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answer that he had committed the adminis tration of justice to the assize, and called on them to proceed in their duty. Of course this was a preposterous evasion, seeing how very often the Crown intervened to command that a case should be " continewit " to some future day. Accordingly, the jury recorded a verdict of guilty, acting, let it be hoped, ac cording to their lights, though the sentence that followed seems as revolting an injustice as ever was perpetrated. Janet, Lady Glamis, was pronounced forfeited in life, lands, and goods, and it was decreed that " scho sail be had to Castell hill of Eclinburghe, and thair brynt in ane fyre to the deid [burnt to death in a fire] as ane Traytour." That this inhuman doom was literally ful filled is testified in the record by the laconic comment — combusta. Sir Thomas Clifford, reporting the cir cumstance to his master, Henry VIII., added the remark that Lady Glamis had been con demned, "as I can perceyve, without any substancial! ground or proyf of mattir." No doubt the entire public of Edinburgh and Forfarshire "perceyved" the same thing. The marvel is, how any social fabric could survive and recover from a system of admin istration compared with which the policy of any Oriental despot seems frank and toler able. Then, as if anything was wanted to com plete the horror of the story, Campbell of Skipness, husband of Lady Glamis, who was a prisoner in Edinburgh Castle, must needs try and escape. " Thinking to brek waird and come away be ane tow [by a rope], the same was schort : he fell and brak all his banes, and died." (Anderson's MS. History of Scotland.) In the same letter to King Henry, Clif ford was in a position to report another act in the Douglas tragedy. John, Master of Forbes, had married a sister of Lady Glamis and the Earl of Angus, and thus allied him self with the Douglas brood. A charge was fabricated against him of "committing art

and part of the tressonable conspiratioune and abhomynabill ymaginatioun of the Slauchter and distructioune of oure soverane lordis maist nobill personne be schott of culwering (culverin)," and of conspiring with the Eng lish. He was convicted, and beheaded on the Castle Hill four clays before Lady Glamis suffered. These bloody proceedings sufficed not to slake the Red Tod's thirst for ven geance. The young Lord Glamis, a boy of tender years, was arraigned eight days after his mother's death on a charge of having concealed his knowledge of her intention to poison the King. Incredible as it may seem, the Justiciar General and an assize of fifteen nobles and gentlemen convicted him, and sentenced him to be hanged " and demanyt [treated] as ane traytour." The sentence was not carried into effect, but the lad was kept a close prisoner, together with his brother, George Lyon,1 during the remainder of this wretched Monarch's life. If anything were wanting to reveal the secret motive in this persecution of the Douglases, it is sup plied by the fact that the priest, John Lyon, apprehended as Lady Glamis's accomplice, was allowed to go free. He had no taint of Douglas blood in his veins. King James died in 1542, broken-hearted, it is said, by the disgraceful rout at Solway Moss, and young Lord Glamis was set at liberty, his forfeiture was rescinded by Parliament, I5th March, 1543, and the Act of restoration exposes the whole atrocity of the proceedings against himself and his mother. It recites how the boy, having been imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle, " destitute of all consale of his frendis," was forced to witness the torture of certain prisoners on the rack, and threatened 'with like torments if he refused to confess what was dictated to him. That, further, the Lord Justice Clerk, and other "familiaris" of the late King, assured him that 1 George his life Lyon and wasproperty not tried, would nor is his be name safe, promen tioned in any Peerage, but he was in ward with his elder brother on January 18, 1543.