“He is coming! he is coming! 
      Like a bridegroom from his room,”—­p. 42.

“In his downgoing from the Tolbooth to the place of execution, he was very richly clad in fine scarlet, laid over with rich silver lace, his hat in his hand, his bands and cuffs exceeding rich, his delicate white gloves on his hands, his stockings of incarnate silk, and his shoes with their ribbands on his feet; and sarks provided for him with pearling about, above ten pund the elne.  All these were provided for him by his friends, and a pretty cassock put on upon him, upon the scaffold, wherein he was hanged.  To be short, nothing was here deficient to honour his poor carcase, more beseeming a bridegroom than a criminal going to the gallows.”—­NICHOLL’S Diary.

  “The grim Geneva ministers
      With anxious scowl drew near,”—­p. 43.

The Presbyterian ministers beset Montrose both in prison and on the scaffold.  The following extracts are from the diary of the Rev. Robert Traill, one of the persons who were appointed by the commission of the kirk “to deal with him:”—­“By a warrant from the kirk, we staid a while with him about his soul’s condition.  But we found him continuing in his old pride, and taking very ill what was spoken to him, saying, ’I pray you, gentlemen, let me die in peace.’  It was answered, that he might die in true peace, being reconciled to the Lord and to His kirk.”—­“We returned to the commission, and did show unto them what had passed amongst us.  They, seeing that for the present he was not desiring relaxation from his censure of excommunication, did appoint Mr. Mungo Law and me to attend on the morrow on the scaffold, at the time of his execution, that, in case he should desire to be relaxed from his excommunication, we should be allowed to give it unto him in the name of the kirk, and to pray with him, and for him, that what is loosed on earth might be loosed in heaven.”  But this pious intention, which may appear somewhat strange to the modern Calvinist, when the prevailing theories of the kirk regarding the efficacy of absolution are considered, was not destined to be fulfilled.  Mr. Traill goes on to say, “But he did not at all desire to be relaxed from his excommunication in the name of the kirk, yea, did not look towards that place on the scaffold where we stood; only he drew apart some of the magistrates, and spake a while with them, and then went up the ladder, in his red scarlet cassock, in a very stately manner.”

  “And he climbed the lofty ladder
      As it were the path to heaven,”—­p. 43.

“He was very earnest that he might have the liberty to keep on his hat; it was denied:  he requested he might have the privilege to keep his cloak about him—­neither could that be granted.  Then, with a most undaunted courage, he went up to the top of that prodigious gibbet.”—­“The whole people gave a general groan; and it was very observable, that even those who, at his first appearance, had bitterly inveighed against him, could not now abstain from tears.”—­Montrose Redivivus.