ed down most
cheerfully, and after he had prayed a little, he gave the signal (which
was by lifting up his hand), and the instrument called the maiden struck
off his head from his body, which was fixed on the west end of the
tolbooth, as a monument of the parliaments injustice and the land's
misery. His body was by his friends put in a coffin and conveyed with a
good many attendants through Linlithgow and Falkirk to Glasgow, and from
thence to Kilpatrick, where it was put in a boat, carried to Denune, and
buried in Kilmunn church.

Thus died the noble marquis of Argyle, the proto-martyr to religion
since the reformation from popery, the true portrait of whose character
cannot be (a historian[102] says I dare not) drawn. His enemies
themselves will allow him to have been a person of extraordinary piety,
remarkable wisdom and prudence, great gravity and authority, and
singular usefulness. He was the head of the covenanters in Scotland, and
had been singularly active in the work of reformation there, and of any
almost that had engaged in that work he stuck closest by it, when most
of the nation quitted it very much, so that this attack upon him was a
stroke at the root of all that had been done in Scotland from 1638, to
the usurpation. But the tree of prelacy and arbitrary measures behoved
to be soaked when planting, with the blood of this excellent patriot,
staunch presbyterian, and vigorous assertor of Scotland's liberty, and
as he was the great promoter thereof during his life, and stedfast in
witnessing to it at his death, so it was to a great degree buried with
him in Scotland, for many years. In a word, he had piety for a
christian, sense for a counsellor, carriage for a martyr, and soul for a
king. If ever any was, he might be said to be a born Scotsman.

_The Life of Mr. JAMES GUTHRIE._

Mr. James Guthrie son to the laird of Guthrie (a very honourable and
ancient family) having gone through his course of classical learning at
the grammar school and college, taught philosophy in the university of
St. Andrews, where for several years he gave abundant proof that he was
an able scholar. His temper was very steady and composed; he could
reason upon the most subtle points with great solidity, and when every
one else was warm his temper was never ruffled. At any time when
indecent heats or wranglings happened to fall in when reasoning, it was
his ordinary custom to say, "Enough of this, let us go to some other