James Mitchell (Covenanter)

Returning to Edinburgh he made the acquaintance of Major Weir, who procured for him the post of chaplain in a ‘fanatical family, the lady whereof was niece to Sir Archibald Johnston of Warriston.

He was in Edinburgh on 28 November, when the rebels were defeated at Pentland, but was pronounced guilty of treason in a proclamation of 4 December 1666, and on 1 October 1667 was excluded from the pardon granted to those engaged in the rising.

Mitchell became convinced that Archbishop James Sharp was the sole barrier that stood between him and the clemency of the Government; and, also that this recreant was the "prime cause" of all the trouble in Scotland.

Mitchell was indicted before the High Court of Justiciary and sentenced to have his right hand cut off by the common executioner, at the "Mercat Cross" of Edinburgh.

Indicted afresh, before the High Court in 1675, for his participation in the Pentland Rising and the attempt on the Archbishop's life, he retracted his Confession and pleaded "Not Guilty."

Having no other proof in support of the latter charge except his Confession (and that having been recanted) the Court ordered the "torture of the Boot," with the view that he might be constrained anew to adhere to it.

However, no amount of torture could induce him to incriminate himself; and he was accordingly sent to the Tolbooth Prison where he lay until the beginning of 1677, when he was transferred to the Bass Rock.

The attempted murder was an act that met with no sympathy from the great body of the Covenanters, who rather repudiated everything approaching to private revenge and assassination.

The death sentence adjudged him "to be taken to the Grassmarket of Edinburgh, upon Friday, the 18th day of January instant, betwixt two and four o’clock in the afternoon, and there to be hanged on a gibbet till he be dead, and all his moveable goods and gear to be escheat (confiscated) and inbrought to His Majesty’s use."

He had great searchings of conscience and was anxious to obtain a reprieve for Mitchell, in the hope that the King might grant him his life.

But Sharp was inexorable and insisted that the "extreme penalty" should be inflicted, alleging that for "favour to be shown to such an assassin was, upon the matter, to expose his person to any man who would attempt to murder him."

He himself attributed his attempt on Sharp as ‘ane impulse of the spirit of God’ (Kirkton, History of the Church of Scotland, p. 387).

His son James, who graduated at the University of Edinburgh on 11 Nov. 1698, was licensed by the presbytery there on 26 July 1704, ordained on 5 April 1710, and became minister of Dunnotar in the same year.