I 



Scottish Life in the 17TH Century. 297 



occurred in Dumfries was the execution, just a hundred years 

 later, of nine reputed witches, who were tried at one assize, and 

 condemned to be strangled and their bodies afterwards burned. 

 It does not appear that torture was resorted to in order to extort 

 a confession of guilt from these unhappy creatures ; but the 

 same object was sometimes gained by the rigours of a lengthened 

 imprisonment before trial. One poor woman, against whom 

 sufficient evidence was not forthcoming, was imprisoned at Kirk- 

 cudbright, near the close of the seventeenth century, for two 

 vears, until she prayed her persecutors to end her sufferings by 

 death; and her melancholy request was granted, on the strength 

 of a confession thus obtained, by a commission appointed by 

 the Privy Council. It is sad to note how tenacious of life 

 this cruel and debasing superstition was. The last trial for 

 witchcraft before the Justiciary Court in Scotland took place at 

 Dumfries in 1790, when the accused was burned in the cheek 

 with a hot iron and banished for life. But it projected its 

 baneful shadow even into the nineteenth century, for in the 

 year 1805 the Steward-Depute of Kirkcudbright sentenced a 

 person accused of pretending to powers of witchcraft to im- 

 prisonment for a year and repeated exposure in the jougs. 



During the time covered by our narrative the country passed 

 through a civil war, and "the bridge port" for a time bore 

 grim memorials in the form of the heads of "rebels," as the 

 Covenanters were styled. The Committee of Estates recruited 

 an army for operations against Charles, and required all 

 citizens to contribute for its support. A committee entrusted 

 with the carrying out of these objects in Dumfriesshire, as well 

 as other parts, sat generally at the Kirkcudbrightshire village of 

 Lauriston, then called Cullenoch, but certain " substantious " 

 burgesses of the town were deputed by the committee to receive 

 contributions, and they sat in the Town Hall for that purpose 

 for a portion of every lawful day during part of the years 1640 

 and 1 64 1. The contributions were not altogether voluntan.-, 

 but were enforced where necessar}' by poinding and sale ; and 

 people were required to bring not only money of the realm, 

 which was somewhat scarce, but also articles of silver and gold, 

 for which they were promised a money equivalent when the 

 war should be over. A regiment recruited in the south, and 

 placed under command of Lord Kirkcudbright, was also billeted 

 for some time in the town. Some of the actual campaigning 

 took place in the neighbourhood. Caerlaverock was the strong- 

 hold of the Royalist family of Maxwell, and it was reduced 

 after a month's siege by the Parliamentary General^ Home. 



But I shall not pursue the subject of the war, the general 

 history of which is foreign to our subject. Our hasty survey 

 has helped to show that our ancestors of the seventeenth 

 century lived under a system oppressive and inquisitorial, and 



