But not only had Sabbath-day offences thus to be acknowledged. On January
2, 1625, Alex. Johnson, Patrick Wood, George Foster and Patrick Bassenden
were called on and accused before the session "for troubling James
Neilsone's house, singing at the door, being drunk." The two former had to
pay, "ilk ane of them, 3 lib. for thair dronkenness, if they be able, and
to seik the concurrence of the civile magistrat for payment thairof; and
if they suld refuse, being unable, to speik the civile magistrat that they
micht be utherwayis punishit." And in the same year it was found necessary
to intimate "out of the pulpitt, to absteine from drunkenes, utherwayis if
any suld be fund giltie thairof suld be ordainit to pay thre punds." On
October 28, 1630, appeared an item of forty shillings, Alex. Jackson's
penalty for fighting, "sent down by my Lord of Haddington to the box, to
be employed _ad pios usus_." In 1659 the Kirk Session of Dunbar rebuked
and fined in L20 Scots a woman who had sinned when Cromwell's army was in
the neighbourhood eight years before! Such a sin-penalty was, as far as
possible, applied to a secular purpose, and the _godly_ poor were not
supposed to benefit therefrom. In 1620 James Neilson complained of his
wife's misbehaviour, and she was warned that should she disagree again she
would be "inactit to pay 10 lib., _toties quoties_, and suld pay for this
tyme also if she did disagree againe." And in 1642 "John Bryson's wife, in
Scougall, is to be warned next day to the session for flyting with her
husband, and abusing him by her unreverent speeches." The penalty for such
speeches was "20s. _toties quoties_." Whether these ladies had private
means, or the husbands had to endure the further hardship of providing the
fine, history does not record. It should, however, be mentioned that cases
sometimes occurred in which the fair sex were not to blame, as when a man
was brought before the session for having assaulted his wife with a spade,
and was fined a dollar, beside having to express his regret and to satisfy
the session of his sincerity!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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