by John Galt
CHAPTER LXXXV
The meeting, with one accord, agreed that the declaration should goforth; and certain of those who were ready writers, being provided withimplements, retired apart to make copies, while Mr Renwick, with theremainder, joined together in prayer.
By the time he had made an end, the task of the writers was finished,and then lots were cast to see whom the Lord would appoint to affix thedeclaration on the trones and kirk doors of the towns where the rage ofthe persecutors burnt the fiercest, and He being pleased to choose mefor one to do the duty at Edinburgh, I returned in the gloaming back tothe house of Mrs Brownlee, to abide the convenient season which I knewin the fit time would be prepared. Nor was it long till the same wasbrought to pass, as I shall now briefly proceed to set down.
Heron Brownlee, who, as I have narrated, brought me to his mother'shouse, was by trade a tailor, and kept his cloth shop in the Canongate,some six doors lower down than St Mary's Wynd, just after passing theflesher's stocks below the Netherbow; for in those days, when the courtwas at Holyrood, that part of the town was a place of great resort tothe gallants, and all such as affected a courtly carriage. And ithappened that, on the morning after the meeting, a proclamation was sentforth, describing the persons and clothing of the prisoners who hadescaped from the tolbooth with me, threatening grievous penalties to allwho dared to harbour them. This Heron Brownlee seeing affixed on thecheek of the Netherbow, came and told me; whereupon, after conferringwith him, it was agreed that he should provide for me a suit oftown-like clothes, and at the second-hand, that they might not causeobservance by any novelty. This was in another respect needful; for myhealth being in a frail state, I stood in want of the halesome cordialof fresh air, whereof I could not venture to taste but in the dusk ofthe evening.
He accordingly provided the apparel, and when clothed therewith, I madebold to go out in the broad daylight, and even ventured to mingle withthe multitude in the garden of the palace, who went daily there in theafternoon to see the nobles and ladies of the court walking with theirpageantries, while the Duke's musicants solaced them with melodious airsand the delights of sonorous harmony. And it happened on the third timeI went thither, that a cry rose of the Duke coming from the garden tothe palace, and all the onlookers pressed to see him.
As he advanced, I saw several persons presenting petitions into hishands, which he gave, without then looking at, to the Lord Perth, whom Iknew again by his voice; and I was directed, as by a thought ofinspiration, to present, in like manner, a copy of our declaration,which I always carried about with me; so placing myself among a crowd ofpetitioners, onlookers and servants, that formed an avenue across theroad leading from the Canongate to the Abbey kirk-yard, and between thegarden yett and the yett that opened into the front court of the palace.As the Duke returned out of the garden, I gave him the paper; butinstead of handing it to the Lord Perth, as I had hoped he would do, heheld it in his own hand, by which I perceived that if he had noticed bywhom it was presented, and looked at it before he went into the palace,I would speedily be seized on the spot, unless I could accomplish myescape.
But how to effect that was no easy thing; for the multitude around wasvery great, and but three narrow yetts allowed of egress from theenclosure--one leading into the garden, one to the palace, and the otherinto the Canongate. I therefore calmly put my trust in Him who alonecould save me, and remained, as it were, an indifferent spectator,following the Duke with an anxious eye.
Having passed from the garden into the court, the multitude followed himwith great eagerness, and I also went in with them, and walked verydeliberately across the front of the palace to the south-east corner,where there was a postern door that opened into the road leading to theKing's park from the Cowgate-port, along the outside of the town wall. Ithen mended my pace, but not to any remarkable degree, and so returnedto the house of Mrs Brownlee.
Scarcely was I well in, when Heron, her son, came flying to her with areport that a man was seized in the palace garden who had threatened theDuke's life, and he was fearful lest it had been me; and I was muchgrieved by these tidings, in case any honest man should be put to thetorture on my account; but the Lord had mercifully ordained itotherwise.
In the course of the night Heron Brownlee, after closing his shop, cameagain and told me that no one had been taken, but that some person inthe multitude had given the Duke a dreadful paper, which had causedgreat consternation and panic; and that a council was sitting at thatlate hour with the Duke, expresses having arrived with accounts of thesame paper having been seen on the doors of many churches, both inNithsdale and the shire of Ayr. The alarm, indeed, raged to such adegree among all those who knew in their consciences how they meritedthe doom we had pronounced, that it was said the very looks of many werewithered as with a pestilent vapour.
Yet, though terrified at the vengeance declared against their guilt,neither the Duke nor the Privy Council were to be deterred from theirmalignant work. The curse of infatuation was upon them, and instead ofchanging the rule which had caused the desperation that they dreaded,they heated the furnace of persecution sevenfold; and voted, Thatwhosoever owned or refused to disown the declaration should be put todeath in the presence of two witnesses, though unarmed when taken; andthe soldiers were not only ordered to enforce the test, but wereinstructed to put such as adhered to the declaration at once to thesword, and to slay those who refused to disown it; and women wereordered to be drowned. But my pen sickens with the recital of horrors,and I shall pass by the dreadful things that ensued, with only remarkingthat these bloody instructions consummated the doom of the Stuarts; forscarcely were they well published when the Duke hastened to London, andsoon after his man-sworn brother, Charles, the great author of all ourwoes, was cut off by poison, as it was most currently believed, and theDuke proclaimed King in his stead. What change we obtained by thecalamity of his accession will not require many sentences to unfold.