The Fanatic Read online

  John Lauder saw the glint in Primrose’s narrow eyes. The Justice General disliked Rothes, he loathed Sharp, and he blamed Lauderdale, or at least his wife, for his removal from the office of Lord Register. He would happily see them perjure themselves. By making his remarks, he had effectively dared them to do so. But if they did, if they flatly denied that Mitchel had been promised his life, it would be Mitchel’s word against theirs. How could that save him?

  Primrose had been Lord Register in 1674, Lauder thought. He had been responsible not only for deeds of property, but also for all the important documents of state. He must have seen all the records of the Privy Council. He must know whether or not a document promising Mitchel’s life existed. But no such document had been entered as a production in the trial. Had it been destroyed? Lauder remembered his cousin’s words about a secret weapon: It was pit intae oor hauns last nicht. And he understood that they had something in writing, and that it had come from Primrose.

  Lockhart showed Rothes the confession. Rothes acknowledged that he recognised it, and his own and Mitchel’s signatures upon it. He had heard Mitchel make the confession, and he had seen him sign it.

  ‘Did your lordship not take Maister Mitchel aside, and offer him his life, in return for this confession?’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘Did ye not promise to secure his life, upon your own life, honour and reputation?’

  I did not.’

  ‘But surely Maister Mitchel sought such an assurance from ye, before he would subscribe his name?’

  ‘He did not.’

  ‘And your lordship does not remember any warrant or Act of the Council to that effect?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So if it were possible to produce such a warrant or Act, how would ye explain its existence?’

  ‘I couldna explain it. I dinna comprehend whit ye’re driving at.’

  ‘Ye would say that such a paper does not exist?’

  ‘Aye. But –’

  ‘Aye, my lord?’

  ‘But – but if there be ony such paper – weill, all I mean to say is, if there be ony such expression of a promise, I can only think that it must have been inserted by mistake.’

  Rothes was now puce. Lockhart had backed him into a corner and at the last minute Rothes had perceived that there might be a trap, and that he had better, however clumsily, leave himself a way out. Lockhart seemed very pleased. He declined to question him further, and Rothes, barely able to contain his rage, stormed from the witness stand.

  Charles Maitland of Haltoun was next. As a witness he had not been allowed in the court when Rothes was giving evidence, but his nature alone made him more circumspect than the blustery Chancellor. He had been present when Maister Mitchel made that confession, he said. He had heard him make it verbally and then had seen him sign it. When Lockhart pressed him as to whether the panel had been promised his life in return, Haltoun answered very carefully: he had not heard Mitchel seek, nor had he heard any other person give him, such an assurance.

  ‘My lord,’ said Lockhart, ‘that is not what I asked. Was Maister Mitchel promised his life if he confessed?’

  Haltoun stared icily at the advocate. ‘I,’ he repeated, ‘did not hear any person give him such an assurance.’

  Lockhart let him go. The courtroom stirred again. Now came the big guns. The Duke of Lauderdale was summoned to the stand.

  He was a great, ugly beast of a man, with a full set of chins and a look of dissipated exhaustion on his face. He had been riding the horse of political power for seventeen years, and it showed. When he spoke, his tongue, which was too big for his mouth, slapped around, half-in and half-out of it, like a lump of liver, spraying the air with slavers. Nevertheless, his heavy, richly decorated clothes, massive dark wig, fat ringed fingers and imperious sneer, all gave the impression of a man of immense authority, whose involvement in such a trifling affair was altogether beneath him.

  He had not been present, he explained, when the confession was first made, but only when Mitchel was brought before the Council subsequently, when he had acknowledged it to be his own and had renewed it.

  ‘And this was done on the promise of his life?’ Lockhart asked.

  ‘I never heard that given.’

  ‘But as the King’s commissioner, my lord, ye must have discussed this business in council before. Ye must have agreed to offer him his life, else why would he have confessed?’

  Lauderdale shook his head. ‘It’s not for me to say why the man confessed. But I never promised him anything, nor did I grant that anybody else could.’

  ‘Of this ye are quite positive?’

  Lauderdale’s voice boomed. ‘I could not have given such a promise. I did not have the King’s authority to do so.’

  A murmuring through the court indicated that nobody believed him. The gentry sat stone-faced. Lockhart seemed to toy with the idea of pressing him further, but then let him go, and, like the previous witnesses, the Duke made his way, with a brewing storm in his face, to a seat in the gallery.

  ‘I call his grace the Archbishop of St Andrews,’ Lockhart said.

  Mitchel went rigid. The soldiers on either side of him studied him, as if they thought, even now, he might produce some hidden weapon and charge across the room. James Sharp crossed the floor in his black robes, and let his gaze drift as if he were watching the progress of a moth which at last alighted, with a flutter, on the head of the fanatic.

  It was the fourth time they had come face to face. Ten years before, they had stared at each other across the barrel of a gun. Six years later, Sharp had recognised him selling tobacco from his booth on the street. Then Mitchel had been brought before the Council and Sharp had seen him acknowledge his confession. Now, in the High Court, Sharp was determined that this would be their last meeting, that Mitchel would go to the gallows and he could finally be rid of him.

  At first Lockhart could make no headway with Sharp. He repeated what the other noble witnesses had already said: that Mitchel had made his confession freely, and that at no time had a promise of life been given. He, the Archbishop, had never personally given any such assurance, nor authorised anybody else to do so.

  ‘But is it not true, your grace,’ Lockhart said, ‘that when Maister Mitchel was apprehended, ye offered that ye would use your best offices to save him, if he would only confess to the deed?’

  ‘He didna like the offer,’ Sharp said. ‘He, or his wife, I canna recall which, declined it.’

  ‘But then, your grace, ye treated with his wife’s brother, Nicol Sommervile, a craftsman of this town, did ye not?’

  ‘Aye, and with the same result.’ Sharp stared with utter contempt at Mitchel. ‘When he was first taken, it’s true I promised that if he made a full confession, out of court, and tellt us who else was involved, and if he truly repented of the deed, then I would do what I could for him in the way of mercy. But if he didna, I would leave him to justice. And look where we are, sir. These people are beyond treating with.’

  ‘Nicol Sommervile is also a witness, your grace. He may say different.’

  Sharp said angrily, ‘He may say what he likes. I pledged Nicol Sommervile nothing but my belief that the prisoner should make a full confession. It is a false and malicious calumny if he or anybody pretends that I either promised that man his life, or gave anybody else warrant to promise it.’

  Lockhart smiled. ‘Your grace, I thank ye for your candour. Ye could not have made your position clearer. Now I would like, my lords, to hear Nicol Sommervile on this matter.’

  John Lauder almost laughed out loud with nerves. Lockhart had no fear of these men; it was as if he intended to bring the whole edifice of government down about their lugs. Cousin John, though, who had pleaded only on the first day of the case, was now busily conferring with Lockhart while Sharp left the stand. Eleis did not look like a man about to win a famous victory. In fact, he looked slightly confused – a thing Lauder had never seen before – as if Lockhart had got ahead of h
im, and he did not know exactly which road he was taking.

  Sommervile, Lauder estimated, was in his thirties, a sturdy man with the quick, assessing eye of a silversmith. He appeared to be terrified. But when Lockhart took him through the events of four years before, he spoke out clearly and slowly even though his knees were knocking together. His grace the Archbishop had promised Mitchel his life if he admitted everything. He, Nicol Sommervile, had taken this word to Mitchel, who had agreed, and Sommervile had conveyed this back to the Archbishop.

  ‘I will ask ye to be precise, Nicol,’ said Lockhart. ‘Ye returned to his grace the Archbishop, and ye conveyed that Maister Mitchel would confess all?’

  ‘Aye, sir. But only if he had a solemn promise in the King’s name that his life would be spared.’

  ‘And what was the Archbishop’s answer?’

  ‘He swore, as he should answer before God, that he would grant him his life.’

  There was a commotion in the gallery. Sharp was standing, pointing at Sommervile with a shaking finger. ‘That is a damned lie! My lords, ye hae heard my testimony. How can ye tolerate this – this treasonable –’

  Primrose half-rose from the bench. ‘Ye have had your say, sir. Be seated!’

  Sharp ignored him. ‘Nicol Sommervile, ye’re a traitorous rebel like your brother, and ye should hang like him!’

  ‘Be seated, sir!’ Primrose shouted. There was a clamour of shouts throughout the court: ‘Shame, shame!’ Sommervile turned and appealed to the bench. ‘My lords, I swear on my salvation that awthin I tellt ye is the truth!’

  For a minute the proceedings looked like dissolving into a riot. The old bread and fruit that had been evident on the first day of the trial began to be flung about again. Boots stamped on the wooden floor, women shrilled abuse at Sharp, men spat at him. It was with difficulty that the officers restored order.

  Mitchel sat in impassive isolation throughout. His face slightly tilted, his eyes half-closed, the trace of a smile on his lips, he seemed to be in a trance.

  The bench conferred. Primrose dismissed Sommervile, and gestured to Lockhart to continue. After a word with Eleis, Lockhart picked up a document from the table. It was, he said, a copy of the Act of Council in which the details of this whole sorry tale were given. It corroborated everything that Nicol Sommervile had just said and confuted everything stated by the noble witnesses. With the bench’s permission, Lockhart would like to read this document out.

  Sir George Mackenzie had been sitting as if clamped to his chair for the last twenty minutes. He had not cross-examined the witnesses, for fear of making things worse than they already were. He had sat tight when Sharp had had his outburst, a hand over his mouth. But now he sprang back to life.

  ‘My lords, this cannot be allowed. This paper that my learned friend has in his hand, what is it? He says it is a copy of an Act of the Council. Why has he not produced the Act itself? If there is such an Act, and he wished it to be used in evidence, he should have used a diligence and cited the clerks of council to produce the register. He did not do this. He cannot now introduce it. It is against all procedure.’

  ‘I would like to hear what is in this paper,’ Primrose said silkily. ‘Then we can see if we should proceed further with the register.’ To Lockhart he added, ‘You may go on, sir.’

  Lockhart’s reading took fully five minutes. It was so detailed, so precise in its statement of facts and naming of names, that there could be no doubt that it was an authentic copy. The crowd heard it and knew they were hearing the truth. But Mackenzie was no longer concerned with truth and falsehood. All that mattered now was what was admissible and what was not. When Lockhart had finished, the King’s Advocate returned to the argument.

  ‘My lords, this pretended paper proves nothing. It is the panel’s arguments written down and given the name an Act of Council. Not even that – a copy of an Art of Council. It is worthless. I say again, my lords, the panel’s counsel should have cited the clerks of council to produce the register. Instead he has read out something the panel might have written himself.’

  ‘My lords,’ Lockhart answered, ‘we have no objection to the register of council being produced. In fart we crave it. Let the register be produced. Then the court will see everything that we have alleged and attested, written down in the Arts of Council and furthermore, my lords, signed by the noble witnesses who have just deponed they know nothing about it.’

  ‘No, my lords,’ Mackenzie said, ‘that is a sleight of hand ye must not allow. The panel’s counsel is seeking a new production after all the witnesses have been examined. And even if such a pretended Act exists, my lords, it is unwarrantable, it cannot be made use of, because we have already heard the depositions of the Chancellor, and the Thesaurer Depute, and the Secretary of State, and the Archbishop of St Andrews, that no assurance or promise of life was given. My lords, it is against all custom and process to admit this paper or to send for the register.’

  ‘It is only up the stair, my lords,’ said Lockhart. ‘It would take but a minute to fetch it and see what is the truth.’

  ‘No, my lords!’ There was a note of desperation in Mackenzie’s voice now. Lauder knew that everything hung on this one issue: if Primrose and the other judges decided to send for the register, the King’s counsellors would be exposed as liars. And it was Primrose, of course, who had set this whole thing up.

  ‘It would certainly clarify matters,’ said Primrose reflectively. I think –’

  There was a sound from the gallery like a bull breaking through a fence. A voice bellowed into the court, drowning out whatever it was Primrose thought.

  ‘Enough! That is enough!’

  Silence followed, punctuated only by the patter of a few spots of saliva onto the floor and, from somewhere in the crowd, a hushed blasphemy. The thunder that had been building in the Duke of Lauderdale had finally broken.

  For a moment he stood there, vast and swaying, as if he had surprised even himself and did not know what to say next. But then it was apparent that he was only pausing to gather breath before he roared again.

  ‘I did not come here – these other noble persons did not come here – we were not brought hither to be accused of perjury. We came as witnesses, to give evidence, and that is what we have done. Now there’s an end to it. And you’ – glaring at Primrose and the other judges – ‘you, my lords, are not to call for the register of council. I forbid it. The Council’s Acts are the King’s secrets, and may not be looked into, not by this court or anyone but his counsellors. I trust I make myself clear.’

  Lauderdale’s tongue slapped once more round his lips and then retreated. He sat down heavily, still with his eye on the bench, and dared them to challenge him. Even Primrose, who had been so quick to shout down Sharp, seemed cowed by the Secretary’s intervention.

  John Lauder heard a voice muttering, ‘This isna law, this is a mockery of the law.’ And then he realised that he was talking to himself. Elsewhere he could see other advocates whispering urgently, or sitting dumbstruck. The judges were in a huddle. Even those people unsure of what was going on could see that Primrose was in a passion, arguing that the register should be sent for. He seemed to have only one doubtful ally. Murray of Glendoick was adamantly opposed – if he wished to be confirmed as the next keeper of the register, he had better heed the instructions of his patron.

  Lauder thought, is this what we are come down to? To a clutch of judges torn between pishing their breeks in the cause of justice, or keeping them dry in the cause of self-advancement? Is this the state of the law that I love?

  In the end, there was no contest. The judges all had more to fear and more to gain from Lauderdale and Sharp than from the Justice General.

  Primrose brought the court to order. The downturn of his mouth told all. He spoke like a man who has just swallowed a glass of sour milk.

  ‘We find that the copy of the pretended Act of Council was never urged or made use of till this afternoon, after the swearing of the assiz
e, and that it cannot be admitted as evidence in this state of the process by the law of the kingdom and practice of this court; also we find that the validity of the narrative of the copy is cancelled by the depositions of the noble witnesses. The court is adjourned. The assize will inclose, and return their verdict tomorrow at two o’clock in the afternoon.’

  Uproar broke out. Primrose, without waiting for the mace-bearer, and followed by the other judges, fled the court.

  ‘Ye canna imagine whit like this was,’ Carlin said. ‘The drama o it. These were the biggest names in Scottish life. It was like calling Michael Forsyth, Malcolm Rifkind, Lord James Douglas-Hamilton and the Moderator of the Church of Scotland tae gie evidence against some mad lone nationalist who’s sent a couple o letter-bombs through the post. And seein them aw lie in their teeth.’

  ‘The verdict was a foregone conclusion, presumably,’ said Jackie.

  ‘Aye.’

  Carlin had been getting more animated throughout his description of the trial. Now it seemed he could contain himself no longer, but stood up and paced across the room two or three times. Jackie wondered if he was going to start flinging things about again. There was a pent-up frustration, an anger that seemed to have ignited from deep within him, in his movements. His feet caught a couple of paperbacks and sent them spinning across the floor, but he didn’t notice them. Then suddenly he stopped in front of Jackie and spoke again.

  ‘The jury finds him guilty on aw counts. Mitchel stands up, a wee bit sklent cause o his leg, and hears Adam Auld, the dempster o the coort, read oot that he’s tae be hanged in the Grassmarket in eight days’ time. Mitchel disna speak. He smiles. The weemun are greetin and shoutin, folk are pushin each ither aroon and batterin the furniture. The coort room is cleared. Mitchel’s taen back tae his cell.’