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Parliament formerly referred to, by the verdict of a jury, and were condemned to die, the men to be hanged at the common place of execution, and Helen Stark to be drowned in a pool in the neighbourhood. After the sentence was pronounced, the male prisoners had their hands bound, which, when Helen witnessed, she requested to be bound also by the officers with her husband. The town of Perth, strongly sympathizing with Helen and the other condemned prisoners, interceded with the governor in their behalf, and he would willingly have saved their lives, had he not been overawed by the cardinal and the cruel priests, to whose persecuting policy he was now committed, and who, he dreaded, might assist his enemies in deposing him from the regency, provided he failed to sanction their sanguinary measures for putting down heresy. Certain priests in the town, who had been accustomed to visit Helen's house, and the houses of her fellow-sufferers in the days of their ignorance, and who had partaken of their hospitality, were earnestly entreated to interpose with the cardinal to prevent the execution of the sentence, but they absolutely refused. Thereafter the male prisoners, attended by a numerous body of soldiers to prevent a tumult, which the persecutors, from the unpopularity of their proceedings, dreaded, were conducted to the place of execution, which was under the windows of the Spey Tower. All of them comforted one another, expressing their assurance that they would sup together in the kingdom of heaven that night, and, commending their spirits to God, they surrendered their lives with fortitude and constancy.

Helen and her husband had lived together in the tenderest union, and in the ardour of her affection she implored, as a last request, that she might be permitted to die with him; but she had been sentenced to undergo a different kind of death, and the affecting request was denied. Being allowed to accompany him to the place of execution, she ministered to him consolation by the way, exhorting him to patience and constancy in the cause of Christ, and parting from him with a kiss, she expressed her feelings in these singularly touching 1 words, the sincere effusion of the heart, for the occasion was too

serious for mere theatrical display of sentiment: "Husband, be glad; we have lived together many joyful days, but this day, on which we must die, ought to be the most joyful of all to us both, because now we shall have joy for ever. Therefore I will not bid you good night, for we shall suddenly meet with joy in the kingdom of heaven."

Immediately after his execution, and the execution of his fellowmartyrs, she was led forth to a pool of water in the neighbourhood, to undergo the death to which she had been condemned. On her way, passing by the monastery of the Franciscans or Gray Friars, which was situated on the south-east corner of the town, near the river, she said, “They sit in that place quietly who are the cause of our death this day, but they who witness this execution upon us shall, by the grace of God, shortly see their nest shaken;" words which were fully verified in 1559, when that monastery, together with the Dominican or Black Friars' monastery, and the Charter House or Carthusian monastery, were completely demolished in a tumult of the excited populace. Upon reaching the pool she prepared for her fate. Having several children, one of whom was an infant hanging upon her breast, a scene of the most affecting nature was exhibited, which strongly moved the spectators, many of whom could not refrain from shedding tears. Her affections being now strongly excited towards her orphan children, the thought of separation from them seemed for a moment to disturb the serenity of her mind, and she commended them to the compassion of her neighbours. But the most powerfully exciting cause of agitation and agony, was her parting with her sucking child. This beloved object, at whose couch she had often sung, in the joyousness of her heart, her favourite airs, she took from her bosom, and after fixing upon it a last look, full of the tender yearnings of a mother's heart, gave it to the friend who had undertaken to become its nurse. This struggle with parental affec tion made the sacrifice of her life the more trying, but it made it

1 Calderwood's History, vol. i., p. 175.

2 Besides these three monasteries, there was another in Perth, that of the Carmelites or White Friars.

also the more magnanimous, the more sacred, the more acceptable to God. Recovering from the shock, she yielded herself to death with unwavering faith, calm tranquillity, and heroic fortitude. With

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out any change of countenance, she saw her hands and her feet bound by the executioner. Thus secured, and being tied in a sack, she was plunged into the water. After a momentary struggle her redeemed spirit, emancipated from all its sorrows, was rejoicing before the throne of God; and may we not affirm that, next to the Saviour, among the first to welcome her into that happier state of being were her own husband and his fellow-sufferers, who had reached it, perhaps, hardly an hour before?

Whether Helen Stark and the other martyrs were offered their lives upon condition of recantation, we are not informed. The probability is that they were not; that the inexorable cardinal was determined, under whatever circumstances, to make a terrible example of these heretics, thereby to arrest the progress of heresy by inspiring universal terror, and to set a pattern for the other prelates 1 Spottiswood's History of the Church of Scotland, London, 1655, book ii., p. 75.

to copy in their respective dioceses. The cardinal's cruelty was as short-sighted as it was atrocious. It produced effects the very opposite of those intended. These and other deeds of Popish barbarity perpetrated in the neighbourhood, as the burning alive of Mr. George Wishart, at St. Andrews, in 1546, strengthened the convictions which they were intended to extinguish, increased the hatred of the people against priests and Popery, and diffused throughout the country a favourable disposition towards the reformed religion.

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ISABEL SCRIMGER,

WIFE OF RICHARD MELVILLE.

a man

SABEL SCRIMGER, was a daughter of Walter Scrimger, of Glaswell, "a branch of the honourable family of Diddup, in which the office of royal standard-bearer, and of constable of Dundee, had been long hereditary." She was sister to Henry Scrimger, professor of Civil Law in the Protestant university of Geneva, whose exertions for the revival of letters reflected great honour on Scotland, although his name is now known to few of his countrymen." Her husband, Richard Melville, was proprietor of Baldovy, a small estate situated on the banks of the South Esk, about a mile to the south-west of the town of Montrose; and, after the Reformation, minister of the kirk of Maritoun, which was adjacent to his own house. Like him she was "godly, faithful, and honest, lightened with the light of the gospel, at the first dawning of the day thereof within Scotland." The reformed sentiments had early made considerable progress in Angus and Mearns, and she was among their first converts in these counties. She had profited from the instructions of John Erskine, of Dun, and of the reformed preachers who were brought to her neighbourhood by that excellent man, in whose castle, where they were hospitably received and protected, meetings were held for hearing the Scriptures read and ex'M'Crie's Life of Andrew Melville, vol. i., pp. 5, 39, 41, 421.

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