Ten were hanged on one gibbet at Edinburgh; thirty-five before their own doors in different places.

These criminals might all have saved their lives, if they would have renounced the covenant.

The executions were going on, when the king put a stop to them.

He said, that blood enough had already been shed; and he wrote a letter to the privy council, in which he ordered, that such of the prisoners as should simply promise to obey the laws for the future, should be set at liberty, and that the incorrigible should be sent to the plantations.[*] This letter was brought by Burnet, archbishop of Glasgow; but not being immediately delivered to the council by Sharpe, the president,[**] one Maccail had in the interval been put to the torture, under which he expired.

He seemed to die in an ecstasy of joy.