all knowledge of the unfortunate traveller's fate had been carefully concealed until it was discovered to them by accident.
Shortly after his release he was carried on board of an English ship, for his person was so fearfully mangled that he was not only wholly unable to walk, but was apparently beyond hope of recovery. In this state, on his arrival in England, which was in 1621, he was exhibited, lying on a feather bed, to the king and the whole of the court, all the persons of whom it was composed, crowding to see him. His miserable situation excited universal sympathy, and might under a more spirited prince have become the ground of a national quarrel with the country in which the cruelty and injustice had been inflicted. If his majesty, however, failed in avenging the unhappy traveller's injuries, he was not wanting in compassion for his sufferings. He was twice sent to Bath at the royal expense, and maintained by the same hand for seven and twenty weeks, until he had in a great measure recovered his original health and strength, "although," he says, "my left arm and crushed bones be incurable."
Soon after his arrival in England, Lithgow was carried, by the king's direction to the residence of Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador at the English court, fur the purpose of endeavouring to procure some redress of his grievances. By this celebrated person he was treated with characteristic duplicity. Lithgow, finding the case hopeless, accused the Spaniard, in the presence chamber, and before a crowd of courtiers, of deceit and ungentlemanlike conduct This charge he followed up with an act of violence on the person of the ambassador, for which, though his spirited conduct was much applauded, he was sent to the Marshalsea, where he was confined nine weeks. Lithgow after this made several attempts to procure some sort of redress or compensation from the house of commons, by a bill of grievances, but none of these were successful. The last effort of this kind which he made was in 1626. In the year following he returned to Scotland ; and still under the influence of that spirit which had urged him to roam through the world for so many years, he undertook a tour through the western isles. He speaks of himself as having been in the island of Arran in the year 1628; but from this period little more is known regarding him. He finally, however, and probably soon after this, returned to his native parish, where he remained till his death ; but when this took place is uncertain. He was interred in the church-yard of Lanark, and is yet familiarly spoken of in that part of the country, where it is said several of his descendents still exist The place of his sepulture is unmarked by any memorial, and cannot therefore be pointed out
The first edition of his travels was printed in 1614, 4to. This work was again reprinted in the reign of Charles I., with a dedication to that monarch. He also published an account of the siege of Buda in 1637, a circumstance which shows that he had attained a considerable age; as in 1637, he would be in his 54th year.
LIVINGSTON, John, one of the most revered names in Scottish ecclesiastical history. He was born at Kilsyth in Stirlingshire, (then called Monybroch), on the 21st of June, 1603. His father, Mr William Livingston, who officiated as minister of Monybroch from 1600 to 1614, and was then translated to Lanark, was the son of Mr Alexander Livingston, his predecessor, in the charge of the parish of Monybroch, and who, in his turn, was a grandson of Alexander, fifth lord Livingston, one of the nobles intrusted with the keeping of queen Mary in her infancy, and the ancestor of the earls of Linlithgow and Callender. His mother was Agnes Livingston, daughter of Alexander Livingston, a cadet of the house of Dunnipace. His Christian name he received at baptism in compliance with the request of lady Lillias Graham.[1]
- ↑ A gentlewoman of the house of Wigton, with whom, as with many persons of equal
