THE STUARTS TO THE DEATH OF JAMES 111. 15
age was exercised to devise more novel and exquisite tortures to satisfy the indignation of
the people. The sderings of the Earl of Athol were prolonged through three days ; on
the second of which he was elevated on a pillar at the cross, to the gaze of the people, and
with a hot iron coronet, crowned in derision as the King of Traitors. On the third day,
he was dragged on a hurdle through the High Street to the place of public execution,
where, after further indignities, he was at length beheaded, and his head exposed on a pole
at the cross-the body being quartered and sent to the four chief towns of the kingdom.
With the like barbarous indignities, Robert Graham, the most active of the regicides,
suffered at the same time and place.
Bneas Sylvius, who afterwards filled the papal chair as Pope Pius 11.) was at this time
resident in Edinburgh, as the Pope’s nuncio for Scotland, and witnessed, as Abercromby
says, ‘‘ with some horror, but more admiration,” The remark of the
Italian ecclesiastic, ‘( that he was at a loss to determine whether the crime of the regicides,
or the punishment inacted on them by the justice of the nation, was the greatest ”-would
not seem to imply any censure on the bloody revenge with which the Scottish Capital thus
expressed her indignation on the murderers of her King.
King James 11. was not above seven years old, when the officers of state called a
Parliament in his name, which accordingly met at Edinburgh on the 20th of March 1438.
Their fist act was the condemnation, already recorded, of the regicides ; and thereafter, the
youthful Sovereign was brought from the Castle, where he had been lodged since shortly
after his birth, attended by the three estates of the kingdom ; and being conducted in state
to Holyrood Abbey, was there crowned with great magnificence-the first of the Scottish
Kings that is thus united, in birth and royal honours, with the capital of the kingdom.
During the two succeeding years, he continued to reside entirely in the Castle, under
custody of the Chancellor Crichton, greatly to the displeasure of the Queen and her party,
who thus found him placed entirely beyond their control. She accordingly visited Edinburgh,
professing great friendship for the Chancellor, and a longing desire to see her son; by which
means she completely won the goodwill of the old statesman, and obtained ready access,
with her retinue, to visit the Prince in the Castle, and take up her abode there. At length
having lulled all suspicion, she gave out that she had made a vow to pass in pilgrimage to
the White Kirk of Brechin, for the health of her son ;’ and bidding adieu to the Chancellor
over night, with many earnest recommendations of the young King to his fidelity and care,
she retired to her devotions, having to depart at early dawn on the ensuing morrow. Immediately
on being left at liberty, the King was cautiously pinned up among the linen and
furniture of his mother, and so conveyed in a chest to Leith, and from thence by water to
Stirling, into the hands of Sir Archibald Livingstone. h e d i a t e l y thereafter, the latter
raised an army and laid siege to the Chancellor in the Castle of Edinburgh ; but the wary
statesman, having lost the control of the King, wisely effected a compromise with his
opponent, and delivering the keys into the King’s own hands, they both supped with him
the same night in the Castle, and, on the following day, he confirmed the one in his oEce
of Chancellor, and the other in that of guardian of his person. This state of af€airs did
not continue long, however, for Sir Archibald Livingstone having quarrelled with the
Queen, the King was shortly afterwards again carried off and restored to the guardianship
these executions.
Martial Achievements, vol. ii. p. 310. ’ Lindsay of Pitscottie, vol. i. p. 7.
