Baillie of Jerviswood.

Baillie in the
Tolbooth.

disorderliness—hearing rebel preachers, intercommuning with proscribed persons, and other acts of treason: Sir John Maxwell of Pollok £8000 sterling, or £5000 if paid before 1st January; Alexander Cunningham, senior, of Craigends, £6000, or £4000; John Caldwell of that Ilk, £500 and imprisonment for life; Alexander Porterfield, £40,000 Scots, reduced one-half; Zacharias Maxwell of Blawarthill, 20,000 merks and imprisonment for life; James Pollock of Balgray, 15,000 merks, modified to £500. On a somewhat similar indictment the Council, on 4th September, fined Robert Baillie of Jerviswood £6000.1

Everything was now in train for raising on the common altar one of the most satisfying sacrifices ever immolated there-the moribund person of Robert Baillie of Jerviswood. To Royalist and Prelatist he was the embodiment of Scottish iniquity, being a descendant of Knox, a nephew as well as son-in-law of wicked Wariston, and a disorderly, anti-popish zealot already convicted. To Yorkist politicians he was the sole repository of the machinations of Argyllians and English Whigs. Secretary Melfort declared him to be 'the greatest villan of the pack, and desuerves the uorst.' Gilbert Burnet designated him 'a gentleman of great parts, but of much greater virtue.' Doctor Owen concurred. The world generally knew him to be a gentleman, scholar, and scientist. To the King and his brother Baillie was obnoxious. He had foiled James in the course of his examination.

2

The irons, ordered by them, broke him down. In August he lay in Edinburgh Tolbooth at death's door. His sister-in-law, Helen Johnston, Lady Graden, became a voluntary prisoner to nurse him. His invalid wife might see him in the presence of the prison doctor. These comforts were soon taken away. The chill of winter was killing him too soon, and the Council listened to Lady Graden's petition to be imprisoned with the sick man, and allowed her into the cell on condition that she would not go out of the room . . . without

1 Wodrow, iv. 143; 105; Reg. Sec. Conc., Acta, 571, 580. Claverhouse attended Council on 4th September and 2nd December. For the distresses of the Nimmo family, cf. their Narrative, 55. 2 Burnet, ii. 366.

000

order from the council!' The Council soon saw that unless they
hurried his trial, another and higher Tribunal would claim their victim.
They examined him on 8th and 18th September, and on 22nd
December. Mackenzie visited him in prison, pretended friendship,
and wormed out facts, which he utilised with damnatory eloquence at
the trial.

Baillie.

On 23rd December, Baillie, clad in a nightgown, was forced to Trial of totter on swollen legs to the Justiciary bar. Lady Graden revived him with stimulating cordials. To deprive the accused of the brilliant help of Lockhart and Lauder, these two advocates were ordered to assist Mackenzie. Patrick Hume, younger of Polwarth, lately liberated from prison, and four juniors undertook the defence.' The charge bore that the prisoner conspired to overturn the Government, debar York from the succession, and, under pretence of settling a colony in Carolina, to rebel, associating himself with Shaftesbury, Russell, and the English conspirators, with Argyll, Melville, Cochrane, Veitch, Fergusson, and the Scots plotters. The evidence of the Earl of Tarras and other witnesses indicated that Baillie, after the decision in the Blackwood case, went to London and discussed the peril in which Protestantism was placed by the passing of the Test Act. Carstares' extorted confession was introduced. Mackenzie taunted the prisoner with his relatives, and demanded a capital sentence for the conspirator. With With composure the dying man replied: 'I find I Defence of am intended for a public sacrifice in my life and estate, my doom being predetermined. I am only sorry . . . . . that my trial has given the Court so much trouble by staying here till past midnight.' Turning to the jury he assured them (Sheriff Graham of Wigtown was one of them) that he abhorred killing king or any man, was a monarchist, no conspirator, but a Protestant and humanitarian reformer. Then, like a lion at bay, he attacked the Advocate for charging with abominable crimes the man whom he assured of his belief that he was innocent. In his fury Mackenzie proved himself to be more a caitiff, as he replied: 'I own what you say; my thoughts 1 Reg. Sec. Conc., Acta, 615; on 4th December. Hume took Test and was discharged.

Baillie.

Baillie on the scaffold,

ber 1684.

there were as a private man.' Then pointing to the clerk of court, he said, 'He knows my orders.' 'Well, my Lord,' retorted Baillie, 'if you keep one conscience for yourself and another for the Council, I pray God to forgive you. I do. I trouble your Lordships further.' The jury returned a verdict of proven. The usual sentence followed to be hanged, drawn, quartered-the parts fixed on the Netherbow and on the Tolbooths of Lanark, Ayr, and Glasgowconfiscated, demeaned, 'blood tainted,' that day. Like sanctimonious Jews, the inquisitors wished the awful deed over 'before the holy days of Yuile.' So wrote Lauder himself.

His final hours Baillie spent praying God to make him an 23rd Decem. 'acceptable sacrifice' and to 'put a merciful stop to the shedding of the blood of His people.' Too weak to walk, Baillie was carried to the city Cross to suffer. Lady Graden mounted the scaffold with him. When he began to address the bystanders thus, 'My faint zeal for the Protestant religion has brought me to this end,' the drums rolled, and the hangman turned him over. Lady Graden waited on and saw the hangman hash, oil, tar, and haul away to the Thieves' Hole the mortal fragments of her beloved relative. This was the hideous introduction to Christmas Eve-a holy season which ushered in no peace or goodwill to the Remnant.1

Grizzel Hume.

Appropriately enough here might that heroine of the Covenant and friend of Jerviswood, Grizzel Hume, elder sister of young Patrick the advocate, have sung to a different strain her love-song, 'Were na my heart licht I wad dee.' But this brave maid of nineteen had yet to live for her ostracised father, Sir Patrick, in his perilous hiding, and for her lover, George, the son of the executed Baillie, whom she first met in a prison. Sir Patrick, once, and to be again, adjudged a traitor, with the hue and cry out for him as an associate of con

1 Book of Adjournal, 23rd December; State Trials, x. 647-724; Fountainhall, Decisions, i. 324-7; Hist. Not., ii. 587-95; Omond, i. 223; Erskine, Journal, 100; Ladies of Covenant, 383-5; Wodrow, iv. 104-12; Analecta, iii. 78-80. Parliament in 1685 approved of the forfeiture and granted Mellerstains to the Duke of Gordon; Parliament in 1690 rescinded the forfeiture: Act. Parl. Scot., viii. 473, 594; ix. 158, 166a; App. 144a. He left a written speech: Wodrow, iv. 110. Lady Graden survived till 1707.