Launched Into Eternity: Aberdeen, Scotland and the Spectacle of Execution, 1560-1963
In 2026, the Granite Noir crime writing festival celebrates its 10th anniversary. Aberdeen City & Aberdeenshire Archives have been a partner in the festival since its inception and t his year, we once again open a window onto the city’s murkier past by contributing an exhibition and a talk to the festival programme. Among the many stories preserved in the archives , few are as unsettlin g as those concerning capital punishment. From witch hunts to Scotlan d ’s last execution , these documents trace five centuries of what was long seen as the ultimate sanction under the criminal justice system . The phrase “launched into eternity” appears time and again in broadsides and newspapers of the 18th and 19th centuries. It sounds almost serene, but the reality behind it was anything but. It was a euphemism—an attempt to soften the brutal image of a han...
