The indictment opens upon a door broken open by night at Cairne-cowie. It charges Patrick McGregour, called Gilroy, and his companions with seizing Alexander Hay and his wife within their home, carrying them two miles distant, and detaining them for two hours. They released them, so the record maintains, only upon the pledge of a ransom. The same instrument adds that all the goods of the household were carried off. It specifies that Gilroy acknowledged this robbery in his depositions, and further charges him with taking victuals and provisions from the tenants of Innes across several days and nights.
A second taking of hostages provides the record with another scene and a precise reckoning. At Candlemas, William Dougal of Auchinhove and several of his servants were carried away captive. According to the prosecution, Gilroy and the men attending him refused to set them at liberty until they had secured a bond for two hundred merks. Patrick Glas and John Dow Grant appear among the men connected by the rolls to this capture; the latter is likewise accused of taking ten horses belonging to Dougal. It was not merely the value of the stolen goods that alarmed the authorities: the Council characterized the seizure and ransom as an usurpation of the royal authority, for these men had arrogated to themselves the power to hold subjects captive and set the price upon their freedom.
The charges set down in the same register reveal what else accompanied these depredations. The tenants of Sir Robert Innes were compelled to lodge the men, furnishing meat, drink, and other provisions without payment. Another article concerns four hens taken at Lammas 1635. Subjoined to the indictment against Ewin McGregor, called Accawisch, were a brown horse, cheese, linen, a piece of cloth, a sword, tobacco, and even ornamental passments for women’s apparel. These objects form no grand spoils of a border ballad; they anchor the roll in real houses, living owners, and distinct seasons.
The Scottish authorities sought likewise those who had rendered these men difficult of apprehension. As early as May, a list of persons accused of resetting or assisting them included servants, inhabitants of sundry estates, and Jonet Grant, designated a widow. This entry does not establish what she was alleged to have done nor the issue of her own case; it demonstrates that the inquiry reached well beyond the armed band. A distinct proceeding, on April 5, had already implicated Patrick Glas, John Dow Grant, and Thomas Clerich, who were not among the ten men tried later alongside Gilroy. The instrument against Clerich charges him with harboring Gilroy and his associates in his house and furnishing them with beds, meat, powder, and lead. The Council announced for certain of these resetters a fine that might extend to one-third of their goods. Those possessing neither land nor goods faced imprisonment on bread and water, branding upon the cheek, and banishment. For those who had received the stolen goods, the Council also appointed the trial of two accused persons before an assize.
On June 6, 1636, Archibald, Lord Lorne, produced Patrick McGregour, called Gilleroy, and two of his companions before the Privy Council. They were committed to the Edinburgh Tolbooth; members of the Council were instructed to interrogate them on the morrow at seven of the clock. On July 7, the Council commended the capture as an acceptable service rendered to the King, while reserving Lorne’s heritable jurisdiction within the region; it authorized him to sit as an assessor. The trial subsequently joined ten men under distinct charges, rather than treating them as though each had committed the same acts. The transcripts connect them to cattle raids, housebreakings, robberies, and outrages imputed to various bands. In one instance, Gilroy and his men were alleged to have plundered a dwelling and carried away the writs and charters found therein. In another, tenants were wounded while attempting to defend their goods.
On the day of trial, the dittays were read before an assize of fifteen jurors. Among them sat landed proprietors, merchants, a flesher, a servant, and a saddler. John Murray, tutor of Strowan, was chosen chancellor of the assize and directed their deliberations. Yet the words of those at the bar did not pass directly from their lips into the verdict: the records indicate that their judicial confessions were delivered in Gaelic. James Stewart of Ardvorlich, sworn as interpreter, rendered their meaning to the jury. The jurors retired to examine separately the dittays—the written charges against each man—and returned with a unanimous voice, Murray delivering their decision. They declared all ten men guilty of the crimes set forth in their respective charges, upon the strength of the confessions thus interpreted. Murray reported the verdict to the court; the doom was then pronounced by James Grant, the dempster appointed to deliver it.
The sentence drew distinctions among the condemned. Patrick McGregour, John Forbes, George Grant, John McColme, John McGregor McEan, Allaster McInneir, and Ewin McGregor, called Accawisch, were to be drawn backward upon a cart or sledge from the Tolbooth to the Market Cross and there hanged. Gilroy and John Forbes were to have a gallows higher than the rest; after their death, their heads and right hands were to be severed and affixed to the gates of Edinburgh, the one upon the east and the other upon the west. As for Allaster and Callum Forbes, along with Gillespik McFarlane, judgment was respited. The transcript specifies that the youth of the Forbes brothers was taken into consideration; an act of Council dated July 28 subsequently ordained their hanging on the morrow alongside other accomplices.
The year of the trial is 1636. The precise day of execution remains less certain: a notice from the National Library of Scotland gives July 27, whereas the Council transcripts provide for execution on Friday the 29th. The ballad of Gilderoy, printed in the early eighteenth century according to the same notice, transformed the condemned man into a fair youth lamented by a woman’s voice. The judicial record, for its part, preserves the charge brought against the Hay household, the plunder of goods, the Gaelic confessions, and the graduated severities of the sentence. The one passed into song; the other remains bound to the voice that translated the trial.