“Upon the Lord’s day, orders were given to a party of soldiers immediately to march east and carry Mr John King with them to Edinburgh; and we will find it was their ordinary [practice] to march, and especially to transport prisoners from place to place, on the Sabbath. My accounts of them are, that they were English dragoons. One of them, a profane and profligate wretch, after they were in the street and on horseback, ready to ride off with their prisoner, called for some ale, and drunk a health to the ‘Confusion of the Covenants,’ and another to the ‘Destruction of the People of God,’ and some more very horrid, and rode off. He met with one of his comrades at the Stable-green Port, who, knowing nothing of the matter, asked him where he was going? He answered, ‘to convoy King to hell,’ and galloped up to the rest, whistling and singing. The judgment of God did not linger as to this wretch; he was not many paces forward, in the hollow path a little from the Port, till his horse stumbled; and somewhat or other touching his piece—which was primed and cocked it seems—the carabine went off and shot him dead on the spot. The party went on and carried Mr King to Edinburgh.” Mr Kid was brought thither and imprisoned along with his friend in the tolbooth.
The tyranny of Charles, which was exercised in England as well as in Scotland, had excited much discontent there; and Charles’s advisers were extremely anxious to trace out some grand conspiracy which might enable them to resort to extreme measures there as well as in Scotland, that a similar despotism might be established in both kingdoms. The king therefore directed that these two should be especially examined by torture, in order if possible to discover the conspirators, with which the Scottish managers were very ready to comply, many of them anticipating a rich harvest of new forfeitures. Being disappointed in this, the prisoners were ordered to stand trial before the justiciary. Previously to being brought to the bar, they presented a petition, praying that they might be allowed to prove in exculpation—that they were only present with the army casually, and not intentionally, and were in a manner detained prisoners by them; and such naked presence, without assistance, was not criminal; and that they were so far from being incendiaries to incite the people, they, on the contrary, entreated them to lay down their arms. 2d, That the Duke of Monmouth, by his commission, had power to pardon; and they offered to prove by witnesses that he had proffered them a pardon if they would lay down their arms, and that they had accepted it. 3d, They were willing to engage to live peaceably, and never to keep field-meetings hereafter.
The lords refused this equitable request, or, as Fountainhall expressed it, “repelled their exculpation in respect of the libel,” and, on the 28th of July, their trial proceeded. They were accused of having been in the rebellion and in company with rebels, who, in May last, burned the king’s laws; that they had preached at several field-conventicles where persons were in arms; that they did preach, pray, and exercise to rebels, and continued with them till their defeat, and had been taken prisoners.
Their own confessions, that of Kid emitted under torture, were the only evidence produced against them, and coincided with what they had offered to prove. It was deemed sufficient that they had been with the rebels, and, notwithstanding any extenuating circumstances, must therefore be deemed rebels themselves. The jury brought them in guilty, in terms of their own confession; and the lords sentenced them to be taken to the market cross of Edinburgh upon Thursday, August 14, betwixt two and four of the clock in the afternoon, and to be hanged on a gibbet; and when dead, that their heads and right arms be cut off and disposed of as the council think fit; and that all their land be forfeited, as being guilty of the treasonable crimes foresaid. The judges themselves were so convinced of the peculiar hardship of the case, that they allowed this unusual space between sentence and execution, on purpose that they might have time to apply for a remission, and Mr Stevenson, a friend of theirs, rode post to London to apply for it; but all the avenues to mercy were shut. An evil influence pervaded the whole court; and it is worthy of remark, and ought never to be forgotten, that the most gay, most boisterously mirthful, most joyous, and most irreligious court, headed by the most facetious and witty monarch that ever sat upon the British throne, was the most unfeeling, cold-hearted, cruel, revengeful, and vile that has ever disgraced the annals of our country.
An act of indemnity had been passed; and it might naturally have been supposed that these good men would have received the advantage of it, but the very day on which it was to be proclaimed, was the day chosen on which they were ordered to be executed; so dead to every sense of common decency, as well as of common feeling, were the then rulers of Scotland. In the forenoon of the 14th of August, the magistrates of Edinburgh proceeded to the cross in their robes, and proclaimed the indemnity from a scaffold erected for the purpose. In the afternoon, these two worthies, on another scaffold, were put to death, as if to declare the entire worthlessness of all government clemency, whenever persons of unflinching principle were concerned. They both died with much calmness and serenity; and their dying speeches, which were afterwards published, may well rank with any of the compositions of the times, for elegant simplicity, honest integrity, and a plain energetic avowal of their principles, untainted either by party prejudice or political enthusiasm. Mr Kid, who was labouring under sore bodily indisposition, said—“It may be that there are a great many here that judge my lot very sad and deplorable, I must confess, death in itself is very terrible to flesh and blood; but as it is an outlet to sin, and an inlet to righteousness, it is the Christian’s great and inexpressible privilege.
“And give me leave to say this, 1st, That there is something in a Christian’s condition that can never put him without the reach of unsufferableness, even shame, death, and the cross being included in the promise. And if there be reconciliation between God and the soul, nothing can damp peace through our Lord Jesus Christ; it is a supporting ingredient in the bitterest cup and under the sharpest and fiercest trial he can be exposed unto. This is my mercy, I have somewhat of this to lay claim unto, viz. the intimations of pardon betwixt God and my soul; and as concerning that for which I am condemned, I magnify his grace that I never had the least challenge for it, but, on the contrary, I judge it my honour that ever I was counted worthy to be staged upon such a consideration. I declare before you all, in the sight of God, angels, and men, and in the sight of the sun and all that he has created, that I am a most miserable sinner, in regard of my original and actual transgressions. I must confess they are more than the hairs upon my head, and altogether past reckoning; I cannot but say, as Jacob said, I am less than the least of all God’s mercies; yet, I must declare, to the commendation of the freedom of his grace, that I dare not but say, He has loved me and washed me in his own blood; and well’s me this day that ever I read or heard that faithful saying, ‘Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief.’”
He then warned the servants of God against fomenting divisions to the detriment of the gospel, especially as there appeared at that time a great likelihood of its spreading, and dissension would prove a poison in the pot! “As for rebellion against his majesty’s person or lawful authority, the Lord knows my soul abhorreth it, name and thing. Loyal I have been and wills every Christian to be so; and I was ever of this judgment to give to Cesar the things that are Cesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” This excellent man and his most worthy coadjutor, not only had to suffer from the oppression of the oppressors, but from what to them was probably more trying, the cruel scourge of tongues from those they wished to esteem brethren. He therefore felt himself called upon to vindicate his character from these aspersions, and to leave a record of the doctrine he had preached. “According to the measure God has given me,” he continues, “it was my endeavour to commend Christ to the hearts and souls of the people, even repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ; and if this be devisive preaching, I cannot deny it.”
Mr King expressed himself to the same effect. “I bless the Lord,” said the dying martyr, “since infinite wisdom and holy providence hath so carved out my lot to die after this manner, that I die not unwillingly, neither by force; and though possibly I might have shunned such an hard sentence, if I had done things that, though I could, I durst not do; no, not for my soul, I durst not, God knoweth, redeem my life by the loss of my integrity. I bless the Lord that, since I have been a prisoner, he hath wonderfully upholden me, and made out that comfortable word, ‘fear not, be not afraid; I am with thee, I will uphold thee by the right hand of my righteousness.’ I bless his name that I die not as a fool dieth, though I acknowledge I have nothing to boast of myself. I acknowledge I am a sinner, and one of the chiefest that have gone under the name of a professor of religion; yea, amongst the unworthiest of those that have preached the gospel. My sins and corruptions have been many. I have no righteousness of my own; all is vile, like filthy rags. But blessed be God there is a Saviour of sinners, Jesus Christ the righteous, and that through faith in his righteousness I have obtained mercy; through him only I desire to hope for, and to have a happy and glorious victory over sin and satan, hell and death; that I shall attain to the righteousness of the just, and be made partaker of eternal life. I know in whom I have believed, and that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day. I have in my poor capacity preached salvation in his name; and as I have preached, so do I believe. With all my soul I have commended, and yet I do commend, to all of you the riches of his grace and faith in his name, as the alone and only way whereby ye can be saved. As for those things for which sentence of death is passed against me, I bless the Lord, rebellious I have not been. He who is the searcher of hearts, knoweth that neither my design nor practice was against his majesty’s person and just government. I have been loyal, and do recommend it to all to be obedient to higher powers in the Lord.
“That I preached at field-meetings. I am so far from acknowledging that the gospel preached that way was a rendezvousing in rebellion, as it is termed, that I bless the Lord ever he counted me worthy to be a witness to such meetings, which have been so wonderfully countenanced and owned, not only to the conviction, but even to the conversion of many thousands: if I could have preached Christ and salvation in his name, that was my work, and herein have I walked according to the light and rule of the word of God, and as it did become—though one of the meanest—a minister of the gospel.”
Both bore witness to the doctrine and worship, discipline and government, of the church of Scotland by kirk-sessions and presbyteries, synods and general assemblies, to the solemn covenants, also to the public confessions of sins and engagements to duties, and that either as to what concerned personal reformation, or the reformation of the whole land. They also bore witness and testimony against popery, which had so greatly increased, was so much countenanced, and so openly professed. The causes of God’s wrath with the land were particularly noticed and specified by Mr King:—1st, The dreadful slights our Lord Jesus has received in the offers of his gospel. 2d, The horrid profanity that had overspread the whole land. 3d, The horrid perjury in the matter of vows and engagements. 4th, The dreadful formality and supineness in the duties of religion. 5th, Awful ingratitude, what do we render to Him for his goodness? 6th, Want of humility under afflictions. 7th, Dreadful covetousness and minding of our own things more than the things of God; and this among all ranks.