'If any person own the principles [of the "Cameronians," or "wild whigs," who had published the Apologetic Declaration], or do not disown them, they must be judged at least by three. And you must immediately give them a libel, and the names of the inquest and witnesses, and they being found guilty, are to be hanged immediately in the place according to law. But at this time you are not to examine any women, but such as have been active in the said courses in a signal manner, and these are to be drowned.'

6

Mr. Napier is loud in his laudation of this instruction as showing the extremely humane maxims by which the Government of James II. was actuated, more especially towards the gentler sex. While the men who had scruples of conscience about taking the oaths which the Government had framed were to be hanged according to law,' that is, as he is careful to explain to us, were to be hanged, drawn and quartered; the women who were troubled with the like scruples, were merely to be drowned a decent and agreeable kind of death (vol. iii. p. 450-1.; vol. ii. 59, 60.) to which none but the most unreasonable would object! Moreover, according to the instructions, only those women who had been active in their wicked courses, and that in a signal manner, were to be dismissed from the world in this pleasing manner,-upon which legal text we have the historical commentary that the two victims were a widow of seventy years of age, and a girl of eighteen.

Before this royal commission, so constituted and instructed, Margaret Lauchlison and Margaret Wilson were brought to trial on the 13th of April, for nonconformity, for not disowning the Apologetical Declaration, and refusing the Oath of Abjuration, and, being found guilty, were condemned to death by drowning, although, as it turned out afterwards, the poor women did not know the nature of the oath, for refusing which they were to die.* They were now thrown into the gaol of Wigton to await their doom. When there the heroic fortitude which had sustained them at their trial forsook them, or perhaps some humane lawyer managed to persuade them that their scruples were needless, and the Oath of Abjuration was not such

The records of the Justiciary Court held at Wigton have not been preserved, and we know its procedure only from the petition of Margaret Lauchlison, to be afterwards quoted. In this petition Margaret Lauchlison acknowledges that she was 'justly condemned;' but it must be remembered the petition was written by a 'notary 'public,' who would employ the form of language ordinarily used in such circumstances; and that very probably the old woman, who 'declared she could not write,' knew very little of the contents of her petition.'

as they had fancied it to be; at all events, they must have felt that life was dear to them, and the fate which awaited them horrible to contemplate, for no Mr. Napier was there to tell them how much more pleasant it was to be drowned than to be hanged. Under some such circumstances as these the elder prisoner petitioned for her life. The petition has been preserved, and is as follows:

'Unto his Grace, my Lord High Commissioner, and remanent Lords of his Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council-The humble supplication of Margaret Lauchlison, now prisoner in the Tolbooth of Wigton. Sheweth: that, whereas I being justly condemned to die by the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council and Justiciary, in a court held at Wigton, the 13th day of April instant, for my not disowning that traitorous Apologetical Declaration lately affixed at several parish churches within this kingdom, and my refusing the Oath of Abjuration of the same, which was occasioned by my not perusing the same; and now I having considered the said Declaration, do acknowledge the same to be traitorous, and tends to nothing but rebellion and sedition, and to be quite contrary unto the written Word of God, and am content to abjure the same with my whole heart. May it therefore please your Grace, and remanent Lords, as said is, to take my case to your serious consideration, being about the age of three score years and ten, and to take pity and compassion on me, and recall the foresaid sentence so justly pronounced against me, and to grant warrant to any your Grace thinks fit to administer the Oath of Abjuration to me, and upon my taking of it, to order my liberation; and your supplicant shall live hereafter a good and faithful subject in time coming, and shall frequent the ordinances, and live regularly, and give what other obedience your Grace and remanent Lords may prescribe thereanent; and your petitioner shall ever pray.'

Such is the petition of Margaret Lauchlison: it is probable that Margaret Wilson, her companion in tribulation, may have petitioned, too; but if so, her petition is not to be found. It will be observed that the petitioner states that she had refused to take the Abjuration Oath because she had never perused it, and was, therefore, ignorant of its contents; and it is a matter of perfect certainty that the Cameronians in general-many of whom were very ignorant and bigoted-regarded the Test and Abjuration Oaths as tantamount to the abjuration of their faith and hopes for eternity. And there was some ground for their scruples. It is not quite plain that the Apologetic Declaration. is contrary to the written Word of God, as this poor woman was forced to say that it was. It is not quite clear that men, when crushed by an intolerable tyranny, may not take arms into their hands and right their wrongs. The truth is, the questions generally put to the peasantry were purposely

designed as traps. Do you renounce the Covenant?—do you think the rising at Bothwell was rebellion? If any poor wretch thought that the rising (which ended in the disastrous defeat of Bothwell Bridge) was for Christ's crown and covenant, and therefore not rebellion, he paid for his faith by his life. Everyone remembers the laughable story in Old Mortality,' where Cuddy Headriggs saved the life of his old deaf mother by shouting into her ear that it was the covenant of works' which the dragoons wished her to renounce, and which she renounced most heartily, to the entire satisfaction of her military examiners, who were not very deeply read in theology. But it must be noted that Margaret Lauchlison had been condemned for nonconformity as well as for refusing the Oath of Abjuration, for her pardon is made to depend upon her promise henceforward to frequent the ordinances.'

The petition, which would be regarded as a full recantation, was followed by a reprieve for both the prisoners, dated at Edinburgh on the last day of April. It is as follows:

The Lords of His Majesty's Privy Council do hereby reprieve the execution of the sentence of death pronounced by the Justices against Margaret Wilson and Margaret Lauchlison, until the day of

And discharge the magistrates of Edinburgh for putting of the said sentence to execution against them until the foresaid day; and recommend the said Margaret Wilson and Margaret Lauchlison to the Lords Secretaries of State, to interpose with his most sacred Majesty for the royal remission to them."'

A great deal of unnecessary fuss has been made about this reprieve as if it had now been discovered for the first time. Wodrow, as Mr. Napier is forced to confess, mentions it and quotes it almost verbatim, and every reader of Scotch history was perfectly aware of it, before the author of the Memorials arose to instruct him. It is at this point, however, that opinion begins to diverge. Mr. Napier and his followers maintain that the reprieve was tantamount to a pardon, and that the women never were drowned: we shall follow the much more common opinion, and show that the reprieve was not a pardon and was never followed by one, and that the original sentence was carried into execution. Let us see the facts and arguments on the one side and on the other.

Mr. Napier affirms that the reprieve was a virtual pardon; but he does not prove this. No doubt, reprieves at that time, as now, were frequently followed by pardons, but certainly not always. In 1688 the celebrated outlawed preacher, James Renwick, was condemned, reprieved, executed, just as these

women were

ing to abjure the Declaration of which he

was the author. He argues that the prisoners must have been removed from Wigton to Edinburgh, as it is the magistrates of Edinburgh and not of Wigton who are discharged from putting the sentence into execution, and that, therefore, they could not afterwards be drowned in the Solway. We cannot admit this conclusion. When the women petition they are still in Wigton gaol, and though it is difficult to understand why the magistrates of Edinburgh should be discharged from putting the sentence into execution, we must expect to meet with difficulties of this kind in regard to events which happened nearly two centuries ago. It is absurd to suppose that everything should be easily explicable. Edinburgh may be a clerical error for Wigton. Or, it is quite possible they may have been taken to Edinburgh when a pardon was expected, and sent back to Wigton to be drowned when a pardon was denied. But it is maintained that there was not time between the 30th of April and the 11th of May to have an answer to the Privy Council's application for mercy to the King. Certainly postal communication was very different then from what it is now; but it was quite possible to have an answer from London within less than the twelve days referred to. The Government, at that period, kept up its communication with Scotland by what were called flying packets,' and these travelled from Edinburgh to London in three or four days. There is at least one instance of the journey having been performed on horseback, and by the same rider, from metropolis to metropolis in less than three days. The moment Queen Elizabeth expired early on the morning of Thursday, a young courtier jumped into the saddle, and he was in Holyrood Palace late on Saturday night kneeling before James and saluting him King of England, France, and Ireland. After this it must not be pronounced impossible to have had, even then, an answer from London in eleven or twelve days. But though we maintain that this was possible, we think it far more likely that the answer was not waited for, and likeliest of all that the secretaries of state never made the application for a pardon. It is a fact that though many of those who were condemned at this period were undoubtedly spared, only one or two pardons are recorded, from which we may infer that pardons were seldom obtained, and that the reprieved were thus kept in the mercy

We learn from Rushworth's Collections, that in 1635 the Postmaster of England was commanded to settle one running post, or 'two, to run day and night between Edinburgh and London, to 'go thither and come back again in six days.'

of the Government to be spared or executed as it afterwards thought fit. As it so happens, however, three condemned men were pardoned in the very year in question, and there is special mention of their pardon in the registers: and as there is no such notice regarding the Wigton martyrs, we may conclude that for them no pardon ever arrived. What more probable than that the women, who in a moment of weakness recanted their principles and begged for their lives, recovered their fortitude and resolved to die rather than renounce what appeared to them equivalent to their hopes of salvation? All martyrologies are full of such cases; and it is very certain that if they did so lapse into their covenanting principles, the Government would find a way of having the judicial sentence passed against them carried into execution, notwithstanding the technical difficulties now raised up by legal subtlety. The executive of that day-of which almost every soldier in the service was an arm-did not stick at trifles. Why should they strain at a gnat while they swallowed a camel?

But Mr. Napier has still other grounds for his opinion. Lord Fountainhall, a judge of the Court of Session, he tells us, kept a diary, in which he entered the most interesting events of his day; and yet he never once alludes to this drowning of women in the Solway. The author of the Memorials must have been hard pushed for an argument when he resorted to this one. Wigton was at that period so remote from Edinburgh, and communication so imperfect, that it is very possible the Lord of Session may never have heard of the martyrdom. Political murders were not so rare that every one of them was noised over the whole country. Is it maintained that we are to discredit every military and judicial execution but those which Fountainhall has entered in his diary? If so, we must disbelieve one half of those which are proved by evidence beyond suspicion. Fountainhall does not mention John Brown: are we to disbelieve that he was shot, though Claverhouse confesses the murder in his own hand? What would be thought of a man who should refuse to believe that Palmer was executed at Stafford because a gentleman living in Edinburgh had not entered the event in his diary?

But Mr. Napier has another negative witness-Sir George Mackenzie, of Rosehaugh, the Lord Advocate of Scotland at the time the execution is said to have taken place. In his "Vindication of the Government in Scotland, &c.,' published in London in 1691, he says:There were indeed two women 'executed, and but two in both these reigns [those of Charles II. and James II.], and they were punished for most heinous