A Journey to London in 1840. 131 



in a glorious cause, the cause of liberty of conscience and civil 

 freedom. Requiescai in pace! Their memory is embalnled in 

 the hearts of their countrymen and their name will ever adorn the 

 page of impartial hi.story. 



Bothwell gave the title of Earl to James Hepburn (4th Earl), 

 whose inglorious connection with Queen Mary is .so well known. 

 Being forfeited in his life and property, he was ultimately so far 

 reduced as to practise piracy on the north seas in order to gain a 

 livelihood for himself and his followers. He was eventuallv 

 taken by the Danes, and though his officers and mariners were 

 hanged, he was himself saA'ed, but was thrown into prison, where 

 he lived nearly ten years, and where he died in disgrace and 

 wretchedness, atoning for his crimes by the subsequent miserv of 

 his life and by a base death. He is said wlien in articiilo mortis 

 to have confessed the murder of Darnley, and to have acquitted 

 his royal paramour of being accessory thereto, but the latter is 

 incredible. Mary would likely have made an amiable woman and 

 a good queen if she had lived in better times or had not fallen 

 into bad hands. Recollecting that a person is very much the 

 creature of circumstances and that we all are fallible, we ought 

 to regard her character with pity and indulgency rather than with 

 unrelenting severity. Let such of us as are innocent, though not 

 exposed to strong temptations, abstract a stone from her cairn. 

 Alas ! on such a condition how few would be found to insult her 

 memory or not to commiserate her failings. 



Bothwell Haugh, the property and place of residence of 

 James Hamilton, who assassinated the Regent Murray as he was 

 passing through Linlithgow, is in this parish about two miles on 

 our left as we advanced. How different was that barbarous age 

 in which such deeds were common from those happier times in 

 which we live : times in which both per,son and property are 

 secure, and the humblest may live under his vine and fig tree and 

 there is none to make him afraid! William Aiton (1731-1793), 

 the "Scottish Linnaeus," author of the Horttts Kewensis, was 

 a native of Bothwell parish, and for 34 years keeper or founder 

 of the Royal garden at Kew. 



There is another remarkable circumstance connected with 

 this parish. I refer to an abortive attempt made at a place called 

 New Orbiston, in 1825, to carry into practical effect Mr Owen's 



