When he is told that he is to be put to the torture, he neither breaks out into any high-sounding bravado, any premature vaunts of the resolution with which he will endure it, nor, on the other hand, into passionate exclamations on the cruelty of his enemies, or unmanly lamentations of his fate. After stating that orders were arrived that he must be tortured, unless he answers all questions upon oath, he simply adds that he hopes God will support him; and then leaves off writing, not from any want of spirits to proceed, but to enjoy the consolation which was yet left him, in the society of his wife, the countess being just then admitted.
Of his interview with Queensbury, who examined him in private, little is known, except that he denied his design having been concerted with any persons in Scotland; that he gave no information with respect to his associates in England; and that he boldly and frankly averred his hopes to have been founded on the cruelty of the administration, and such a disposition in the people to revolt as he conceived to be the natural consequence of oppression. He owned, at the same time, that he had trusted too much to this principle. The precise date of this conversation, whether it took place before the threat of the torture, whilst that threat was impending, or when there was no longer any intention of putting it into execution, I have not been able to ascertain; but the probability seems to be that it was during the first or second of these periods.
Notwithstanding the ill success that had attended his enterprise, he never expresses, or even hints, the smallest degree of contrition for having undertaken it: on the contrary, when Mr. Charteris, an eminent divine, is permitted to wait on him, his first caution to that minister is, not to try to convince him of the unlawfulness of his attempt, concerning which his opinion was settled, and his mind made up. Of some parts of his past conduct he does indeed confess that he repents, but these are the compliances of which he had been guilty in support of the king, or his predecessors. Possibly in this he may allude to his having in his youth borne arms against the covenant, but with more likelihood to his concurrence, in the late reign, with some of the measures of Lauderdale’s administration, for whom it is certain that he entertained a great regard, and to whom he conceived himself to be principally indebted for his escape from his first sentence. Friendship and gratitude might have carried him to lengths which patriotism and justice must condemn.
Religious concerns, in which he seems to have been very serious and sincere, engaged much of his thoughts; but his religion was of that genuine kind which, by representing the performance of our duties to our neighbour as the most acceptable service to God, strengthens all the charities of social life. While he anticipates, with a hope approaching to certainty, a happy futurity, he does not forget those who have been justly dear to him in this world. He writes, on the day of his execution, to his wife, and to some other relations, for whom he seems to have entertained a sort of parental tenderness, short, but the most affectionate letters, wherein he gives them the greatest satisfaction then in his power, by assuring them of his composure and tranquillity of mind, and refers them for further consolation to those sources from which he derived his own. In his letter to Mrs. Smith, written on the same day, he says, “While anything was a burden to me, your concern was; which is a cross greater than I can express” (alluding probably to the pecuniary loss she had incurred); “but I have, I thank God, overcome all.” Her name, he adds, could not be concealed, and that he knows not what may have been discovered from any paper which may have been taken; otherwise he has named none to their disadvantage. He states that those in whose hands he is, had at first used him hardly, but that God had melted their hearts, and that he was now treated with civility. As an instance of this, he mentions the liberty he had obtained of sending this letter to her; a liberty which he takes as a kindness on their part, and which he had sought that she might not think he had forgotten her.
Never, perhaps, did a few sentences present so striking a picture of a mind truly virtuous and honourable. Heroic courage is the least part of his praise, and vanishes as it were from our sight, when we contemplate the sensibility with which he acknowledges the kindness, such as it is, of the very men who are leading him to the scaffold; the generous satisfaction which he feels on reflecting that no confession of his has endangered his associates; and above all, his anxiety, in such moments, to perform all the duties of friendship and gratitude, not only with the most scrupulous exactness, but with the most considerate attention to the feelings as well as to the interests of the person who was the object of them. Indeed, it seems throughout to have been the peculiar felicity of this man’s mind, that everything was present to it that ought to be so; nothing that ought not. Of his country he could not be unmindful; and it was one among other consequences of his happy temper, that on this subject he did not entertain those gloomy ideas which the then state of Scotland was but too well fitted to inspire. In a conversation with an intimate friend, he says that, though he does not take upon him to be a prophet, he doubts not but that deliverance will come, and suddenly, of which his failings had rendered him unworthy to be the instrument. In some verses which he composed on the night preceding his execution, and which he intended for his epitaph, he thus expresses this hope still more distinctly
“On my attempt though Providence did frown,
His oppressed people God at length shall own;
Another hand, by more successful speed,
Shall raise the remnant, bruise the serpent’s head.”
With respect to the epitaph itself, of which these lines form a part, it is probable that he composed it chiefly with a view to amuse and relieve his mind, fatigued with exertion, and partly, perhaps, in imitation of the famous Marquis of Montrose, who, in similar circumstances, had written some verses which have been much celebrated. The poetical merit of the pieces appears to be nearly equal, and is not in either instance considerable, and they are only in so far valuable as they may serve to convey to us some image of the minds by which they were produced. He who reads them with this view will, perhaps, be of opinion that the spirit manifested in the two compositions is rather equal in degree than like in character; that the courage of Montrose was more turbulent, that of Argyle more calm and sedate. If, on the one hand, it is to be regretted that we have not more memorials left of passages so interesting, and that even of those which we do possess, a great part is obscured by time, it must be confessed, on the other, that we have quite enough to enable us to pronounce that for constancy and equanimity under the severest trials, few men have equalled, none ever surpassed, the Earl of Argyle. The most powerful of all tempters, hope, was not held out to him, so that he had not, it is true, in addition to his other hard tasks, that of resisting her seductive influence; but the passions of a different class had the fullest scope for their attacks. These, however, could make no impression on his well-disciplined mind. Anger could not exasperate, fear could not appal him; and if disappointment and indignation at the misbehaviour of his followers, and the supineness of the country, did occasionally, as surely they must, cause uneasy sensations, they had not the power to extort from him one unbecoming or even querulous expression. Let him be weighed never so scrupulously, and in the nicest scales, he will not be found, in a single instance, wanting in the charity of a Christian, the firmness and benevolence of a patriot, the integrity and fidelity of a man of honour.
The Scotch parliament had, on the 11th of June, sent an address to the king wherein, after praising his majesty, as usual, for his extraordinary prudence, courage, and conduct, and loading Argyle, whom they styled an hereditary traitor, with every reproach they can devise—among others, that of ingratitude for the favours which he had received, as well from his majesty as from his predecessor—they implore his majesty that the earl may find no favour and that the earl’s family, the heritors, ringleaders, and preachers who joined him, should be for ever declared incapable of mercy, or bearing any honour or estate in the kingdom, and all subjects discharged under the highest pains to intercede for them in any manner of way. Never was address more graciously received, or more readily complied with; and, accordingly, the following letter, with the royal signature, and countersigned by Lord Melford, Secretary of State for Scotland, was despatched to the council at Edinburgh, and by them entered and registered on the 29th of June.
“Whereas, the late Earl of Argyle is, by the providence of God, fallen into our power, it is our will and pleasure that you take all ways to know from him those things which concern our government most, as his assisters with men, arms, and money, his associates and correspondents, his designs, etc. But this must be done so as no time may be lost in bringing him to condign punishment, by causing him to be demeaned as a traitor, within the space of three days after this shall come to your hands, an account of which, with what he shall confess, you shall send immediately to us or our secretaries, for doing which this shall be your warrant.”
When it is recollected that torture had been in common use in Scotland, and that the persons to whom the letter was addressed had often caused it to be inflicted, the words, “it is our will and pleasure that you take all ways,” seem to convey a positive command for applying of it in this instance; yet it is certain that Argyle was not tortured. What was the cause of this seeming disregard of the royal injunctions does not appear. One would hope, for the honour of human nature, that James, struck with some compunction for the injuries he had already heaped upon the head of this unfortunate nobleman, sent some private orders contradictory to this public letter; but there is no trace to be discovered of such a circumstance. The managers themselves might feel a sympathy for a man of their own rank, which had no influence in the cases where only persons of an inferior station were to be the sufferers; and in those words of the king’s letter which enjoin a speedy punishment as the primary object to which all others must give way, they might find a pretext for overlooking the most odious part of the order, and of indulging their humanity, such as it was, by appointing the earliest day possible for the execution. In order that the triumph of injustice might be complete, it was determined that, without any new trial, the earl should suffer upon the iniquitous sentence of 1682. Accordingly, the very next day ensuing was appointed, and on the 13th of June he was brought from the castle, first to the Laigh Council-house, and thence to the place of execution.