112 



KOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 118. 



authority of which I am ignorant, as he attributes 

 the expulsion (according to W. H. F.) to Sigurd, 

 ■whereas the words of the Diploma are, "per Nor- 

 wegenses de stirpe sive de tribu strenuissimi prin- 

 cipis Rognaldi," by no means limiting the deed to 

 his (Rognald's) immediate successor, though in- 

 ferentially accusing Sigurd of participation. A 

 careful consideration of the entire passage in 

 Depping, and of his general style, may tend to 

 show whether he relied merely on the Diploma, 

 or whether he had some more definite authority. 



I may mention, that though it has escaped 

 W. H. F.'s observation, he will find, by referring 

 to pp. 87. 116. 133., Headrick's edition, that Barry 

 did not overlook the early Christianising of the 

 Orkneys, and the extirpation of the Pape ; 

 although, seeing that the former is matter of his- 

 tory, and the latter was not a mere tradition in 

 1406, but derived from a more trustworthy source 

 (" sicut cro7«"ce nostre clare demonstrant"), he is 

 scarcely distinct enough, or decided in his infer- 

 ences. It would be interesting to know what 

 were those " cronice" appealed to by the bishop. 



A. H. R. 



Caithness. 



THE CEIME or POISONING PUNISHED BT 

 BOILING. 



(Vol. v., p. 32.) 



Mr, J. B. CoLMAN has directed attention to the 

 special act of attainder passed in 22 Hen. VIII. 

 in order to punish Richard Roose for poisoning 

 the family of the Bishop of Rochester; but I 

 have reason to believe that he is wrong in his 

 assertion that, prior to that statute, " there was 

 no peculiarity in the mode of punishment" for 

 the crime in question. In the Chronicle of the 

 Grey Friars of London, which I am now engaged 

 in editing for the Camden Society, I find an in- 

 stance of the like punishin;;iit being inflicted for 

 the same crime in the 13th Hen. VIII. : 



" And this yere was a man soddyne in a cautherne 

 (sc. a cauldron) in Smythfelde, and lett up and downe 

 dyvers tymes tyll he was dede, for because he wold a 

 poyssynd dyvers persons." 



I would therefore beg to inquire whether Mr. 

 CoLMAN has taken a correct view of the statute of 

 22 Hen. VIII. as prescribing a new punishment, 

 retrospective to the case of Richard Roose ; and 

 whether the act was not, so far as he was con- 

 cerned, simply one of attainder, to deprive the 

 culprit of the " advantage of his clargie," whereby 

 he might otherwise have escaped the legal punish- 

 ment already provided for the crime. Having de- 

 clared Roose attainted of high treason, the statute 

 proceeds to enact that all future poisoners shall 

 also be debarred of the benefit of clergy, and im- 

 mediately committed to death by boiling. Roose's 



own case is recorded in the Grey Friars' Chronicle 

 with the same horrible circumstances as those re- 

 lated in the former instance, of his life being 

 gradually destroyed: 



" He was lockyd in a chayne and puUyd up and 

 downe with a gybbyt at dyvers tymes tyll he was 

 dede." 

 A third instance occurs in 1542, when — 



" The X day of March was a mayde boyllyd in 

 Smythfelde for poysynyng of dyvers persons." 



This last is the same case which is cited by L. H. K. 

 in your Vol. ii., p. 519. If my view of the statute 

 of 22 Hen. VIII. be the right one, it still remains 

 to be ascertained when this barbarous punishment 

 was first adopted ; and is it certain that it ceased 

 with the reign of Hen. VIII. ? 



John Gotjgh Nichols. 



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 Sovlis (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 reai 

 history of Scotland. The same extraordinary mode of 

 cookery was actually practised (Jiorresco referens) upon 

 the body of a Sheriff of the Mearns. This person, 

 whose name was Melville of Glenbervie, bore his facul- 

 ties so liarshly, 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, de- 

 coyed Melville to the top of the hill of Garvock, 

 above Lawrencekirk, under pretence of a grand hunt- 

 ing party. Upon this place (still called the Sheriff's 

 Fot), the Barons had prepared a fire and a boilmg 

 cauldron, into which they plunged the unlucky Sheriff". 

 After he was sodden (as the king termed it) for a suf- 

 ficient 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 for- 

 tress) of 3Iathers, 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 re- 

 plegiation, 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) Mar- 

 garet Davy, a maid, was boiled at Smithfield for 

 poisoning of three households that she had dwelled in.' " 



