prisoner,
must have formed an assembly of differing characters not often to be
seen, and never to be forgotten.

The trial lasted five days; it affords, as has been well remarked, a
history of the whole of the Rebellion of 1745. Robert Chevis of
Muirtown, a near neighbour of Lovat's, but, as the counsel for the Crown
observed, a man of very different principles, gave testimony against the
prisoner. At the end of the third day, Lord Lovat, pleading that he had
been up at four o'clock in the morning, "to attend their Lordships," and
declaring that he would rather "die on the road than not pay them that
respect," prayed a respite of a day, which was granted. It appeared,
indeed, doubtful in what form death would seize him first, and whether
disease and age might not cheat the scaffold of its victim.

Lord Lovat spoke long in his defence, but without producing any
revulsion in his favour. Throughout the whole of the proceedings he
appears not to have dreaded the rigour of the law; when the defence was
closed, and the Lord High Steward was about to put the question, guilty
or not guilty, to the House, the Lieutenant of the Tower was ordered by
the Lord Steward to take the prisoner from the bar, but not back to the
Tower.

"If your Lordships," said Lovat, "would send me to the Highlands, I
would not go to the Tower any more." He was pronounced guilty by the
unanimous votes of one hundred and seventeen Lords present. He was then
informed of his sentence, and remanded to his prison. On the following
day, March the nineteenth, he was brought up to receive sentence. On
that occasion, in reply to the question "why judgment of death should
not be passed upon him," he made a long and, considering his fatigues
and infirmities, an extraordinary speech, giving the Lords "millions of
thanks for being so good in their patience and attendance," and drawing
a parallel between the two different men of the name of Murray, who had
figured in the trial. The one was Murray of Broughton; the other, Murray
afterwards Lord Mansfield. He then went into the history of his life;
or, at least, into such passages of it as were proper for the public
ear. He was interrupted by the Lord High Steward, whose conduct to the
unhappy State prisoner is said to have been peevish and overbearing.

Judgment of death was then pronounced upon him, and the barbarous
sentence which had been passed upon the Earl of Wintoun was pronounced;
"to be hanged by the neck