Finally, Lord Cowper bade the impeachers proceed, on the part of the Commons, with their work. Thereupon, these gentlemen flew at the earl like hawks at a defenceless pigeon. As soon as one was out of breath, and had exhausted one point, a colleague got up, fresh in wind, and roared out other charges. Mr. Hampden, in opening the accusation, contrived to strike at other persons as well as at the prisoner. He ridiculed Lord Wintoun’s plea that he had unconsciously as it were fallen into rebellion, and that when in it, he was rather passive than active. Hampden could see some shadow of reason for Papists seeking to overturn a Protestant throne, and to murder one whom they called a ‘heretic king;’ but he could not understand the infatuation of sympathising Protestants on any other ground than that they had been de-naturalised by the late Tory administration under Queen Anne! One curious remark was made by Hampden in the course of his speech, in these words: ‘Whatever misrepresentations other prosecutions were formally liable to, the notoriety of this rebellion has been so evident that the most malicious of our enemies want confidence to deny it.’
Sir Joseph Jekyll, who followed, made almost as singular a remark, namely, in his protest that he could not do so vain and wicked a thing as to impose upon their lordships or divert them from the true merits of the case. Jekyll chiefly dwelt on the absurdity of Lord Wintoun hoping to make anyone believe that he could join the rebel forces, take his armed retainers with him, march, fight, pray, and plunder for the Pretender, without meaning any harm to King George.
Jekyll was succeeded by Sir Edward Northey, Attorney-General, in a practical speech which was a condensed history of the Rebellion. He laid great stress upon the facts that Lord Wintoun supplied his armed servants who followed him with two shillings a day as military pay, and that he distributed among them the blue and white ribbon cockade, which distinguished the Jacobite soldiers from King George’s troops, who wore on their caps a cockade of white and red. The hardest blow struck in this speech was a sarcastic allusion to Wintoun’s comparative passiveness. When that lord surrendered to Lord Forester at Preston, said the Attorney-General, his chief complaint was, that the Jacobite commander, Forster, had not treated him with the consideration due to a man of quality; except, by putting him in the place of honour when to fill it was dangerous.
THE KING’S WITNESSES.
These speeches over, the witnesses were called. First came the approvers—Quarter-master Calderwood, James Lindsay, and Cameron. They all swore to the presence and active services of Lord Wintoun at every step of the outbreak. The Lords treated them with great civility, and the courtesy of the prosecuting counsel was remarkable. But the latter were so eager to get answers, that before the witness could reply to Jekyll, Mr. Cowper put a question, while Hampden asked queries of another deponent who was yet considering how he was to satisfy a demand made by the Attorney-General!
When Cameron closed his damaging evidence against the earl, the latter was told by Lord Cowper that he might question the approver, if he thought proper. Lord Wintoun looked in vain towards his counsel, and then said, ‘My Lords, I am not prepared, so I hope your Lordships will do me justice. I was not prepared for my trial. I did not think it would come on so soon; my material witnesses not being come up; and therefore I hope you will do me justice, and not make use of Cowper (Cupar), Law, as we used to say in our country, “Hang a man first, and then judge him!”’
THE REV. MR. PATTEN.
At this sarcastic fling, Lord Cowper exclaimed to the Peers, ‘Did you hear?’—and then begged Lord Wintoun he ‘would be pleased to speak it again.’ Wintoun only reiterated his demand for more time,—leaving Cameron to go away without any cross-examination. Then was summoned the supreme villain among those who had turned king’s evidence, namely, the Rev. Robert Patten. All eyes were bent on him, all ears eagerly listening for ‘the parson’s’ revelations. The hearers were disappointed. Patten, in his replies which affected the earl, merely stated that he himself joined the rebels at Wooler, and that he first saw Lord Wintoun at Kelsoe carrying a sword and taking part in the proclaiming of the Pretender. At Jedburgh, Patten saw my lord at the head of his men awaiting an attack, which turned out to be a false alarm. A similar case occurred at Hawick. At Langholme, when some of the rebel horse went to Dumfries, and part of the Highlanders withdrew from the English Border, Wintoun went after them, but he voluntarily returned to the rebel force about to invade England. At Penrith, he was among the armed men at whose appearance the valiant posse comitatus suddenly evaporated. At Kirby, Patten stated that he dined with all the lords, and that, after dinner, they drank to the Pretender, and success to the cause in hand. To this, the approver added that he was present when the rebels carried off the guns which they employed against the king’s forces at Preston, where he saw the lord at the bar actively engaged. This was the sum of this witness’s deposition, which was made in a few minutes. PATTEN’S CHARACTER OF WINTOUN. In one part of it, he expressed ignorance of Wintoun’s opinions with regard to the march into England. After the trial, however, in a book which he published, Patten spoke of Lord Wintoun as follows: ‘This Earl wants no courage, nor so much capacity as his friends find it for his interest to suggest, especially, if we may judge by the counsel he gave. He was always forward for action but never for the march into England, and he ceased not to thwart the schemes which the Northumberland gentlemen laid down for marching into England, not so much from the certainty, as he said there was, of their being overpowered, as from the greater opportunity, which he insisted there was, of doing service to their cause in Scotland, in order to which he argued with and pressed them back into Scotland, and, leaving Edinburgh and Stirling to their fate, to go and join the Western Clans, attacking in their way the town of Dumfries and Glasgow, and other places, and then open a communication with the Earl of Mar and his forces. Which advice, if followed, in all probability would have tended to their great advantage, the king’s forces being then so small. However, therefore, some people have represented that Lord, all his actions, both before a prisoner and whilst such, till he made his escape out of the Tower, speak him to be master of more penetration than many of those whose characters suffer no blemish as to their understandings.’
MILITARY WITNESSES.
When Patten retired, the audience felt that the chief actor had left the stage, and that he had not come up to the general expectation. The officers of the royal army succeeded him. Lord Forrester (being a lord, he was ordered rather than allowed, to be seated on a chair) deposed that in the attack on Preston, his regiment alone had thirty men killed and forty wounded. On entering the place, he found the lords at the Mitre tavern, where he disarmed them, Wintoun delivering up his pistols.