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Montrose’s sentence was next pronounced against him: “That he James Graham,” (for this was the only name they vouchsafed to give him,) “should next day be carried to Edinburgh Cross, and there be hanged on a gibbet, thirty feet high, for the space of three hours: then be taken down, his head, he cut off upon a scaffold, and affixed to the prison: his legs and arms be stuck up on the four chief towns of the kingdom: his body be buried in the place appropriated for common malefactors; except the church, upon his repentance, should take off his excommunication.”

The clergy, hoping that the terrors of immediate death had now given them an advantage over their enemy, flocked about him, and insulted over his fallen fortunes. They pronounced his damnation, and assured him that the judgment which he was so soon to suffer, would prove but an easy prologue to that which he must undergo hereafter. They next offered to pray with him; but he was too well acquainted with those forms of imprecation which they called prayers. “Lord, vouchsafe yet to touch the obdurate heart of this proud, incorrigible sinner; this wicked, perjured, traitorous, and profane person, who refuses to hearken to the voice of thy church.” Such were the petitions which he expected they would, according to custom, offer up for him. He told them, that they were a miserably deluded and deluding people; and would shortly bring their country under the most insupportable servitude to which any nation had ever been reduced. “For my part,” added he, “I am much prouder to have my head affixed to the place where it is sentenced to stand, than to have my picture hang in the king’s bed-chamber. So far from being sorry that my quarters are to be sent to four cities of the kingdom, I wish I had limbs enow to be dispersed into all the cities of Christendom, there to remain as testimonies in favor of the cause for which I suffer.” This sentiment, that very evening, while in prison, he threw into verse. The poem remains; a single monument of his heroic spirit, and no despicable proof of his poetical genius.

Now was led forth, amidst the insults of his enemies, and the tears of the people, this man of illustrious birth, and of the greatest renown in the nation, to suffer, for his adhering to the laws of his country, and the rights of his sovereign, the ignominious death destined to the meanest malefactor. Every attempt which the insolence of the governing party had made to subdue his spirit, had hitherto proved fruitless; they made yet one effort more, in this last and melancholy scene, when all enmity, arising from motives merely human, is commonly softened and disarmed. The executioner brought that book which had been published in elegant Latin, of his great military actions, and tied it with a cord about his neck. Montrose smiled at this new instance of their malice. He thanked them, however, for their officious zeal; and said, that he bore this testimony of his bravery and loyalty with more pride than he had ever worn the garter. Having asked whether they had any more indignities to put upon him, and renewing some devout ejaculations, he patiently endured the last act of the executioner.

Thus perished, in the thirty-eighth year of his age, the gallant marquis of Montrose; the man whose military genius both by valor and conduct had shone forth beyond any which, during these civil disorders, had appeared in the three kingdoms. The finer arts, too, he had in his youth successfully cultivated; and whatever was sublime, elegant, or noble touched his great soul. Nor was he insensible to the pleasures either of society or of love. Something, however, of the vast and unbounded characterized his actions and deportment; and it was merely by an heroic effort of duty, that he brought his mind, impatient of superiority, and even of equality, to pay such unlimited submission to the will of his sovereign.

The vengeance of the Covenanters was not satisfied with Montrose’s execution. Urrey, whose inconstancy now led him to take part with the king, suffered about the same time: Spotiswood of Daersie, a youth of eighteen, Sir Francis Hay of Dalgetie, and Colonel Sibbald, all of them of birth and character, underwent a like fate. These were taken prisoners with Montrose. The marquis of Huntley, about a year before, had also fallen a victim to the severity of the Covenanters.

The past scene displays in a full light the barbarity of this theological faction: the sequel will sufficiently display their absurdity.

The king, in consequence of his agreement with the commissioners of Scotland, set sail for that country; and being escorted by seven Dutch ships of war, who were sent to guard the herring fishery, he arrived in the Frith of Cromarty. Before he was permitted to land, he was required to sign the covenant; and many sermons and lectures were made him, exhorting him to persevere in that holy confederacy.[*] Hamilton, Lauderdale, Dumfermling, and other noblemen of that party whom they called engagers, were immediately separated from him, and obliged to retire to their houses, where they lived in a private manner, without trust or authority. None of his English friends, who had served his father, were allowed to remain in the kingdom. The king himself found that he was considered as a mere pageant of state, and that the few remains of royalty which he possessed, served only to draw on him the greater indignities. One of the quarters of Montrose, his faithful servant, who had borne his commission, had been sent to Aberdeen, and was still allowed to hang over the gates when he passed by that place.[**]

* Sir Edward Walker’s Historical Discourses, p. 159.

** Sir Edward Walker’s Historical Discourses, p, 160.

The general assembly, and afterwards the committee of estates and the army, who were entirely governed by the assembly, set forth a public declaration, in which they protested, “that they did not espouse any malignant quarrel or party, but fought merely on their former grounds or principles; that they disclaimed all the sins and guilt of the king, and of his house; nor would they own him or his interest, otherwise than with a subordination to God, and so far as he owned and prosecuted the cause of God, and acknowledged the sins of his house, and of his former ways.”[*]

The king, lying entirely at mercy, and having no assurance of life or liberty further than was agreeable to the fancy of these austere zealots, was constrained to embrace a measure which nothing but the necessity of his affairs and his great youth and inexperience could excuse. He issued a declaration, such as they required of him.[**] He there gave thanks for the merciful dispensations of Providence, by which he was recovered from the snare of evil counsel, had attained a full persuasion of the righteousness of the covenant, and was induced to cast himself and his interests wholly upon God. He desired to be deeply humbled and afflicted in spirit, because of his father’s following wicked measures, opposing the covenant and the work of reformation, and shedding the blood of God’s people throughout all his dominions. He lamented the idolatry of his mother, and the toleration of it in his father’s house; a matter of great offence, he said, to all the Protestant churches, and a great provocation to him who is a jealous God, visiting the sins of the father upon the children, He professed, that he would have no enemies but the enemies of the covenant; and that he detested all Popery, superstition, prelacy, heresy, schism, and profaneness; and was resolved not to tolerate, much less to countenance, any of them in any of his dominions. He declared that he should never love or favor those who had so little conscience as to follow his interests, in preference to the gospel and the kingdom of Jesus Christ. And he expressed his hope, that whatever ill success his former guilt might have drawn upon his cause, yet now, having obtained mercy to be on God’s side, and to acknowledge his own cause subordinate to that of God, divine providence would crown his arms with victory.