SCRAP BOOK. 17
tradesmen and fifty servants, whom they seized separately, before any suspicion arose of their intentions; and having shut the gates, they proceeded very deliberately to execute their purpose on the cardinal. Beaton alarmed with the noise which he heard in the castle, barricadoed the door of his chamber: but finding that they had brought fire in order to force their way, and having obtained, as is believed, a promise of life, he opened the door; and reminding them that he was a priest, he conjured them to spare him. Two of them rushed upon him with drawn swords, but a third, James Melvil, stopped their career, and bade them reflect that this work was the work and judgment of God, and ought to be executed with becoming deliberation and gravity. Then turning the point of his sword towards Beaton, he called to him, "Repent thee, thou wicked cardinal, of all thy sins and iniquities, especially of the murder of Wishart, that instrument of God for the conversion of these lands: it is his death which now cries vengeance upon thee: we are sent by God to inflict the deserved punishment. For here, before the Almighty, I protest, that it is neither hatred of thy person, nor love of thy riches, nor fear of thy power, which moves me to seek thy death: but only because thou hast been, and still remainest, an obstinate enemy to Christ Jesus, and his holy gospel." Having spoken these words, without giving Beaton time to finish that repentance to which he exhorted him, he thrust him through the body, and the cardinal fell dead at his feet. Upon a rumour that the castle was taken, a great tumult arose in the
