From Adultery, Fornication and Incest to Witchcraft, this text explores the range of crime and criminality in Scotland from the earliest times to the present day. It shows how definitions of what constitutes crime have changed and moved through the ages and tells an extraordinary story, peopled with strange and colourful characters. The sheer brutality of life in earlier times is appalling - what is the contemporary reader to make of the prisoners who in the 15th century had their hands tied behind their backs and were forced to try and jump the 12 foot gap between the towers of Bothwell Castle (if they succeeded they were freed), or the s tory of Gilbert, Earl of Cassillis who casually slowly roasted the Commendator of Crossraguel Abbey alive until he renounced the abbey lands. But there is also great heroism to be found as in the tragic story of Thomas Muir of Huntershill, sentanced to deportation for advocating reform or in the cases of many of the Jacobite prisonera prepared to die for their cause.
There are many traditional Scottish crimes and misdemeanours ranging from bodysnatching to illicit whisky manufacture and the Border Reivers, and this book covers a vast range of this material, bringing out the often black humour of the subject.