In these it was stated that his Grace was waylaid by divers parties and could not escape, whether he went straight to St Andrews or repaired to his house at Scotscraig; that three days before the murder, several of those concerned in it met in Magask, at the house of John Miller, one of the witnesses, where they concerted the business; that the next night they put up with Robert Black, another witness, whose wife was a great instigator of the deed; that at parting, when one of them kissed her, the woman prayed that God might bless and prosper them, adding, ‘if long Leslie’—the episcopalian minister of Ceres—‘be with him, lay him on the green also,’ to which the favoured individual whom she more particularly addressed, holding up his hand, answered, ‘this is the hand that shall do it’; and that further, on the morning of the 3rd of May, the nine men followed the coach for a considerable distance, intending to attack it, first on the heath to the south of Ceres, and then at the double dykes of Magask, though owing to various circumstances, duly detailed, they did not get what seemed an available opportunity of doing so until it reached Magus Muir. Standing thus, the question of premeditation gave rise to a long and acrimonious controversy in which recriminations and invectives were freely bandied, and which, being characterised, on either side, rather by a determination to uphold a preconceived opinion than by a desire to arrive at the plain truth, naturally led to no satisfactory conclusion. The murder of Archbishop Sharp was followed by further proclamations against the Covenanters, to whom, as a body, the Government attributed the crime; and the episcopalian agents throughout the country, actuated partly by a desire for revenge, partly by fear for their own safety, displayed increased zeal in carrying out the repressive enactments of the Privy Council. This was met on the other side with corresponding measures for self-defence. Even before the tragedy at Magus Muir, a determination to repel force by force had been noted and reported, and conventicles had ceased to be merely peaceful gatherings of unarmed men. They now began to assume the appearance of military camps, to which the numerous smaller congregations that joined together for mutual protection gave formidable proportions.