his victim could not escape him, Lennox resolved to bring Morton to trial.
The paper of his indictment, which has not been preserved (see, however, the heads given by Calderwood, iii. 557–8, as they ‘are found in Mr. Johne Davidson's memorialls’), extended to nineteen heads, but to shorten the proceedings as much as possible it was by order of the king confined to one, that of implication in the murder of Darnley. The sole witness against Morton was Sir James Balfour (d. 1583) [q. v.], who almost equally with Bothwell was steeped in the guilt of Darnley's murder, was perhaps the only survivor cognisant of the innermost secrets of the crime, and owed his restoration to his estates to Morton's clemency after Morton had been chosen regent. But even Balfour could prove nothing more than that Morton was aware that Bothwell had purposed the murder, and therefore, to give the sentence sufficient colour of legality, it was necessary to stretch a point. It bore that he was convicted of ‘being council, concealing, and being art and part of the king's murder.’ The ‘concealing’ Morton did not deny, but on hearing the last words he forgot his rigid composure, exclaiming with angry vehemence ‘Art and part!’ and striking the table before him with a short staff he was in the habit of carrying, he repeated ‘Art and part! God knoweth the contrary.’ The same reasons which rendered haste in the proceedings of the trial necessary, made it advisable that no delay should take place in carrying the sentence into execution, and it was fixed for the afternoon of the next day (2 June). In the morning Morton had an interview with some of the leading ministers of Edinburgh, who plied him with a number of inquisitorial queries, not conceived in an entirely friendly spirit, but answered by him without demur or any apparent subterfuge (see the ‘Confession’ in Bannatyne, Memorials, 317–32). He ate his déjeuner ‘with great cheerfulness, as all the company saw, and as appeared in his speaking’ (ib.) The ministrations of the clergy he received with deference and humility, asking them ‘to show him arguments of hope on which he could rely; and, seeing flesh was weak, that they would comfort him against the fear of death.’ He was executed at four in the afternoon in the Grassmarket, by the maiden, an instrument which he had introduced into Scotland from Halifax. Among the spectators of the strange spectacle were his enemies Ker of Pharniehurst and Lord Seton, who made no attempt to conceal their exultation. The clergy and more zealous presbyterians apathetically consented; the great mass of the nation were bewildered and perplexed. Before the block Morton made a speech to the crowd, confessing his knowledge of Bothwell's purpose, and ending with the words ‘I am sure the king sall luse a gude servand this day.’ He made no pretence of affected gaiety, but ‘perfectly simple yielded to the awfulness of the moment’ (Froude, xi. 41). ‘He keipit,’ says James Melville, ‘the sam countenance, gestour, and schort sententious form of language upon the skaffalde, quhilk he usit in his princlie government’ (Diary, p. 84). Neither friends nor foes ever whispered a suspicion of his intrepidity, either during his life or at his death; in the words of Hume, ‘he died proudly, said his enemies, and Roman like, as he had lived; constantly, humbly and christianlike, said the pastors who were beholders and ear and eye witnesses of all he said and did’ (House of Douglas, ii. 282). The presbyterian clergy recorded with some self-felicitation that ‘quhatever he had been befoir, he constantlie died the trew servant of God’ (Bannatyne, Memorials, p. 332); the catholics, as represented by Mendoza, saw in the death of so ‘pernicious a heretic’ a ‘grand beginning,’ from which they looked ‘soon for the recovery of that realm to Christ’ (quoted by Froude, xi. 42); and Mary, her hopes of liberty beginning again to brighten, charged George Douglas to give ‘to the lairds that are most neere unto my sonne’ ‘most hartie thanks for their dutie employed against the Erle Morton, who was my greatest enemye’ (Labanoff, v. 264). The corpse of Morton lay on the scaffold till sunset, ‘covered with a beggarly cloak,’ and was afterwards carried by ‘some base fellows to the common sepultre’ (not, however, of criminals as sometimes stated, but to Grey Friars churchyard). His head was fixed on the highest stone of the gable of the Tolbooth; but on the order of the king it was taken down on 10 Dec. 1582, ‘layed in a fyne cloath, convoyed honorablie and layed in the kist where his bodie was buried. The laird of Carmichaell caried it, shedding tears abundantlie by the way’ (Calderwood, iii. 692). The place of burial is marked only by a small stone, with the initials J. E. M. Hume thus describes Morton's appearance: ‘He was of a middle stature, rather square than tall, having the hair of his head and beard of a yellowish flaxen. His face was full and large, his countenance majestick, grave, and princelye’ (House of Douglas, ii. 283). The portrait of Morton at Dalmahoy is now in bad condition. It has been engraved by Lodge. Morton's wife was for a considerable time insane, to which fact Hume attributes the unconcealed irregularities of his conduct. She died in September
