"I fancy, my Lord, we must consider this as an admission that the killing of the Archbishop was murder."
"I fear," said his Lordship, "that neither of the two questions have been so directly put as to justify me to pronounce any decision, though I am willing to put the most favourable construction on what has passed." And then his Lordship, looking to me, added,—
"Do you consider the late rebellion, being contrary to the King's authority, rebellion?"
"Contrary to the King's right authority," replied I, "it was not rebellion; but contrary to an authority beyond the right taken by him, despite the law of God, it was rebellion."
"Wherefore, honest man," rejoined his Lordship kindly, "would you make a distinction that may bring harm on your own head? Is not the King's authority instituted by law and prerogative, and knowing that, cannot ye say that those who rise in arms against it are rebels?"
"My Lord," said I, "you have my answer; for in truth and in conscience I can give none other."
There was a pause for a short space, and one of the clerks looking to Lord Kelburne, his Lordship said, with a plain reluctance, "It must even be so; write down that he is not clear the late rebellion should be called a rebellion;" and casting his eyes entreatingly towards me, he added, "But I think you acknowledge that the assassination of Archbishop Sharp was a murder?"
"My Lord," said I, "your questions are propounded as tests and therefore, as an honest man, I cannot suffer that my answers should be scant, lest I might be thought to waver in faith and was backward in my testimony. No, my Lord, I will not call the killing of Sharp murder; for on my conscience, I do verily think he deserved the death: First, because of his apostacy; second, because of the laws of which he was the instigator, whereby the laws of God have been contravened; and, third, for the woes that those laws have brought upon the land, the which stirred the hearts of the people against him. Above all, I think his death was no murder, because he was so strong in his legalities, that he could not be brought to punishment by those to whom he had caused the greatest wrong;" and I thought, in saying these words, of my brother's desolated daughter—of his own sad death in the stormy seas of the Orkneys—and of my brave and gallant Michael, that was lying in his shroudless grave in the cold clay of Bothwell.
Lord Kelburne was troubled at my answer, and was about to remonstrate; but seeing the tear start into my eye as those things came into my mind, he said nothing, but nodding to the clerk, he bade him write down that I would not acknowledge the killing of the Archbishop a murder. He then rose and adjourned the court, remanding me to prison, saying that he would send me word what would be the extent of my punishment.