The following transcriptions are of two protestations that were written and made public in October 1681. A ‘protestation against the parlimenters’ was penned by Stirlingshire blacksmith Robert Garnock and presented by him to the Privy Council on 1 October 1681. The second protestation is dated 7 October and labelled a ‘protestation against the assize’. It is signed by Garnock and the fve other men from across Scotland that were indicted and tried alongside him: David Farrie; James Stewart; Alexander Russell; Patrick Foreman; and George Lapsley.

Both transcriptions are taken from the original documents in the men's own hands. Although acknowledged at their trial in Edinburgh's High Court of Justiciary on 7 October, neither protestation was copied into additional legal records. Instead, both papers survive among uncatalogued trial material in the National Records of Scotland's JC26 High Court of Justiciary processes series. Analysis and contextualisation of these protestations can be aided by other contemporary records, such as the High Court's Book of Adjournal, witness accounts, like those of lawyer John Lauder of Fountainhall, and other texts written by the six men who composed and subscribed these protestations.

Protest and dissent

A protestation was an instrument of Scots law: a formal statement of either written or verbal protest against a legal ruling. During the seventeenth century this judicial device was adapted as a means of public protest.