The meeting, with one accord, agreed that the declaration should go
forth; and certain of those who were ready writers, being provided with
implements, retired apart to make copies, while Mr Renwick, with the
remainder, 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 the
declaration on the trones and kirk doors of the towns where the rage of
the persecutors burnt the fiercest, and He being pleased to choose me
for one to do the duty at Edinburgh, I returned in the gloaming back to
the house of Mrs Brownlee, to abide the convenient season which I knew
in the fit time would be prepared. Nor was it long till the same was
brought to pass, as I shall now briefly proceed to set down.
Heron Brownlee, who, as I have narrated, brought me to his mother's
house, 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 the
flesher's stocks below the Netherbow; for in those days, when the court
was at Holyrood, that part of the town was a place of great resort to
the gallants, and all such as affected a courtly carriage. And it
happened that, on the morning after the meeting, a proclamation was sent
forth, describing the persons and clothing of the prisoners who had
escaped from the tolbooth with me, threatening grievous penalties to all
who dared to harbour them. This Heron Brownlee seeing affixed on the
cheek of the Netherbow, came and told me; whereupon, after conferring
with him, it was agreed that he should provide for me a suit of
town-like clothes, and at the second-hand, that they might not cause
observance by any novelty. This was in another respect needful; for my
health being in a frail state, I stood in want of the halesome cordial
of fresh air, whereof I could not venture to taste but in the dusk of
the evening.
He accordingly provided the apparel, and when clothed therewith, I made
bold to go out in the broad daylight, and even ventured to mingle with
the multitude in the garden of the palace, who went daily there in the
afternoon to see the nobles and ladies of the court walking with their
pageantries, while the Duke's musicants solaced them with melodious airs
and the delights of sonorous harmony. And it happened on the third time
I went thither, that a cry rose of the Duke coming from the garden to
the palace, and all the onlookers pressed to see him.
As he advanced, I saw several persons presenting petitions into his
hands, which he gave, without then looking at, to the Lord Perth, whom I
knew again by his voice; and I was directed, as by a thought of
inspiration, to present, in like manner, a copy of our declaration,
which I always carried about with me; so placing myself among a crowd of
petitioners, onlookers and servants, that formed an avenue across the
road leading from the Canongate to the Abbey kirk-yard, and between the
garden 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; but
instead of handing it to the Lord Perth, as I had hoped he would do, he
held it in his own hand, by which I perceived that if he had noticed by
whom 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 my
escape.
But how to effect that was no easy thing; for the multitude around was
very great, and but three narrow yetts allowed of egress from the
enclosure--one leading into the garden, one to the palace, and the other
into the Canongate. I therefore calmly put my trust in Him who alone
could 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 him
with great eagerness, and I also went in with them, and walked very
deliberately across the front of the palace to the south-east corner,
where there was a postern door that opened into the road leading to the
King's park from the Cowgate-port, along the outside of the town wall. I
then mended my pace, but not to any remarkable degree, and so returned
to the house of Mrs Brownlee.
Scarcely was I well in, when Heron, her son, came flying to her with a
report that a man was seized in the palace garden who had threatened the
Duke's life, and he was fearful lest it had been me; and I was much
grieved by these tidings, in case any honest man should be put to the
torture on my account; but the Lord had mercifully ordained it
otherwise.
In the course of the night Heron Brownlee, after closing his shop, came
again and told me that no one had been taken, but that some person in
the multitude had given the Duke a dreadful paper, which had caused
great consternation and panic; and that a council was sitting at that
late hour with the Duke, expresses having arrived with accounts of the
same paper having been seen on the doors of many churches, both in
Nithsdale and the shire of Ayr. The alarm, indeed, raged to such a
degree among all those who knew in their consciences how they merited
the doom we had pronounced, that it was said the very looks of many were
withered 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 their
malignant work. The curse of infatuation was upon them, and instead of
changing the rule which had caused the desperation that they dreaded,
they heated the furnace of persecution sevenfold; and voted, That
whosoever owned or refused to disown the declaration should be put to
death in the presence of two witnesses, though unarmed when taken; and
the soldiers were not only ordered to enforce the test, but were
instructed to put such as adhered to the declaration at once to the
sword, and to slay those who refused to disown it; and women were
ordered to be drowned. But my pen sickens with the recital of horrors,
and I shall pass by the dreadful things that ensued, with only remarking
that these bloody instructions consummated the doom of the Stuarts; for
scarcely were they well published when the Duke hastened to London, and
soon after his man-sworn brother, Charles, the great author of all our
woes, was cut off by poison, as it was most currently believed, and the
Duke proclaimed King in his stead. What change we obtained by the
calamity of his accession will not require many sentences to unfold.