Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
{E} "The Lord Lorn and his new lady were also sitting on a balcony,
joyful spectators; and the cart being stopt when it came before the
lodging where the Chancellor, Argyle, and Warristoun sat--that they
might have time to insult--he, suspecting the business, turned his face
towards them, whereupon they presently crept in at the windows: which
being perceived by an Englishman, he cried up, it was no wonder they
started aside at his look, for they durst not look him in the face these
seven years bygone."--_Wigton Papers._
{F} Archibald Johnston of Warristoun. This man, who was the inveterate
enemy of Montrose, and who carried the most selfish spirit into every
intrigue of his party, received the punishment of his treasons about
eleven years afterwards. It may be instructive to learn how _he_ met his
doom. The following extract is from the MSS. of Sir George
Mackenzie:--"The Chancellor and others waited to examine him; he fell
upon his face, roaring, and with tears entreated they would pity a poor
creature who had forgot all that was in the Bible. This moved all the
spectators with a deep melancholy; and the Chancellor, reflecting upon
the man's great parts, former esteem, and the great share he had in all
the late revolutions, could not deny some tears to the frailty of silly
mankind. At his examination, he pretended he had lost so much blood by
the unskilfulness of his chirurgeons, that he lost his memory with his
blood; and I really believe that his courage had been drawn out with it.
Within a few days he was brought before the parliament, where he
discovered nothing but much weakness, running up and down upon his
knees, begging mercy; but the parliament ordained his former sentence to
be put to execution, and accordingly he was executed at the cross of
Edinburgh."
{G} "He said he was much beholden to the parliament for the honour they
put on him; 'for,' says he, 'I think it a greater honour to have my head
standing on the port of this town, for this quarrel, than to have my
picture in the king's bedchamber. I am beholden to you, that, lest my
loyalty should be forgotten, ye have appointed five of your most eminent
towns to bear witness of it to posterity.'"--_Wigton Papers._
{H} "In his downgoing from the Tolbooth to the place of execution, he
was very richly clad in fine scarlet, laid over with rich silver lace,
his hat in his hand, his bands and cuffs exceeding rich, his delicate
white gloves on his hands, his stockings of incarnate silk, and his
shoes with their ribands on his feet; and sarks provided for him with
pearling about, above ten pund the elne. All these were provided for him
by his friends, and a pretty cassock put on upon him, upon the scaffold,
wherein he was hanged. To be short, nothing was here deficient to honour
his poor carcase, more beseeming a bridegroom than a criminal going to
the gallows."--NICHOLL'S _Diary_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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