" But he said, "Let
you, nor none of the Lord's people be troubled for these things, for all
that they will get liberty to do to me will be to knit me up, cut me
down, and chop off my old head, and then fare them well; they have done
with me and I with them for ever."

He was again before the council on the 19th, but refused to answer their
questions, except anent the excommunication, wherein he exprest himself
much as above. It appears that there was some motion made to spare him,
as he was an old man, and send him prisoner to the Bass during life;
which motion, being put to a vote, was, by the casting vote of the earl
of Argyle, rejected, who doomed him to the gallows, there to die like a
traitor.

Upon the 26th, he was brought before the justiciary, and indicted in
common form. His confession being produced in evidence against him, he
was brought in guilty of high treason, and condemned, with the rest, to
be hanged at the cross of Edinburgh, and his head placed on the
Nether-bow. When they came to these words, in his indictment, viz.
_having cast off all fear of God_, &c. he caused the clerk to stop, and
(pointing to the advocate Sir George MacKenzie) said, "The man that hath
caused that paper to be drawn up, hath done it contrary to the light of
his own conscience, for he knoweth that I have been a fearer of God from
mine infancy; but that man, I say, who took the holy Bible in his hand,
and said, It would never be well with the land, until that book was
destroyed, &c. I say, he is the man that hath cast off all fear of
God." The advocate stormed at this, but could not deny the truth
thereof.

When they got their sentence announced by sound of trumpet, he said,
"That is a weary sound, but the sound of the last trumpet will be a
joyful sound to me, and all that will be found having on Christ's
righteousness."

Being come to the scaffold, he stood with his back to the ladder, and
desired the attention of the numerous spectators, and after singing from
the 16th verse of the 118th psalm, he began to speak to three sorts of
people, but being interrupted by the drums, he said, with a smiling
countenance, Ye see we have not liberty to speak, or speak what we
would, but God knoweth our hearts. As he proceeded, he was again
interrupted. Then after a little pause or silence he begin to exhort the
people; and to shew his own comfort in laying down his life, in the
assurance of a blessed eternity, expressing himself in the