Sir John Gilmoure, the greatest lawyer, gave no opinion--certainly a suggestive circumstance--but Lord Lee declared that this would not interfere with their legal trial, 'so to bloody executions they went.' {105d} To the number of thirty they were condemned and executed; while two of them, Hugh M'Kail, a young minister, and Neilson of Corsack, were tortured with the boots.
The goods of those who perished were confiscated, and their bodies were dismembered and distributed to different parts of the country; 'the heads of Major M'Culloch and the two Gordons,' it was resolved, says Kirkton, 'should be pitched on the gate of Kirkcudbright; the two Hamiltons and Strong's head should be affixed at Hamilton, and Captain Arnot's sett on the Watter Gate at Edinburgh.

The armes of all the ten, because they hade with uplifted hands renewed the Covenant at Lanark, were sent to the people of that town to expiate that crime, by placing these arms on the top of the prison.' {106} Among these was John Neilson, the Laird of Corsack, who saved Turner's life at Dumfries; in return for which service Sir James attempted, though without success, to get the poor man reprieved.

One of the condemned died of his wounds between the day of condemnation and the day of execution.

'None of them,' says Kirkton, 'would save their life by taking the declaration and renouncing the Covenant, though it was offered to them.

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