The Trial of Thomas Aikenhead

 On Christmas Eve, on Facebook, I posted about the trial of Thomas Aikenhead  for blasphemy.  It is often cited as an example of religious intolerance, which, apparently, demonstrated the need for the Enlightenment.  The investigation into Aikenhead was triggered by his uttering, outside the Tron Church in Edinburgh, on a chilly winter's morning, that he should rather be in Hell because at least it would be warmer there.  It is often assumed that this was what Aikenhead was executed for, and that this was the whole story. Were that so, one could understand the criticism alluded above.

The case, however, was more complex.

For weeks leading up to his arrest, Aikenhead had rather developed a penchant for making loud, scandalous comments outside churches, designed to provoke his neighbours. He was goading the local ecclesiastical authorities, and his Hell comment proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back. He was arrested, and a criminal investigation investigation begun. During thi, new, more serious evidence against Aikenhead emerged, so that in the end, his original comments were not even mentioned on the indictment, which ran as follows:

"That ... the prisoner had repeatedly maintained, in conversation, that theology was a rhapsody of ill-invented nonsense, patched up partly of the moral doctrines of philosophers, and partly of poetical fictions and extravagant chimeras: That he ridiculed the holy scriptures, calling the Old Testament Ezra's fables, in profane allusion to Esop's Fables; That he railed on Christ, saying, he had learned magick in Egypt, which enabled him to perform those pranks which were called miracles: That he called the New Testament the history of the imposter Christ; That he said Moses was the better artist and the better politician; and he preferred Muhammad to Christ: That the Holy Scriptures were stuffed with such madness, nonsense, and contradictions, that he admired the stupidity of the world in being so long deluded by them: That he rejected the mystery of the Trinity as unworthy of refutation; and scoffed at the incarnation of Christ."

This information was largely supplied by a fellow student of Aikenhead, who would become the key prosecution witness, Mungo Craig. He was both the son of a clergyman, and himself in training for the ministry. His accusations, whilst perhaps motivated by antipathy, do seem credible. Library records do show that Aikenhead had borrowed the Qu'ran, despite being n not being relevant to his course of study. Aikenhead' defence was also extremely weak. He claimed that he had not expressed the beliefs on the indict ment himself, but had been asked by Craig to explain what Islam, and others, taught. This defence is an old, hackneyed one.

There was some dubiety over what sanction Aikenhead would face. According to the 1661 Blasphemy Act the punishment was death, and according to the more recent 1691 Bladphemy Act, passed after the Glorious Revolution, the punishment was imprisonment. Did the latter act supersede the former, or did it complement it, allowing the judge a greater flexibility in punishment? The first interpretation would have spared Aikenhead the scaffold, but the jurisprudence went against him. On December 24th 1696, Aikenhead was found guilty of blasphemy by the jury, and was sentenced to death by hanging.

Aikenhead attempted to argue that he was a minor, so exempt from the death penalty. It was a desperate and futile gambit, he was at least 20 years old, not 17. The date for his execution was set for January 8th 1697. He then requested a delay. The judges asked whether this was because he required time to make prepare an appeal against his conviction, or to ready his soul for death. It was the latter, to which the judges responded that a fortnight was sufficient time for that purpose. Some appeals for clemency were rejected by the Privy Council and the General Assembly of the Kirk, which felt an example had to be made.

As opposed to the modern norm, whereby the condemned man is executed at dawn, Aikenhead was to be hanged at sundown. This caused some difficulty, as the prisoner was to be marched from the Tolbooth gaol on the Royal Mile to Leith, and the Sky was darkening quicker than expected. From the gallows Aikenhead confessed his guilt, and commended his soul to God. Accounts differ as to the sincerity of this declaration, some thought they saw contrition, and others only lip service. This was the time when gallows speeches were becoming very common, and much discussed in the public press - Aikenhead's more or less followed the standard formula. His body was buried under a mound of sand.

I am interested in why the Kirk felt the need to make an example of Aikenhead. Besides his personal and public rebellion, a reference is made by the Kirk to growing impiety in Scotland as a whole. The period of the 1690s is sometimes referred to as the 'proto-Enlightenment'. There was certainly growing interest in empiricism since Bacon, and in creating a more coherent legal system, and a few thinkers of not were beginning to emerge, such as Andrew Fletcher. Historians tend to still see this as fairly marginal, however. Perhaps the farà caused by Aikenhead's case should make us consider the importance of the 'Proto-Enlightenment' again. Or there may be a more prosaic explanation; Scotland was in the doldrums, there was extreme famine, leading to economic catastrophe, and a looming political crisis, too. Perhaps in this time of suffering people were felt to be turning away from God, rather than towards Him.

Any thoughts?