This Lady, the daughter of Sir William Gordon of Dalfolly, is said to have possessed every quality that could render a husband happy. Beautiful and intellectual, she manifested a degree of spirit and perseverance when called upon to act in behalf of her husband and children, that raised her character to that of a heroine. She was then the mother of nine children, and about to give birth to a tenth. During the period of suspense, her conduct presented that just medium between stoicism and excess of feeling, which so few persons in grief can command.[379] At last, a reprieve for Lord Cromartie arrived on the eleventh of August; it was not, however, followed by a release, nor even by a free pardon. During two years, Lord Cromartie was detained a prisoner in the Tower, there, being condemned to witness the departure of his generous friends, Kilmarnock and Balmerino, to the scaffold. On February the eighteenth, 1748, he was permitted to leave his prison, and to lodge in the house of a messenger. In the following August he went into Devonshire, where he was desired to remain. A pardon passed the Great Seal for his Lordship on the twentieth of October, 1749, with a condition that he should remain in any place directed by the King. He died in Poland-street in London, on the twenty-eighth of September, 1766.[380] On Thursday, the seventh of August, the Reverend James Foster, a Presbyterian minister, was allowed access to Lord Kilmarnock, to prepare him for a fate which now seemed inevitable. Great intercession had been made for the ill-fated prisoner, by his kinsman, James, sixth Duke of Hamilton, and husband of the celebrated beauty, Miss Gunning; but the friendly efforts of that nobleman were thought rather to have "hurried him to the block."[381] When a report reached him that one of the prisoners would be spared, Lord Kilmarnock had desired, with the utmost nobleness of soul, that Cromartie should be preferred to himself. Balmerino lamented that he had not been taken with Lord Lovat; "for then," he remarked, "we might have been sacrificed, and these two brave men have been spared." But these regrets were unavailing, and Lord Kilmarnock and his friend prepared to meet their doom. Mr. Foster, on conversing with Lord Kilmarnock, found him humbled, but not crushed by his misfortunes; contrite for a life characterized by many errors, but trustful of the Infinite mercy, to which we fondly turn from the stern justice of unforgiving man. And the reverend gentleman on whom the solemn responsibility of preparing a soul for judgment was devolved, appears to have discharged his task with a due sense of its delicacy, with fidelity and kindness.