On the 3rd of August, Sir William Kirkcaldy and his brother James, together with Morsman and Cockie, the two goldsmiths who had coined money in the Queen’s name, were brought to trial and condemned to death. Between the passing of the sentence and its execution in the afternoon of the same day, a final and frantic effort was made to save the Laird of Grange. Five score gentlemen,--kinsmen, friends, and well-wishers,--the least of them having heritage worth five hundred marks Scots a year, offered to become servants, themselves and their offspring, perpetually, to the houses of Angus and Morton, by giving their bond of man-rent; and, in addition to that, to pay twenty pounds annually, for more thraldom. They further promised to hand over twenty thousand pounds to the Regent, before the following Michaelmas, and to restore twenty thousand pounds of the Queen’s jewels that were in sundry hands. But Morton was under the influence of a power greater than even his own avarice. The offers, he admitted to Burghley, were as large as could possibly have been made; yet, he added, ‘considering what has been, and is, daily spoken by the preachers, that God’s plague will not cease till the land be purged of blood, and having regard that such as are interested by the death of their friends, the destruction of their houses, and the away-taking of their goods, could not be satisfied by any offer made to me in particular, I deliberated to let justice proceed.’ It was through David Lindsay, the minister of Leith, who visited Kirkcaldy after the trial, that this last appeal for mercy was made. When he returned with a stern refusal the condemned man said to him: ‘Mr David, for our old friendship and for Christ’s sake leave me not.’ A little later, when he saw the scaffold prepared at the Cross, the day fair and the sun shining brightly, so marked a change came over him that Lindsay, noticing it, inquired what affected him. ‘Faith, Mr David,’ replied he, ‘I perceive well now that Mr Knox was the true servant of God, and that his threatenings are accomplished.’ He then desired Lindsay to repeat Knox’s words. The minister did so, adding that Knox had told him that he had been earnest with God for Grange; that he was sorry for what should befall his body for the love he bore him; but that he was assured there was mercy for his soul. Kirkcaldy seemed much comforted and encouraged by this. As the fatal hour drew near he begged Lindsay to accompany him to the scaffold: ‘I hope in God, that after men shall think I am passed and gone, I shall give you a token of the assurance of that mercy to my soul according to the speech of that man of God.’