee the mark by which Satan distinguishes all who have sold
themselves unto his service."
"Of these crimes against the laws of God and of man, of nature and
our holy Christian church, Jane Seton, art thou guilty, or art thou
not guilty?" asked the abbot Mylne, sadly and solemnly.
Thrice the question had to be repeated before she was roused from her
apathy to reply.
"Guiltless, father abbot--guiltless of such crimes--even as the
blessed Mother of all compassion herself was guiltless," she replied,
gently but energetically; "and this day I call upon her to hear the
truth of my assertion; and the unhappy never seek her aid in vain."
A murmur floated above the crowd of spectators; and Jane's head sank
on her breast.
Like a sharp poniard, her voice sank into the heart of Redhall. He
now arose, and with a paper in his hand--a paper which he nervously
folded and unfolded--prepared to speak. He looked like an animated
corpse; his long flowing gown of black Parisian cloth, the sable hue
of his beard and moustache, contrasted forcibly with his livid
complexion. His eyes were hollow, and a ghastly agony was impressed
on every lineament of his face; but attributing these appearances to
his long and recent illness, the whole court, from the lord president
down to Sanders Screw, the torturer, pitied his sufferings, and
admired his worth and unflinching energy as an officer of state.
He dared not turn towards the prisoner, but spoke with averted eyes,
which the court attributed to his gallantry and extreme delicacy of
feeling. He endeavoured to condense the whole hatred of his heart
against her; but love would come again, and they wrestled fiercely
for the mastery. His heart swelled within his breast, and his brain
became wild. He had two existences, and two hearts--one which loved,
and one which hated--one that longed to possess, and another that
longed to destroy her.
Then it would seem that he loved her as of old, and was prompted to
avow his passion and his guilt, and, asserting her innocence, poniard
himself before the court; but again his mad and murderous longing for
revenge would come back upon his heart like a devouring fever, and
thus he loved and thus abhorred in the same moment. Strange, wild,
and inconsistent, his was the love of the devil united to the frenzy
of a destroyer; he felt that it was so, and there were times when he
doubted his own sanity.
The die was cast now, and a thousand eyes were bent upon him, and a
thousand ears were listening. He made a tremendous effort to master
his fierce emotions and open the prosecution; and being aware that
there were many among the judges who doubted, and even denied the
existence of witchcraft, he bent all his dangerous eloquence to prove
the first position.
"My lords," said he, with a voice that, from being soft and
flute-like, had now become hoarse and hollow, though it sounded like
a serpent's hiss to Jane. "My lords, there may be among us those who
decline to admit that witchcraft existeth in the world; albeit,
divines cannot doubt it, for have not the words of God admitted that
such things may be? In the eighteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, we are
told that diviners, enchanters, consulters with familiar spirits,
witches, necromancers, 'are an abomination unto the Lord;' and
further, the twentieth chapter of Leviticus saith, 'the soul that
turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, _I
will even set my face against that soul_, and will cut him off from
among the people;' while the Mosaic law emphatically ordained that no
witch shall be suffered to live. We need not, most reverend and
learned lords, look so far back for proofs that sorcerers and
charmers existed, and do exist: it must be apparent to every
reasonable being that what hath once been may be again, for nothing
is impossible either to God or the devil; and the ancient chronicles
of Scotland, and of every other kingdom, teem with proofs of sorcery.
The heathens of the olden time visited witches with the most dreadful
punishments; the Persians dashed out their brains with stones; while
we know that the Assyrians, Chaldeans, the Indian Gymnosophists, and
the Druids of Caledonia, were addicted to the deepest sorcery. By
the laws of Charlemagne, a witch who ate human flesh escaped for two
hundred sous, which shows (as in the present case) that sorcery was
not confined to the lower class of society.
"The emperor Manuel Comnenus punished sorcerers with the utmost
rigour; and the blessed St. Patrick procured fire from heaven to
destroy nine of them. St. Colme saw a wizard milk a bull, as we are
informed by St. Adamnan, for the saints are constantly watching
Satan, the prince of hell and promoter of mischief; and if so, how
much more ought we, who are _their_ servants, to watch sorcerers and
witches, who are the slaves of the devil!
"The witch of Endor feared to practise her sorceries before the king,
because he had put to death all who had familiar spirits; and so
great was the indignation of God against the sin of sorcery, that he
cut off the ten tribes of Israel because they were wedded unto its
abominations. John de Fordun records, that in the days of that good
knight and gallant king, William the Lion, a wizard who perverted the
vision of the people, was defeated by a holy man reading even a
passage from the blessed Gospels.
"Among the Romans, Publius Marcius and Pituanus were executed for
this crime; as also were Publicia and Lucinia, with threescore and
ten other citizens, as Valerius Maximus informs us in the third
chapter of the sixth book. Hence, to deny the existence of witches,
is to deny the veracity of all history, ecclesiastical as well as
secular; and thus sorcery, being the greatest of all human crimes, as
it includes heresy, blasphemy, and treason against God, involves the
most severe of all human punishments--death by fire--for fire is the
emblem of purification.
"Picus of Mirandola, who lived in the last century, asserts in his
writings, that 'magic is not founded on truth, since it depends upon
powers that are enemies to truth;' and further, 'that there is no one
power in heaven or earth but may be put in motion by the words of a
magician;' and he proves that words are effectual in incantations,
because God made use of words in arranging the universe."
"My lord advocate, to the point," said the president, dryly; "in many
parts of his writings, Francisco Picus was a rank blasphemer."
"The prisoner at the bar is accused of procuring by sorcery, and the
aid of magic images, the death of umquhile the queen's lamented
grace, whom Heaven assoilzie! I accuse her of this, and boldly."
"To the proof," said the abbot of Cambuskenneth, as Redhall paused,
and faltered.
"No difficult task, my lords," he resumed. "I need not expatiate on
the hereditary hatred borne to the king, the queen and court, by the
houses of Ashkirk and of Angus. Consanguinity is ever a strong proof
of sorcery. The countess dowager of Ashkirk hath long sustained an
evil reputation as a dabbler in magic. If the mother be a sorceress,
we hold it in law, that the daughter must infallibly be so too. It
is the inheritance of hell, and descends, as the children of married
saints inherit a share of heaven. Arrian records that prophecy was
hereditary, like disease, and why not sorcery?"
A murmur of assent replied.
"Hence, reared by her mother, the prisoner brought her damnable and
abstruse studies to greater perfection; the pupil surpassed her
teacher; and it was in her boudoir that this image, which is coated
over with wax and stuck full of pins, was yesterday discovered by an
officer of this high court--an officer whose veracity and worth none
will dare to gainsay."
Here Master Birrel smoothed his shock pate; pulled up his ruff, which
was stiffened with whalebone, and looked complacently around him.
"The good queen's gradual illness and wasting away from the hour of
her landing, was the slow but matured work of sorcery; and such the
most learned physicians and apothegars have declared it to be. My
lords and gentlemen, here are written copies of the proofs," he
added, as his clerks and scribes distributed to the bench and jury a
number of written papers; but the said clerks or scribes might have
saved themselves the trouble, as few of the learned lords, and not
one of the intelligent jury, could either read or write. Neither had
yet become fashionable or necessary accomplishments. "There you will
find," continued the lord advocate, "that the queen's grace was first
bewitched at the ball in Holyrood, where the Lady Seton induced
others to dance a measure diabolique, which is well known to be in
use among the witches of France; and as they danced, so the queen's
illness increased with wondrous rapidity. That night her majesty
kindly gave the prisoner her hand to kiss; then lo, again, the power
of hell! the kiss burned into her heart, and she sank into a deadly
faint. In both kiss and dance, my lords, we will prove there was
sorcery, as the abbot of Kinloss assured me at the time. We all know
how much Satan hath achieved by the agency of dancing, on looking
back to the fits and visions of the Convulsionists, who in 1373
appeared at Aix-la-Chapelle. There is a certain mountain of the Harz
chain in Almainie, where, on the 1st of May, every year, all the
witches and wizards of the earth rendezvous to dance on _Valpurgis
night_, as they name it. Now, _La Volta_, the hell-dance, was the
ancient measure of the orgia, the feasts of Bacchus, a god of the
pagans--a demon who loved wine. It came from Italy to Spain; from
Spain to France; from France to Scotland.
"To the second proof. The prisoner with others visited the booth of
Master Mossman, jeweller to the king's majesty; and there, placing on
her head the queen's new crown (a notable piece of Douglas
presumption), said certain words, to the effect that _she would never
live to wear it, for her days were numbered_, and these ominous words
we have here six witnesses to prove. Oh, my lords, did they not
clearly and prophetically indicate a foreknowledge of the queen's
death, obtained by the assistance of that familiar spirit who resided
with her in the quality of page? Lastly, this image, half roasted
and perforated by ninety-nine pins, and marked with a crown and the
letters M.B., for Magdalene Bourbon. My lords and gentlemen, can
other proof be wanting?"
Here he held up to view, between a pair of small iron tongs, a little
wooden figure, about eight inches long, having on its head a crown.
"Mother of God!" muttered the people, crossing themselves with horror
at these accumulated proofs.
"That death may be produced by wasting images, I could adduce a
thousand instances; but less will suffice. In the year 980, our own
King Duff, who pined under a grievous illness in Murrayshire, was
rescued from death when the witch was burned and her images broken.
The severe illness of Charles VI. of France was caused by sorcery,
and the witch was burnt; so was another, who, in conjunction with the
devil, forged a deed in favour of Robert of Artois. The powers of
inflicting and of allaying diseases were peculiar to sorcerers; the
mother allayed--the daughter inflicted. Solomon could allay disease
by incantations, and Phyrrus, king of Epirus, did so by one touch of
his great toe. Magic water may have been thrown on the queen's
person; for we know that a few drops from Chosopis, the enchanted
river of the Persians, brought death to all on whom they fell. As
the fire scorched and wasted this image, even so did the poor queen
waste and sink. Observe, my lords, it is formed of _pine_."
"The pine was consecrated, by the heathens of old, to Pluto, King of
Demons," said Lord Auldhame.
"And wherever the unhappy queen endured the most severe pains,--in
her head, in her heart, or the region of the stomach, there we find
the greatest number of torturing pins. There are seven in each eye,
and, like three, seven is a mystical number. I have but one remark
more, my lords. This image was originally that of one of the three
kings of Cologne; it has been abstracted from the rood screen of St.
Giles's, and made to serve for that of her umquhile majesty Queen
Magdalene."
"Sacrilege! sacrilege!" cried the crowd of listeners; "blasphemy and
heresy!----"
"All of which assuredly require the most severe penalty your
lordships can inflict--death at the stake!" and as the lord advocate
sat down, pale and exhausted by his long harangue, and by the wild
misanthropy of his desperate soul, the horror waxed strong in the
hearts of his hearers.
"Holy Mary!" exclaimed the lord president, raising his hands and eyes
to the oak ceiling, "can this woman, this being abandoned of God and
of man, be a daughter of that gallant race, every chief of which has
bled for Scotland and its king? Oh, what a wondrous--what a vast
amount of sin is here!"
Master Robert Galbraith and Master Henry Spittal, the most able of
the ten advocates, spoke in the defence of the accused long and ably,
but all their arguments were overborne by the sophistry and eloquence
of Redhall, and by the cloud of witnesses for the prosecution, which
proceeded with such rapidity, that they were soon silenced, and sat
down completely baffled. Then a long and anxious pause succeeded.
Father St. Bernard was in despair.
A senator now spoke; he was the rector of Ashkirk.
"My lords," said he, "in all that I have this day heard, there is
much that perplexes me sorely; for it seemeth that the same faculties
which were _miracles_ when exercised by the saints, we style
_sorceries_ when assumed by others. St. Servan of Lochleven
converted water into wine, and from the bosom of the arid earth a
fountain sprang at the voice of St. Patrick. St. Baldred of the Bass
used as a boat that rock which we may still see fixed in the sea near
his island; the wooden altar of St. Bryde of Douglas sprouted and put
forth leaves at her holy touch; the robe of St. Colme procured rain
in Iona; and, in the winter time, St. Blaise could strike fire with
his fingers----"
Here a stern glance from the Abbot Mylne cut him short, and he paused.
"The blessed saints of whom thou speakest, my lord, wrought those
wonders by the aid of Heaven alone, and not by the agency of a black
spirit. Of late, the devil hath frequently appeared at the
preachings of the Reformers as a black cat, and why may he not appear
elsewhere as a black boy?" said the president.
"True, most reverend and learned lord," rejoined the meagre little
abbot of Kinloss, "need I remind your lordships how my predecessor,
Abbot Ralph, now in company of the saints, when holding a chapter of
the Cistercians at Kinloss, A.D. 1214, beheld the devil, yea, as
surely as my name is Robin Reid, beheld him, in the shape of an
Ethiopian, enter by a window; but, on being exorcised in good Latin,
he vanished in smoke."*
* See John de Fordun's "Scotichronicon."
"True, true," continued Redhall, incoherently; "and by a devilishly
devised compact with this familiar, she assigned her soul to Satan
for the powers given----"
"Proof?" said the doubting rector of Ashkirk; "where is this
contract?"
"In the archives of hell--therefore, how can we produce it?"
The judge sat down silenced, and a cold smile flitted over the face
of Redhall, whose usually impassible front the Cumæan sybil herself
could not have read; but he looked anxiously at the abbot of
Cambuskenneth.
"Would that I knew what is passing in thy bald head, thou shaven
dotard!" thought he.
"Familiar spirits are usually black," said the president; "the vile
imposter, Mahomet, had one in the shape of a black cock, which, when
it crew, set all the cocks in the world crowing; and the Lord Hugh of
Zester had a black demon named _Gudeshovel_, who dug for him his
goblin hall beneath the surface of the earth. The unhappy prisoner
having persisted in denying her guilt, I require a slight application
of the torture, and an examination for the devil's mark, that the
ends of justice may be duly satisfied."
Redhall, who had been but half prepared for this, felt his heart die
within him, and he made a convulsive start.
"The torture! the torture! Oh, rather let me die! Holy abbot--my
lords--I ask you not for pardon, because I am innocent. I think not
of vengeance, because I am a woman--and though an earl's daughter and
an earl's sistar, a poor and helpless one--but I implore death,
because ye have dishonoured me by these accusations and by these
bonds--cruelly and falsely dishonoured me. Put me to death, but not
to the torture; for oh, I am weak, very weak, and will tell you
anything. Let me die! let me die! Oh, save me, Sir Adam
Otterburn--oh yes, everything--thou who hast done it all, save me
from these frightful men!"
As Birrel and Sanders Screw approached the shrinking girl, with their
stolid visages and huge hands, though half suffocated by sobs, she
gave a low, wild cry of agony and horror, and closing her eyes,
became perfectly passive. The judges looked on unmoved; a thrill
pervaded the hearts of the people, and Redhall felt the perspiration
trickle over his brow, though his blood ran cold through his veins.
"Oh, Roland, Roland! my love! my love! I am dying now," said Jane,
in a low voice (that was heard by Redhall alone), as she was lifted
from her seat.
Redhall's momentary pity died; he sat down with one of his freezing
smiles--such smiles as can only be given by one who has alike
outlived the hopes of his heart and the feelings of humanity.
"_The torture,_" repeated the lord president.
Redhall dipped his pen mechanically in the inkstand, and Dobbie
uncovered the rack; then, as every man respired more freely, a low,
but unintentional hiss seemed to pervade the hall.