1613.
After the treacherous slaughter of the Laird of Johnston in 1608, Lord Maxwell was so hotly prosecuted by the state-officers, as to be compelled to leave his country. His Good-night, a pathetic ballad, in which he takes leave of his lady and friends, is printed in the Border Minstrelsy: afterwards, he returned to Scotland, but could not shew himself in public. A succession of skulking adventures ended in his being treacherously given up to justice by his relative, the Earl of Caithness; and he was, without loss of time, beheaded at the Cross of Edinburgh—the sole noble victim to justice out of many of his order who, during the preceding thirty years, had deserved such a fate.
May 21.
When informed by the magistrates of the city that they had got orders for his execution, he professed submission to the will of God and the king, but declined the attendance of any ministers, as he adhered to the ancient religion. ‘It being foreseen by the bailies and others that gif he sould at his death enter in any discourse of that subject before the people, it might breed offence and sclander, he was desirit, and yielded to bind himself by promise, to forbear at his death all mention of his particular opinion of religion, except the profession of Christianity; which he sinsyne repented, as he declared to the bailies, when they were bringing him to the scaffold.’ On the scaffold, the unfortunate noble expressed his hope that the king would restore the family inheritance to his brother. He likewise ‘asked forgiveness of the Laird of Johnston, his mother, grandmother, and friends, acknowledging the wrong and harm done to them, with protestation that it was without dishonour for the worldly part of it.... Then he retired himself near the block, and made his prayers to God; which being ended, he took leave of his friends and of the bailies of the town, and, suffering his eyes to be covered with ane handkerchief, offered his head to the axe.’[348]
Thus at length ended the feud between the Johnstons and Maxwells, after, as has been remarked, causing the deaths of two chiefs of each house.
Aug.
1613.
Edward Lord Bruce of Kinloss lost his life in a duel fought near Bergen-op-zoom with Sir Edward Sackville, afterwards Earl of Dorset. They were gay young men, living a life of pleasure in London, and in good friendship with each other, when some occurrence, arising out of their pleasures, divided them in an irremediable quarrel. Clarendon states that on Sackville’s part the cause was ‘unwarrantable.’ Lord Kinloss, in his challenge, reveals to us that they had shaken hands after the first offence, but with this remarkable expression on his own part, that he reserved the heart for a truer reconciliation. Afterwards, in France, Kinloss learned that Sackville spoke injuriously of him, and immediately wrote to propose a hostile meeting. ‘Be master,’ he said, ‘of your own weapons and time; the place wheresoever I will wait on you. By doing this, you will shorten revenge, and clear the idle opinion the world hath of both our worths.’
Sackville received this letter at his father-in-law’s house, in Derbyshire, and he lost no time in establishing himself, with his friend, Sir John Heidon, at Tergoso, in Zealand, where he wrote to Lord Kinloss, that he would wait for his arrival. The other immediately proceeded thither, accompanied by an English gentleman named Crawford, who was to act as his second; also by a surgeon and a servant. They met, accompanied by their respective friends, at a spot near Bergen-op-Zoom, ‘where but a village divides the States’ territories from the archduke’s ... to the end that, having ended, he that could, might presently exempt himself from the justice of the country by retiring into the dominion not offended.’