chamber on the ground floor of Stair House, near Edinburgh, by Lord
Stair and his serving-men, Huey MacGrath, John Elliott, and James
MacColl. The window by the late duke it will be proven was wide
open, forming an easy entrance from outside; a pistol, the property
of the accused, was found lying by the chair upon which the duke
sat, and a wound above the temple of the deceased was discovered,
made by a bullet similar to those used in the pistol before
mentioned.

"It will be proven by testimony of such a character and from such a
source as to render it singularly forcible, that on the morning of
the day previous to the night of the murder the accused had
threatened the duke's life, applying vile and scurrilous names to
the deceased; repeating these threats several times and in various
forms.

"It will be proven that there had existed for the accused one of
the most powerful incentives to murder known, in the fact that the
late duke and he loved, and had loved for some time past, the same
lady, Nancy, daughter to Lord Stair; that both had addressed her in
marriage, and that in September last the quarrel between them rode
so high that a meeting was arranged between the late duke and the
accused; and there will be testimony to show that the duel was
averted by the late duke's apologizing to Mr. Carmichael, a course
urged upon him by the lady herself.

"It will be proven that in October past, after a bitter quarrel
with Miss Stair, the accused espoused in a hasty (and in a person
of his rank and station), unseemly manner, his mother's cousin,
Miss Isabel Erskine; that since that time he has been little in her
presence, leaving her alone at the time when a woman most needs the
comfort and support of a husband's presence, and paying marked
attentions, both in public and private, to the first lady of his
choice.

"It will be proven that on the day preceding the murder there was
published in an Edinburgh paper called The Lounger the news that an
engagement of marriage had been contracted between the late John
Stewart Aglionby Montrose, Duke of Borthwicke, Muir, etc., and
Mistress Nancy Stair, only daughter of John Stair, Lord of Stair
and Alton in the Mearns.

"It will be proven that immediately upon reading this the accused
came directly to Stair, and after entering un