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There is a very interesting article entitled "The Use and Forms of Judicial Torture in England and Scotland" by R.D. Melville, in The Scottish Historical Review (April 1905), Vol. 2, No. 7, p225-248. Below are extracts from the article, and seemingly adds some credence to the preceding hypothesis anent the "boot" in the MacAulay crest:
"In Scotland torture was long a recognized part of criminal procedure both in the discovery and in the punishment of crime. There was in that country an even greater variety of torture ordinarily employed than in England; and in the struggle between Popery and Protestantism, and in the suppression of supposed witchcraft and the ‘Black Art’ the cruel instincts of a fanatical people found ample scope. Not only do the Privy Council Registers contain many warrants for the employment of torture, but certain Acts of Parliament specifically deal with it.
On various occasions the Parliament expressly authorized and directed torture, notably in the later cases of Colonel Sibbald in 1680 and Chiesly of Dalry in 1689; and the terms of the Claim of Right in 1689 did not exclude torture from cases of special gravity, as it only declared that the using of torture without evidence, or in ordinary crimes was contrary to law. As late as 1683 a minister called Carstairs was tortured, and in 1690 a prisoner was tortured, by warrant, on a charge of rape and murder.
Scotland was in no way behind England in the variety and cruelty of her forms and instruments of torture. These included the rack, the thumbscrew, the pilniewinkis or pinnywinks, the boot, the caschielawis or caspitaws or caspicaws, the ‘long irons,’ the ‘waking,’ the ‘Turkas,’ needles, scourging, breaking on the wheel, burning, strangulation, mutilation, dismemberment, flaying, and many other ingenious minor varieties, such as, for example, wrenching (‘thrawing’) the head with ropes, specially resorted to in dealing with cases of witchcraft. With that characteristic fondness of the Scots for diminutives, they styled the thumbscrew and the ‘boot’ respectively the thummikins and the bootikins, but the lessening of their appellations in no way diminishes their severity. Bot Sir George Mackenzie and Lord Roystoun treated the subject of torture as a regular part of the criminal system of Scotland, though Mackenzie states that it was ‘seldom used.’
Lord Roystoun, in his MSS. Notes on Mackenzie’s Criminal Law (1678), observes: ‘The instruments in use amongst us in later times were the boots and a screw for squeezing the thumbs, thence called thummikins. The boot was put upon the leg and wedges driven in, by which the leg was squeezed so severely that the patient (sic!) was not able to walk for a long time after; and even the thummikins did not only squeeze the thumbs, but frequently the whole arm was swelled by them. Sometimes they kept them from sleep for many days, as was done to one Spence, Anno 1685; and frequently poor women accused of witchcraft were so used. Anciently I find other torturing instruments were used as pinniewinks or pilliwinks, and caspitaws or caspicaws, in the Master of Orkney’s case, 24th June, 1596; and tosots, August, 1632. But what these instruments were I know not, unless they are the other names for the boots and thummikins.’
M’Laurin in the introduction to his Reports of Criminal Decisions (1774), quotes Lord Roystoun to this effect. Roystoun’s surmise was fairly correct, as the ‘pilniewinks’ or ‘pinniewinks’ and the ‘caspicaws’ or ‘caschielaws’ appear to have been either older forms or perhaps a more severe variety of the thumbscrew and the boot respectively. The torture of the pinniewinks seems to have been employed in England in the reign of Henry IV, and in its application to one Robert Smith, of Bury, it is styled Pyrewinks, and sufficiently identified. The ‘caschielawis’ or ‘caspitaws’ or ‘caspicaws’ were probably an older variety of the boot, and either similar or analogous to that known as the ‘Spanish’ or the ‘German Boot.”
The ‘Boot’ proper was a wooden case or stock encircling the leg from the ankle to the knee; wedges were then driven in with a heavy hammer between the casing and the leg., the number of blows being in proportion to the failure of the prisoner to make either satisfactory confessions or disclosures. This form of torture was chiefly employed in cases of exceptional gravity, such as treason and witchcraft, in which latter case it was freely used with striking inhumanity. So severe could be its effects that the legs were shockingly crushed and the prisoner totally disabled. Pitcairn, dealing with the case of Fian, or Cunningham, which will be more particularly dealt with a little further on, says that he was put to ‘the most Severe and Cruell paine in the worlde called the bootes.’ Two or three strokes of the hammer were generally sufficient to extract evidence or confession, but there is recorded a case in which a young man received and stood fifty-seven strokes.
The ordinary and recognized forms of judicial torture seem to have been in use till well on in the 17th century, and it was not finally abolished until 1706. Alastair Grant was condemned to death in August, 1632, for theft and robbery, having previous to his trial been unsuccessfully tortured both with the boot and the pinniewinks. While the Duke of York governed Scotland towards the close of the reign of Charles II., torture was freely employed. Macaulay states that ‘The administration of James was marked by odious laws, by barbarous punishments, and by judgments to the inquiry of even that age furnished no parallel. The Scottish Privy Council had power to put State prisoners to the question. But the sight was so dreadful that, as soon as the boots appeared, even the most servile and hard-hearted courtiers hastened out of the chamber. The board was sometimes quite deserted; and it was at length found necessary to make an order that the members should keep their seats on such occasions. The Duke of York [James Stuart, afterwards James II (1633-1701)], it was remarked, seemed to take pleasure in the spectacle, which some of the worst men then living were unable to contemplate without pit and horror. He not only came to Council when the torture was to be inflicted, but watched the agonies of the sufferers with that sort of interest and complaceny with which men observe a curious experiment in science. Thus he employed himself at Edinburgh.’
[Note: Macaulay here refers to that of the historian Catherine MacAulay nee Sawbridge, widow to Dr. George MacAulay, cousin to Archibald MacAulay of Ardincaple; and the brackets above, just as here, are mine]
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