Hugh McKail

Dec 22, 1666, a 26-year-old Scottish Covenanter, Hugh McKail was martyred for the faith

One of the prisoners taken at Pentland [Scotland], was Hugh MacKail, a scholarly young minister of twenty-five years of age. Richly gifted and very spiritual, the excellency of the power of God apparent in him, he had His treasure in an earthen vessel that was already breaking from a destroying consumption. McKail had been licensed to preach at twenty, and preached his last public sermon at twenty-one in the Kirk of St Giles. There were words in that sermon some could never forget. ‘The fountain,’ said MacKail, ‘whence violence flows may be great power which the Church cannot reach. The Scripture doth abundantly evidence that the people of God have been persecuted sometimes by a Pharaoh on the throne, sometimes by a Haman in the state, and sometimes by a Judas in the Church.’ There was no need of further roll-call. Pharaoh, Haman and Judas answered to their names, and Mckail had to go into hiding from that very day. Holland was a haven to many a Covenanter, as it was to many a Puritan, and Hugh MacKail landed safely there to become more fitted to return to the unsafe land of Scotland. In 1666, he was back again ready to be offered as that cruel year closed. The valiant Hugh MacKail was easily taken [captured]. In due course, he appeared before a Council who seemed to think that he would tell them much [that is inform them where other Christian dissenters may be hiding] . But he quietly refused to tell them anything at all, and the violent Earl of Rothes, convulsed with passion, adjudged the dying field preacher worthy of the torture of the bone and marrow mixing Boot.

Sir Waiter Scott, gives a vivid description of that cruel instrument the Boot and of its bestial torture. ‘The executioner enclosed the leg and knee within the tight iron case, and then placing a wedge of the same metal between the knee and the edge of the machine, took a mallet in his hand and stood waiting for further orders. A surgeon placed himself by the other side of the prisoner’s chair, bared the prisoner’s arm, and applied his thumb to the pulse in order to regulate the torture according to the strength of the patient. When these preparations were made, the President glanced his eye around the Council as if to collect their suffrages, and judging from their mute signs, gave a nod to the executioner whose mallet instantly descended on the wedge, and forcing it between the knee and the iron boot, occasioned the most exquisite pain, as was evident from the flush on the brow and cheeks of the sufferer.”

A thin wasted limb of the weak Hugh MacKail was placed within this hell-invented instrument, and the brutal wedge was driven home eleven savage times till the leg was smashed and pulpy, but no word of betrayal or of accusation of his brethren stained the lips of the young Covenanter. Unmoved by his afflictions, his tormentors carried him down into his dungeon to lie in painful intercession for his fellows, who outside on the gallows were dying in purity and piety for the sake of the Name and ‘in the power and sweetness thereof,’ in the cold, sea-tanged air of Edinburgh.

Again Hugh MacKail appeared before the men with the power of Pilate, and they in Pilate weakness condemned him to die by hanging in Edinburgh. But he who lived in the power of a deeper death, and had the sentence of it in himself, was borne with shining face as he left the court that day, his death sentence looming above his head. There had gathered a large crowd who openly wept as he passed. ‘Trust in God,’ he called to them, ‘Trust in God!’ Getting a fleeting glimpse of a well-known friend, he shouted in ecstasy, ‘How good is the news! Four days now until I see Jesus!’ In prison a merry thrill of joy was on him, making him humorous in serious hours. Someone asking him how his crushed leg was faring; he smilingly replied that the fear of his neck was making him forget his leg. And he averred that he was less cumbered about dying than he had often been about preaching a sermon! His old minister-father came to see him, and they strengthened and comforted each other in the love of the Father and the Son.

The night before his execution he went to rest at about 11:00pm, and his doctor-cousin, Matthew MacKail, lay by him. Doctor Matthew had gone to Archbishop Sharp for help, but ‘the Judas in the Church’ had not forgotten, and his answer was, ‘I can do nothing.’ To this the doctor replied, ‘You mean, "I will do nothing."’ Hugh was astir by 5:00am and awoke John Wodrow, the Glasgow merchant, who, with several other Covenanters, was to die beside him ‘Up, John,’ he said, smiling, ‘you and I do not look like men about to be hanged, seeing we lie so long.’ He bowed and earnestly prayed, ‘Lord, we come to Thy throne, a place we hitherto have not been acquainted with. Earthly kings’ thrones have advocates against poor men, but Thy throne has Jesus Christ an Advocate for us. Our prayer this day is not to be free from death, but that we may witness before many witnesses a good confession.’ His prayer was answered abundantly, and they who were seen in the weakness and scandal of the Cross showed forth the power of His resurrection.

Up that eloquent path of his nation’s history, the High Street of Edinburgh, the godly youth struggled along to the gallows. Crowds groaning in tears watched him as he passed. ‘He was fairer and of a more stayed countenance than ever before,’ they said. Looking over the great concourse of solemn people, joyous faith suffused him, and he cried aloud in a rapture, ‘So there is a greater and more solemn preparation in heaven to carry my soul to Christ’s bosom.’

His spoke boldly as he climbed up the scaffold, ‘The Lord knows I go up this ladder with less fear, confusion, or perturbation of mind, than ever I entered the pulpit to preach.’

On the scaffold, he took out his Testimony and read, ‘a singularly beautiful confession of fidelity and devotion.’ He had got what he said, ‘a clear ray of the Majesty of the Lord.’ His song of praise then lifted up, a rejoicing in salvation. It was from the 31st Psalm:

Into Thine hands I do commit, My spirit; for Thou art He, O Thou, Jehovah, God of truth, That hast redeemed me.

Up the ladder to the rope he climbed, crying,’ I care no more to go up this ladder, and over it, than if I were going home to my father’s house.’ Rung by rung he called aloud, ‘Every step is a degree nearer heaven.’ Sitting at the top of the ladder he took out his pocket Bible, and, after addressing the crowds, he read from the last chapter of it. Standing up, the napkin was put over his face, but, lifting it, in a remarkable voice by faith inspired, he burst forth into an ecstatic offering of farewells and welcomes filled with grace and glory, a blessed, wondrous and glorious Amen of comparison.

‘Now, I leave off to speak any more to creatures, and turn my speech to Thee, O Lord. Now I begin my intercourse with God which shall never be broken off. Farewell, father and mother, friends and relations! Farewell, the world and all delights! Farewell, meat and drink! Farewell, sun, moon and stars! Welcome, God and Father! Welcome, sweet Lord Jesus, Mediator of the New Covenant! Welcome, blessed Spirit of grace, God of all consolation! Welcome, glory! Welcome, eternal life! Welcome, death!’ The rope tightened around his thin young neck.

The watching crowds groaned dismally. And then was witnessed something surely unparalleled. ‘Love never faileth,’ and the great unfailing quality, unable to do any more in life, would help in death. Dr Matthew MacKail stood below the gallows, and as his martyr cousin writhed in the tautened ropes, he clasped the helpless jerking legs together and clung to them that death might come the easier and sooner. And so with Christ was Hugh MacKail ‘with his sweet boyish smile’. ‘And that will be my welcome,’ he had said, ‘the Spirit and the Bride say, Come.’

Later, the young Covenanter was laid out in the Magdalene Chapel, and dressed there for burial. Not all his fellow-martyrs were allowed this. He was laid in the earth of Greyfriars Kirkyard, where the National Covenant was signed two years before he was born. Of the convenanters it would be written, ‘Though some of them lived long in bondage through fear of death, and others of them had some anguish of body through the wounds received in Pentland, their torture, and other pieces of ill treatment afterward, yet all of them died in great serenity and peaceful hope of salvation.’

[Jock Purves — ‘Fair Sunshine’ The Banner of Truth Trust, 2003]