otland, but the date of its
first use is unknown. It was certainly frequently employed there in the
latter years of the 16th century. In a case of forgery in 1579 two
witnesses, a clergyman and an attorney, were so tortured. In a letter
dated 1583 at the Record Office in London, Walsingham instructs the
English ambassador at Edinburgh to have Father Holt, an English Jesuit,
"put to the boots." It seems to have fallen into disuse after 1630, but
was revived in 1666 on the occasion of the Covenanters' rebellion, and
was employed during the reigns of Charles II. and James II. Upon the
accession of William III. the Scottish convention denounced "the use of
torture, without evidence and in ordinary crimes, as contrary to law."
However, a year or so later, one Neville Payne, an Englishman suspected
of treasonable motives for visiting Scotland, was put to the torture
under the authority of a warrant signed by the king. This is the last
recorded case of its use, torture being finally abolished in Scotland in
1709. It was not used in England after 1640. The boot was made of iron
or wood and iron fastened on the leg, between which and the boot wedges
were driven by blows from a mallet. After each blow a question was put
to the victim, and the ordeal was continued until he gave the
information or fainted. The wedges were usually placed against the calf
of the leg, but Bishop Burnet says that they were sometimes put against
the shin-bone. A similar instrument, called "Spanish boots," was used in
Germany. There were also iron boots which were heated on the victim's
foot. A less cruel form was a boot or buskin made wet and drawn upon the
legs and then dried with fire.

BOOTES (Gr. [Greek: bootaes], a ploughman, from [Greek: bous], an ox), a
constellation of the northern hemisphere, mentioned by Eudoxus (4th
century B.C.) and Aratus (3rd century B.C.), and perhaps alluded to in
the book of Job (see ARCTURUS), and by Homer and Hesiod. The ancient
Greeks symbolized it as a man walking, with his right hand grasping a
club, and his left extending upwards and holding the leash of two dogs,
which are apparently barking at the Great Bear. Ptolemy catalogues
twenty-three stars, Tycho Brahe twenty-eight, Hevelius fifty-two. In
addition to Arcturus, the brightest in the group, the most interesting
stars of this constellation are: _[epsilon] Bootis_, a beautiful double
star composed of a yellow star of magnitude 3, and a blue star of
magni