The Earl of Cromarty, with better claims to mercy, also petitioned the king. In support of this application the countess waited upon the lords of the cabinet council, and presented a petition to each of them; and, on the Sunday following the sentence, she went to Kensington-palace in deep mourning, accompanied by Lady Stair, to intercede with his majesty in behalf of her husband. She was a woman of great strength of mind, and though far advanced in pregnancy, had hitherto displayed surprising fortitude; but on the present trying occasion she gave way to grief. She took her station in the entrance through which the king was to pass to chapel, and when he approached she fell upon her knees, seized him by the coat, and presented her supplication, fainted away at his feet. The king immediately raised her up, and taking the petition, gave it in charge of the Duke of Grafton, one of his attendants. He then desired Lady Stair to conduct her to one of the apartments. The Dukes of Hamilton and Montrose, the Earl of Stair and other courtiers, backed these petitions for the royal mercy by a personal application to the king, who granted a pardon to the earl on the 9th of August.
The high-minded Balmerino disdained to compromise his principles by suing for pardon, and when he heard that his fellow-prisoners had applied for mercy, he sarcastically remarked, that as they must have great interest at court, they might have squeezed his name in with their own. From the time of his sentence down to his execution, he showed no symptoms of fear. He never entertained any hopes of pardon, for he said he considered his case desperate, as he had been once pardoned before. When Lady Balmerino expressed her great concern for the approaching fate of her Lord, he said, “Grieve not, my dear Peggy, we must all die once, and this is but a few years very likely before my death must have happened some other way: therefore, wipe away your tears; you may marry again, and get a better husband.” About a week after his sentence a gentleman went to see him, and apologising for intruding upon him when he had such a short time to live, his lordship replied, “Oh! Sir, no intrusion at all: I have done nothing to make my conscience uneasy. I shall die with a true heart, and undaunted; for I think no man fit to live who is not fit to die; nor am I any ways concerned at what I have done.” Being asked a few days before his execution in what manner he would go to the scaffold, he answered, “I will go in the regimentals which I wore when I was first taken, with a woollen shirt next my skin, which will serve me instead of a shroud to be buried in.” Being again asked why he would not have a new suit of black, he replied, “It would be thought very imprudent in a man to repair an old house when the lease of it was near expiring; and the lease of my life expires next Monday.” The king could not but admire the high bearing and manly demeanour of this unfortunate nobleman; and when the friends of the other prisoners were making unceasing applications to him for mercy, he said, “Does nobody intercede for poor Balmerino? He, though a rebel, is at least an honest man.” According to Walpole, Balmerino was “jolly with his pretty Peggy” almost to the very last.
On the 11th of August an order was signed in council for the execution of the Earl of Kilmarnock and Lord Balmerino, and on the 12th two writs passed the great seal, empowering the constable of the Tower to deliver their bodies to the sheriffs of London, for execution on Monday the 18th. The order for their execution on the 18th of August having been announced to the unfortunate noblemen by Mr. Foster, a dissenting clergyman, Lord Kilmarnock received the intelligence with all the composure of a man resigned to his fate, but at the same time with a deep feeling of concern for his future state. Balmerino, who perhaps had as strong a sense of religion as Kilmarnock, received the news with the utmost unconcern. He and his lady were sitting at dinner when the warrant arrived, and, being informed of it, her ladyship started up from the table and fainted away. His lordship raised her up, and, after she had recovered, he requested her to resume her seat at table and finish her dinner.
On the Saturday preceding the execution, General Williamson, at Kilmarnock’s desire, as is supposed, gave him a minute detail of all the circumstances of solemnity and outward terror which would accompany it.
Balmerino was not actuated with the same feeling of curiosity as Kilmarnock was to know the circumstances which would attend his execution, but awaited his fate with the indifference of a martyr desirous of sealing his faith with his blood. The following letter, written by him on the eve of his execution, to the Chevalier de St. George, strikingly exemplifies the cool intrepidity of the man, and the sterling honesty with which he adhered to his principles:—
“Sir,—You may remember that, in the year 1716, when your Majesty was in Scotland, I left a company of foot, purely with a design to serve your Majesty, and, had I not made my escape then, I should certainly have been shot for a deserter.
“When I was abroad I lived many years at my own charges before I ask’d any thing from you, being unwilling to trouble your Majesty while I had any thing of my own to live upon, and when my father wrote me that he had a remission for me, which was got without my asking or knowledge, I did not accept of it till I first had your Majesty’s permission. Sir, when His Royal Highness the Prince, your son, came to Edinburgh, as it was my bounden and indispensable duty, I joyn’d him, for which I am to-morrow to lose my head on a scaffold, whereat I am so far from being dismayed, that it gives me great satisfaction and peace of mind that I die in so righteous a cause. I hope, Sir, on these considerations, your Majesty will provide for my wife so as she may not want bread, which otherwise she must do, my brother having left more debt on the estate than it was worth, and having nothing in the world to give her. I am, with the most profound respect, Sir, your Majesty’s most faithful and devoted subject and servant,
“Balmerino.”[1287]
“Tower of London, }
17th August, 1746.” }
On Monday, the 18th of August, great preparations were made on Tower-hill for the execution. At ten o’clock the block was fixed on the stage, covered with black cloth, and several sacks of sawdust were provided to be strewed upon the scaffold. Soon after the two coffins were brought and placed upon the scaffold. Upon Kilmarnock’s coffin was a plate with this inscription, “Gulielmus Comes de Kilmarnock, decollatus 18º Augusti, 1746, ætat. suæ 42,” with an earl’s coronet over it, and six coronets over the six handles. The plate on Balmerino’s coffin bore this inscription, “Arthurus Dominus de Balmerino, decollatus 18º Augusti, 1746, ætat. suæ 58,” surmounted by a baron’s coronet, and with six others over the handles.