In the 1680s, a man was murdered and his body hid in Greenhead Moss near Wishaw, where it lay for ~250 years until it was found by a man digging peats in 1932.
He was aged 50ish, was 5’6”, with long brown hair, had size 7 feet, and was last seen wearing a fancy cap.
Mann, L.M., Graham, J., Eskdale, R.G., and W. Martin (1937) Notes on the discovery of a body in a peat moss at Cambusnethan, Transactions of the Glasgow Archaeological Society, 9(1): 44-55
On the 28th April 1647, Isobel Kemp was banished from the town of Aberdeen for “hir bad and abbominable conversation”. She was banished on “payne of drouning” and anyone harbouring her would be fined or lose their pension.
Imagine if your patter was that bad…
Twitter user @Meldrum04 shared some additional info on Isobel from an Aberdeen history book. Turns out she was a tapster, someone who sells ale door to door. She was married but had been found cavorting with another man, which is probably what “conversation” means here.
Stuart, J. (ed.) (1872) Extracts from the Council register of the burgh of Aberdeen. Scottish Burgh Records Society, Edinburgh, pg.84.
In May 1895, 3 men broke into several Windygate businesses. Items stolen were:
20lbs of polony sausages
4lbs of steak
a box of railway lamp matches
They planned to feed 40 rough sleepers in the old brickworks at Muiredge. One man testified for the prosecution, one got 6 months, one got 3 months.
Polony here refers to Scottish polony a traditional sausage once common in the Northeast (and not baloney, bologna sausage etc.). More info (and source of pic) here: https://macdonaldbutchers.co.uk/scottish-polony-online-butchers/
Someone from Caithness on Twitter was surprised to hear about polony being eaten in Fife and Dundee (a polony supper is apparently worth a trip to Caithness!) As MacDonald Butchers note on their site, it’s not easy to find information on polony, and certainly it appears that polony in this sense of the word isn’t in the Dictionary of The Scottish Language (dsl.ac.uk).
Dundee Advertiser, 18th June 1895, pg. 2.
On 25th May 1661, Paisley Council declared that folk in the town must pile their foulzie by their back door and not out their front door in middens as it is “unbecoming, uncomely, and dishonest to the toun”.
Foulzie is human excrement.
Anyone who did pile up their foulzie at the front door had 48hrs to clean it up or sell it under pain of £10. In 1670, Paisley made it illegal to sell foulzie to anyone not from Paisley. In 1690, everyone had to clean up any foulzie outside their door, if it was theirs or not.
In November 1810, Alexander Gillan was hanged for the rape and murder of Elspet Lamb. The judge ordered his body be hung in chains at the site of the murder on Spynie Muir, near Hill of Garmouth. He was the last person to be gibbeted in Scotland.
The judge declared that Gillan’s body would hang “until the fowls of the air pick the flesh of your body and your bones bleach and whiten in the winds of Heaven!”
It’s noteworthy also that the second to last gibbeting was 31 years previously in 1779. Scotland had given up hanging corpses in chains but special exception was made for Gillan.
Gillan’s body was cut down and buried fairly quickly, unlike David Edwards, who was hanged in Ayr in 1758. His body was gibbeted for so long (at least 20 years) that it became part of the landscape and made it onto maps!
John Fian, executed 1591, was said to have accidentally seduced a cow instead of a young woman he liked. He asked her brother to get “her private hairs” for a spell, but her mother (being a witch also) gave him hair from an udder instead. Sorcerer no, perv yes.
In 1881, 4 masked men with revolvers stole the body of the Earl of Crawford from a crypt at Dunecht. A poacher who “saw too much” wrote to the papers with clues to the body’s location, but he became the scapegoat. Why the body was stolen has never been solved.
Two years later a mysterious message in a bottle washed up at Trondra, Shetland. Who wrote the note, planned to sell the body, and who would’ve even bought it, is unknown.
On 4th Feb 1881, two men thought to have fled to Scotland from Ned Kelly’s bushranger gang assaulted 5 people with sticks and pistols on Leith’s Ferry Rd. After a police shootout one was arrested and one shot himself through the head on Commerical Street.
In 1847 during the Highland Famine, a farmer tried to ship grain out of Beauly and was stopped by a group of starving men. The Sheriff tried to read the Riot Act and got a snowball to the face. 600 folk were at the Beauly Snowball Riot, which took 70 soldiers to break up.
Many in the English press had little sympathy for the starving folk of Beauly:
Whatever want of food may be felt at Beauly, there seemed to be no lack of whiskey [sic]. In the evening, the heroes who had volunteered their services in aid of the villages, were seen reeling home intoxicated. They had money to put themselves into this state, but they had none to buy bread!
Leamington Spa Courier, Saturday 27th February 1847
Sources
“The Beauly Rioters”. John O’ Groat Journal, Friday 16th April 1847, pg 3.
In February 1597, Aberdeen women Johnnet Wischart and Issobell Cockie were accused of witchcraft and sentenced to death. Aberdeen invoiced them for their own burning. They were also billed for the burial of their “accomplice”, Issobell Mantheith.
From what I can tell from the burgh record extracts, Issobell, Johnnet, and Johnnet’s son Thomas Leyis were named “ringleaders” in group conviction of witches and the three of them were sent bills as they were able to pay. Others were already dead or unable to pay. Issobell Mantheith had hanged herself in prison before she could be executed.
It looks like the whole Leyis family were an unpopular one as they (7 of them) plus 3 complices were executed or banished. The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft says doesn’t mention strangulation, just that they were burnt. (Women convicted of witchcraft were usually strangled before being cremated, but in 1597, they seem to have been burnt alive).
UPDATE: I’m sure a historian of witch trials in Scotland could say much more about how common it was to be invoiced for your own death, but I found some more examples of “receipts” in the Annals of Pittenweem for the 1640s.
3d Nov. 1643. — John Dawson has made payment of his grassmail, and of the soume of £40, expenses depursit upon executing his wyff, to the treasurer.
18th Dec. 1643 –Thomas Cook, son to Margaret Horsbrugh, is ordainit to pay three score of punds for expenses debursit on the executing of his said mother for witchcraft.
12th Jan 1644.– Archibald and Thomas Wanderson are decerned to pay the soumes of ane hundredth marks for defraying of the charges depursit upon their wives, execut for witchcraft.
Cook, D. (ed.) (1867) Annals of Pittenweem : being notes and extracts from the ancient records of that burgh, 1526-1793. pp.49-50