A reference from 1600 to gold lockets or ‘tablets’ can be found in Edinburgh’s ‘Register of Decreets’.[1] This is the record of a court convened by baillies and burgesses that dealt with debts. Anyone in the town, or anyone owed money by anyone from Edinburgh, could come to this baillies’ court, and obtain a ‘decreet’ against someone who owed them money or hadn’t paid their bills.

The printer Robert Waldegrave hadn’t paid Michael de Keysir for his paper or the bookbinder John Gibson, who in turn hadn’t paid for his supply of red leather from John Johnson (£20 Scots). A housepainter John Workman hadn’t paid for his paints (£14-10s), the portrait painter Adrian Vanson and his wife Susanna de Colony hadn’t paid Jean Robertson for their ale (£20), and so on.

In most cases debtors had obtained loans and pledged some of their possessions as security. Enforcing officers acting on the court’s decreets delivered goods pledged to creditors, or sold debtors’ goods at the mercat cross, taking bids on three market days in a kind of silent auction, in a lively second-hand market. The seizing of goods and the market results of these  ‘apprisings’ were recorded in the register when completed. This was not quite as shameful as ‘horning’ at the cross, where debtors lost their credit, but was clearly not a good social outcome.

One of the court officers, Archibald Cornwall, is well-known to local historians because he was executed for trying to display the portraits of James VI and Anna of Denmark for sale on the gallows at the cross in April 1601, an involvement by representation which offended the king’s dignity. The association of the king with the process, and the adverse reaction of the crowd sealed Cornwall’s fate. As a condemned traitor his own goods were forfeit, but James VI restored them to his widow Janet Cheyne, on 19 June 1601, his own birthday.

Apprised goods in 1600 were most frequently women’s clothes especially cloaks, followed by bedding, metal cooking pots, other household goods, guns, or jewellery. The complete record runs for fifty years, roughly from 1580-1630. For an analysis of these records, and debt read Cathryn Spence, Women, Credit and Debt in Early Modern Scotland (Manchester, 2016). And this blog post describes the sales of clothing and what the record may have say to say about costume in Edinburgh.

Three tablets, ECA SL234/1/5, 1 July 1600.

An entry from 1 July 1600 records three ‘tablets’ or lockets, decorated with enamel and pendant pearls, and two contained paintings on paper, presumably miniature portraits painted on card. Although other tablets appear in Scottish inventories it is rare that paintings are mentioned. Margaret Cuik had pledged them to Christene Hog for a loan of £70. When Cuik failed to repay her debt, Hog obtained a decreet and the officers collected the pledged lockets, and presumably gave them to Hog or sold them:

“Apprysing Thornetoun officer

The quhilk day etc comperit Symoun Thornetoun officer with his witnessis Johne Craig & Mungo Banks officer And made faith he had lauchfully apryset ane taiblet of gold inamelalit with Reid with ane pearle, ane taiblet of gold sett with pearle haiffing ane cristell, & ane with ane pearle & ane litill paintet pictour of paper sett thairin, ane uther taiblet of gold with ane cristell stane & paintet paper all thrie of the weycht of ane unce & seven drop weycht at twentie aucht punds the unce Laid in wed be Margaret Cuik to Cristene Hog the spous of Alexander Auld for thrie scoir ten punds [£70] quhilk he had offerit etc”

Some details of the process are obscure. The proceedings were obvious to all at the time, and much detail is hidden in this record by little ‘y’ shaped marks, standing for “etc”. On 25 October 1599, the officer John Blak got a bid of 1,000 merks for a gold necklace with twenty one diamonds and a pendant pearl pledged by the goldsmith and financier Thomas Foulis to Marion Mowbray for her 600 merks, and the council paid her back. The record doesn’t say what the court did with the other 400 merks. Moubray was the wife of the merchant and poet John Burel who wrote a poem commemorating Edinburgh’s welcome for Anna of Denmark, and another part of this transaction was recorded in the National Archive’s  ‘Register of Deeds’ in his name without noting her role.

Frequently, or perhaps usually, the money made by sales at the Mercat Cross was less than the value of the original debt. The court was not acting to restore money to lenders, neither did the value of the pledged goods accepted by lenders closely reflect the value of the loan. It seems that these very public sales of forfeited pledges served to punish or rebuke irresponsible borrowers and bolster systems of credit, rather than recompense lenders.

The National Portrait Gallery in London has a miniature of the Chancellor, John Maitland of Thirlestane, painted in tempera on card made from sheets of paper stuck together, (NPG 2769). This technique now appears unusual, but was perhaps like the ‘ litill paintet pictour of paper’ belonging to Margaret Cuik, and possibly the work of the same artist.

John Maitland of Thirlestane, NPG 2769

[1] Edinburgh City Archives, ECA SL234/1/5, Register of Decreets, 1598-1602, 1 July 1600.

This volume has a title, ‘The decreit buik of the burgh of Edinburgh contenit all the soumes of money outwith ten pundes’.