"Dance of Death", woodcut engraving by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543), National Library of Scotland
In the Summer of 1546 Scotland was a hotbed of intrigue, religious strife and assassination. In the face of these events, Aberdeen struggled with an outbreak of plague – despite its terrifying methods of keeping it at bay.
One of the first statutes passed was that any beggar or idle person was to be driven out of town within a day. If subsequently found, they were branded on the cheek with a hot key – a favourite method of disfiguring people to aid in later identification. If a branded person was caught again, they were killed by either hanging or drowning.
This grisly fate didn’t apply only to the unemployed poor of Aberdeen – anyone, whether indweller or merchant, who was caught sheltering a stranger would share in their punishment, executed without recourse or appeal. Ships were forbidden from tying up in the harbour.
Order from 1538 that any stranger approaching the burgh and thought to be from a plague-ridden point of origin should be excluded from the burgh of Aberdeen under pain of death
Any inhabitant who approached a ship anchored off the coast would be punished. A burgess would lose their freedoms, and an unfree resident would be branded and exiled. If they disputed the terms of their punishment, the guidance was clear – they would join the strangers and vagrants on the gibbets.
Every street was barricaded. Every gate was guarded by two men. Ships and goods were confiscated. Nothing worked.
In October, the focus shifted to mitigation. A shanty town of huts was built to quarantine the sick on the Links, overseen by the Church, who paid to feed and house plague victims.
The Council frequently ordained that trade with strangers was forbidden. The repeated outlining of punishments imply that the town’s merchants didn’t stop, despite the risks. Foreign trade persisted, and brought the plague to the wealthiest inhabitants. David Spilyelaucht, a merchant, had his hand branded and scorched for failing to inform the Council that his son had the plague, and for hiding the sickness within his house rather than going to the Links. After having his hand painfully maimed, he and his family were banished to live out their days in the unsheltered quarantine huts.
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