Part 1

_Notable Scottish Trials_

Deacon Brodie

PRINTED BY WILLIAM HODGE AND COMPANY GLASGOW AND EDINBURGH 1906

Trial of Deacon Brodie

EDITED BY William Roughead Writer to the Signet

GLASGOW AND EDINBURGH WILLIAM HODGE & COMPANY

TO THE HONOURABLE LORD DUNDAS THIS VOLUME IS BY KIND PERMISSION RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THE EDITOR

PREFATORY NOTE.

The following report of this interesting trial is prepared from the original record, with additional particulars from contemporary sources. No connected account of the life of William Brodie having hitherto been attempted, the Editor has endeavoured to give in the introduction as complete a view as is now possible of his remarkable career.

To Sheriff Moffatt, Lanark, and Mr. William Brown and Mr. John A. Fairley, Edinburgh, the Editor is under obligation for the use of MSS., books, and prints in connection with the subject. His thanks are also due to Dr. Joseph Anderson, Keeper of the Scottish National Museum of Antiquities, who has allowed him to photograph Deacon Brodie’s lantern and keys and to make excerpts from the records of the Cape Club. For permission to publish for the first time facsimiles of Brodie’s letter to the Duchess of Buccleuch and the MS. register in his Family Bible, the Editor is respectively indebted to the courtesy of Mr. Alexander Anderson, Librarian of the Edinburgh University Library, and the Plans and Works Committee of Edinburgh Town Council.

Mr. Bruce J. Home has not only kindly permitted the reproduction of two drawings from his well-known work, “Old Houses in Edinburgh,” but has made a drawing of the old Excise Office, Chessel’s Court, expressly for the present volume.

W. R.

EDINBURGH, _November, 1906_.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Introduction, 9

The Trial--

FIRST DAY--WEDNESDAY, 27TH AUGUST, 1788.

Indictment, 72 List of Witnesses for Prosecution, 74 List of Assize, 75 List of Witnesses for Defence, 76 Interlocutor on the relevancy, 78 List of the Jury, 79 Objection to specification of Crown productions, 80 Objection repelled, 87

_Evidence for Prosecution._

1. William Scott, 87 2. Joseph Mack, 88 3. Thomas Longlands, 89 4. John Geddes, 90 5. Margaret Tweddle or Geddes, 94 6. Robert Smith, 94 7. James Laing, 95 8. John Macleish, 95 9. John Duncan, 96 10. William Mackay, 96 11. Alexander Thomson, 97 12. Laurence Dundas, 98 13. Janet Baxter, 98 14. James Bonar, 99 15. Isobel Wilson, 99 16. John Kinnear, 99 17. Grahame Campbell, 100 18. Mary Hubbart or Hubburt called, 101

Debate as to the admissibility of Hubbart, 101 Objection that she is the wife of Smith repelled, 104 Witness withdrawn owing to misnomer, 106

19. Daniel Maclean, 106 20. John Clerk, 106 21. David Robertson, 107 22. William Middleton, 107 23. Alexander Williamson, 108 24. James Murray, 109 25. George Williamson, 109 26. Andrew Ainslie called, 111

Debate as to the admissibility of Ainslie, 111 Objection to Witness repelled, 115 Ainslie’s evidence, 115 Objection to production of Five-pound Note, 119 Objection sustained, 121

27. John Brown, _alias_ Humphry Moore, called, 122

Debate as to the admissibility of Brown, 122 Objection to Witness repelled, 132 Brown’s evidence, 132 Declarations of George Smith, 138 Declaration of William Brodie, 149 Letter, William Brodie to Matthew Sheriff, 150 Two Letters, William Brodie to Michael Henderson, 152 Copy Letter or Unsigned Scroll, No. I., 154 Copy Letter or Unsigned Scroll, No. II., 156 Account or State of William Brodie’s affairs, 158 Letter, Lee, Strachan & Co., to Emmanuel Walker & Co., 159

_Evidence for Defence._

1. Matthew Sheriff, 160 2. Jean Watt, 161 3. Peggy Giles, 162 4. Helen Alison or Wallace, 163 5. James Murray, 164 6. James Laing, 164 7. Robert Smith, 164

The Lord Advocate’s Address to the Jury, 165 Mr. John Clerk’s Address to the Jury, 174 The Dean of Faculty’s Address to the Jury, 181 The Lord Justice-Clerk’s Charge to the Jury, 197

SECOND DAY--THURSDAY, 28TH AUGUST, 1788.

Verdict of the Jury, 201 Plea in Arrest of Judgment, 202 Plea repelled, 208 Address to the Prisoners and Sentence, 209

APPENDICES.

I. Notes on the Trial of Deacon Brodie, 211

II. A brief Account of the Judges and Counsel engaged on the Trial of Deacon Brodie, 217

III. A List of Publications on the Subject of or having Reference to the Trial of Deacon Brodie, 232

IV. The Brodie Family Bible, 238

V. Excerpts from the Records of the Cape Club, 243

VI. Excerpts from the Guild Registers of the Burgh of Edinburgh, 245

VII. Excerpts from the Records of the Edinburgh Town Council, 246

VIII. Advertisements relating to certain of the Robberies committed by Deacon Brodie, 251

IX. Narrative of the Facts respecting the Robbery of Bruces’ shop, 257

X. State of the Process at the instance of John Hamilton, 262

XI. An Account of Mr. Brodie’s being seized at Amsterdam, 264

XII. The Journal of Mr. Groves, 265

XIII. Copies of Two Autograph Letters of Deacon Brodie, 268

XIV. Speech which George Smith intended to have made at his Trial, 270

XV. An Account of the Execution of the Prisoners, 272

XVI. The Old Excise Office, 277

XVII. An Account of the Proceedings against John Brown, _alias_ Humphry Moore, at the Old Bailey, in April, 1784, 278

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

The first meeting of Deacon Brodie and George Smith, _Frontispiece_

Foot of Brodie’s Close, Cowgate, _facing page_ 12

Cock-fighting Match between the Counties of Lanark and Haddington in 1785, 15

Head of Brodie’s Close, Lawnmarket, 25

The Old Excise Office, Chessel’s Court, Canongate, 31

Deacon Brodie’s Dark Lanthorn and False Keys, 43

George Williamson, King’s Messenger for Scotland, 50

George Smith at the Bar, 55

The Old Tolbooth of Edinburgh, 62

Deacon Brodie, 66

The Solicitor-General (Robert Dundas), 81

Lord Hailes, 105

Lord Eskgrove, 113

Lord Stonefield, 130

Charles Hay (afterwards Lord Newton), 160

The Lord Advocate (Ilay Campbell), 165

John Clerk (afterwards Lord Eldin), 174

The Dean of Faculty (Hon. Henry Erskine), 181

The Lord Justice-Clerk (Lord Braxfield), 197

Facsimile of first page of MS. Register in the Brodie Family Bible, 238

Facsimile of Deacon Brodie’s Letter to the Duchess of Buccleuch, 269

DEACON BRODIE.

INTRODUCTION.

Few cities have preserved more faithfully than Edinburgh the traditions of former days, and none is richer in the material of romance. Throughout the length of the Royal mile extending from Holyrood to the Castle Hill, each tortuous wynd and narrow close owns its peculiar association, each obscure court and towering “land” has contributed, if but by a footnote, to the volume of the city’s history. And where these visible memorials have perished beneath the slow assault of time, or succumbed to the more lethal methods of modern improvement, the legends which they embodied survive their dissolution and serve in turn to perpetuate their fame.

Of the many memories that haunt the lover of old Edinburgh, wandering to-day among the vestiges of her romantic and insanitary past, perhaps the most curious is that of William Brodie, Deacon of the Wrights and doyen of the double life; by day “a considerable house carpenter” and member of the Town Council; by night a housebreaker and the companion of thieves.

It is nearly a hundred and twenty years since Deacon Brodie played out his twofold part at the west end of the Luckenbooths one grey October afternoon in 1788; but the close in the Lawnmarket which bears his name remains to this day. Here he was born and lived, man and boy, robber and decent burgess, for many reputable years; here his old father passed away, happy in the possession of so excellent a son; and from hence did the son essay that “last fatal” adventure, the issue of which was, for him, discovery and the scaffold.

The house itself has long since vanished--a victim to the indiscriminate destruction which has swept away so much else worthy of preservation. You can no longer see the heavy oaken door with the cunning lock of the Deacon’s own contriving, and the turnpike stair down which, with mask and lantern, he so often stole at midnight upon his secret and criminous affairs. But if you follow him in fancy down the High Street and past the Nether Bow, to where a gloomy “pend” leads into Chessel’s Court, you will find the tall front of the old Excise Office still rising within its “palisadoes,” behind which lurked the trembling Ainslie; and if it be about the dusk of the evening, and your imagination is informed with the spirit of the place, you may even see the man rush wildly forth from the doorway up the court, and hear, in the succeeding silence, the three blasts of an ivory whistle.

* * * * *

The trial of Deacon Brodie has many claims upon the attention of a later age. It is of value to the antiquarian for the vivid picture it presents of the manners and customs of our forbears at a time when the life of Edinburgh yet flowed in the ancient arteries of the old city on the ridge, although beginning to circulate more freely in the spacious thoroughfares of the New Town already invading the fields across the valley. To the lawyer it is notable as affording a singularly graphic view of the old-time practice of our criminal Courts, as well as for the galaxy of legal talent engaged upon its conduct--with such men as Braxfield on the bench and Henry Erskine and John Clerk at the bar the proceedings could lack neither picturesqueness nor importance. The psychologic interest of the chief actor’s character and the dramatic elements in which his career abounds make a more general appeal; and so long as human nature remains the same will the story of the Deacon’s downfall be accorded an indulgent hearing.

That story had for Robert Louis Stevenson a strong attraction. As early as 1864 he prepared the draft of a play founded upon it, which--after being at various times re-cast--finally took shape in the melodrama, “Deacon Brodie, or the Double Life,” written in collaboration with the late W. E. Henley, and published in 1892. It may even be that the conception of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” was suggested to Stevenson by his study of the dual nature so strikingly exemplified in his earlier hero; while in other of his writings he has touched the Deacon with a felicitous and kindly hand.

Introduction.

The birth of Deacon Brodie is thus recorded in the Register of Births for the city of Edinburgh--

“Monday, 28th September, 1741. To Francis Brodie, wright, burgess, and Cecil Grant, his spouse, a son named William. Witnesses--William Grant, writer in Edinburgh, and Ludovick Brodie, Writer to the Signet. Born the same day.”

It is an inexplicable circumstance, although by no means uncommon, that so goodly a family tree as that of the Brodies should, in due course of nature, bear such degenerate fruit as the subject of this entry was destined to prove. His great-grandfather, Francis Brodie of Milnton, Elginshire, was a member of a family well known in the North of Scotland, and his grandfather, Ludovick Brodie of Whytfield, was a much respected Writer to the Signet in Edinburgh, who, on his death in 1758, was the oldest member of the Society. His father, Francis Brodie, was born in 1708, and in 1740 married Cecil, daughter of William Grant, writer in Edinburgh, with whose family he was already connected. Both the Deacon’s grandfathers, therefore, were members of the legal profession.

There will be found in the Appendix a copy of a MS. Register of Births and Deaths kept by Francis Brodie in his family Bible, together with some account of that interesting volume, from which it appears that William was the eldest of eleven children, most of whom died in infancy. The entry relating to his birth has been cut out of the Register, presumably on his public disgrace some forty-seven years later.

Francis Brodie was a substantial wright and cabinetmaker in the Lawnmarket of Edinburgh, where he carried on an extensive and prosperous business. In 1735 he was made a Burgess, and in 1763, a Guild Brother of his native burgh. That he stood high in the estimation of his fellow-craftsmen is evidenced by his being, in 1775 and 1776, elected a member of the Town Council as Deacon of the Incorporation of Wrights, and again in 1779 and 1780, in the same capacity; while in 1776 he also represented the Incorporated Trades of the city as their Deacon Convener. A further proof of the position and circumstances of the family is to be found in the fact that the close in which their house was situated became known by their name.

This mansion, the most important in the close, was originally the town residence of the Littles of Craigmillar, having been built by William Little, a magistrate of Edinburgh, in 1570, whose brother, Clement Little, was the founder of the University Library. In the earlier titles of the property the close bears the name of its old residenters; but in Edgar’s map of 1742 it appears as Lord Cullen’s Close, from the eminent judge, Sir Francis Grant of Cullen, who in turn resided there. Brodie’s Close was formerly a “throwgang” or thoroughfare passing from the Lawnmarket to the Cowgate, the upper portion of which alone has escaped the “improvements” that have so effectively changed the features of this part of the Old Town. The area occupied by the Deacon’s dwelling is now covered by Victoria Terrace, the building having been demolished about 1835, when the principal carved stones of the mansion were transported by Clement Little’s descendants, in whose possession the property remained, to the garden of the family seat, Inch House, near Liberton, as relics of the habitation of their ancestors. The lower extremity of the close, in which were situated the Deacon’s workshops and woodyard, survived until a later date, the last traces of it disappearing to make way for the foundations of the Free Library.

In the fine old tenement at the head of the close--often erroneously described as Brodie’s residence--is still to be seen the decorated hall of the Roman Eagle Lodge, a famous Masonic society of the eighteenth century, immediately beyond which, on the east side of an open court, stood the Deacon’s house. It is thus described by Chambers in his “Traditions of Edinburgh” as it existed in 1825--“Brodie’s house is to be found in its original state, first door up a turnpike stair in the south-east corner of a small court near the foot of the close. The outer door is remarkable for its curious, elaborate workmanship. The house is well built, and the rooms exhibit some decorations of taste. The principal apartment, of which the ceiling is remarkably high, contains a large panel painting of the ‘Adoration of the Wise Men,’ and has an uncommonly large arched window to the west.” What became of this painting, which was attributed to Alexander Runciman, is now unknown.

Of the early years of William Brodie we have, unfortunately, no record, but it may be assumed that he received an education suitable for the son of a well-to-do burgess. He was apprenticed

to his father’s trade, and in due time became associated with him in his thriving business. In those days no self-denying ordinance obtained in the Town Council, and Francis Brodie’s municipal connection secured for him and his son the most of the city work. The young man had the ball at his foot, as the saying goes, and only good behaviour and application to business were required for the attainment of an assured position. Unhappily for himself, however, he soon exhibited that taste for dissipation which ultimately led to such dire results; and while his days were occupied in following his respectable employment, in which he speedily obtained proficiency, his nights were largely devoted to gambling and kindred pursuits.

The social customs of the time were not conducive to steadiness and sobriety among the youthful citizens. It was the Edinburgh of Humphrey Clinker and of Topham’s Letters; the “Auld Reikie” of Fergusson’s convivial muse--

Auld Reikie! wale o’ ilka town That Scotland kens beneath the moon; Whare couthy chiels at e’ening meet Their bizzing craigs and mou’s to weet: And blythly gar auld Care gae bye Wi’ blinkit and wi’ bleering eye.

The early hours of the evening were at that period universally spent by Edinburgh tradesmen in one or other of the innumerable taverns of the old town. So soon as the business of the day was over, as Fergusson tells us--

When auld Saunt Giles, at aught o’clock, Gars merchant louns their shopies lock, There we adjourn wi’ hearty fock To birle our bodies, And get wharewi’ to crack our joke, And clear our noddles.

“All the shops in the town,” says Chambers, “were then shut at eight o’clock, and from that hour until ten--when the drum of the Town Guard announced at once a sort of licence for the deluging of the streets with nuisances, and a warning of the inhabitants home to their beds--unrestrained scope was given to the delights of the table.” At the latter hour the more reputable roysterers sought their homes; but it was then that the clubs, which formed so prominent a feature of the old city life, began the business of the evening. Fergusson, who has given us in his incomparable “Auld Reikie” a glowing picture of the Edinburgh of his day, thus alludes to the subject--

Now Night, that’s cunzied chief for fun, Is wi’ her usual rites begun; Thro’ ilka gate the torches blaze, And globes send out their blinking rays.

Now some to porter, some to punch, Some to their wife, and some their wench, Retire, while noisy ten-hours drum Gars a’ your trades gae dandring home. Now mony a club, jocose and free, Gi’e a’ to merriment and glee; Wi’ sang and glass, they fley the pow’r O’ care that wad harass the hour.

But chief, O Cape! we crave thy aid, To get our cares and poortith laid: Sincerity, and genius true, Of Knights have ever been the due: Mirth, music, porter deepest dy’d, Are never here to worth deny’d; And health, o’ happiness the queen, Blinks bonny, wi’ her smile serene.

Of this, the most famous of the Edinburgh social clubs, Brodie was admitted a member on 25th February, 1775. The Cape Club usually held its festivals in James Mann’s tavern, facetiously known as “The Isle of Man Arms,” situated in Craig’s Close. The roll of the Knights Companions of the Cape contains many celebrated names, including those of David Herd, the antiquarian; Robert Fergusson, the poet; Alexander Runciman, the painter; and Sir Henry Raeburn--William Brodie’s election occurring four months after Fergusson’s death. Each member was required to assume some fanciful title, Brodie taking that of “Sir Lluyd.” On the margin of the roll prefixed to the minute-book an ingenious member has drawn a representation of his last public appearance on the new drop, some thirteen years later. The insignia of the Sovereign of the Cape are in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries, together with the club records, excerpts from which relating to Deacon Brodie will be found in the Appendix.