While the legislature was doing its part, the executive government was not behindhand in pursuing the system which had been so much commended.  A refusal to abjure the declaration in the terms prescribed, was everywhere considered as sufficient cause for immediate execution.  In one part of the country information having been received that a corpse had been clandestinely buried, an inquiry took place; it was dug up, and found to be that of a person proscribed.  Those who had interred him were suspected, not of having murdered, but of having harboured him.  For this crime their house was destroyed, and the women and children of the family being driven out to wander as vagabonds, a young man belonging to it was executed by the order of Johnston of Westerraw.  Against this murder even Graham himself is said to have remonstrated, but was content with protesting that the blood was not upon his head; and not being able to persuade a Highland officer to execute the order of Johnston, ordered his own men to shoot the unhappy victim.  In another county three females, one of sixty-three years of age, one of eighteen, and one of twelve, were charged with rebellion; and refusing to abjure the declaration, were sentenced to be drowned.  The last was let off upon condition of her father’s giving a bond for a hundred pounds.  The elderly woman, who is represented as a person of eminent piety, bore her fate with the greatest constancy, nor does it appear that her death excited any strong sensations in the minds of her savage executioners.  The girl of eighteen was more pitied, and after many entreaties, and having been once under water, was prevailed upon to utter some words which might be fairly construed into blessing the king, a mode of obtaining pardon not unfrequent in cases where the persecutors were inclined to relent.  Upon this it was thought she was safe, but the merciless barbarian who superintended this dreadful business was not satisfied; and upon her refusing the abjuration, she was again plunged into the water, where she expired.  It is to be remarked that being at Bothwell Bridge and Air’s Moss were among the crimes stated in the indictment of all the three, though, when the last of these affairs happened, one of the girls was only thirteen, and the other not eight years of age.  At the time of the Bothwell Bridge business, they were still younger.  To recite all the instances of cruelty which occurred would be endless; but it may be necessary to remark that no historical facts are better ascertained than the accounts of them which are to be found in Woodrow.  In every instance where there has been an opportunity of comparing these accounts with records, and other authentic monuments, they appear to be quite correct.

The Scottish parliament having thus set, as they had been required to do, an eminent example of what was then thought duty to the crown, the king met his English parliament on the 19th of May, 1685, and opened it with the following speech:-