Justiciar did not hesitate to let him go, ac cepting Sheriff Agnew as surety "to satisfy the parties." Pretty satisfaction they would get! All this took place in Wigtown, within the juris diction of the sheriff himself. What possible hope of security could be entertained by those who desired to be law-abiding and honest? What possible respect could they have for the dignitaries representing the Crown? But the misdeeds of the Sheriff of Wig town pale before those of John Gordon, Sheriff Depute of Aberdeen, more than a century later. Frances Hay was alleged to have slain the brother of the Sheriff Depute's kinsman, Gordon of Geicht, to oblige whom the said Sheriff Depute, in 1616, seized and imprisoned the said Frances, put him on a mock trial, condemned him to death, and handed him over to the said Gordon of Geicht for execution. This gentleman shut Frances up in his own "privat prissone," and next morning had him led forth " to ane hole betwix tua mottis, quhair thay crowned thair tragidie," as the official "clittay" expresses it, " with so boutcherlie mangling and demaning [treating] the pino gentill-man, be geving him sex seneral straikis upone his schoukleris, heid, and nek, as the lyk hes nevir or seldome bene hard and sene." Geicht, the Sheriff-Depute, and their accomplices were put on their trial for this inhuman murder, but they got off on Gordon of Rothiemay standing surety for them. And so the sickening chronicle proceeds. It seems to have been possible for any man, no matter what his degree or the atrocity of his guilt, to secure immunity from all punish ment except a fine, provided he could produce friends to go bail for him. If the bail were forfeited, so much the better for the Exche quer. Thus, to go back to the reign of James IV., at an assize held at Selkirk in March, 1495, William Clerk, arraigned for the slaughter of Robert Hay, Gilbert Cokburne, Thomas Lovel, and Gilbert Kermichel, produced a remission, David Pringle of Tor-
woodlee offering himself as surety to satisfy the parties! But it went ill with law-breakers who were neither influential nor useful enough to command the good offices of friends; and the record shows many entries similar to that of Robert Haw in Hevesyde, who was convicted at Jed.burgh in 1510 of art and part in stealing horses, cattle and sheep, and a quantity of miscellaneous prop erty, including a bagpipe, from a number of persons, and, being unable to find surety, was condemned to be warded by the sheriff for forty days, at the end of which time, if no security were forthcoming, he was to be hanged. At the same assize a similar sen tence was pronounced on John Dalgleish,who had brought in Black John Routleclge and his gang from over the Border to burn Branxholm, and the Armstrongs from the Debat able Lands to burn Ancrum. Had it been worth the expense to any baron to buy off these fellows, no doubt they would have saved their lives and liberty. Sometimes, however, for causes not men tioned in the record, a mysterious leniency was exhibited to prisoners of humble rank, leaving the disagreeable inference that they were only the instruments of powerful per sons whose names were- not allowed to ap pear. Of such nature is the remission awarded in 1539 to Thomas Sinclair and his wife, Elizabeth Xesbitt, who seem to have committed an atrocious deed in the multilatio ct demembratio Roberti Hcndirsoiiiie de suis tcsticnlis. But however repugnant to the spirit of justice may be the influence of wealth and station in protecting criminals against pun ishment, the evil sinks into insignificance beside the corrupt conviction of innocent persons at the instance of those in high places. No more odious example of this has been brought to light than the infamous persecu tion of Janet Douglas, Lady Glamis, by di rection of James V. the "Red Tod;" and the credit of having rescued this lady's mem
