The doomed peers bore themselves like men, and awaited fate with a patience which the unpleasantly circumstantial old Governor Williamson could not disturb for more than a moment. On the Saturday before the fatal Monday, he told Lord Kilmarnock every detail of the ceremony, in which he and Balmerino were to bear such important parts. The summoning, the procession, the scaffold in sables, the whole programme was minutely dwelt upon, as if the governor took a sensual delight in torturing his captive. There was something grim in the intimation that my lord must not prolong his prayers beyond one o’clock, as the warrant expired at that hour; and, of course, he could not lose his head, that day, if he was unreasonably long in his orisons. There was not much, moreover, of comforting in the assurance that the block, which had been raised to the height of two feet, to make it comfortable for Lord Kenmure, had been so steadied, that Lord Kilmarnock need not fear any unpleasantness from its shaking. They talked of the heads and the bodies as if they belonged to historical personages. ‘The executioner,’ said the governor, ‘is a good sort of man.’ Kilmarnock thought his moral character might make him weak of purpose and performance. My lord hoped his head would not be allowed to roll about the scaffold. The governor satisfied him on that point; but, he added, ‘it will be held up and proclaimed as the head of a traitor.’ ‘It is a thing of no significance,’ said the earl, ‘and does not affect me at all.’—The governor then visited Lord Balmerino, whose wife, ‘my Peggy,’ was with him. At an allusion to the fatal day, the poor lady swooned. ‘Damn you!’ said the old lord, ‘you’ve made my lady faint away.’
ON TOWER HILL.
The details of the last scene on Tower Hill are better known than those of any similar circumstances. It was nobly said by Balmerino, when he met Kilmarnock, on their setting out, ‘My Lord, I greatly regret to have you with me on this expedition.’ Careful of the honour of his prince, he questioned Kilmarnock on the alleged issue of the order to give no quarter to the English, at Culloden. Lord Kilmarnock believed that the order was in the hands of the Duke of Cumberland, signed only by Lord George Murray. ‘Then, let Murray,’ said Balmerino, ‘and not the Prince, bear the blame.’ He exhorted Kilmarnock, who preceded him to the scaffold, ‘not to wince;’ and, when he himself appeared there, he prayed for King James, requested that his head might not be exposed, and that he might be buried in the grave where lay the Marquis of Tullebardine. These requests were granted.
THE EXECUTIONS.
The sight-seers were disappointed in one respect. The papers had announced that Lord Balmerino had bespoken a flannel waistcoat, drawers, and night-gown, in which he had resolved to make his appearance on the scaffold. But he came in his old uniform, and had nothing eccentric about him. The newspapers compared the two sufferers much to Balmerino’s disadvantage. ‘Lord Kilmarnock’s behaviour,’ says the ‘General Advertiser,’ ‘was so much the Christian and gentleman that it drew tears from thousands of spectators.’ Then, remarking that ‘the executioner was obliged to shift himself by reason of the quantity of blood that flew over him,’ the ‘Advertiser’ announces that, ‘Balmerino died with the utmost resolution and courage, and seemed not the least concerned; nor even the generality of spectators for him.’
A sympathising Jacobite lady honoured Balmerino with the following epitaph:—
Here lies the man to Scotland ever dear,
Whose honest heart ne’er felt a guilty fear.
A much more remarkable, and altogether uncomplimentary, effusion was to be found in verses addressed ‘to the pretended Duke of Cumberland, on the execution of the Earl of Kilmarnock, who basely sued for life by owning the usurper’s power, whereby he became a traitor, and, though apprehended and condemned for a loyalist, died a rebel:—
The only rebel thou hast justly slain