Of this terrible tragedy, each side has its own account. On the one hand, there is that which is based on the narrative subsequently drawn up by Russell, one of the leading actors in it. According to this version, no premeditation existed on the part of the nine men concerned. They were in search of William Carmichael, the Sheriff-depute of Fifeshire, a man who had made himself obnoxious by the unrelenting severity which he displayed in carrying out the laws against the Covenanters. Having missed him, they were about to separate, when information was brought them that Sharp’s carriage was approaching. Interpreting this into ‘a clear call from God to fall upon him,’ they there and then resolved ‘to execute the justice of God upon him for the innocent blood he had shed.’ But if the Archbishop’s murder was not determined upon until the actual moment when circumstances cast him into the hands of his enemies, Russell’s account shows that it had been discussed a short time prior to its perpetration. He states that, on the 11th of April, a meeting was held to consider what course should be taken with Carmichael to scare him from his cruel courses; that it was decided to fall upon him at St Andrews; and that when ‘some objected, what if he should be in the prelate’s house, what should be done in such a case, all present judged duty to hang both over the post, especially the Bishop, it being by many of the Lord’s people and ministers judged a duty long since, not to suffer such a person to live, who had shed and was shedding so much of the blood of the saints, and knowing that other worthy Christians had used means to get him upon the road before.’ He further represents himself as urging the murder of Sharp, in the course of the hurried consultation held as the primate’s carriage was approaching, on the ground that ‘he had before been at several meetings with several godly men in other places of the kingdom, who not only judged it their duty to take that wretch’s life, and some others, but had essayed it twice before.’ Whilst it would appear from this account that no definite plan had been formed, to be carried out on the 3rd of May, though some of the more desperate of the Covenanters had come to a general understanding not to neglect any favourable opportunity ‘to execute the justice of God’ upon the wretch whom the Lord delivered into their hands, the other version, accepting the official narrative published immediately after the murder, asserts a distinct and premeditated purpose on the part of the assassins. It founds this on the ‘informations’ which were sent from St Andrews to the Privy Council, and which purported to embody the evidence of persons alleged to have been in communication with the men who perpetrated the crime.