The most important witness of all was, of course, Mr. Murray, of Boughton, late secretary to the young Chevalier, and, only a day or two before, a prisoner in the King’s Bench, from which he had been discharged. In the course of his answers, Murray said he had been ‘directed’ to give a narrative of the springs and progress of the late rebellion,――when he came to be examined at the Bar of the High Court of Justice, where he was then standing. ‘Directed?’ exclaimed the Earl of Cholmondely, ‘who _directed_ you?’ The Lord High Steward and the Earl of Chesterfield protested they had not heard the word ‘directed’ used by the witness. There was a wish to have the matter cleared up, and Murray then said, ‘Some days after my examination in the Tower, by the honourable Committee of the House of Commons, a gentleman, who, I believe was their secretary, came to me to take a further examination; and to ask me as to any other matter that had occurred since my last examination. Some days after that, he told me I should be called here before your Lordships, upon the trial of my Lord Lovat, and that at the same time, it would be _expected_ that I should give an account of the rise and progress of the Rebellion in general.’ [Sidenote: _MURRAY’S EVIDENCE._] The above shows pretty clearly how the weak natures of prisoners in the Tower were dealt with, in order to get evidence by which they would destroy at once the life of a confederate and their own honour. Murray did what he was ‘directed’ or ‘expected’ to do, without passion but with some sense of pain and shame. The whole rise and course of the insurrection may be found in his testimony; he was prepared for the questions, equally so with the answers he gave to them; and his evidence is of importance for a proper understanding of the outbreak. Some merit was made of his ‘voluntary surrender,’ but Lord Talbot, quite in Lovat’s interest, roughly asked if Murray had really intended to surrender himself at the time he became a prisoner to the Royal forces. The poor man truthfully answered that ‘it was not then my intention particularly to surrender myself’;――adding, ‘it was not my intention till I saw the dragoons;’――but that he had never since attempted to escape.――‘Have you ever taken the Oaths of Allegiance and Fidelity to the King?’ asked Lord Talbot. He never had. ‘Did you ever take such Oaths to anybody else?’ ◆[Sidenote: _CROSS EXAMINATION._]◆ Murray let drop a murmured ‘No’; and then Sir William Yonge, one of the Managers for the Commons, came to his help, with the expression of a hope that the king’s witness should not be obliged to answer questions that tended to accuse himself of High Treason. To which Lord Talbot replied that the gentleman had already confessed himself guilty of that crime. Lord Talbot then asked Murray if he was a voluntary evidence. Murray requested him to explain what he meant by those two words. ‘Are you here?’ said Talbot, ‘in hopes of a pardon? And if you