Note 347 — Chapter III

This was well known in Scotland; and is evidently alluded to by a writer of that time, the Rev. Alexander Shields, who calls James, not a man, but a monster. See Shields' Hind let loose, 1687, p. 365. ‘This man, or monster rather, that is now mounted the throne.’ And a monster surely he was. Compare Crookshank's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 66, where it is mentioned that, when Spreul was tortured, ‘the Duke of York was pleased to gratify his eyes with this delightful scene.’ Also, Wodrow's History, vol. iii. p. 253, and Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 116. ‘According to Burnet, the duke's pleasure at witnessing human agony was a cold, and, as it were, a speculative pleasure, as if he were present for the purpose of contemplating some curious experiment. But James was so excitable a man, that this is hardly likely. At all events, the remarks of Burnet have a painful interest for those who study these dark, and, as we may rejoice to think, these very rare, forms of human malignity.’ ‘When any are to be struck in the boots, it is done in the presence of the council; and upon that occasion, almost all offer to run away. The sight is so dreadful, that without an order restraining such a number to stay, the board would be forsaken. But the duke, while he had been in Scotland, was so far from withdrawing, that he looked on all the while with an unmoved indifference, and with an attention, as if he had been to look on some curious experiment. This gave a terrible idea of him to all that observed it, as of a man that had no bowels nor humanity in him.’ Burnet's History of his own Time, vol. ii. pp. 416, 417.