Morton was condemned for being ‘airt and part’[120] concerned in the murder of Darnley. He was more clearly an actor in the cruel slaughter of Riccio. After doing his best to insnare Mary into a marriage with Bothwell, he had headed a rebellion against her on hypocritical pretences. The extortions he had practised during his regency, in order to enrich himself, shewed an equally sordid and cruel character. Throughout all the time of his government, he had outraged decency by the grossness of his private life. Yet ‘he had great comfort that he died a Christian, in the true and sincere profession of religion, whilk he cravit all the faithful to follow, and abide thereat to the death.’—Moy. ‘He keepit the same countenance, gesture, and short sententious form of language upon the scaffold, whilk he usit in his princely government. He spake, led about and urgit by the commanders at the four nooks of the scaffold; but after that ance he had very fectfully[121] and gravely uttered, at guid length, that whilk he had to speak, thereafter almaist he altered not thir words: “It is for my sins that God has justly brought me to this place; for gif I had served my God as truly as I did my king, I had not come here. But as for that I am condemned for by men, I am innocent, as God knows. Pray for me.” ... I [am] content to have recordit the wark of God, whilk I saw with my ees and heard with my ears.’—Ja. Mel.
The Maiden.
‘After all was done, he went without fear and laid his neck upon the block, crying continually: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” till the axe of the Maiden—which he himself had caused make after the pattern which he had seen at Halifax in Yorkshire—falling upon his neck, put an end to his life and that note together. His body was carried to the Tolbooth, and buried secretly in the night in the Greyfriars. His head was affixed on the gate of the city.’—H. of G.
The Maiden, which still exists in the Museum of the Society of the Antiquaries of Scotland, is an instrument of the same nature as the guillotine, a loaded knife running in an upright frame, and descending upon a cross-beam, on which the neck of the culprit is laid. It is not unlikely that the ex-Regent introduced the Maiden; but another allegation, which asserts him to have been the first to suffer by it, is untrue.
At the death of Morton, the common people were much occupied in discussing a prophecy that the Bleeding Heart should fall by the Mouth of Arran. Morton, as a Douglas, bore the Bleeding Heart in his coat-armorial. Captain Stuart having been made Earl of Arran between the time of the accusation and the execution, here, said they, is the prediction realised, though what the Mouth of Arran meant it would have puzzled them to tell. It was probably to this unintelligible stanza in the prophecies of Merling that they referred:
In the mouth of Arran an selcouth[122] shall fall,
Two bloody harts shall be taken with a false train,
And derfly dung down without any dome,
Ireland, Orkney, and other lands many,