VI. CHAP, exclaimed John Balfour, a most desperate and barA.D. 1679. barous enthusiast; and instantly mounting their horses, they crossed Magus-muir, in pursuit of their victim.1 - Their approach was soon announced to the prelate, who, turning to his daughter Isabel, his only companion, said, "The Lord have mercy on me, my dear "child, for I am gone." The coachman lashed his horses to their utmost speed; but the ruffians overtook them, discharged their pistols into the carriage, wounded the postillion, and cut the traces. Sharp had received but a slight injury from the shot; and Russell at the door cried to him, "Judas, come forth.” A short parley ensued. The prelate declared that he had wronged no man; he offered them money, and promised them a pardon: they replied, that they bore him no private malice, but God had imposed on them a duty which they dared not transgress; his time was come; he must make himself ready for death, judgment, and eternity. His daughter alighted with him; both fell on their knees, and the archbishop most piteously begged for mercy, if not for himself, at least for his poor child. Guillon, one of the number, but the meanest among them, was moved with pity: he cried, "Spare those gray hairs," and solicited, but in vain, the interposition of Rathillet, who stood near, muffled in his cloak. Isabel was in no danger except from her efforts to save her father: the prelate offered his hand to one of the ruffians, who with a blow of his sword nearly severed it from the arm; and Balfour aimed a stroke at his head, which, though partly broken by the hat, inflicted a severe wound along the cheek. He fell on his face, and lay apparently dead; but, his See Russell's own account at the end of Kirkton, 403–416. VI. daughter incautiously remarking that life was in him CHAP. still, the words caught the ears of Russell, who was A.D. 1679. employed in rifling the carriage. The assassin immediately returned to the body, hacked the skull into fragments, and ordered the servants to take away their priest, and convey him to his home.' It might have been expected that the perpetrators of the bloody deed would flee from the vengeance of the law; but they only withdrew to a neighbouring cottage, where they devoted several hours to prayer, first in common, and afterwards separately, and in private. They felt no fear, no compunction; their minds were composed, their hearts enlarged; they blessed their God, that his holy Spirit had led them step by step to the accomplishment of this glorious work, and solicited his and strength, that they might, if it were necessary, seal its truth with their blood, as became valiant soldiers of Christ. Nor were their prayers poured forth in vain: Danziel heard a supernatural voice saying, "Well done, good and faithful servants!" and from that moment till the hour of his death (it happened in the course of the month) the soul of the enthusiast was rapt in a transport of joy." grace To discover the assassins the council offered the most tempting rewards, and compelled all the inhabitants of Fife to appear on stated days, and clear May 21, themselves before their respective presbyteries. But 23, 27, 30 the men whom they sought had wound their way by a circuitous route into the west, and at Glasgow their 1 See the several accounts of this murder by authority, by the actors, by Russell, and by the archbishop's brother, in Wodrow, ii. 28, 29, 30, 31; App. 8; Russell, 416, and 419-422, note, 483; Ralph, 458, note. "One of these hellish rascals cut my sister in "the thumb, when she had him by the bridal, begging her father's "life."-Letter from William Sharp, May 10. 2 I repeat almost the very words of Russell himself, 422, 426. 2 F VOL. IX. VI. May 26. June I. CHAP. leaders met Hamilton, Cargill, and Spreul. The two A.D. 1679. last were ministers of the most rigid notions and most daring fanaticism; Hamilton was a young man of family, who had repeatedly exhorted his brethren to draw the sword in support of the gospel of Christ. May 29. According to appointment, on the 29th of May, the anniversary of the king's restoration, they entered, to the number of sixty men in arms and on horseback, the little burgh of Rutherglen, and extinguished the bonfires kindled in honour of the day. A sermon and prayer followed; the several acts of parliament subversive of the liberties of the kirk were read by Hamilton, and committed with much solemnity to the flames; and the copy of a declaration or testimony against them was left affixed to the cross in the market-place." On the following Sunday they held a field conventicle at Hairlaw, but the exercises of the day were interrupted by the approach of the celebrated Graham of Claverhouse, with three troops of cavalry. The Covenanters hastened to meet him at Drumclog, where a narrow slip of swampy ground divided the two parties. The dragoons, in their attempt to pass, fell into confusion; their opponents charged them with halberts and pitchforks; and Graham was compelled to make a precipitate retreat upon Glasgow. Of the military thirty men perished in the action, besides one, a prisoner, slain in cold blood by order of Hamilton, who had forbidden his followers to ask, or to give quarter. The conquerors lamented the loss of six of their brethren, but of no one with more sincere regret than of Danziel, the murderer, who cheered his last moments with the assured hope of an everlasting reward. 1 Wodrow, ii. 44. Russell, 437, 439. "Russell speired and VI. June 2 At Rutherglen the fanatics had thrown down the CHAF. gauntlet of defiance; at Drumclog they had won the A.D. 1679. laurels of victory. By most men it was believed that the conflagration would rapidly spread to every quarter of the western counties. But no plan of operations had been arranged, and the leaders despised the counsels of worldly wisdom. God had called on them for their testimony against the enemies of the kirk. They had given it, and cheerfully left the consequences to him, who was able to save with a few as well as with many. Though the council, uncertain of the extent of the danger, had withdrawn the military towards Edinburgh, the insurgents moved not to any distance from Glasgow. Volunteers, indeed, continued to arrive, for many thought it a sin to remain idle at home, while their brethren ventured their lives in the field but the accession of numbers added only to their weakness; the new comers differed in religious opinion from the victors at Drumclog; the time, instead of being devoted to preparations for the approaching contest, was consumed in useless but irritating controversy; and both ministers and leaders spent day after day in discussing the obligations of the covenant, the lawfulness of the indulgence, and the grounds on which it was proper to rest the justice of their cause. Never was insurrection so rashly commenced, or so weakly conducted.' In the meanwhile the duke of Monmouth, after June 18. many objections made in council, arrived from London to take the command of the royal forces, and en "said, Dear brother Will, ye many times told me ye was sure "enough of heaven; have ye any doubts now? He scarcely could "speak, but said, No doubts, but fully assured-fully assured." Ibid. 545. 1 Russell, 448, 453-456. VI. June 21. CHAP. camped with five thousand men on Bothwell-muir, A.D. 1679. within two miles of the enemy. An attempt to negotiate was made by the more moderate among the Covenanters. Hamilton would consent to no message unless its objects were "to represent to the duke the "king's, his own, and his associates' rebellion against "God, and to desire him to lay down the weapons which he had taken up against the Lord and his "people;" but a less offensive petition was composed by Welsh the minister, and presented by Hume and Murdoch, who received for answer that no proposals could be accepted from rebels in arms; if they would submit they might expect mercy; but that one halfhour only would be allowed for their final determination. June 22. It seems to have been the object of Monmouth to spare the insurgents, whether he had received such instructions from the king, or followed the advice of his political friends, who certainly at a later period, perhaps even now, looked for aid from the discontented in Scotland. He refused to pass the Clyde by the ford at the foot of the Aven, where no guards had been placed, and whence he might have charged the enemy in the rear; nor did he attempt to cross by Bothwell bridge, till some hours after its defence had been abandoned by Rathillet through want, as it is said, of ammunition. The Covenanters, drawn up on a neighbouring eminence, still continued to consume their time in theological controversy, but a discharge of cannon, which killed fifteen men, warned them of their danger; instantly they turned their backs to flee; above four hundred fell during the pursuit, and twelve hundred yielded themselves prisoners of war, of whom, those who promised to live peaceably were set at |