Families all have secrets and events which they would rather keep under wraps and behind closed doors, so imagine my surprise when I discovered a relative of mine had been convicted of a major crime and dealt with in the harshest possible way. Walter is his name and his crime involved fire and general malicious conduct. My family has had time to recover from the shock and shame of it all—helped in no small way by the fact we have had 283 years to get used to it.
Walter the Fifth of Boquhan and Branshogle was convicted at the circuit court in Stirling, Scotland on the 29th of September 1729 for setting fire to his neighbor, Bontine’s, estate.
My father, with his natural Scottish curiosity, went to the court and obtained copies of the transcript of the original trial. Written on vellum the papers were in the earliest boxes kept by the court. It told a sorry tale of great damage being done to the estates of Bontine and intrigue and dark dealings. Walter, upon conviction, was taken to the tollbooth (the city jail) in Scotland’s capital city. Edinburgh, in 1729, was not the cleanest of places and I suspect, the tollbooth was probably a fair reflection of the general standards of hygiene, for the day.
Walter, obviously, felt the same and wrote to the court officials requesting the opportunity to pay his own passage to Virginia. The court representative replied reminding Walter that his conviction involved deportation to the Virginias, never to return “upon pain of death”—this means the death penalty, if he was silly enough to try to find his way back. In a fit of what appears to be meanspiritedness, the official denied his request and Walter languished there for about 8 months before being transported to America.
The situation was not helped by the fact even if Walter’s wish had been granted he could not have paid for it, as all his considerable wealth and lands had been transferred to Bontine, under the laws of the day. The trail runs cold from there, but now retired, Dad was a criminal lawyer of high repute and no little skill. He showed that Walter could not have committed the crime as he was in Aberdeen, buying horses, on the night in question and there was no way he was able to make it back (there was no Acela in those days) to the scene of the crime at the time the witnesses said it all happened.
Scotland of yesteryear was a harsh place when it came to justice and the fact that people were seen in the vicinity, wearing the colors of Boquhan and Branshogle was enough to see him staring through the bars of the tollbooth, waiting for the next ship to Virginia.
The temptation to dig deeper into all if this, is strong. Firstly, a wrong would appear to be waiting to be righted. Secondly, there is much folding green stuff involved which may have been, wrongly, taken from my family’s loving grasp. (I have already made some money back as this story was optioned by the BBC, many moons ago.)
The final question is, of course, what happened to Walter upon arrival in Virginia? I have more than a passing interest in that, as I now reside in Virginia—legally, I may add. Virgin Atlantic’s frequent flying programme, to my knowledge, does not include a deportation service. What could be waiting? The fifteenth President of the United States was the Democrat James Buchanan. He was born in 1791, and Boquhan was the old Scottish name for Buchanan...you just never know!
Dirk Robertson is a Scots thriller writer, currently in Virginia where he is promoting literacy and art projects for young gang members. When not writing, tweeting, or blogging on the Mystery Writers of America website, he designs and knits clothes and handbags from recycled rubbish.
