[3] Shortly afterward he became chaplain and tutor in the family of Sir James Stuart of Coltness and Goodtrees, then Lord Provost of Edinburgh.

After nine days' marching, however, his weak health obliged him to leave the insurgents, and on his way back to Liberton he was arrested, carried to Edinburgh, and committed to the Tolbooth.

Finally, after trial, despite the efforts of his cousin, Matthew Mackail, an apothecary,[5] who interceded with James Sharp, archbishop of St. Andrews, on his behalf, Hugh was hanged at the market-cross of Edinburgh on 22 December 1666, amid "such a lamentation," says Kirkton, "as was never known in Scotland before, not one dry cheek upon all the street, or in all the numberless windows in the market-place.

On the 1 September 1662, when 400 presbyterian ministers were about to be driven from their charges for non-compliance with episcopacy, he delivered a discourse in the High Church of Edinburgh, from the Song of Solomon, i.

[11] In 1666 he returned to Scotland, and immediately joined the band of covenanters who rose in arms in the west, previous to the defeat at Rullion Green, and continued with them from the 18 to the 27 of November, when not being able to endure the fatigue of constant marching, he left them near Cramond Water.

Next day, he was brought before the privy council for examination, and on the 4 December he was subjected to the torture of the boot,[12] with the object of extracting information from him relative to a conspiracy, which the government affected to believe extensively existed; but he declared that he knew of none, and had nothing to confess.

His cousin, Mr. Matthew M'Kail, an apothecary in Edinburgh, afterwards a doctor of medicine, applied to Archbishop Sharp, to interpose in his behalf, but the prelate only desired him to assure the prisoner that he would befriend him, if he would reveal the mystery of the plot against the government, and as he was not able to do so, he was put to the torture.

When placed at the bar, Mackail addressed the court, and "spoke of the ties and engagements that were upon the land to God; and having commended the institution, dignity, and blessing of presbyterian government, he said that the last words of the national covenant had always great weight on his spirit.

[11] Previous to being hanged, he addressed the spectators at some length, imputing the persecution of the church to the prelates, and declaring his readiness to die for the cause of God, the covenants, and the work of reformation, which had been the glory of Scotland.

[13] Sir Walter Scott's character Ephraim Macbriar in Old Mortality is supposed to be a distorted picture of Hugh Mackail.