Yet terrible as these military executions were, they were mild and merciful compared with the legal atrocities which followed. As after Pentland no faith was kept with the prisoners, who were treated—as men who fail in struggling for their rights always are—more like wild, noxious animals than fellow-creatures of the human form; a lesson to patriots and to the oppressed when they rise against their tyrants:—better perish on the high places of the field than submit to languish out a few mournful years beneath the tender mercies of the victors. While being driven to the capital, the captive patriots were exposed to every indignity the ingenious malignity of their persecutors could invent, especially being made, as they passed along, a gazing-stock to the crowd, who taunted them with such questions, as—where is your prophet Welsh who told you ye should win the day? where are your covenants that were never to fail? or such sarcasms, as—aye! this is your testimony—this is standing up for the gude auld cause! see if it will stand up for you! When they arrived in the capital, the council ordered the magistrates to place them in the Greyfriar’s churchyard, with a sufficient number of sentinels over them, to guard them night and day; especially during the night, they were to be rigorously watched to prevent escape; and such was their determination to enforce vigilance, that the officers were ordered to keep exact rolls of the sentinels, and if any of the prisoners were amissing, they were to throw dice and answer body for body. For nearly five months were the greater part of the sufferers kept in this open space, without any covering from the rain or shelter from the tempest. During the day, they generally stood, but had not even the miserable privilege of a short walk. During night, the cold damp ground was their bed, without a covering; and if any attempted to rise, for whatever purpose, the sentinels had orders to fire upon them. With great difficulty did any of their friends obtain permission to visit them, or bring them provisions, and these were chiefly females, who were exposed to the grossest insults from the guards; and not infrequently were the provisions they carried destroyed, and the water spilt, before either could reach the starving prisoners; for the government allowance which the Duke of Monmouth procured for them, was, besides being of the worst quality, very scanty. Nor did the inhumanity of the ruffian soldiery allow them to retain money or any article they could pilfer from them, even their shoes, stockings, and upper garments were carried off; and when blankets or any bedclothes were brought, they were immediately seized as lawful plunder.
Before Monmouth left Scotland, he procured the liberation of some hundreds, upon their subscribing a bond, enacting themselves in the books of the privy council not to take up arms without or against his majesty’s authority; and had also obtained for a few of them the stinted favour of wretched huts, to be erected as the winter approached. The bond became another cause of unhappy difference and alienation among the sufferers themselves. Those who refused amounted to about four hundred, and much interest was made to procure their deliverance, especially by some who thought they might sign the bond without sin, endeavouring to persuade them to submit, as it did not involve the sacrifice of any of those principles for which they had taken arms. The others, however, more consistently, viewed their subscribing the bond as an admission that their previous rising had been criminal, and therefore persisted in their refusal. The hardships they had so long endured, and their mutual exhortations, heightened and strengthened their scruples, till they became absolutely impenetrable to whatever could be urged upon the subject, nor would listen either to entreaty or argument. Yet upwards of an hundred contrived to effect an escape; some by the purchased connivance of the guards, some by climbing the walls at the hazard of their lives, others by changing their clothes, and some in women’s apparel.
The remnant who remained firm, were doomed to slavery in the plantations; and their fate, had earth terminated their hopes, was melancholy; but viewed as that of those who through much tribulation must enter the kingdom, was enviable—inexpressibly enviable! when compared with that of their oppressors, who unwittingly sent them by the shortest road to heaven.[[126]] Their numbers, estimated at about two hundred and fifty-seven, were to be transported to Barbadoes and sold for slaves. Mr Blackadder thus narrates the tragical story:—“The prisoners were all shipped in Leith roads (15th November) in an English captain’s vessel, to be carried to America. He was a profane, cruel wretch, and used them barbarously, stewing them up between decks, where they could not get up their heads, except to sit or lean, and robbing them of many things their friends had sent them for their relief. They never were in such strait and pinch, particularly through scorching drowth, as they were allowed little or no drink and pent up together, till many of them fainted and were almost suffocated. This was in Leith roads, besides what straits they would readily endure in the custody of such a cruel wretch. In this grievous plight, these captives were carried away in much anguish of spirit, pinched bodies, and disquieted consciences, (at least those who had taken the bond.[[127]]) They were tossed at sea with great tempest of weather for three weeks, till at last their ship cast anchor, to ride awhile among the Orkney Isles, till the storm might calm. But after casting anchor, the ship did drive with great violence upon a rugged shore about the isles, and struck about ten at night on a rock. The cruel captain saw the hazard all were in, and that they might have escaped as some did; yet, as I heard, he would not open the hatches to let the poor prisoners fend for themselves. He with his seamen made their escape by a mast laid over between the ship and the rock ashore. Some leapt on the rock.
[126]. James Corsan, in a letter to his wife, dated from Leith roads, says—“All the trouble they met with since Bothwell was not to be compared to one day in their present circumstances; that their uneasiness was beyond words: yet he owns in very pathetical terms, that the consolations of God overbalanced all, and expresses his hopes that they are near their port, and heaven is opening for them.”—Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 83.
[127]. It appears that some who had taken the bond, had, notwithstanding, been still detained.
“The ship being strong, endured several strokes ere she bilged. The captain and all the rest of the seamen, with about fifty prisoners, some of whom had been above deck before, others had broke out some other way down to the den, and so up again; so that they were to land with their life in: one or two died ashore. While these were thus escaping, the rest who had all been closed up between decks, crying most pitifully, and working as they could to break forth of their prison, but to little purpose; and all these, near two hundred, with lamentable shrieks of dying men—as was related to the writer by one who escaped—did perish. The most part were cast out on the shore dead, and after buried by the country people.”[[128]]
[128]. It is pleasant to notice instances of kindness and benevolence, in times such as these, among the influential men of the prelatical party. I quote from the Memoirs of Brysson, edited by Dr M’Crie, who remarks—“One of these kind lairds is evidently Sir William Drummond of Hawthornden, son of the celebrated poet,” p. 285, Note—“After our defeat, I wist not what to do. However, after some time lurking, I ventured home, where my sister and family were together, who had suffered many wrongs from the enemy, my mother being dead a year before this fell out; and that which is very remarkable, I dwelt betwixt two lairds who were both out in arms against us; and one of them never conformed to the Presbyterian government to his dying day, though he lived thirty-five years after this. And the other was of the same judgment, though he complied with the government afterwards. However, the Lord moved them to favour me in the day of my distress. For they sent for my sister before I came home, and advised her to put all the goods from off the ground, and every thing but what was of present use for the family. One of the gentlemen was so kind, that he desired my sister to send over the milk kine and let them feed with his, and to send over her servants morning and evening to milk them for the use of the family. And ordered her to pack up all things that she thought the enemy might make a prey of, and send them over to his house; which accordingly she did, where they were secure. The other gentleman was no less kind, for he desired her to send the milk ewes over to his ground that she might not lose their milk, and to send her servants to milk them. After that she sent away the horses, oxen, and other yeld beasts, to a friend who lived on the Earl of Wigton’s ground, who received them willingly. Thus the Lord trysted me with favour both from my friends and foes, for which I desire to adore his wonderful providence.”—Memoirs of George Brysson, pp. 284-5.
Nothing in the whole annals of these persecuting times presents a stronger argument against committing civil power to the clergy, than the uniform strenuous opposition made by the bishops and their satellites to every moderate or clement proposal of the Duke of Monmouth. The council, where they possessed a strong majority before his Grace arrived from the army, had written to the king for instructions how to dispose of the prisoners, promising “at the same time, on their part, to execute the laws against rebellion, faction, and schism, as the king should direct them, without gratifying the humours of such as are apt to grow more insolent by his majesty’s grace and goodness, who have been encouraged and hardened in an obstinate opposition to the church by his majesty’s condescensions and indulgences, and proposing that, after the ringleaders were punished capitally, the rabble should be transported to the plantations never to return.”
This model of princes, for whose restoration the cannon of the Castle of Edinburgh still continue annually to be fired, and the public offices still keep holyday, returned a gracious answer, approving of their proposal to send three or four hundred to the plantations, and bring the ringleaders before the justiciary, after which the rest might be dismissed upon signing the bond.
The treatment of the majority has been narrated. We shall now notice the proceedings against those considered ringleaders. The most conspicuous were their ministers Messrs King and Kid. Wodrow mentions an incident which occurred while the former was being carried to Edinburgh, too remarkable to be passed over, especially as that historian is neither a credulous nor an enthusiastic writer:—