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of the night. Rumbold and a few other brave men whom no danger could have scared lost their way, and were unable to rejoin the main body. When the day broke, only five hundred fugitives, wearied and dispirited, assembled at Kilpatrick.

Argyle a

name.

rank, and, though in arms for the crown, probably cherished a preference for the Calvinistic church government and worship, and had been accustomed to reverence their captive as the head of an illustrious house and as a champion of the Protestant religion. But, though All thought of prosecuting the war they were evidently touched, and though was at an end: and it was plain that some of them even wept, they were not the chiefs of the expedition would have disposed to relinquish a large reward sufficient difficulty in escaping with and to incur the vengeance of an implatheir lives. They fled in different di- cable government. They therefore conrections. Hume reached the Continent veyed their prisoner to Renfrew. The in safety. Cochrane was taken, and man who bore the chief part in the sent up to London. Argyle arrest was named Riddell. On this prisoner. hoped to find a secure asylum account the whole race of Riddells was, under the roof of one of his old servants during more than a century, held in who lived near Kilpatrick. But this abhorrence by the great tribe of Camphope was disappointed; and he was bell. Within living memory, when a forced to cross the Clyde. He assumed Riddell visited a fair in Argyleshire, he the dress of a peasant, and pretended found it necessary to assume a false to be the guide of Major Fullarton, whose courageous fidelity was proof to all danger. The friends journeyed together through Renfrewshire as far as Inchinnan. At that place the Black Cart and the White Cart, two streams which now flow through prosperous towns, and turn the wheels of many factories, but which then held their quiet course through moors and sheepwalks, mingle before they join the Clyde. The only ford by which the travellers could cross was guarded by a party of militia. Some questions were asked. Fullarton tried to draw suspicion on himself, in order that his companion might escape unnoticed. But the minds of the questioners misgave them that the guide was not the rude clown that he seemed. They laid hands on him. He broke loose and sprang into the water, but was instantly chased. He stood at bay for a short time against five assailants. But he had no arms except his pocket pistols, and they were So wet, in consequence of his plunge, that they would not go off. He was struck to the ground with a broadsword, and secured.

He owned himself to be the Earl of Argyle, probably in the hope that his great name would excite the awe and pity of those who had seized him. And indeed they were much moved. For they were plain Scotchmen of humble

And now commenced the brightest part of Argyle's career. His enterprise had hitherto brought on him nothing but reproach and derision. His great error was that he did not resolutely refuse to accept the name without the power of a general. Had he remained quietly at his retreat in Friesland, he would in a few years have been recalled with honour to his country, and would have been conspicuous among the ornaments and the props of constitutional monarchy. Had he conducted his expedition according to his own views, and carried with him no followers but such as were prepared implicitly to obey all his orders, he might possibly have effected something great. For what he wanted as a captain seems to have been, not courage, nor activity, nor skill, but simply authority. He should have known that of all wants this is the most fatal. Armies have triumphed under leaders who possessed no very eminent qualifications. But what army commanded by a debating club ever escaped discomfiture and disgrace?

The great calamity which had fallen on Argyle had this advantage, that it enabled him to show, by proofs not to be mistaken, what manner of man he was. From the day when he quitted Friesland to the day when his followers separated at Kilpatrick, he had never

He

been a free agent. He had borne the view of death, had power to disturb responsibility of a long series of mea- the gentle and majestic patience of sures which his judgment disapproved. Argyle. His fortitude was tried by Now at length he stood alone. Cap- a still more severe test. A paper of tivity had restored to him the noblest interrogatories was laid before him kind of liberty, the liberty of governing by order of the Privy Council. himself in all his words and actions replied to those questions to which he according to his own sense of the right could reply without danger to any of and of the becoming. From that mo- his friends, and refused to say more. ment he became as one inspired with He was told that unless he returned new wisdom and virtue. His intellect fuller answers he should be put to the seemed to be strengthened and concen- torture. James, who was doubtless trated, his moral character to be at sorry that he could not feast his own once elevated and softened. The in- eyes with the sight of Argyle in the solence of the conquerors spared nothing boots, sent down to Edinburgh positive that could try the temper of a man proud orders that nothing should be omitted of ancient nobility and of patriarchal which could wring out of the traitor dominion. The prisoner was dragged information against all who had been through Edinburgh in triumph. He concerned in the treason. But menaces walked on foot, bareheaded, up the were vain. With torments and death whole length of that stately street which, in immediate prospect, Mac Callum overshadowed by dark and gigantic piles More thought far less of himself than of stone, leads from Holyrood House to of his poor clansmen. "I was busy the Castle. Before him marched the this day," he wrote from his cell, hangman, bearing the ghastly instru- "treating for them, and in some hopes. ment which was to be used at the quar-But this evening orders came that I tering block. The victorious party had not forgotten that, thirty-five years before this time, the father of Argyle had been at the head of the faction which put Montrose to death. Before that event the houses of Graham and Camp-haps the magnanimity of the victim bell had borne no love to each other; had moved the conquerors to unwonted and they had ever since been at deadly compassion. He himself remarked that feud. Care was taken that the prisoner at first they had been very harsh to him, should pass through the same gate and but that they soon began to treat him the same streets through which Mon- with respect and kindness. God, he trose had been led to the same doom.* said, had melted their hearts. It is When the Earl reached the Castle his certain that he did not, to save himself legs were put in irons, and he was in- from the utmost cruelty of his enemies, formed that he had but a few days to betray any of his friends. On the last live. It had been determined not to morning of his life he wrote these words: bring him to trial for his recent offence, "I have named none to their disadvanbut to put him to death under the sen- tage. I thank God he hath supported tence pronounced against him several me wonderfully." years before, a sentence so flagitiously unjust that the most servile and obdurate lawyers of that bad age could not speak of it without shame.

But neither the ignominious procession up the High Street, nor the near * A few words which were in the first five editions have been omitted in this place. Here and in another passage I had, as Mr. Aytoun has observed, mistaken the City Guards which were commanded by an officer named Graham, for the Dragoons of Graham of Claverhouse.

must die upon Monday or Tuesday; and
I am to be put to the torture if I
answer not all questions upon oath.
Yet I hope God shall support me."
The torture was not inflicted.

Per

He composed his own epitaph, a short poem, full of meaning and spirit, simple and forcible in style, and not contemptible in versification. In this little piece he complained that, though his enemies had repeatedly decreed his death, his friends had been still more cruel. A comment on these expressions is to be found in a letter which he addressed to a lady residing in Holland. She had furnished him with a large

sum of money for his expedition, and | Castle with a message from his brethren, he thought her entitled to a full expla- and demanded admittance to the Earl. nation of the causes which had led to It was answered that the Earl was his failure. He acquitted his coad- asleep. The Privy Councillor thought jutors of treachery, but described their that this was a subterfuge, and insisted folly, their ignorance, and their factious on entering. The door of the cell was perverseness, in terms which their own softly opened; and there lay Argyle testimony has since proved to have on the bed, sleeping, in his irons, the been richly deserved. He afterwards placid sleep of infancy. The conscience doubted whether he had not used lan- of the renegade smote him. He turned guage too severe to become a dying away sick at heart, ran out of the Castle, Christian, and, in a separate paper, and took refuge in the dwelling of begged his friend to suppress what he lady of his family who lived hard by. had said of these men. 'Only this I There he flung himself on a couch, and must acknowledge," he mildly added; gave himself up to an agony of remorse "they were not governable." and shame. His kinswoman, alarmed by his looks and groans, thought that he had been taken with sudden illness, and begged him to drink a cup of sack. "No, no," he said; "that will do me no good." She prayed him to tell her what had disturbed him. "I have been," he said, "in Argyle's prison. I have seen him within an hour of eternity, sleeping as sweetly as ever man did. But as for me

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Most of his few remaining hours were passed in devotion, and in affectionate intercourse with some members of his family. He professed no repentance on account of his last enterprise, but bewailed, with great emotion, his former compliance in spiritual things with the pleasure of the government. He had, he said, been justly punished. One who had so long been guilty of cowardice and dissimulation was not worthy to be the instrument of salvation to the State and Church. Yet the cause, he frequently repeated, was the cause of God, and would assuredly triumph. "I do not," he said, "take on myself to be a prophet. But I have a strong impression on my spirit, that deliverance will come very suddenly." It is not strange that some zealous Presbyterians should have laid up his saying in their hearts, and should, at a later period, have attributed it to divine inspiration.

So effectually had religious faith and hope, cooperating with natural courage and equanimity, composed his spirits, that, on the very day on which he was to die, he dined with appetite, conversed with gaiety at table, and, after his last meal, lay down, as he was wont, to take a short slumber, in order that his body and mind might be in full vigour when he should mount the scaffold. At this time one of the Lords of the Council, who had probably been bred a Presbyterian, and had been seduced by interest to join in oppressing the Church of which he had once been a member, came to the

And now the Earl had risen from his bed, and had prepared himself for what was yet to be endured. He was first brought down the High Street to the Council House, where he was to remain during the short interval which was still to elapse before the execution. During that interval he asked for pen and ink, and wrote to his wife: "Dear heart, God is unchangeable: He hath always been good and gracious to me; and no place alters it. Forgive me all my faults; and now comfort thyself in Him, in whom only true comfort is to be found. The Lord be with thee, bless and comfort thee, my dearest. Adieu."

It was now time to leave the Council House. The divines who at- His execu tended the prisoner were not tion. of his own persuasion; but he listened to them with civility, and exhorted them to caution their flocks against those doctrines which all Protestant churches unite in condemning. He mounted the scaffold, where the rude old guillotine of Scotland, called the Maiden, awaited him, and addressed the people in a speech, tinctured with the peculiar phraseology of his sect, but

breathing the spirit of serene piety. | all; and the pleasure of hanging him His enemies, he said, he forgave, as he was one which the conquerors could not hoped to be forgiven. Only a single bear to forego. It was indeed not to acrimonious expression escaped him. be expected that they would show much One of the episcopal clergymen who lenity to one who was regarded as the attended him went to the edge of the chief of the Rye House Plot, and who scaffold, and called out in a loud voice, was the owner of the building from "My Lord dies a Protestant." "Yes," which that plot took its name: but the said the Earl, stepping forward, "and insolence with which they treated the not only a Protestant, but with a heart dying man seems to our more humane hatred of Popery, of Prelacy, and of age almost incredible. One of the Scotch all superstition.' He then embraced Privy Councillors told him that he was his friends, put into their hands some a confounded villain. "I am at peace tokens of remembrance for his wife and with God," answered Rumbold, calmly; children, kneeled down, laid his head "how then can I be confounded?" on the block, prayed during a few He was hastily tried, convicted, and minutes, and gave the signal to the sentenced to be hanged and quartered executioner. His head was fixed on within a few hours, near the City Cross the top of the Tolbooth, where the head in the High Street. Though unable to of Montrose had formerly decayed.* stand without the support of two men, The head of the brave and sincere, he maintained his fortitude to the last, though not blameless Rumbold, and under the gibbet raised his feeble of Rum- was already on the West Port voice against Popery and tyranny with bold. of Edinburgh. Surrounded by such vehemence that the officers ordered factious and cowardly associates, he the drums to strike up, lest the people had, through the whole campaign, be- should hear him. He was a friend, he haved himself like a soldier trained in said, to limited monarchy. But he never the school of the great Protector, had would believe that Providence had sent in council strenuously supported the a few men into the world ready booted authority of Argyle, and had in the field and spurred to ride, and millions ready been distinguished by tranquil intre- saddled and bridled to be ridden. "I pidity. After the dispersion of the desire," he cried, "to bless and magarmy he was set upon by a party of nify God's holy name for this, that I militia. He defended himself despe- stand here, not for any wrong that I rately, and would have cut his way have done, but for adhering to his cause through them, had they not hamstringed in an evil day. If every hair of my his horse. He was brought to Edin-head were a man, in this quarrel I would burgh mortally wounded. The wish of venture them all." the government was that he should be executed in England. But he was so near death that, if he was not hanged in Scotland, he could not be hanged at

Execution

The authors from whom I have taken the history of Argyle's expedition are Sir Patrick Hume, who was an eyewitness of what he related, and Wodrow, who had access to materials of the greatest value, among which were the Earl's own papers. Wherever there is a

question of veracity between Argyle and Hume, I have no doubt that Argyle's narra

tive ought to be followed.

See also Burnet, i. 631. and the life of Bres

son, published by Dr. Mac Crie. The account

of the Scotch rebellion in the Life of James the Second, is a ridiculous romance, not written by the King himself, nor derived from his papers, but composed by a Jacobite who did

not even take the trouble to look at a map of

the seat of war.

Both at his trial and at his execution he spoke of assassination with the abhorrence which became a good Christian and a brave soldier. He had never, he protested, on the faith of a dying man, harboured the thought of committing such villany. But he frankly owned that, in conversation with his fellow conspirators, he had mentioned his own house as a place where Charles and James might with advantage be attacked, and that much had been said on the subject, though nothing had been determined. It may at first sight seem that this acknowledgment is inconsistent with his declaration that he had always regarded assassination with But the truth appears to be

horror.

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Ayloffe showed as much contempt of

that he was imposed upon by a distinc- virtues of the gallant Englishman. tion which deluded many of his con- "Poor Rumbold was a great support temporaries. Nothing would have to me, and a brave man, and died induced him to put poison into the food Christianly." of the two princes, or to poniard them in their sleep. But to make an unex-death as either Argyle or Rum- Death of pected onset on the troop of Life Guards which surrounded the royal coach, to exchange sword cuts and pistol shots, and to take the chance of slaying or of being slain, was, in his view, a lawful military operation. Ambuscades and surprises were among the ordinary incidents of war. Every old soldier, Cavalier or Roundhead, had been engaged in such enterprises. If in the skirmish the King should fall, he would fall by fair fighting and not by murder. Precisely the same reasoning was employed, after the Revolution, by James himself and by some of his most devoted followers, to justify a wicked attempt on the life of William the Third. A band of Jacobites was commissioned to attack the Prince of Orange in his winter quarters. The meaning latent under this specious phrase was that the Prince's throat was to be cut as he went in his coach from Richmond to Kensington. It may seem strange that such fallacies, the dregs of the Jesuitical casuistry, should have had power to seduce men of heroic spirit, both Whigs and Tories, into a crime on which divine and human laws have justly set a peculiar note of infamy. But no sophism is too gross to delude minds distempered by party spirit.*

Argyle, who survived Rumbold a few hours, left a dying testimony to the

bold: but his end did not, like Ayloffe. theirs, edify pious minds. Though political sympathy had drawn him towards the Puritans, he had no religious sympathy with them, and was indeed regarded by them as little better than an atheist. He belonged to that section of the Whigs which sought for models rather among the patriots of Greece and Rome than among the prophets and judges of Israel. He was taken prisoner, and carried to Glasgow. There he attempted to destroy himself with a small penknife: but though he gave himself several wounds, none of them proved mortal, and he had strength enough left to bear a journey to London. He was brought before the Privy Council, and interrogated by the King, but had too much elevation of mind to save himself by informing against others. A story was current among the Whigs that the King said, You had better be frank with me, Mr. Ayloffe. You know that it is in my power to pardon you." Then, it was rumoured, the captive broke his sullen silence, and answered, "It may be in your power; but it is not in your nature." He was executed under his old outlawry before the gate of the Temple, and died with stoical composure.†

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Argyle

In the meantime the vengeance of the conquerors was mercilessly Devasta wreaked on the people of Ar- tion of * Wodrow, III. ix. 10.; Western Martyr-gyleshire. Many of the Camp- shire. ology; Burnet, i. 633.; Fox's History, Appendix iv. I can find no way, except that bells were hanged by Athol without a indicated in the text, of reconciling Rumbold's trial; and he was with difficulty redenial that he had ever admitted into his mind strained by the Privy Council from the thought of assassination with his confession that he had himself mentioned his own taking more lives. The country to the house as a convenient place for an attack on extent of thirty miles round Inverary the royal brothers. The distinction which I was wasted. Houses were burned: the suppose him to have taken was certainly taken stones of mills were broken to pieces: by another Rye House conspirator, who was, like him, an old soldier of the Commonwealth, fruit trees were cut down, and the very Captain Walcot. On Walcot's trial, West, the roots seared with fire. The nets and witness for the crown, said, Captain, you did agree to be one of those that were to fight fishing boats, the sole means by which the Guards." "What, then, was the reason, asked Chief Justice Pemberton, "that he would not kill the King?" "He said," an

66

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* Wodrow, III. ix. 9.

† Wade's Narrative, Harl. MS. 6845.; Bur

swered West, "that it was a base thing to kill net, i. 634.; Van Citters's Despatch of

a naked man, and he would not do it.'

1685; Luttrell's Diary of the same date.

Oct. 30.
Nov. 9

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