Series 1 > Records of the Proceedings of the Justiciary Court Edinburgh, 1661-1678 > Volume 2, 1669-1678

JUSTICIARY PROCEEDINGS
11
1670]
was of great age, and kept the said Jean Weir, his sister, and
Bessie Weeymss, his servant, for that purpose by the space
of 22 years. 4t0 Having defiled himself with this filthy crimes
of Adultery, ffornication and Incest, he proceeded farther to
the height of brutish abomination in committing Bestiality
with a Mare in the year 1650 and 1651, at Newmills in the
West Countrey, he having ridden there upon that Mare, and
did lye with Cows and other beasts. And last of all for
aggravation of his fault and to make it without a parallell, the
Dittay bears he was conscious to himself of these Abomina¬
tions, yet he had the confidence or rather impudence to pretend
to fear God in an eminent way and did make profession of
strictness, piety and purity beyond others, and did presume
and take upon him to pray publickly in many companys and
in the houses of his ffriends, neighbour and acquaintainces,
and did affect and had the reputation and character of a
pious and devout1 man, thereby endeavouring to conceall
and palliate his villanies and to amuse and impose upon the
world and to mock God himself, as if his all-seeing eye could
not see through the slender veil of Hypocrisy and formality,
and could not discover and lay open to the view of the world
so great and flagitious lewdness in its own colours in which
it does now appear,2 in doing whereof and committing of the
saids deeds and crimes or ane or other of the samen the said
Thomas Weir is guilty of the crimes aforementioned, at least
one or other of them.
Eod. Die.
Jean Weir, sister to the Major, is also indyted of the Incest The Major’s
with her brother in manner contained in his Dittay with the forin^ftand
addition of some more circumstances and places as in par- Sorcery,
ticular in a Barn of Wicketshaw when her sister Margarett
did come in and surprise them in the Act. She is also indyted
of Sorcerys committed by her when she lived and keeped a
school at Dalkeith. That she took employment from a
Woman to speak in her behalf to the Queen of ffairie, mean¬
ing the Devil, and that another woman gave her a piece of
‘good’ in Adv. MS.
appear ’ in Adv. MS.