nce, together with the resignation
and mildness of his address, melted all the spectators to tears as
they gathered round the fatal Tower prison to witness his death: the
chaplain who attended him says his behavior was so humble and resigned
that even the executioner burst into tears, and was obliged to use
strong cordials to support him in his terrible duty. Lord Kilmarnock
himself was deeply impressed by the sight of the block draped in
funereal black, the plain coffin placed just beside it, the sawdust
that was so disposed as speedily to suck up the bloody traces of the
execution, and the sea of faces surrounding the open enclosure kept
for this his last earthly ordeal. It was certainly not from fear that
he recoiled, but his proud, sensitive, melancholy nature was thrilled
through every nerve by this dread publicity, and we cannot wonder
that, leaning heavily on the arm of a trusty friend, he should have
whispered, almost with his last breath, the simple words, "Home, this
is dreadful!"

One who was the lineal descendant of this earl of Kilmarnock,
and whose only brother long bore the same blood-stained and
laurel-wreathed title, has often told me of the strange link that
bridged the chasm of four generations from 1746 to 1829, and bound her
recollections to those of a living witness of the scene. She was so
young as not to have any distinct impression of other events that
happened at the same time, but this lived in her mind because of the
importance and solemnity with which her own parents had purposely
invested it in her eyes. One day, at Brighton, this little
great-great-grand-daughter of the Lord Kilmarnock of 1745 was brought
down from the nursery to see an old, more than octogenarian, soldier
who had distinguished himself in recent wars, and reached the rank
of general. This tottering old man, more than fourscore years of age,
took the wee maiden of hardly four upon his knee, and told her in
simple words the story she was never to forget--how he had been a
tiny boy running to school on the day of the execution of the "rebel
lords," and how, seeing a vast, eager crowd all setting toward the
Tower quarter, he was tempted to play truant, and flinging his satchel
of books over his shoulder, had pushed his way as far as the great
state prison. Then of his frantic efforts to secure a point of vantage
whence to see the great death-pageant--of his childish admiration for
the handsome, manly form of Lord Kilmarnock,