remained on horseback, and begged for mercy.  The stern enthusiast contented himself with answering, that he would not himself lay a hand on him.  Burly and his men again fired a volley upon the kneeling old man; and were in the act of riding off, when one, who remained to girth his horse, unfortunately heard the daughter of their victim call to the servant for help, exclaiming, that his master was still alive.  Burly then again dismounted, struck off the prelate’s hat with his foot, and split his skull with his shable (broad sword), although one of the party (probably Rathillet) exclaimed, “Spare these grey hairs!"[A] The rest pierced him with repeated wounds.  They plundered the carriage, and rode off, leaving, beside the mangled corpse, the daughter, who was herself wounded, in her pious endeavour to interpose betwixt her father and his murderers.  The murder is accurately represented, in bas-relief, upon a beautiful monument erected to the memory of Archbishop Sharpe, in the metropolitan church of St Andrews.  This memorable example of fanatic revenge was acted upon Magus Muir, near St Andrews, 3d May, 1679.[B]

[Footnote A:  They believed Sharpe to be proof against shot; for one of the murderers told Wodrow, that, at the sight of cold iron, his courage fell.  They no longer doubted this, when they found in his pocket a small clue of silk, rolled round a bit of parchment, marked with two long words, in Hebrew or Chaldaic characters.  Accordingly, it is still averred, that the balls only left blue marks on the prelate’s neck and breast, although the discharge was so near as to burn his clothes.]

[Footnote B:  The question, whether the bishop of St Andrews’ death was murder was a shibboleth, or experimentum crucis, frequently put to the apprehended conventiclers.  Isabel Alison, executed at Edinburgh, 26th January, 1681, was interrogated, before the privy council, if she conversed with David Hackston?  “I answered, I did converse with him, and I bless the Lord that ever I saw him; for I never saw ought in him but a godly pious youth.  They asked, if the killing of the bishop of St Andrews was a pious act?  I answered, I never heard him say he killed him; but, if God moved any, and put it upon them, to execute his righteous judgment upon him, I have nothing to say to that.  They asked me, when saw ye John Balfour (Burly), that pious youth?  I answered, I have seen him.  They asked, when?  I answered, these are frivolous questions; I am not bound to answer them.” Cloud of Witnesses, p. 85.]

Burly was, of course, obliged to leave Fife; and, upon the 25th of the same month, he arrived in Evandale, in Lanarkshire, along with Hackston, and a fellow, called Dingwall, or Daniel, one of the same bloody band.  Here he joined his old friend Hamilton, already mentioned; and, as they resolved to take up arms, they were soon at the head of such a body of the “chased and tossed western men,” as they thought equal to keep the field.  They resolved