much composure and firmness.

He declared that he died a sincere Catholic; that his intention had been what he believed best for his country; that he died in charity with all, even with those of the Government who had been most forward for his death.

It is recorded that on trying his neck upon the block he found a rough place which hurt his chin, and quietly asked the headsman to chip off the projection with his axe before he laid him down to receive the blow. He desired the man to strike when he should hear him say "Lord Jesus, receive my soul;" and taking off his coat and waistcoat, placed his neck carefully on the block, and then giving the signal, one blow caused his head to roll on the scaffold.

Lord Kenmure then ascended the platform, and, behaving with the same courage and resolution as his friend, made a declaration to the same purport; but added that he regretted having admitted himself guilty on his trial, and offered a short prayer for King James III. It was not till the second stroke that his head fell; but the first had probably extinguished all sensation.

Lord Wintoun contrived to retard his trial by various pretexts and delays; when at last these resources were exhausted, he declared that he had witnesses in his favour who were retarded by the badness of the roads from Scotland.

With the injustice usual in trials for treason at that time, no counsel was allowed him, against which hard rule he urgently but vainly remonstrated. Lord Cowper, the High Steward, having checked him with some harsh

ness, he said, "I hope, my Lord, you will give me justice, and not make use of Cowper-Law, as we used to say in Scotland-hang a man first and then judge him."

He was found guilty, and sent back to await his doom in the Tower; but the same cunning and shrewdness which had enabled him to stave off his trial, stood him in such good stead, that shortly before the day fixed for his execution he managed to escape from prison, and, being well seconded by friends of the cause in London, was conveyed safely to the Continent. or tradition, of the manner of Lord Wintoun's escape; though it was probably even more difficult to accomplish than that of Lord Nithisdale, from the better precautions we may suppose to have been adopted in the Tower to prevent escape of State prisoners.

There is no record,

L

EXECUTION OF REBEL LORDS OF 1745.

HE last occasion on which the headsman's block, still preserved in the Tower, was used for its dreadful purpose, was the exe

cution of the celebrated Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, for the part taken by him in the Rebellion of '45. The three other Lords sentenced for their part in the same rebellion had given little trouble at their trials. The Earls of Cromarty and Kilmarnock, seeing the strength of the evidence about to be brought against them, pleaded guilty at once, and humbly entreated that their lives might be spared. Cromarty pathetically appealed to the Lords on the plea of his unhappy wife and eight children; Kilmarnock appealed for mercy on grounds which seem far more extraordinary, for he attributed to the excellent principles of loyalty, in which he had educated his eldest son, that the young man had actually fought against him on the Royal side at Culloden! and argued that this fact should be considered in his own favour.

Cromarty received a pardon, but Kilmarnock was ordered for execution.

Balmerino, a man of high spirit, and convinced in