Chapter XVI: A.d. 1649-1650 (2)

“In conclusion, he called upon the assemblage to lay aside all prejudice, private animosity, and desire of revenge, and to consider him, in relation to the justice of his cause, as a man and a Christian, and an obedient subject, in relation to the commands of his sovereign, which he had faithfully executed. He then put them in mind of the great obligations which many of them were under to him, for having preserved their lives and fortunes at a time when he had the power and authority, had he inclined, of destroying both, and entreated them not to judge him rashly, but according to the laws of God, the laws of nature and nations, and particularly by the laws of the land--that if they should refuse to do so, he would appeal to the just Judge of the world, who would at last judge them all, and pronounce a righteous sentence.”[410]

This speech was delivered without affectation or embarrassment, and with such firmness and clearness of intonation, that, according to a cavalier historian, many persons present were afterwards heard to declare, that he looked and spoke as he had been accustomed when at the head of his army.[411] The chancellor replied to Montrose, in a strain of the most furious invective, “punctually proving him,” says Balfour, “by his acts of hostility, to be a person most infamous, perjured, treacherous, and of all that this land ever brought forth, the most creuell and inhumane butcher and murtherer of his natione, a sworne enimy to the Covenant and peace of his countrey, and one quhosse boundlesse pryde and ambition had lost the father, and by his wicked counsells done quhat in him lay to distroy the sone lykwayes.”[412]

Montrose attempted to address the court a second time, but was rudely interrupted by the chancellor, who ordered him to keep silence, and to kneel down and receive his sentence. The prisoner at once obeyed, but remarked, that on falling on his knees, he meant only to honour the king his master, and not the parliament. While Sir Archibald Johnston, the clerk-register, was reading the sentence, Montrose kept his countenance erect and displayed his usual firmness. “He behaved all this time in the house with a great deal of courage and modesty, unmoved and undaunted.”[413] The execution was fixed for three o’clock the following day.

The feelings of humanity and the voice of religion, now demanded that the unfortunate prisoner should be allowed to spend the short time he had to live, in those solemn preparations for death, enjoined by religion, in privacy and without molestation; but it was his fate to be in the hands of men in whose breasts such feelings were stifled, and whose religion was deeply imbued with a stern and gloomy fanaticism, to which charity was an entire stranger. However, it would be unfair and uncharitable to look upon the conduct of these men as if they had been surrounded with all the advantages of the present enlightened age. We ought to bear in mind their recent escape from the most intolerant of all religions, of whose persecuting principles they had not yet got rid; the hard treatment to which they had been subjected by the late king and his father; and the fact that they really believed they were doing their duty to God and serving the best interests of true religion. It is indeed difficult to be charitable to the uncharitable, tolerant to persecutors.

No sooner had Montrose returned to prison, than he was again assailed by the ministers, who endeavoured to induce him to submit to the kirk, no doubt considering the conversion of such an extraordinary _malignant_ as Montrose, as a theological achievement of the first importance. To subdue his obstinacy, they magnified the power of the keys, which they said had been committed to them, and informed him that unless he reconciled himself to the kirk and obtained a release from the sentence of excommunication which had been pronounced against him, he would be eternally damned. But Montrose, regardless of their threats and denunciations, remained inflexible. Besides the ministers, he was frequently waited upon by the magistrates of the city, with whom he entered into conversation. He told them that he was much indebted to the parliament for the great honour they had decreed him,--that he was prouder to have his head fixed upon the top of the prison, than if they had decreed a golden statue to be erected to him in the market-place, or ordered his portrait to be placed in the king’s bed-chamber,--that so far from grieving for the mutilation which his body was about to undergo, he was happy that the parliament had taken such an effectual method of preserving the memory of his loyalty, by transmitting such proofs of them to the four principal cities of the kingdom, and he only wished that he had flesh enough to have sent a piece to every city in Christendom, as a testimony of his unshaken love and fidelity to his king and country.[414] But annoying as the visits of the ministers and magistrates undoubtedly were, Montrose was still farther doomed to undergo the humiliation of being placed under the more immediate charge of Major Weir, who afterwards obtained an infamous notoriety in the annals of criminal jurisprudence. This incestuous wretch, who laid claim to superior godliness, and who pretended to be gifted with the spirit of prayer, of which he gave proofs by many extemporary effusions, gave Montrose great uneasiness by smoking tobacco, to the smell of which he had, like Charles I., a particular aversion.

During the night, when free from the intrusion of the ministers, Montrose occupied himself in devotional exercises, and even found leisure to gratify his poetic taste, by composing the following lines which he wrote upon the window of the chamber in which he was confined.

“Let them bestow on every airth a limb,
Then open all my veins, that I may swim
To thee, my Maker, in that crimson lake,
Then place my parboiled head upon a stake;
Scatter my ashes, strow them in the air.
Lord, since thou knowest where all these atoms are,
I’m hopeful thou’lt recover once my dust,
And confident thou’lt raise me with the just.”

On the morning of the 21st of May, 1650, the city of Edinburgh was put into a state of commotion by the noise of drums and trumpets, which was heard in every quarter of the city. The sound attracted the notice of Montrose, who inquired at the captain of the guard the cause of it. The officer told him that the parliament, dreading that an attempt might be made by the mob, under the influence of the malignants, to rescue him, had given orders to call out the soldiers and citizens to arms. “Do I,” said the marquis, “who was such a terror to these good men when alive, continue still so formidable to them, now that I am about to die? But let them look to themselves; for even after I am dead, I will be continually present to their wicked consciences, and become more formidable to them than while I was alive.”

After partaking of a hearty breakfast, Montrose entered upon the business of the toilet, to which he paid particular attention. While in the act of combing his hair, he was visited by Sir Archibald Johnston, the clerk-register, one of his most inveterate foes, who made some remarks on the impropriety, as he thought, of a person in the dreadful situation of the marquis, occupying some of the precious moments he had yet to live in frivolous attentions to his person. The marquis, who knew well the character of this morose man, thus addressed him with a smile of contempt, “While my head is my own, I will dress and adorn it; but to-morrow, when it becomes yours, you may treat it as you please.”

About an hour before the time fixed for his execution, Montrose was waited upon by the magistrates of the city, who saw him conveyed to the scaffold on the same vehicle on which he had been carried into the city. In addition to the dress which he wore on that occasion, he was now habited in a superb scarlet cloak, ornamented with gold and silver lace, which his friends had provided him with. Long before his removal from prison, an immense assemblage of persons had congregated around the place of execution in the High-street, all of whom were deeply affected on Montrose’s appearance. As he proceeded along, he had, says Wishart, “such a grand air, and so much beauty, majesty, and gravity appeared in his countenance, as shocked the whole city at the cruelty that was designed him; and extorted even from his enemies this unwilling confession, that he was a man of the most lofty and elevated soul, and of the most unshaken constancy and resolution that the age had produced.”

It had always been the uniform practice in Scotland to permit all persons about to suffer the last penalty of the law to address the assembled spectators, and on mounting the scaffold Montrose was proceeding to avail himself of this privilege; but the magistrates, who probably had received their instructions from the parliament, refused to allow him to harangue the multitude. His friends, however, anticipating this, had hired a young man, skilled in stenography, who, having stationed himself near the scaffold, was enabled to take down the substance of some observations which Montrose was permitted to make in answer to questions put by some persons who surrounded him.

He began by remarking that he would consider it extremely hard indeed if the mode of his death should be esteemed any reflection upon him, or prove offensive to any good Christian, seeing that such occurrences often happened to the good at the hands of the wicked, and often to the wicked at the hands of the good--and that just men sometimes perish in their righteousness, while wicked men prosper in their villanies. That he, therefore, expected that those who knew him well would not esteem him the less for his present sufferings, especially as many greater and more deserving men than he had undergone the same untimely and disgraceful fate. Yet, that he could not but acknowledge that all the judgments of God were just, and that the punishment he was about to suffer was very deservedly inflicted upon him for the many private sins he had committed, and he therefore willingly submitted to it;--that he freely pardoned his enemies, whom he reckoned but the instruments of the Divine will, and prayed to God to forgive them, although they had oppressed the poor, and perverted judgment and justice.

That he had done nothing contrary to the laws of the kingdom, and that he had undertaken nothing but in obedience to the just commands of his sovereign, when reduced to the greatest difficulties by his rebellious subjects, who had risen up in arms against him--that his principal study had always been to fear God and honour the king, in a manner agreeable to the law of God, the laws of nature, and those of his own country; and that, in neither of these respects, had he transgressed against men, but against God alone, with whom he expected to find abundant mercy, and in the confidence of which, he was ready to approach the eternal throne without terror--that he could not pretend to foretell what might happen, or to pry into the secrets of Divine Providence; but he prayed to God that the indignities and cruelties which he was that day to suffer might not be a prelude of still greater miseries which would befall his afflicted country, which was fast hastening to ruin.

That with regard to the grievous censure of the church, which he was sorry some good people thought it a crime in him to die under, he observed, that he did not incur it from any fault of his own, but in the performance of his duty to his lawful prince, for the security of religion, and the preservation of his sacred person and royal authority--that the sentence of excommunication, so rashly laid upon him by the clergy, gave him much concern, and that he earnestly desired to be released from it, so far as that could be done, agreeably to the laws of God, and without hurting his conscience or allegiance, which, if they refused, he appealed to God, the righteous judge of the world, who, ere long, was to be his impartial judge and gracious redeemer.

In answer to the reproaches of some persons who had endeavoured to destroy the marquis’s character and reputation by spreading a report that he had laid the whole blame of what he had done upon the king and his royal father, he observed that such a thought had never once entered into his breast--that the late king had lived a saint and died a martyr, and he prayed to God, that as his own fate was not unlike his, so his death might be attended with the same degree of piety and resignation; for if he could wish his soul in another man’s stead, or to be conjoined with it in the same condition after this life, it would be his alone.

He then requested that the people would judge charitably of him and his actions, without prejudice and without passion. He desired the prayers of all good men for his soul; for his part, he said he prayed earnestly for them all; and with the greatest seriousness, submission and humility, deprecated the vengeance of Almighty God, which had been so long awakened, and which was still impending over his afflicted country--that his enemies were at liberty to exult and triumph over the perishing remains of his body, but the utmost indignities they could inflict should never prevail on him, now at his death, to swerve from that duty and reverence to God, and obedience and respect to the king, which he had manifested all his life long. “I can say no more,” concluded the marquis, “but remit myself to your charity, and I desire your prayers. You that are scandalized at me, give me your charity; I shall pray for you all. I leave my soul to God, my service to my prince, my goodwill to my friends, and my name in charity to you all. I might say more, but I have exonered my conscience; the rest I leave to God’s mercy.”[415]

A party of ministers who occupied the lower end of the scaffold now attempted, partly by persuasion and partly by threats, to induce Montrose to yield to the kirk by acknowledging his own criminality; but he denied that he had acted contrary to religion and the laws of the land, and, of course, refused to accept of a reconciliation upon such terms. Finding him inflexible, they refused to pray for him as he desired, observing, that no prayers could be of any avail to a man who was an outcast from the church of God. Being desired to pray by himself apart, he told them that if they would not permit the people to join with him, his prayers alone and separately before so large an assembly would perhaps be offensive both to them and him--that he had already poured out his soul before God, who knew his heart, and to whom he had committed his spirit. He then shut his eyes, and holding his hat before his face with his left hand, he raised his right in the attitude of prayer, in which posture he continued about a quarter of an hour in silent and fervent prayer.

As the fatal hour was fast approaching when this unfortunate nobleman was to bid a last adieu to sublunary things, he desired the executioner to hasten his preparations. This gloomy functionary, accordingly, brought the book of Montrose’s wars, and his late declaration, which, by the sentence, were ordered to be tied round his neck with a cord. Montrose himself assisted in carrying this part of his sentence into execution, and while the operation was performing, good-humouredly remarked, that he considered himself as much honoured then by having such tokens of his loyalty attached to his person as he had been when his majesty had invested him with the order of the garter.[416]

Hitherto, Montrose had remained uncovered; but, before ascending the ladder that conducted to the top of the gibbet, which rose to the height of thirty feet from the centre of the scaffold, he requested permission to put on his hat. This request was, however, refused. He then asked leave to keep on his cloak; but this favour was also denied him. Irritated, probably at these refusals, he appears for a moment to have lost his usual equanimity of temper, and when orders were given to pinion his arms, he told the magistrates that if they could invent any further marks of ignominy, he was ready to endure them all for the sake of the cause for which he suffered.

On arriving at the top of the ladder, which he ascended with astonishing firmness, Montrose asked the executioner how long his body was to be suspended to the gibbet. “Three hours,” was the answer. He then presented the executioner with three or four pieces of gold, told him he freely forgave him for the part he acted, and instructed him to throw him off as soon as he observed him uplifting his hands. The executioner watched the fatal signal, and on the noble victim raising his hands, obeyed the mandate, and, it is said, burst into tears. A feeling of horror seized the assembled multitude, who expressed their disapprobation by a general groan. Among the spectators were many persons who had indulged during the day in bitter invectives against Montrose, but whose feelings were so overpowered by the sad spectacle of his death that they could not refrain from tears.[417] Even the relentless Argyle, who had good feeling enough to absent himself from the execution, is said to have shed tears on hearing of Montrose’s death, but if a cavalier writer is to be believed, his son, Lord Lorne, disgraced himself by the most unfeeling barbarity.[418]

Thus died, at the early age of thirty-eight, James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, who had acquired during a short career of military glory greater reputation than perhaps ever fell to the lot of any commander within the same compass of time. That partisans may have exaggerated his actions, and extolled his character too highly, may be fairly admitted; but it cannot be denied that Montrose was really a great commander, and that there were noble and generous traits about him which indicated a high and cultivated mind, in many respects far superior to the age in which he lived. But however much the military exploits of Montrose may be admired, it must never be forgotten that his sword was drawn against his own countrymen in their struggles against arbitrary power, and that although there was much to condemn in the conduct of the Covenanters, subsequent events, in the reign of the second Charles and James, showed that they were not mistaken in the dread which they entertained of the extinction of their religious liberties, had Charles I. succeeded in his designs.

Among Montrose’s officers five of the most distinguished were selected for execution, all of whom perished under ‘the Maiden,’ a species of guillotine, introduced into Scotland by the Regent Morton, to which he himself became the first victim. The officers who suffered were Sir John Hurry,[419] Captain Spottiswood, younger of Dairsie, Sir Francis Hay of Dalgetty, Colonel William Sibbald, and Captain Charteris, a cadet of the ancient family of Amisfield. All these met death with extraordinary fortitude. Sir Francis Hay, who was a Catholic, “and therefore,” as a cavalier historian quaintly observes, “not coming within the compass of the ministers’ prayers,”[420] displayed in particular an intrepidity worthy of his name and family.[421] After a witty metaphorical allusion to “the Maiden,” he kissed the fatal instrument, and kneeling down, laid his head upon the block. Colonel Sibbald exhibited a surprising gaiety, and, “with an undaunted behaviour, marched up to the block, as if he had been to act the part of a gallant in a play.”[422] An instance of the unfeeling levity with which such melancholy scenes were witnessed, even by those who considered themselves the ministers of the gospel, occurred on the present as on former occasions. Captain Spottiswood, grandson of the archbishop of that name, having on his knees said the following prayer:--“O Lord, who hath been graciously pleased to bring me through the wilderness of this world, I trust at this time you will waft me over this sea of blood to my heavenly Canaan;” was rebuked by a minister who was near him in the following words:--“Take tent (heed), take tent, sir, that you drown not by the gate!” (way). Spottiswood replied with great modesty that “he hoped he was no Egyptian,” an answer which forced the base intruder to retire among the crowd to conceal his shame.

The execution of Captain Charteris (the last who suffered) was a source of melancholy regret to his friends, and of triumph to the ministers. He was a man of determined mind; but his health being much impaired by wounds which he had received, he had not firmness to resist the importunities of his friends, who, as a means of saving his life, as they thought, prevailed upon him to agree to make a public declaration of his errors. This unhappy man, accordingly, when on the scaffold, read a long speech, which had been prepared for him by the ministers, penned in a peculiarly mournful strain, in which he lamented his apostacy from the Covenant, and acknowledged “other things which he had vented to them (the ministers) in _auricular confession_.”[423] Yet, notwithstanding the expectations which he and his friends were led to entertain that his life would be spared, he had no sooner finished his speech than he was despatched.

FOOTNOTES:

[383] Balfour, vol. iii. p. 393.

[384] _Memoirs_, p. 351.

[385] Balfour, vol. iii. p. 405.

[386] See Appendix to Wishart’s _Memoirs_, p. 440.

[387] Gordon’s _Continuation_, p. 547, _et seq._

[388] Balfour, vol. iii. p. 432.

[389] Gordon’s _Continuation_, p. 551.

[390] Appendix to Wishart’s _Memoirs_, p. 441.

[391] Balfour, vol. iii. p. 440.

[392] Gordon’s _Continuation_, p. 552.

[393] Balfour, vol. iv. p. 9.

[394] Balfour, vol. iv. p. 9.

[395] Gordon’s _Continuation_, p. 555.

[396] Vide the document in the Appendix to Peterkin’s Notes on Orkney and Zetland, pp. 106, 107.

[397] Gordon’s _Continuation_, p. 555.

[398] _Memoirs_, p. 377.

[399] _Memoirs_, p. 380.

[400] Balfour, vol. iv. pp. 12, 13.

[401] Wishart, p. 385.

[402] According to _Montrose Redivivus_, p. 181, the cart was drawn by four horses.

[403] Now the Free Church Normal School.

[404] Wishart, p. 386.

[405] Balfour, vol. iv. p. 14.

[406] Wishart, p. 386.

[407] Wishart, p. 387.

[408] Balfour, vol. iv. p. 16, note to Kirkton’s _Church History_, p. 124. _Relation of the execution of James Graham_, London, 1650.

[409] Balfour, vol. iv. p. 16.

[410] Wishart, p. 391.

[411] Monteith’s _Hist. of the Troubles_, &c., p. 514.

[412] _Annals_, vol. iv. p. 15.

[413] Idem, p. 16.

[414] Wishart, p. 393.

[415] Wishart, p. 399. Balfour, vol. iv. p. 22.

[416] Wishart, p. 400.

[417] _Montrose Redivivus._

[418] “’Tis said that Argyle’s expressions had something of grief in them, and did likewise weep at the rehearsal of his death, (for he was not present at the execution). Howsoever, they were by many called crocodiles’ tears, how worthily I leave to others’ judgment. But I am sure there did in his son, Lord Lorne, appear no such sign, who neither had so much tenderness of heart as to be sorry, nor so much paternal wit as to dissemble, who, entertaining his new bride (the Earl of Moray’s daughter) with this spectacle, mocked and laughed in the midst of that weeping assembly; and, staying afterwards to see him hewn in pieces, triumphed at every stroke which was bestowed upon his mangled body.” _Montrose Redivivus_, edition of 1652. Note to Wishart’s _Memoirs_, p. 401.

The dismembered portions of Montrose’s body were disposed of in terms of the sentence. Lady Napier, the wife of Montrose’s esteemed friend and relation, being desirous of procuring his heart, employed some adventurous persons to obtain it for her. They accomplished this object on the second day after the execution, and were handsomely rewarded by her ladyship. The heart was embalmed by a surgeon, and after being enshrined in a rich gold urn, was sent by her to the eldest son of the marquis, then in Flanders. The family of Napier possess a portrait of Lady Napier, in which there is a representation of the urn.--Kirkton’s _History of the Church of Scotland_, note, p. 125; edited by the late C. K. Sharpe, Esq.

After the restoration, the trunk was disinterred, and the other remains collected, and on 11th May, 1661, were deposited with great solemnity by order of Charles II., in the family aisle in St. Giles’ church. The remains of Sir Francis Hay of Dalgetty were honoured with a similar mark of respect on the same day. For an account of the ceremonial, see Nos. 27 and 28 of the Appendix to Wishart’s _Memoirs_.

[419] Hurry was at first condemned by the parliament to perpetual banishment, “but the commission of the kirk voted he should die, and thereupon sent ther moderator, with other two of their number, to the parliament house, who very saucilly, in face of that great and honourable court, (if it had not been then a body without a head) told the president and chancellor that the parliament had granted life to a man whom the law had appointed for death, being a man of blood, (citing these words of our blessed Saviour to Peter,--‘All they that take the sword shall perish by the sword;’) whereas, it was very weill knoune, all the blood that that unfortunate gentleman had shed in Scotland was in ther quarrell and defence, being but then engaged in his master’s service, when he was taken prisoner, and executed at the kirk’s instigatione.

“The parliament was sae farre from rebuking ther bold intruders, or resenting those acts of the commission of the kirk, now quyte besyde ther master’s commissione, as they will have it understood, and ther owne solemne professione not to meddle in secular affairs, that they rescinded their former act, and passed a sentence of death upon him, hereby imitating ther dear brethren, the parliament of England, in the caice of the Hothams.”--_Memoirs of the Somerville Family._

[420] Wishart, p. 412.

[421] “His constancy at death show well he repented nothing he did, in order to his allegiance and Majesty’s service, to the great shame of those who threatened him with their apocryphal excommunications, to which he gave no more place than our Saviour to the devil’s temptations.”--_Relation of the True Funerals of the Great Lord Marquesse of Montrose._

[422] Wishart.

[423] Wishart, p. 413.--The practice of auricular confession seems to have existed to a considerable extent among the Covenanters. It is singular that had it not been for the evidence of the minister of Ormiston, to whom the noted Major Weir had communicated his secrets in auricular confession, he would not have been convicted.--See Arnot’s _Criminal Trials_.