Her
early childhood may have been unharassed, but Grisell Home's girlhood
was a careful and anxious one. On the discovery of the Rye House Plot,
Baillie of Jerviswoode and Home of Polwarth, innocent men both, were
denounced as traitors to their King. Baillie was taken, and after
several months of imprisonment in London, so heavily loaded with chains
that his health completely broke down, he was brought by sea to
Edinburgh in stormy November weather which kept the ship a fortnight on
its way. A dying man when he was put in the Tolbooth, he yet had to
undergo many exhausting examinations and a farcical trial, with "Bluidy
Mackenzie" for chief inquisitor, and on Christmas Eve, 1684, he
gallantly and cheerfully met a martyr's death at the Market Cross of
Edinburgh.
Sir Patrick Home's denunciation was longer in coming than that of his
friend, and not until November 1684 was the warrant for his apprehension
issued. He, good man, had no desire for martyrdom; moreover, at that
time he already possessed ten children, whose future as orphans was
likely to be wretched, and so Sir Patrick sought concealment from the
hounds of the law. Foiled in laying hold of him, the law seized his
eldest son, Patrick, and cast him into prison. Two days after
Jerviswoode's death, the lad petitioned the Privy Council for release.
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