LEIGHTON, Alexander “Whipped, ears cut off, nose slit and face branded with SS” 1646

FIRST EDITION, title within border of printer’s ornaments, without the initial and terminal blanks, last leaf reinfored at top with minor loss to the headline and of the page numeral, pp. [vi], [93], [1], 4to, uncut in modern russet calf backed boards. ‘On 17 February 1630, as Leighton left church, he was arrested, ‘clapt in irons’, and thrown into ‘a nasty doghole full of rats and mice’ in Newgate (A. Leighton, 3). His house was searched: the pursuivants held a pistol to little Caleb’s head to persuade Isobel to co-operate. Because of the prison conditions, Leighton became seriously ill: he claimed that ‘all his hair and skin came off’ (ibid., 89). His wife represented him at his trial for sedition in Star Chamber in June, although Leighton submitted an answer to the attorney-general’s charges, adamantly refusing to reveal the names of the signatories to his petition. He was sentenced to pay £10,000, be degraded from holy orders, be pilloried and whipped at Westminster, have one of his ears cut off, one side of his nose slit, and his face branded with SS (for sower of sedition), to be then carried back to prison and after a few days to have the whole punishment repeated at Cheapside, and then to be imprisoned for life’ (ODNB). Leighton was a native of Guildy, Monikie, Angus. His library survives, in Dunblane Cathedral Library. (ESTC R201091).