These mutual defiances were followed by petty exasperating individual encounters between the soldiers and the exasperated people, for the former did not confine their pillaging to the covenanters, though they were the chief objects of their vengeance; but now, when it was a finable offence to resett or harbour any of the fugitives, the soldiers roamed up and down the country in quest of the wanderers, or in quest of whatever might afford them a pretext for plunder.
Dalziel, the favourite of the council, whose education in the Muscovite service peculiarly fitted him for such employment, was anew invested with enlarged powers to disperse all conventicles, and punish, without the ceremony of sending them to Edinburgh for trial, all who were caught in the “horrible act” of preaching the word of God or hearing it preached; and the council, in a letter to Lauderdale, expressed “the hope we justly have that such just severity against some of these rebels will preserve peace to his majesty’s good subjects,” and disappoint “the vanity of bearing a testimony at Edinburgh, which cherished the foolish humours of numbers, and made the processes and punishments inflicted there less effectual than elsewhere.” All such persons who were understood to be the king’s enemies were to be attacked by the king’s forces wherever they could be found, and imprisoned till brought to justice, or killed in case of resistance.
The General followed out his commission to the letter. He quartered his soldiers upon suspected families, where they lodged during pleasure, and, when leaving, carried off what sheep and cattle they pleased without paying any thing; the pasture and growing corn they eat up or trode down, without allowing the smallest compensation; and, as the whole district was liable to these ravages, the mischief they did was incalculable. While thus ravaging the country, a party, consisting of upwards of one hundred and twenty dragoons, well mounted, under the command of Bruce of Earlshall, were sent to disperse the company of wanderers who usually attended the ministrations of Richard Cameron. They surprised an assemblage at a place called Airs-moss, in the district of Kyle, amounting to about twenty-six horse and forty foot, headed by Hackston of Rathillet, indifferently armed; who, knowing that they had no mercy to expect, determined to face the enemy, and drew up at the entry to the moss. The horse charged with intrepidity, but could not stand against the superior number of their enemies, and were quickly broken; and the foot unable to support them, they were surrounded, and the whole killed or taken. The foot retiring into the morass, could not be pursued. Cameron, who previously to the skirmish had engaged in prayer with the wanderers, used these remarkable expressions—“Lord, take the ripe, but spare the green!” He fell with his brother, back to back, gallantly defending themselves against their assailants. Hackston was severely wounded and taken prisoner.[[129]]
[129]. It is mentioned in the Scots Worthies, p. 372, that Sir John Cochrane of Ochiltree gave the information to Earlshall, and got 10,000 merks as a reward, but that some time after, about two o’clock afternoon, his castle took fire, and was with the charters, plate, and all, burned down to the ground. The son said to his father while it was burning—“This is the vengeance of Cameron’s blood.” The house was never rebuilt by any of that family.
Cameron’s head and hands were cut off and carried to Edinburgh to be exposed, but with wanton barbarity they were first taken to his father, who was in prison; and he was unfeelingly asked by some heartless wretch if he knew them? The old man took them, and kissing them, replied—“I know them! I know them! they are my son’s—my own dear son’s! It is the Lord; good is the will of the Lord, who cannot wrong me nor mine, but has made goodness and mercy to follow us all our days.”
Rathillet next morning was brought to Lanark, where the head-quarters were, and examined before Dalziel, Lord Ross, and some others; but his answers not being deemed satisfactory, Dalziel, with his accustomed brutality, threatened to roast him, then sent him to the tolbooth and caused bind him most barbarously and cast him down on the floor, where he lay till the morning after, without any person being admitted to see him, or administer in any manner to his comfort. On the following morning (Sabbath) he was marched, with three others, two miles on foot, without shoes, and wounded as he was, to be delivered up to the escort under Earlshall, who was to take them to Edinburgh. He used them civilly by the way, and carried them round about the north side of the town to the foot of the Canongate, where they were received by the magistrates of the city,[[130]] who set Mr Hackston on a horse with his head bare and his face to the tail, the hangman, covered, carrying Mr Cameron’s head on an halbert before him; also another head in a sack, was carried on a lad’s back. His companions came after on foot, with their hands tied to an iron goad; and thus they were marched to the Parliament Close.
[130]. Mr Laing says Captain Creighton, whose memoirs were compiled and published by Swift, commanded the military at Airs-moss, Hist. vol. iv. p. 113, note. Rathillet says in his account, “The party that had broken us at first, were commanded by Earlshall, Wodrow, vol. ii. app. p. 60.
All this studied ignominy, which was to recoil with tenfold bitterness upon their own base characters, was minutely prescribed by the council before the prisoner arrived in the capital. As the manner of his execution was determined before he was tried, it still stands in the record thus:—“That his body be drawn backward on a hurdle to the cross of Edinburgh; that there be an high scaffold erected a little above the cross, where, in the first place, his right hand is to be struck off, and after some time his left hand: then he is to be hanged up, and cut down alive; his bowels to be taken out and his heart shown to the people by the hangman: then his heart and his bowels to be burnt in a fire prepared for that purpose on the scaffold; that afterwards his head be cut off, and his body divided into four quarters—his head to be fixed on the Netherbow, one of his quarters with both his hands to be affixed at St Andrews, another quarter at Glasgow, a third at Leith, a fourth at Burntisland; that none presume to be in mourning for him, or any coffin brought; that no persons be suffered to be on the scaffold with him, save the two bailies, the executioner, and his servants; that he be allowed to pray to God Almighty, but not to speak to the people; that Hackston and Cameron’s heads be fixed on higher poles than the rest.”
On July 30, he was brought before the justiciary, but declined their authority, because they had usurped supremacy over the church belonging alone to Jesus Christ, and had established idolatry, perjury, and other iniquity in the land; and in prosecuting their design, and in confirming themselves in their usurped right, had shed much innocent blood. The proof of his being at Airs-moss was clear; and one of the late archbishop’s servants swore “that he saw the panel on a light-coloured horse at some distance from the coach, and that he took the same horse in Mortounhouse—where Rathillet had been—and hoped to have taken himself, but he escaped.” The jury brought him in guilty, and the court sentenced him to be executed that same day with all the revolting particularity of barbaric savagism they had previously appointed. It was even increased by the unskilfulness of the hangman, who was a long while mangling the wrist of the right arm before he succeeded in separating the hand; which being done, the patient sufferer calmly requested him to strike in the joint of the left; then he was drawn up a considerable way with a pulley and suffered to fall a considerable way with a jerk. This was repeated thrice, yet was not life extinguished; for, when the heart was torn from his bosom, it fell from the hands of the executioner, and moved after it fell!
Hackston was a gentleman allied to the first families in the land, of good talents, well educated, and who in early life had associated with the commissioner in the wild gaieties of the day; and perhaps the severest test his integrity was subjected to was, the commissioner personally came to him in prison, and, with many protestations of kindness, alluding to their former intimacy, urged him to compliance.[[131]] The mean tool of power, the advocate, who with his usual insolence endeavoured to insult him at his first examination, received a spirited retort. He asked where he was on the third day of May was a year? To whom he answered, “I am not bound to keep a memorial where I am or what I do every day.” The advocate said, “Sir, you must be a great liar to say you remember not where you was that day, it being so remarkable a day;” to which he answered, “Sir, you must be a far greater liar to say I answered such a thing;” and the Chancellor supported him.