A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE JUDGES AND COUNSEL ENGAGED IN THE TRIAL OF DEACON BRODIE.
ROBERT MACQUEEN, Lord Braxfield (1722-1799), eldest son of John Macqueen of Braxfield, Lanarkshire, sometime Sheriff-Substitute of the Upper Ward of that county, by his wife, Helen, daughter of John Hamilton of Gilkerscleugh, Lanarkshire, was born on 4th May, 1722. He was educated at the Grammar School of Lanark, and thereafter attended a law course at the University of Edinburgh, with the view of becoming a Writer to the Signet. He was apprenticed to Thomas Gouldie, W.S., Edinburgh, but finally decided to try his fortune at the bar, and, after the usual trials, was, on 14th February, 1744, admitted a member of the Faculty of Advocates. He was employed as one of the counsel for the Crown in the many intricate feudal questions respecting the forfeited estates which arose out of the Rising of 1745. He quickly gained the reputation of being the best feudal lawyer in Scotland, and is said to have received greater emoluments from his practice than any counsel before his time.
On the death of George Brown of Coalston, Macqueen was elevated to the bench on 13th December, 1776, and assumed the title of Lord Braxfield. He was also appointed a Lord Commissioner of Justiciary on 1st March, 1780, on the resignation of Alexander Boswell of Auchinleck. In the same year was published an anonymous “Letter to Robert Macqueen, Lord Braxfield, on his Promotion to be one of the Judges of the High Court of Justiciary” (Edinburgh, 12mo). This pamphlet, which points out the common failings of Scottish criminal judges is attributed by Lord Cockburn to James Boswell, the elder (“Circuit Journeys,” 1889 p. 322).
On 15th January, 1788, Braxfield was appointed Lord Justice-Clerk, in succession to Thomas Miller of Barskimming, promoted to the Presidency of the Court of Session. He held that important office during a very interesting and critical period; and presided at the trials of Muir, Palmer, Margarot, and others, who were indicted for sedition in 1793-4, in the course of which he let fall from the bench the _obiter dictum_--“I never likit the French a’ my days, but now I hate them.” “In these,” says Lord Cockburn, “he was the Jeffreys of Scotland. He, as the head of the Court, and the only very powerful man it contained, was the real director of its proceedings” (“Memorials of his Time,” 1856, p. 116).