he
river Kyle the whole ensuing night, and the next day, and the third day
also, without any food or sustenance, and at last came within the
country of Assynt. The Earl of Kinnoul, being faint for lack of meat,
and not able to travel any further, was left there among the mountains,
where it was supposed he perished. Montrose had almost famished, but
that he fortuned in his misery to light upon a small cottage in that
wilderness, where he was supplied with some milk and bread.' Not even
the iron frame of Montrose could endure a prolonged existence under such
circumstances. He gave himself up to Macleod of Assynt, a former
adherent, from whom he had reason to expect assistance in consideration
of that circumstance, and, indeed, from the dictates of honourable
feeling and common humanity. As the Argyle faction had sold the King, so
this Highlander rendered his own name infamous by selling the hero to
the Covenanters, for which 'duty to the public' he was rewarded with
four hundred bolls of meal."--NAPIER'S _Life of Montrose_.
"_They brought him to the Watergate_,"--p. 36.
"_Friday, 17th May_.--Act ordaining James Grahame to be brought from the
Watergate on a cart, bareheaded, the hangman in his livery, covered,
riding on the horse that draws the cart--the prisoner to be bound to the
cart with a rope--to the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, and from thence to be
brought to the Parliament House, and there, in the place of delinquents,
on his knees, to receive his sentence--viz., to be hanged on a gibbet at
the Cross of Edinburgh, with his book and declaration tied on a rope
about his neck, and there to hang for the space of three hours until he
be dead; and thereafter to be cut down by the hangman, his head, hands,
and legs to be cut off, and distributed as follows--viz., his head to be
affixed on an iron pin, and set on the pinnacle of the west gavel of the
new prison of Edinburgh; one hand to be set on the port of Perth, the
other on the port of Stirling; one leg and foot on the port of Aberdeen,
the other on the port of Glasgow. If at his death penitent, and relaxed
from excommunication, then the trunk of his body to be interred, by
pioneers, in the Greyfriars; otherwise, to be interred in the
Boroughmuir, by the hangman's men, under the gallows."--BALFOUR'S _Notes
of Parliament_.
It is needless to remark that this inhuman sentence was executed to the
letter. In order that the exposure might be more complete, the cart was
con
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