The Sun. — 1830-06-23 (London, England)

EXECUTION OF THE REGENT MORTON.  It is remarked by historians that Morton, with the credulity of that age, had an anxious recollection of an ancient prophecy, which declared " that the bloody heart should fall by the mouth of Arran." This the Regent interpreted to mean the downfall of the Douglases, designed as was usual in such vaticinations by their wellknown cognizance, and that by means of an Earl of Arran. This, it is said, was the reason  for pressing the unfortunate family of Hamilton, who were the legitimate proprietors of that title, almost to their total destruction. When, therefore, he heard that the Earldom of Arran was conferred upon his accuser Stewart, he replied, with a surprised and desponding expression," Is it even so ? then I know what I must expect.". When Morton was brought to his trial at Edinburgh, large bodies of men were drawn up in different parts of the city to overawe the friends of the accused. The records of the trial are lost, but there is evidence that the assize consisted in many instances of the Earl's personal enemies; and that, although he challenged them on that score, his remonstrances were not attended to. His servants were also put to the torture in no common manner; for Arran thought it necessary, after the Earl's execution, to sue out an immunity for the violence to which they had been subjected. When Morton heard the indictment read he did not show surprise or emotion ; but when the verdict of the jury brought him in guilty of con,. cealing, or being art and part in the murder of Henry Darnley, he repeated, with conaiderable vehemence, " Art and part ! art and part ! God knows it is not so."  In his conference with the clergy he more fully explained what he meant by this explanation. He confessed to them that upon his (Morton's) return from England after his exile, for accession to Rizzio's death, the Earl of Bothwell had proposed to him, both personally and through the medium of his kinsman Archibald Douglas, to be concerned -in the death of Darnley, assuring him it was a deed which had the Queen's approbation. Morton stated that he replied to this proposal, " that having so lately been re-7 leased from a state of exile, he would not be implicated in such an important matter unless Bothwell would produce to him the Queen's sign-manual in warrant of the deed."—" The Earl of Bothwell," he said, " promised to produce him such an assurance, but never did so, and therefore he remained a stranger to the conspiracy ; excepting that he knew generally that such an action was meditated by Bothwell and others."  The condemned Earl was naturally asked by his reverend visitors why, having become privy to so horrible a conspiracy, he did not take measures for unfolding the plot and preventing he execution. "To whom," replied the Earl; " should I have made the discovery ? If to the Queen, she was herself at the bottom of the deadly plot ; if to Lethington, or, to other Statesmen of the time, they were accomplices to the execution ; if to Darnley, he was a creature of so weak and fickle a temper, that he would have communicated it to his wife, and in any case I should have been inevitably ruined." Thus far the apology seems reasonable, though it gives us a horrible idea of the Court and Councils of Scotland at the time.  But Morton had less to answer when his ghostly assistants demanded of him why he con,. tinned to show friendship and favour to Archibald Douglas, who had acted on this occasion as the confidant of Bothwell, and was generally averred to have been personally present at the murder, and whom, notwithstanding, he created a Judge of the Court of Session ? Nor was any satisfaotory reply, which could be consistent with Morton's pretended abhorrence of the tragedy of the Kirk of Field, ever returned to this question.—Dr. Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopcedia.