the executioner did not touch them; he ordered his cap to be put on, and unloosing his neckcloth and the collar of his shirt, he kneeled down at the block, and pulled the cloth which was to receive his head close to him. But being placed too near the block, the executioner desired him to remove a little farther back, which, with the warders’ assistance, was immediately done; and his neck being properly placed, he told the executioner he would say a short prayer, and then give the signal by dropping his handkerchief. In this position he remained about half a minute, and then, throwing his handkerchief upon the floor, the executioner at one blow severed his head from his body, which was received in the cloth, and together with his body put into the coffin, and carried in the hearse back to the Tower, where it remained until four o’clock, and was then taken away by an undertaker, in order to be sent to Scotland, and deposited in his own tomb in the church of Kirkhill; but leave not being given, as was expected, it was again brought back to the Tower, and interred near the bodies of the other lords. Lord Lovat, in a codicil to his will, had ordered that all the pipers from John o’ Groats to Edinburgh were to play before his corpse, for which they were to have a handsome allowance, and though he did not expect this wish to be complied with, yet he said that he hoped that the good old women of his country would sing a ‘coronach’ before him.” The legend that Lovat’s ghost, in a monk’s dress, appeared during a tempest with its head under its arm, probably had its origin in this desire of his to have a great Scottish wake at his funeral, and also to his once having worn the dress of a Jesuit priest in one of his adventures at St Omer; of this there is a curious contemporary print. [Illustration: A REPRESENTATION _of the Execution of Lord LOVAT_. A. _The scaffold._ B. _Lord Lovat’s head on yᵉ Block._ C. _Cloth to receive the Head._ D. _The Executioner with yᵉ Axe._ E. _The Coffin._ F. _The House from which he came on the Scaffold._ _Execution of Lord Lovat 1746_] Lord Cromarty was pardoned, owing to the exertions of his wife, who petitioned every member of the Privy Council, and had fallen in a swoon at the feet of George II. at Kensington, in the very act of presenting him with a petition for mercy. Her prayer was more graciously received by that sovereign than Lady Nithsdale’s petition had been by his father. It is said that a son born to Lady Cromarty about this time had the mark of an axe upon its neck. The block, now in the Armoury of the Tower, is undoubtedly the one upon which Lovat was beheaded, and is declared to have originally been made for his execution. The axe which stands beside it was used to behead him, as well as the other Jacobite lords who suffered death in 1746, but whether it was used previous to these executions cannot be ascertained with any certainty.