Marion Harvey was not twenty years of age. When brought before the council, there was no criminal act which they could lay against her; nor does it appear that there was any witness they could have brought to substantiate any charge. But she was easily ensnared; she acknowledged having been at field-conventicles, and respecting the king’s authority, she said, “so long as the king held the truths of God which he swore, we are obliged to own him; but when he brake his oath and robbed Christ of his kingly rights, which do not belong to him, we are bound to disown him. They asked, were ye ever mad? She answered, I have all the wit that ever God gave me. Do ye see any mad act about me? When told that she had been guilty of the sin of rebellion, she smiled and said, if she were as free of all sin as of the sin of rebellion, she should be an innocent creature.”
Both were sent to the justiciary and indicted for treason, because it was alleged the one had spoken freely against the severities then practised against the Presbyterians, and the other had attended field-conventicles. Their own declarations were the only evidence adduced against them. When the jury were sworn in, Marion, looking towards them, solemnly said, “Now, beware what ye are doing, for they have nothing against me, but only for owning Jesus Christ and his persecuted truths; for ye will get my blood upon your heads!” One of them who had been seized with a fit of trembling, desired the confessions to be read, which being done, the advocate addressed them, and concluded with “ye know these women are guilty of treason!” One of the jury remarked, “they are not guilty of matters of fact.” “Treason is fact,” replied the accuser, and added, “’tis true it is but treason in their judgment; but go on according to our law, and if you will not do it, I know how to proceed.” He then addressed the prisoners, “’Tis not for religion we are pursuing you, but for treason.” “It is for religion,” replied Harvey; “for I am of the same religion that ye all are sworn to be of! I am a true Presbyterian; and,” turning to the jury, “I charge you before the tribunal of God, as ye shall answer there! ye have nothing to say to me but for my owning the persecuted gospel.” They were both brought in guilty upon their own confession, and condemned to be hanged at the Grassmarket on the 26th. They were executed according to their sentence, and died, not with composure only, but with rapture.
When being brought from the tolbooth to the council-chamber to be carried to the place of execution, the youngest, who had several friends attending her, exclaimed, with an air of unearthly ecstacy, “Behold, I hear my beloved saying unto me, ‘Arise, my dove, my fair one, and come away!’” When in the room waiting the last preparations, Bishop Paterson, with a kind of fiendish exultation, said, “Marion, you said you would never hear a curate pray, now you shall be forced to hear one,” and ordered a suffragan of his who was in attendance to proceed; on which she turned to her companion, and saying, “Come, Isobel, let us sing the 23d Psalm;” they commenced immediately, and drowned the voice of the poor curate, who, with his employers, stood amazed at the clear unbroken tones of the youthful confessors.
On the scaffold, the most of her discourse was of God’s love to her and the commendation of free grace. Ascending the ladder a few steps, she sat down and said, “I am not come here for murder; for they have no matter of fact to charge me with, but only my judgment. I am about twenty years of age. At fourteen or fifteen, I was a hearer of the curates and indulged; and while I was a hearer of these, I was a blasphemer and Sabbath breaker, and a chapter of the Bible was a burden to me; but since I heard this persecuted gospel, I durst not blaspheme nor break the Sabbath, and the Bible became my delight;” on which the town major called to the hangman—“Cast her over,” which he immediately did.
Isobel, looking to the crowd from the scaffold, cried out—“Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous; and again I say rejoice.” When she went up the ladder, “O! be zealous, sirs; be zealous! Love the Lord all ye his servants; for in his favour there is life. O! ye his enemies, what will ye do—whither will ye fly? for now there is a dreadful day coming on all the enemies of Jesus Christ. Come out from among them all ye that are the Lord’s own people;” then added, “Farewell, all created comforts! farewell, sweet Bible! in which I delighted most, and which has been sweet to me since I came into prison. Now, into thy hands I commit my spirit, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!” And while these words yet trembled on her lips, she was launched into eternity. In order to imbitter their punishment, they were hanged along with five other women for child murder. The latter were attended by a curate, who gave them every consolation, but upbraided their virtuous companions in suffering in the most opprobrious terms as traitors.
Within a few days, John Murray, in Borrowstounness, Christopher Miller, weaver, Gargunnock, and, on March 8th, William Gowgar, Borrowstounness, with Robert Sangster, a Stirlingshire man, were found guilty by a like speedy process, and hanged together in the Grassmarket on the 11th, except Murray, who was reprieved.[[133]] Their testimonies embraced the same topics, and were in every respect similar to those of their worthy predecessors who had vindicated the religious and civil liberties of their afflicted country at the expense of their lives. Gowgar was rather more harshly used than the rest. Some heads of an intended speech, written on a small slip of paper, having fallen out of his Bible in the council chamber, whither he had been taken just before being led to the gallows. After some of the councillors had read it, they ordered the executioner to tie his arms harder than usual, so that he could scarcely climb the ladder; and when he began to speak, the drums were immediately commanded to roll; nor would they even allow him to pray.
[133]. Murray had presented a petition to the Duke of York disowning king-killing principles, which concluded rather strangely, considering the person to whom it was addressed:—“For I declare I am no papist, and hate and abhor all these jesuitical, bloody, and murdering principles.” When this was read in council, Murray was asked who drew it, and with much difficulty was induced to name Mr Spreul. Spreul was thereupon immediately called, and being interrogated, asked to see the paper. This reasonable request was not complied with; but York rose and imperiously demanded—“Sir, would you kill the king?” Spreul, turning to the Chancellor, said—“My lord, I bless God I am no papist. I lothe and abhor all these jesuitical, bloody, and murdering principles; neither my parents nor the ministers I heard ever taught me such principles.” York frowned; and Spreul afterwards suffered for his freedom of speech, but Murray appears to have benefited by the business, for he was afterwards pardoned as being “misled rather than malicious.”
Adam Urquhart, laird of Meldrum, having been accused, and offered to be proved guilty of the most exorbitant oppression, the council, to mark their sense of such conduct, renewed his former commission with additional powers, for searching out and apprehending all who had not taken the bond, or who had been at Bothwell or harboured any who had been there. As a specimen of the manner in which such searches were carried on, I give the following:—Thomas Kennoway, one of the king’s guards, came to the parish of Livingstone with a party late on Saturday, 19th March, pretending that he had orders—for he produced none—to apprehend such as had been concerned in the Bothwell rising. Having tampered with the neighbours to procure a list of such as had been engaged, he at last obtained the name of one young man who lived with his father and brother in a small house near a moss, which the party entered; and after smashing and destroying the furniture, under pretence of searching for arms, Kennoway cursed the father for an old devil, and swore “he would hang him at the tae end of a tow an’ his son at the t’ither;” and carried them all off along with him. When they had marched some little way, Kennoway suffered the old man and one of his sons to return, and proceeded with the other to a hamlet at a considerable distance to search another suspected house. When he alighted here, he obliged his prisoner to take off his coat and cover his horse with it, in a cold stormy night, till the poor fellow could scarcely stand with shivering. The person they were in search of escaped out at a window in his shirt, and in this state ran nearly a mile before he obtained shelter. Meanwhile the party took away his father in his stead. They made a third attempt the same night upon a fresh steading, still dragging their captives along with them, but missed their prey.
Having spent the night in rioting, early on the Sabbath morning they came to Swine-abbey, a public-house properly so called, and having procured lights, “Kennoway,” says honest Wodrow, “swore bloodily he feared they had brought the wrong man;” and the prisoner peremptorily denying that he had been at Bothwell, two of the soldiers were despatched to bring “the old dog” and the other son. But by this time the young dog had got out of the way, and the old one, through terror and maltreatment, was so ill that he could neither ride nor walk. The troopers brought some women to bear witness to the fact, and also that the prisoner was not the person mentioned in their list. Chagrined at their disappointment, the valiant Kennoway and his party endeavoured to drown their mortification in “eight pints of wine and brandy, for which he swore the prisoners should pay.” Thus passed the Sabbath. On Monday he held a court, fined the old man in eight dollars, forced an heritor in West Calder to give him a bond for five hundred merks, and committed many other extravagances, of which the sufferers durst not complain, and for which there was no redress. The young man was allowed to depart; but in consequence of his harsh treatment, fevered, and died within a few days.
Such burlesque courts now became common with the military, who carried them to the most extravagant length. Cornet Graham, who appears to have infested several parishes, held one at Dalry in the beginning of the year, to which all men and women above the age of sixteen, were summoned. Those who appeared were ordered to declare upon oath whether they had ever been at any field-meetings or countenanced any who frequented them, and whether they were married or got any infants baptized by field-preachers. The infamous Grierson of Lag was also particularly active in holding others in Dumfries and Galloway, where great numbers of the inhabitants were put to much expense, besides loss of time and damage to their various occupations.