THE LAST POPISH VICTIM IN SCOTLAND

 WALTER MILL, an old decrepit priest, who had been con demned as a heretic in the time of Cardinal Beaton, bu had escaped, was at last discovered by the spies of his successor, Archbishop Hamilton, and brought to St. Andrews for trial. He appeared before the court so worn out with age and hardships, that it was not expected he would be able to answer the questions put to him; but, to the surprise of all, he managed his defence with great spirit. He was condemned to the flames; but such was the horror now felt at this punishment, and such the general conviction of the innocence of the victim, that the clergy could not prevail on a secular judge to ratify the sentence, nor an individual in the town so much as to give or sell a rope to bind the martyr to the stake, so that the Archbishop had to furnish them with a cord from his own pavilion. When commanded by Oliphant, the bishop’s menial, to go to the stake, the old man, with becoming spirit, refused. “No,” said he, “I will not go, except thou put me up with thy hand; for I am forbidden by the law of God to put hand on myself.” The wretch having pushed him forward, he went up with a cheerful countenance, saying, “I will go unto the altar of God.” “As for me,” he added, when tied to the stake, his voice trembling with age, “I am fourscore years old, and cannot live long by course of nature; but a hundred better shall arise out of the ashes of my bones. I trust in God I shall be the last that shall suffer death in Scotland for this cause.” So saying, he expired amidst the flames, on the 28th August, 1558. He was indeed the last who suffered in that cause, and his death was the death of Popery in the realm.

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