Glen Collection of printed music > Printed music > Jacobite relics of Scotland > [First series]

NOTES. 165
cut them down every man, except Stuart himself, whom, he said,
he would reserve to be hanged. In this he meant to be as good
as his word ; but Stuart contrived to make his escape in women's
clothes, on the very night before he was to have been executed.
He acted the same scene over again in Cantire the year following,
causing a whole army of Macdonalds to be cut to pieces, after
granting them quarter and disarming them. It was on this
occasion that he said to John Nevay, a bloody preacher, who ac-
companied him, " Well, Mr John, have not you got your fill of
blood for once ? "
The commission of the estates and church granted Lesley 50,000
merks and a chain of massy gold for these exploits ; and to Mid-
dleton, his associate, they granted 25,000 merks : but they soon
were weary of them, and contrived, with a good deal of pains, to
get them ordered back into England the next year. Never did
the middle counties of Scotland suffer so much under the tyranny
of an army as they did under this host of the righteous ; which
was the reason why they were so easily persuaded to rise in a mass
to oppose Cromwell, two years afterward. And besides, Lesley
hanged all the noblemen and gentlemen of the king's party that
fell into his hands. Bishop Gruthrie, in his Memoirs, enumerates
upwards of twenty of those who suffered in the course of that
year. At the execution of three of them, in Lesley's presence, at
Glasgow, the Rev. David Dixon exclaimed in ecstasy, " but
the gude wark gangs bonnily on !"
From this time to the battle of Bothwell Bridge, I find no
song descriptive of any event that happened in Scotland, excepting
those published in the Border Minstrelsy, to which I refer the
curious; for it would be superfluous to make extracts from a work
so popular. There is one spirited verse, describing the feelings of
the Highlanders during the time of the Commonwealth very well,
though apparently not written by a Highlander : but as it is
rather a poem than a song, I insert it here.
Te Commonvelt, tat grammach ting,
Gar preak him's vow, gar dee him's king: