Ha-ha! It’s already here.
Alas, no ‘Tempiltoun’ in the index, and I’m going to have to read the thing to see if there’s any mention of ‘messenger-at-arms’ or ‘justice’ or ‘sheriff’. It’s certain that our Roger Tempiltoun was not one of the few General Procurators through 1549 nor Crown Advocates up through 1582. Nor was his son, James, in either position.
While that doesn’t mean that neither was employed by the college of justice in some capacity, a refresher look at the snippet of text regarding James gives me pause on the whole ‘College of Justice’ thing. It says that James was appointed “justice officer and sheriff officer of Edinburgh principal…”.
Hm-m-m. Maybe James and his dad were, in fact, the burgh’s Sheriff and only occasionally undertook “messenger-at-arms” and other jobs for the crown court? But, what about the “wagiis”? Unless my Scots Dictionary of terms of the period tells me differently, I’m assuming that wages were a regular payment then, as now. Which infers some kind of regular employment by the “justice courtiis” of the king.
This book is going to be an interesting read, whatever the case. It does get into the details of the practice of law back in the mid-sixteenth century, and that’s cool.
