Again Charles durst not use his prerogative to save the life of an innocent man, though he interposed to make the manner of death beheading, instead of the ordinary horrible form, and it is hardly credible that the sheriffs of London questioned his right to do this. But the temper of the people had changed. They uncovered their heads as the old man passed to Tower Hill, and when he declared his innocence they cried, "We believe you, my Lord! God bless you, my Lord." The frenzy was over. The other nobles were released in process of time, and thus ended one of the saddest and most disgraceful passages in our history. CAMEO II. Death of 1679. CAMEO III. THE KILLING TIME. 1679-1685. CAMEO III. WE are getting into the region made real and vivid to us by the scenes in Old Mortality, and it is somewhat invidious to find that Covenanters. much of what is true to life and nature is not also true to fact, 1679. although in many respects it will raise Scott's hero higher than he durst place him with the traditions and the partial histories before him. Resistance to the hierarchy had seemed to be dying out in Scotland, though the more resolute Covenanters still kept up their secret meetings, and the officials of the law kept a strict watch upon them, and availed themselves of every excuse for oppression. One of these officials named William Carmichael, in Fifeshire, was particularly obnoxious, and was accused of citing before his court innocent persons who were known to have scruples about pleading or making oaths, and then fining them for their non-appearance. A meeting of peasants was held on the 9th of April, 1679, at which a gentleman named William Hackston of Rathillet, was invited to attend. After prayers, and some discussion, he asked why he had been sent for, and was answered by Robert Henderson and Alexander Balfour that it was anent the condition of the shire, the Gospel being quite extinguished there by the faintness of heart produced by Carmichael's violence; and it was agreed to do something that might scare him from his present course. He was thought to be a favourite of the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, and something passed about seeking him in the palace, and hanging him over the West Port. There were several meetings for prayer for direction in the matter; but if the prayers were such as Sir James Turner had overheard, they seem rather to have directed the Almighty than to have asked direction from Him. However, finally a godly weaver, named Alexander Smith, desired them to go forward, and if the Lord saw meet to deliver Carmichael into their hands, He would bring him in their way, and employ them in some work honourable to Heaven and themselves. Another fast and prayer day was kept on the 1st of May, and they sought out two determined men, who were hiding from the law, John Balfour of Burley, and John Henderson. Twelve men, with horses and weapons, were collected, Hackston being the only one of rank above a peasant's or farmer's degree, their intention being apparently to frighten Carmichael out of the country, and a field meeting was fixed for the Sabbath after their attempt should have succeeded, to give thanks for the deliverance. The twelve waited in a house, sending one of their number to Cupar to watch Carmichael, and at 7 A.M. he brought them word that the commissioner was gone out to hunt on Turrit Hill; but by the time they had gone out to intercept him, some alarm had reached him, and he had gone back to Cupar. Still, they believed that there was some work to be done, especially John Balfour, who said that he was pressed in spirit, and that the words, "Go and prosper" were borne in upon him. In this awful state of self-deception, when a boy came to tell them that the Archbishop's coach was on its way, these men believed that here was the victim to be delivered into their hands, and they resolved on lying in wait for him on Magus Moor, a wide, dreary flat district, far from any help. Meantime the Archbishop, with his daughter Isabel, was on his way. He had rested at the village of Ceres, and smoked a pipe with the parson; then driving on, as he passed the house of an enemy, he said, "There lives an ill-natured man. God preserve us, my child." By and by a horseman galloped furiously up, looked in, and fired his pistol into the carriage. The coachman drove on hastily, but the whole party came up, firing volley after volley, till they thought they had done the deed, and were riding off, when they heard voices within, which showed them that their unpractised hands had done little harm in the great cumbrous coach. They turned back again, and commanded, "Judas, come forth." He did not move, but though he had a sword and pistols, the regular equipment of a coach, he did not try to use them, as he was forced out on the ground. Seeing Hackston sitting apart on horseback, with his cloak wrapped about his mouth, the old man crept to him, saying, "You are a gentleman; you will save my life!" "I will not lay a hand on you,' was all Hackston said, but he made no attempt to protect the suppliant, but sat motionless, while another party held the poor daughter, as she struggled to reach her father, during the dreadful forty-five minutes while, with clumsy hands and blunt | CAMEO III. Magus 1679. CAMEO III. weapons, the murderers were hacking and hewing at their victim. When Murder of life was at length extinct, they rifled the carriage, not as robbers, but Archbishop in search of tokens of his compact with Satan! They found some yelSharpe. 1679. low-coloured thread, like parings of nails, that would not burn, probably belonging to his daughter's needlework. Also, when they opened his tobacco-box, a bee flew out, and this they had no doubt was his familiar spirit. No one had disturbed them, which they regarded as a special interposition of Providence, and they rode off to a house three miles distant, called the Tenebits, where they spent the evening in prayer, not for forgiveness, but of thanksgiving, for having been, as they thought, guided to a great work. Then they rode off in the face of day. One of them, William Daniel, hid in an empty house, where a gentlewoman and her daughters brought him food at night, and where he lived in a rapture, in which he believed that it was revealed to him that the Indulgence was hatched in hell to ruin the kirk Fifeshire was for the most part loyal, under good Bishop Leighton, and the object of the assassins was to reach their brethren in the west. They considered it an inspiration that they pretended to be a troop sent out in search of the murderers, and Hackston, who had been an officer and a dissipated one, played the captain. At the hostel in Dumblane they called for brandy and the clerk of the peace, and actually made inquiries in a jesting tone on the appearance of the fugitives. The clerk, in his merriment, struck perhaps with the accordance of the description, said, “You are one of them," and added to John Balfour, "You are he that fired the first shot." "If all Dumblane had been here, they could not have judged more right," said Balfour, with a grim laugh. The clerk found them such good company, that he ordered another gill of brandy, and whispered to them that he could put them on the track of some more Whigs; and they rode out of the city with the general good will of the inhabitants. At Kippen, in Stirlingshire, they were among Covenanters of their own description, and the Sunday saw an armed field meeting ending in a skirmish-but not of importance. The murder of the sacrilege, and it of In one district it The steward of the A far more serious matter was at hand however. Archbishop was in the eyes of the loyal a horrible course quickened the severity of the authorities. would have been very hard to have increased it. town of Dumfries was Sir Robert Grierson of Lag, the real original of the terrible Sir Robert Redgauntlet, of Wandering Will's tale, and, like him, with the horse shoe on the brow. He was a man of education, but vicious and licentious to the last degree, and horribly savage. Legends survive of his hanging Covenanters to an iron hook, and rolling them down a hill like Regulus in a barrel stuck with knife blades. His wickedness, even authentically proved, is appalling. CAMEO III. 1679. The officer in command of the regular troops in this district was John Graham of Claverhouse, a kinsman of the Marquis of Montrose, at Claverhouse. whose intercession he had received a commission and the command of a troop of dragoons, after having served under the Prince of Orange, whose life he had saved in the battle of Seneff. He was about thirtyfive years old, of a singularly beautiful countenance, with delicate, almost boyish features and complexion, large dark eyes, and dark hair, curled- -no doubt to avoid the hideous wig-by twisting his locks round lead weights at night, and with a small, slight, active figure. His manners were unusually quiet, gentle, and courteous, his way of life, pure and blameless, and his habits so religious, that they were remarked with surprise by a Presbyterian lady who lodged in the same house at Edinburgh. Under the orders of Grierson, or Lag, as he was more commonly called, and forced to be on civil terms with him, Claverhouse was supposed to be a sharer and approver of his atrocities, and has come in for an unmerited amount of popular execration. He was supposed to be proof against steel and leaden bullet, and to be possessed of a huge black horse, the gift of Satan, and able, like Douglas Tyneman, charge perpendicularly up hill"-and all the most horrible stories of cruelty were laid to his charge; whereas nothing is really proved, but that he carried out the orders of the authorities in an active, honourable, and generally unflinching manner. to In the March before the murder of the Archbishop, he was appointed, together with Andrew Bruce, of Earl's Hall, to the deputy sheriffdom of Dumfriesshire under the Duke of Queensberry, and had been already aware that some scheme was afloat among the Covenanters when the terrible tidings of the tragedy of Magus Moor arrived. Activity was quickened, and on the 29th of May, Claverhouse was at Falkirk, and sent a despatch mentioning his intention of joining Lord Ross to break up a field meeting from eighteen parishes on the ensuing Sunday. The spot was Loudon Hill, the place where the counties of Ayr, Lanark, and Renfrew meet; two miles to the east lay the farm of Drumclog, chiefly of swampy moorland, but sloping down to a marshy hollow, through which ran a stream edged with stunted alder bushes. Behind these were ranged the Covenanters, commanded by Hamilton, not as hitherto praying and preaching, and scattering at sight of the soldiers, but in order of battle, and with no women in sight. There were three lines, the first with guns or pistols the second with pikes, the third with goads, pitchforks, or scythes set on poles, and with a few mounted men on either flank, commanded by Balfour of Burley. How well we know the scene as Scott has drawn it, with Moreton, Mause Headrigg, and Cuddie on the height above as captives, and Mause endeavouring to declaim, and vowing, "I will not peace at the word of any clod of earth, though it be painted as red as a brick of |