confess anie thinges; so deeply had the Devill entered into his heart, that hee utterly denied all that which he before avouched; and would saie nothing thereunto, but this, that what hee had done and sayde before, was onely done and sayde, for fear of paynes which he had endured'.[1]
He continued steadfast and was executed at the Castle Hill.
The character of Fian is perfectly consistent. Under torture he signed a confession, which confession might have implicated Bothwell. That night Bothwell himself, or one of his emissaries, obtained access to the prisoner and arranged for his escape. The wretched Fian was faced with death either way; if he retracted his confession, he would die as a criminal by the hands of the law; if he held to it, he would die as a traitor by the hands of his comrades. There was no alternative. All that day he 'continued verie solitarie', calling upon God, but by night he had made his choice and fled. He apparently escaped without difficulty. The story of his stealing the keys of his own cell and of the prison door is absurd; the escape was obviously effected by connivance just as later on Bothwell's own escape was effected. Fian went back to his own home, where, according to James's surmise, he had an interview with the Devil (i.e. Bothwell), and there he tamely waited till the officers of the law came and recaptured him. This tameness is not in keeping with the rest of his character. A man with sufficient courage and resource to get out of a strongly guarded prison would have made good his escape; an easy enough matter in those turbulent times. Fian then must have been retaken because he wished to be retaken. For fear of torture and in hope of pardon he signed the first confession, implicating Bothwell,[2] yet later he endured agonies of torture with the certainty of death rather than acknowledge one word which might lead to the discovery that James was bent upon. James's surmise was perhaps more than a mere guess; it was prompted by his knowledge of the facts. Fian had had an interview
