FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148  
149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   >>   >|  
re should hang in the king's bed-chamber, and that far from being troubled at his legs and arms being dispersed among the four principal cities, he only wished he had limbs to send to every city in Christendom, as testimonies of his unshaken attachment to the cause in which he suffered. When Sir Archibald Johnson of Warriston, the Clerk-Register, entered the prisoner's cell, and found him employed, early in the morning, combing the long curled hair which he wore according to the custom of the cavaliers, the visitor muttered: "Why is James Graham so careful of his locks?" Montrose replied with a smile: "While my head is my own, I will dress and adorn it; but when it becomes yours, you may treat it as you please." Montrose, proud of the cause in which he was to suffer, clad himself, on the day of his execution, in rich attire--"more becoming a bridegroom," says one of his enemies, "than a criminal going to the gallows." As he walked along, and beheld the instrument of his doom, his step was not seen to falter nor his eye quail; to the last he bore himself with such steadfast courage, such calm dignity, as had seldom been equaled, and never surpassed. At the foot of the scaffold, a further and parting insult was reserved for him: the executioner brought Dr. Wishart's narrative of his exploits and his own manifesto, to hang round his neck; but Montrose himself assisted in binding them, and smiling at this new token of malice, merely said:--"I did not feel more honored when his majesty sent me the garter." He then asked whether they had any more indignities to put upon him, and finding there were none, he prayed for some time, with his hat before his eyes. He drew apart some of the magistrates, and spoke awhile with them, and then went up the ladder in his red scarlet cassock, in a very stately manner, and never spoke a word; but when the executioner was putting the cord about his neck, he looked down to the people upon the scaffold, and asked: "How long shall I hang here?" His head was afterward affixed to a spike at the top of the Tolbooth, where it remained a ghastly spectacle, during ten years. There is another execution scene, that of the courtly and enterprising Walter Raleigh, not usually accessible to general readers. Sir Walter Raleigh, on the morning of his execution, received a cup of sack, and remarked that he liked it as well as the prisoner who drank of St. Giles's bowl in passing through Ty
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148  
149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
execution
 

Montrose

 

scaffold

 
prisoner
 

morning

 

executioner

 

Raleigh

 

Walter

 

manifesto

 

exploits


Wishart

 
prayed
 

narrative

 
brought
 
honored
 

assisted

 

malice

 

binding

 

majesty

 

indignities


finding

 

smiling

 

garter

 

cassock

 

enterprising

 
courtly
 

accessible

 

readers

 

general

 

spectacle


received

 

passing

 
remarked
 

ghastly

 

remained

 

manner

 

stately

 

putting

 

scarlet

 

awhile


ladder
 
looked
 

affixed

 

Tolbooth

 

afterward

 
people
 

magistrates

 
employed
 
combing
 

curled