Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/144

204 the same treatment the king holding them both by their throats, and with such a powerful grasp, that they bore marks of the violence for a month afterwards. The unfortunate monarch now endeavoured to wrest their knives from the assassins, and in the attempt had his hands severely cut and mangled.

Sir Robert Graham, who had hitherto been merely looking on, now seeinw that the Halls could not accomplish the murder of the king, also descended, and with a drawn sword in his hand. Unable to cope with them all, and exhausted with the fearful struggle which he had maintained with the two assassins, weaponless and disabled in his hands, the king implored Graham for mercy. "Cruel tyrant," replied the regicide, "thou hadst never mercy on thy kindred nor on others who fell within thy power, and therefore, thou shalt have no mercy from me." "Then I beseech thee, for the salvation of my soul, that thou wilt permit me to have a confessor," said the miserable prince. "Thou shalt have no confessor but the sword," replied Graham, thrusting his victim through the body with his weapon. The king fell, but the stroke was not instantly fatal. He continued in the most piteous tones to supplicate mercy from his murderer, offering him half his kingdom if he would but spare his life. The heart-rending appeals of the hapless monarch shook even Graham's resolution, and he was about to desist from doing him further injury, when his intentions being per- ceived by the conspirators from above, they called out to him that if he did not complete the deed, he should himself suffer death at their hands. Urged on by this threat, the three assassins again attacked the king, and finally despatched him, having inflicted sixteen deadly wounds on his chest, besides others on different parts of his body. As if every circumstance which could facilitate his death had conspired to secure that event, it happened that the king, some days before he was murdered, had directed that an aperture in the place where he had concealed himself, and by which he might have escaped, should be built up, as the balls with which he played at tennis in the court yard were apt to be lost in it. After completing the murder of the king, the assassins sought for the queen, whom, dreading her vengeance, they proposed to put also to death; but she had escaped. A rumour of the tragical scene that was enacting at the monastery having spread through the town, great numbers of the citizens and of the king's servants, with arms and torches hastened to the spot, but too late, to the assistance of the murdered monarch. The conspirators, however, all escaped for the time, excepting one, who was killed by Sir David Dunbar, who had himself three fingers cut off in the contest. This brave knight had alone attacked the flying conspirators, but was overpowered and left disabled.

In less than a month, such was the activity of the queen's vengeance, all the principal actors in this appalling tragedy were in custody, and were afterwards put to the most horrible deaths. Stuart and Chambers, who were the first taken, were drawn, hanged, and quartered, having been previously lacerated all over with sharp instruments. Graham was carried through the streets of Edinburgh in a cart, in a state of perfect nudity, with his right hand nailed to an upright post, and surrounded with men, who, with sharp hooks and knives, and red hot irons, kept constantly tearing at and burning his miserable body, until he was completely covered with wounds. Having undergone this, he was again thrown into prison, and on the following day brought out to execution. The wretched man had, when released from his tortures, wrapped himself in a coarse woollen Scottish plaid, which adhering to his wounds, caused him much pain in the removal. When this operation was performed, and it was done with no gentle hand, the miserable sufferer fainted, and fell to the ground with the agony. On recovering, which he did not do for nearly a quarter of an hour, he said to those around him, that the rude manner in which the mantle had