Two centuries before the Revolution, an instrument very similar to the guillotine was in use in Scotland, and known there as the “Maiden.” James Douglas, Earl of Morton, died by it in Edinburgh in 1587, thus adding to the long list of inventors who paid the penalty of death by their own contrivance. The “Maiden” had been often used in Yorkshire for the summary execution of thieves taken in the act, and the best account of it extant is found in “Holinshed’s Chronicles,” which describes the custom prevailing in Halifax and the machine in use. He records the law or custom, that whosoever commits a felony or steals to the value of fourteen pence or halfpenny shall be beheaded in the market. “The engine wherewith the execution is done is a square block of wood which does ride up and down in a slot between two pieces of timber that are framed and set upright, of five yards in height. In the nether end of the sliding block is an axe keyed or fastened with an iron into the wood, which being drawn up to the top of the frame is there fastened by a wooden pin, to the centre of which a long rope is attached, that cometh down among the people, so that when an offender hath made his confession and hath laid his head over the nethernmost block, every man seizeth the rope to show his willingness that judgment should be executed, and pulling out the pin the axe is released to fall with such violence that had the neck below been that of a bull the head would be dissevered and roll away to a great distance.” If the theft had been that of any fourfooted beast the rope was to be fastened to it, so that when driven away it would extract the pin.