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.