History Extra Podcast – "Bandits & Blasphemers: Crime in 17th Century Scotland"

Date: October 12, 2025
Host: Emily Briffet
Guest: Dr. Alan Kennedy, Lecturer in Scottish History, University of Dundee
Topic: An exploration of serious crime in late 17th century Scotland – its nature, social context, and how the justice system shaped society.

Episode Overview

This episode delves into the criminal landscape of 17th-century Scotland, focusing on what constituted crime, who the criminals were, societal attitudes toward criminality, and how justice was pursued. Dr. Alan Kennedy, drawing on his new book, provides stories, case studies, and insight into both everyday and exceptional crimes, revealing the moral, religious, and political dynamics of the era.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Study Early Modern Scottish Crime?

• Intellectual & Human Interest:

  • Crime gives unique insight into the "ordering assumptions" of a society – showing what people believed, valued, and feared.
  • "One of the key qualifications, I think, for being a historian is you have to be nosy. Crime is a really good way of sort of getting at that gossip." – Alan Kennedy [03:15]

• Crime as a Societal Mirror:

  • Studying criminality reveals boundaries of acceptable behavior and reflects deeper societal structures.

2. Distinctive Context of 17th Century Scotland

• Political & Religious Peculiarities:
  • Scotland remained a distinct kingdom with unique legal, ecclesiastical, and cultural structures, despite sharing a monarch with England from 1603 onward.
  • Dominated by a strict, Calvinist Presbyterian church—more centralized and austere than English Anglicanism.
  • "Religion is very, very central to pretty much every aspect of Scottish life… so central to Scottish life that… it gives Scotland a distinctive character." – Alan Kennedy [05:39]

3. Defining Crime in a Sinful Society

• Law, Harm, and Sin:

  • The concept of crime entwined with sin; crime often meant an “irretrievably diseased soul” who had fallen beyond redemption.
  • "Crime is a special class of sinning… for an irredeemably diseased soul.” – Alan Kennedy [09:48]

• Not All Sins Were Crimes:

  • Not every sin was prosecuted; crime reflected what society could not forgive or consider "redeemable."

4. Popular Stereotypes vs. Criminal Realities

• The ‘Other’ as Criminal:

  • Stereotypes painted criminals as outsiders—strangers, vagrants, the "godless” or violent.
  • "The stereotype of the criminal is someone who is different… beastly, uncivilised, in some fundamental way." – Alan Kennedy [12:10]

• Actual Profiles:

  • Predominantly male, from the “middling sort” (artisans, small landholders, professionals), typically young to middle-aged, focused around urban and eastern Lowland areas (e.g., Lothians, Fife, Lanarkshire).

5. Motivations and Careers in Crime

• Personal Motivations Dominate:

  • Most crimes driven by personal disputes, pursuit or protection of wealth, or responses to perceived injustice.
  • Alcohol frequently a factor in violent disputes.

• Professional Criminality:

  • A minority included career criminals and gang-based banditry.
  • Memorable Case: Archibald Beath, a minister who moonlighted as a ship robber [18:32].
    • "He has this professionalised sideline in criminal activity.” – Alan Kennedy

6. Types of Crime and Sensational Offences

• Ordinary vs. Extraordinary Crimes:

  • Common: Violent interpersonal crimes—homicide and robbery—dominated the central court.

  • Everyday moral offenses (fornication, drunkenness, Sabbath-breaking) handled by church courts.

  • Sensational Cases:

    • Thomas Weir (1670): Minister executed for incestuous relationship with his sister, bestiality, possible witchcraft.
      • “This particular combination of incest and bestiality... is a unique case.” – Alan Kennedy [22:38]
    • Thomas Aikenhead (1697): Student executed for severe blasphemy—the only such case in Scottish history.
      • "His punishment, execution, seems even to early modern eyes… wildly out of proportion to his offence.” – Alan Kennedy [24:34]

7. Women and Crime

• Distinct Patterns:
  • Women prosecuted mainly for witchcraft (diminishing by late century) and, more crucially, infanticide—especially after draconian 1690 law presumed guilt for hidden pregnancies ending in infant death.
  • "Infanticide... tells us some very important things about the particular stresses and pressures that women are forced to deal with.” – Alan Kennedy [29:54]

8. Crime’s Impact on Victims, Criminals, and Society

• Victim Suffering & Social Harm:
  • Records detail lasting injuries, lost livelihoods, and family trauma.
  • Broader community fears and society’s stability threatened by crime.
• Remorse and Social Attitudes:
  • Perpetrators often expressed remorse, especially upon sobering up; some saw crime as proof of their own wickedness (e.g., Godfrey MacCulloch’s gallows confession) [33:40].

9. The Scottish Criminal Justice System: Complexity & Distinction

• Layered Jurisdictions:

  • Sheriff courts, borough courts, justiciary court, church (kirk session) courts, and heritable jurisdictions (private courts held by landowners).
  • "By the late 17th century, there is a very dense but very difficult to navigate system of criminal justice in Scotland…” – Alan Kennedy [37:15]

• Aim of Prosecution:

  • Not exhaustive enforcement, but deterrence and boundary-marking of acceptable behavior; prosecution as social messaging and state-building.

10. Punishments: Law, Reality, and Ritual

• Execution as Norm, Leniency in Practice:
  • Most capital crimes (including some "minor" to modern eyes, e.g., bigamy), but courts employed fines, mutilation, public humiliation (jougs), scourging (whipping), and banishment/transportation (often to America), especially for mitigated guilt (e.g., juvenile offenders, some women).
  • "Execution, with or without these embellishments, is by far the most common form of punishment." – Alan Kennedy [43:13]
  • Public display of mutilated body parts used as deterrent.

11. What Can Crime Tell Us About 17th Century Mentalities?

• Societal Values & Inner Worlds:
  • Criminal records—though filtered by elites—expose attitudes to sin, violence, hierarchy, marriage, family, and moral reform.
  • Shift away from accepting ritual violence; increasing state and church intervention in everyday life.
    • "You can see... the core values of society… reflected in criminal prosecution… the importance of marriage… the illegitimacy of violence… hierarchy." – Alan Kennedy [48:10]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the appeal of crime for historians:

  • "Even if we discount all the intellectual justifications, I think there are fascinating stories that you can unearth by studying crime.” – Alan Kennedy [03:15]

• On crime’s overlap with sin:

  • “There's often an assumption that the ultimate source… is God's law… an assumption that crime is almost what happens when you take sin and you make it punishable by civil authorities.” – Alan Kennedy [08:45]

• On social stigma and female infanticide:

  • "It's very often... implied, that the father... attacked the woman... She [then] murdered the child because they couldn't bear the shame.” – Alan Kennedy [30:33]

• On criminal justice complexity:

  • “There are so many other types of courts which crowd in… there is a very dense but very difficult to navigate system.” – Alan Kennedy [37:15]

• On executions with "embellishments":

  • "A bandit called Patrick Roy MacGregor... gets his right hand cut off... and that hand is then put on public display around Edinburgh." – Alan Kennedy [43:34]

Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Topic/Segment | |-----------|---------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:07 | Why crime is central to understanding Scottish society | | 05:11 | The religious & political backdrop of late 17th-century Scotland| | 07:12 | Definitions and perceptions of crime and sin | | 10:38 | Popular stereotypes of criminals | | 13:02 | Who actually became a criminal? | | 15:32 | Motives for crime—personal, economic, professional | | 20:38 | Major crimes of the period—violent crime, sensational cases | | 27:55 | Women's criminality—witchcraft and infanticide | | 35:23 | Structure and complexity of Scottish criminal courts | | 39:08 | Purpose and power of prosecution | | 42:07 | Punishments: law and reality | | 47:23 | Using crime to understand mentalities and worldviews |

Episode Tone & Style

The episode is an engaging, story-rich dialogue, mixing dark humor with a scholar’s detail. Dr. Kennedy blends vivid anecdote and sharp analysis, bringing to life a brutal but surprisingly nuanced system and showing how centuries-old crimes can shed light on enduring questions about power, community, and human frailty.