Then place my parboiled head upon a stake;
Scatter my ashes, strow them in the air.
Lord, since thou knowest where all these atoms are,
I’m hopeful thou’lt recover once my dust,
And confident thou’lt raise me with the just.”
On the morning of the 21st of May, 1650, the city of Edinburgh was put into a state of commotion by the noise of drums and trumpets, which was heard in every quarter of the city. The sound attracted the notice of Montrose, who inquired at the captain of the guard the cause of it. The officer told him that the parliament, dreading that an attempt might be made by the mob, under the influence of the malignants, to rescue him, had given orders to call out the soldiers and citizens to arms. “Do I,” said the marquis, “who was such a terror to these good men when alive, continue still so formidable to them, now that I am about to die? But let them look to themselves; for even after I am dead, I will be continually present to their wicked consciences, and become more formidable to them than while I was alive.”
After partaking of a hearty breakfast, Montrose entered upon the business of the toilet, to which he paid particular attention. While in the act of combing his hair, he was visited by Sir Archibald Johnston, the clerk-register, one of his most inveterate foes, who made some remarks on the impropriety, as he thought, of a person in the dreadful situation of the marquis, occupying some of the precious moments he had yet to live in frivolous attentions to his person. The marquis, who knew well the character of this morose man, thus addressed him with a smile of contempt, “While my head is my own, I will dress and adorn it; but to-morrow, when it becomes yours, you may treat it as you please.”
About an hour before the time fixed for his execution, Montrose was waited upon by the magistrates of the city, who saw him conveyed to the scaffold on the same vehicle on which he had been carried into the city. In addition to the dress which he wore on that occasion, he was now habited in a superb scarlet cloak, ornamented with gold and silver lace, which his friends had provided him with. Long before his removal from prison, an immense assemblage of persons had congregated around the place of execution in the High-street, all of whom were deeply affected on Montrose’s appearance. As he proceeded along, he had, says Wishart, “such a grand air, and so much beauty, majesty, and gravity appeared in his countenance, as shocked the whole city at the cruelty that was designed him; and extorted even from his enemies this unwilling confession, that he was a man of the most lofty and elevated soul, and of the most unshaken constancy and resolution that the age had produced.”
It had always been the uniform practice in Scotland to permit all persons about to suffer the last penalty of the law to address the assembled spectators, and on mounting the scaffold Montrose was proceeding to avail himself of this privilege; but the magistrates, who probably had received their instructions from the parliament, refused to allow him to harangue the multitude. His friends, however, anticipating this, had hired a young man, skilled in stenography, who, having stationed himself near the scaffold, was enabled to take down the substance of some observations which Montrose was permitted to make in answer to questions put by some persons who surrounded him.
He began by remarking that he would consider it extremely hard indeed if the mode of his death should be esteemed any reflection upon him, or prove offensive to any good Christian, seeing that such occurrences often happened to the good at the hands of the wicked, and often to the wicked at the hands of the good—and that just men sometimes perish in their righteousness, while wicked men prosper in their villanies. That he, therefore, expected that those who knew him well would not esteem him the less for his present sufferings, especially as many greater and more deserving men than he had undergone the same untimely and disgraceful fate. Yet, that he could not but acknowledge that all the judgments of God were just, and that the punishment he was about to suffer was very deservedly inflicted upon him for the many private sins he had committed, and he therefore willingly submitted to it;—that he freely pardoned his enemies, whom he reckoned but the instruments of the Divine will, and prayed to God to forgive them, although they had oppressed the poor, and perverted judgment and justice.