Aikenhead, though impenitent at first, no sooner received this indictment in prison, than he endeavoured to stop proceedings by addressing to the Lords of Justiciary a ‘petition and retraction,’ in which he professed the utmost abhorrence of the expressions attributed to him, saying he trembled even to repeat them to himself, and further avowing his firm faith in the gospel, in the immortality of the soul, in the doctrine of the Trinity, and in the divine authority of Scripture. He alleged, like Fraser, that the objectionable expressions had only been repeated by him, as sentiments of certain atheistical writers whose works had been put into his hands by a person now cited as a witness against him, and ‘who constantly made it his work to interrogate me anent my reading of the said atheistical principles and arguments.’ ‘May it therefore please your Lordships,’ said the petitioner in conclusion, ‘to have compassion on my young and tender years (not being yet major), and that I have been so innocently betrayed and induced to the reading of such atheistical books ... that I do truly own the Protestant religion ... and am resolved, by the assistance of Almighty God, to make my abhorrence of what is contained in the libel appear to the world in my subsequent life and conversation ... to desert the diet against me.’ This appeal, however, was in vain. The case was conducted by Sir James Steuart, the king’s advocate, and Sir Patrick Hume, the king’s solicitor. The witnesses were three students, and a ‘writer,’ all of them about twenty years of age, being the companions of the culprit, and one of them (named Mungo Craig) known to be the person who had lent Aikenhead the books from which he derived the expressions charged in the indictment. It was proved by the ample depositions of these young men, that Aikenhead had been accustomed [Sidenote: 1696.] to speak opprobriously of the Scriptures and their authors, as well as of the doctrines of Christianity; by Mungo Craig alone it was averred that he had cursed Jesus Christ, along with Moses and Ezra. Thus there was not _full_ proof against the accused on the principal point of the statute charged upon—namely, the cursing of God or any other person of the blessed Trinity. The jury nevertheless unanimously found it proven ‘that the panel, Thomas Aikenhead, has railed against the first person, and also cursed and railed our blessed Lord, the second person, of the holy Trinity.’ They further found ‘the other crimes libelled proven—namely, the denying the incarnation of our Saviour, the holy Trinity, and scoffing at the Holy Scriptures.’ Wherefore the judges ‘decern and adjudge the said Thomas Aikenhead to be taken to the Gallowlee, betwixt Leith and Edinburgh, upon Friday the eighth day of January next to come, and there to be hanged on a gibbet till he be dead, and his body to be interred at the foot of the gallows.’