While Wallace calmed his impatient spirit, and sat down to hatch a plot with his brother conspirators, a strange scene was enacting in the Council Chamber, where the perjured prelates and peers were in the habit of practising cruelty, oppression, and gross injustice under the name of law.
They sat beside a table which was covered with books and parchments. In front of them, seated on a chair with his arms pinioned, was Andrew Black. His face was pale and had a careworn look, but he held his head erect, and regarded his judges with a look of stern resolution that seemed to exasperate them considerably. On the table lay a pair of brass-mounted thumbscrews, and beside them the strange-looking instrument of torture called the boot. In regard to these machines there is a passage in the Privy Council Records which gives an idea of the spirit of the age about which we write. It runs thus: “Whereas the boots were the ordinary way to explicate matters relating to the Government, and there is now a new invention and engine called the Thumbkins, which will be very effectual to the purpose aforesaid, the Lords ordain that when any person shall by their order be put to the torture, the said boots and thumbkins be applied to them, as it shall be found fit and convenient.”
Lauderdale on this occasion found it fit and convenient to apply the torture to another man in the presence of Black, in order that the latter might fully appreciate what he had to expect if he should remain contumacious. The poor man referred to had not been gifted with a robust frame or a courageous spirit. When asked, however, to reveal the names of some comrades who had accompanied him to a field-preaching he at first loyally and firmly refused to do so. Then the boot was applied. It was a wooden instrument which enclosed the foot and lower limb of the victim. Between it and the leg a wedge was inserted which, when struck repeatedly, compressed the limb and caused excruciating agony. In some cases this torture was carried so far that it actually crushed the bone, causing blood and marrow to spout forth. It was so in the case of that well-known martyr of the Covenant, Hugh McKail, not long before his execution.
The courage of the poor man of whom we now write gave way at the second stroke of the mallet, and, at the third, uttering a shriek of agony, he revealed, in short gasps, the names of all the comrades he could recall. Let us not judge him harshly until we have undergone the same ordeal with credit! A look of intense pity overspread the face of Andrew Black while this was going on. His broad chest heaved, and drops of perspiration stood on his brow. He had evidently forgotten himself in his strong sympathy with the unhappy martyr. When the latter was carried out, in a half fainting condition, he turned to Lauderdale, and, frowning darkly, said—
“Thou meeserable sinner, cheeld o’ the deevil, an’ enemy o’ a’ righteousness, div ’ee think that your blood-stained haund can owerturn the cause o’ the Lord?”
This speech was received with a flush of anger, quickly followed by a supercilious smile.
“We shall see. Get the boot ready there. Now, sir,” (turning to Black), “answer promptly—Will you subscribe the oath of the King’s supremacy?”
“No—that I wull not. I acknowledge nae king ower my conscience but the King o’ Kings. As for that perjured libertine on the throne, for whom there’s muckle need to pray, I tell ye plainly that I consider the freedom and welfare o’ Scotland stands higher than the supposed rights o’ king and lords. Ye misca’ us rebels! If ye ken the history o’ yer ain country—whilk I misdoot—ye would ken that the Parliaments o’ baith Scotland an’ England have laid it doon, in declaration and in practice, that resistance to the exercise o’ arbitrary power is lawfu’, therefore resistance to Chairles and you, his shameless flunkeys, is nae mair rebellion than it’s rebellion in a cat to flee in the face o’ a bull-doug that wants to worry her kittens. Against the tyrant that has abused his trust, an’ upset oor constitution, an’ broken a’ the laws o’ God and man, I count it to be my bounden duty to fecht wi’ swurd an’ lip as lang’s I hae an airm to strike an’ a tongue to wag. Noo, ye may dae yer warst!”
At a signal the executioner promptly fitted the boot to the bold man’s right leg.
Black’s look of indignant defiance passed away, and was replaced by an expression of humility that, strangely enough, seemed rather to intensify than diminish his air of fixed resolve. While the instrument of torture was being arranged he turned his face to the Bishop of Galloway, who sat beside Lauderdale silently and sternly awaiting the result, and with an almost cheerful air and quiet voice said—