A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Rationalists/Aikenhead, Thomas
Aikenhead, Thomas, Scottish martyr. B. 1678. Ed. Edinburgh University. In his eighteenth or nineteenth year, while he was still at the University, Aikenhead adopted Deism, and was arrested for blasphemy. He said that Ezra had forged the Old Testament, that all theology was "a rhapsody of ill-contrived nonsense," and that Christ was merely human. After an appalling travesty of a trial he had no counsel, and the only witnesses were those of the prosecution ho was sentenced to death (Howell's State Trials, 1812, vol. xiii, pp. 917-38). In his History of England (iv, 783-86) Macaulay writes with glowing indignation of the martyrdom. Under Scottish law, he says, the youth might have been imprisoned until he retracted, but Lord Advocate Stewart "called for blood." In his horrible and lonely position Aikenhead retracted, but the clergy, fearing the clemency of William III, pressed for his death, and he was hanged on Jan. 8, 1697.