History of Leith, Edinburgh

This ballad has a preface which reads: The last SPEECH, Confession, and dying Words, o[f] the Bogs, who were burnt in the Pleasance, on Monday the 25th of May, 1767. For the horrid Crime of Blood-sucking, A FARCE.’ The ballad begins: ‘HOW do you think your works will after thrive? / What cruelly to burn us all alive?’ The broadside carries no publication details. for more click here

Accounts of murders and descriptions of executions were the biggest and most popular of the subjects covered by broadsides. Murders could easily generate a number of sheets, beginning with the discovery of the body, going on to the trial, the execution of the guilty party and verbatim transcriptions of their last words (Browse ‘last words’ broadsides). Many, if not all, of the scaffold speeches and confessions reported were purely imaginary. More often than not the criminal would give a brief life history, describing how he or she fell into a life of crime. Finally there would be an appeal for forgiveness and the readers would themselves be urged to live upright lives. for more click here

The oldest person in the world, on land or on the water,
Never saw such times before, since Sampson killed his daughter.
The peoples’ doors, I am so sure, are on the hinges creaking ;
All clothes are pop d, all works are stopp’d, and all the Merchants breaking.
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A dialogur betwixt Satan and a Young Man. Or, Satan’s Temtations to Delay Repentace Answered. for more click here

WAS never in Scotland heard nor seen
such Dancing not Deray,
Neither on foulkland on the Green,
nor feebies at the play ;
As was of Wooers as I ween
at Christs kirk on a day:
For there came kittie washen clean ;
with her now Gown of Gray,
Full gay that day.
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The bonny Gray-ey’d Morn began for to peep
when Jockie rouz’d with Love came blithly on;
And I who wishing lay depriv’d of sleep,
abhor’d the lazy Hours that flow did run.
But meikle were my Joy’s when in my View
I from the Window spy’d my only Dear ;
I took the Wings of Love and to him flew,
for I had fancy’d all my Heaven was there.
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LONG absent in the wars I’ve been,
For her whom I love best,
Returned once more to my native shore,
Love sweet then fill’d my breast;
The lassie fair to me so dear,
She constant do remain,
My love restore to me once more,
I mean, sweet lovely Jean.
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A new resource published on the National Library of Scotland website today takes a look at propaganda from the Second World War.

In Propaganda – A Weapon of War, you’ll find images which represent what British Government departments were producing and distributing. for more click here

‘An account of the notorious WILLIAM PROBERT, and Six other unfortunate Men, who are all to be Executed in London on Monday Morning next, for the crimes of Horsestealing and Forgery. Probert was the companion of the late notorious Thurtel and Hunt, the horrid Murderers, the former of whom was also executed for the bloody murder of their companion, William Weare, in a lonely part of the country.’ The sheet was published in 1825 by John Muir of Glasgow.for more click here

Part of the record from the Session Records of South Leith dated 14th August 1672. At this time South Leith was Episcopalian.