‘He continued a while upon his knees at prayer, with a cold devotion; and when the hour of execution approached, his hands being tied by the executioner, his spirits were perceived much to fail him. In going towards the scaffold, the throng of people was great, and he seemed much amazed; and when he was up, Master Robert Scott and Mr William Struthers, ministers, very gravely and Christianly exhorted him to a humble acknowledgment of his offence, and if anything troubled his mind, to disburden his conscience. In matters of religion, they said, they would not then enter, but prayed him to resolve and settle his mind, and seek mercy and grace from God through Jesus Christ, in whom only salvation is to be found. Ogilvie answered that “he was prepared and resolved.” Once he said that he died for religion, but uttered this so weakly as scarce to be heard by them that stood by on the scaffold. Then addressing himself to execution, he kneeled at the ladder-foot, and prayed. Master Robert Scott, in that while, declaring to the people, that his suffering was not for any matter of religion, but for heinous treason against his majesty, which he prayed God to forgive him. Ogilvie, hearing this, said: “He doeth me wrong.” One called John Abercrombie, a man of little wit, replied: “No matter, John, the more wrongs the better.” This man was seen to attend him carefully, and was ever heard asking of Ogilvie some token before his death; for which, and other business he made with him, he was put off the scaffold.
‘Ogilvie, ending his prayer, arose to go up the ladder; but strength and courage, to the admiration of those who had seen him before, did quite forsake him. He trembled and shaked, saying he would fall, and could hardly be helped up on the top of the ladder. He kissed the hangman, and said: “Maria, Mater gratiae, ora pro me; Omnes Angeli, orate pro me; Omnes Sancti, Sanctaeque, orate pro me!” but with so low a voice that they which stood at the ladder-foot had some difficulty to hear him.
‘The executioner willed him to commend his soul to God, pronouncing these words unto him: “Say, John, Lord have mercy on me, Lord receive my soul!” which he did, with such feebleness of voice, that scarce could he be heard. Then he was turned off, and hung till he was dead.’[357]
1615.
This hanging would of course have procured some popularity for the king and bishops, if it had proceeded from the right motive. But the people saw that no gratitude was really due. ‘Some,’ says Calderwood, ‘interpreted this execution to have proceeded rather of a care to bless the king’s government, than of any sincere hatred of the popish religion. Some [alleged] that it was done to be a terror to the sincerer sort of the ministry, not to decline the king’s authority in ony cause whatever.’
Mar.
There was believed to be at this time an unusual number of Jesuits and seminary priests in Scotland, ‘pressing by all means possible to subvert the true religion.’ The kirk launched a fast at them, and ordered a general celebration of ‘the holie communion’ for discovery of all recusants. In Aberdeen, the elders subsequently reported three men and two women as having been absent on this occasion. Such persons were proceeded against, so as to force them, if possible, into conformity, in which case each person was expected to come forward publicly, and declare, ‘for the peace of my own conscience,’ I do, ‘by my own free choice and voluntary consent, renounce all the errors and superstitions of popery,’ and profess, ‘in the true simplicity of my heart,’ that ‘I shall own and maintain all the doctrines of the true Reformed Protestant Religion, and shall adhere to the whole worship and discipline thereof to my life’s end.’[358] In the present case, four persons remained recusant, and actually were excommunicated in the ensuing January; thus, in fact, losing all privileges as subjects of the realm.
1615.
On the 14th of August, three citizens of Edinburgh, named Sinclair, Wilkie, and Cruikshanks, all men in respectable circumstances, were tried for the crime of entertaining in their houses three Jesuits or trafficking priests, including the unfortunate John Ogilvie. Sinclair confessed to having reset Mr James Moffat in the preceding October, but said he did it ‘only upon simplicity.’ The three men were condemned to be executed as traitors; and, as if to shew the certainty of their doom, a special order from the king was read in court for proceeding to both sentence and execution. The zealous multitude were accordingly in full hope of the punishment being inflicted; but there was no earnestness in the government in these proceedings. Let Calderwood tell the remainder of the tale. ‘The day following [the trial], betwixt four and five in the afternoon, they were brought furth with their hands bound, to the scaffold set up beside the cross and a gallows in it, according to the custom of execution. While a great multitude of people were going to see the execution, there was a warrant presented to the magistrates of Edinburgh to stay the execution. So they were turned back again to their wards. The people thought this form of dealing rather mockery than punishment.’