For five months after his arrest, Father John was subjected to starvation, beatings, torture and sleep deprivation – but he met it all with equanimity, humour and courage. He even engaged in religious arguments with ministers. He was moved to Edinburgh in early December for further investigation by the Privy Council of the King, which consisted of the Archbishop of Glasgow, Lord Binning, Sir Gideon Murray, Lord Kilsyth and Sir William Oliphant. After a day’s trial, Father John was ordered to be subjected to the torture of the Vigil or Waking, which had been designed to ensure confessions of witchcraft. The prisoner was kept awake by being punched, thrown to the stone floor, and being pierced by sharp instruments or "witch’s bridles". This went on for eight days and nine nights, from the 12 th to the 21 st of December, until a doctor pronounced that he was within hours of death. Through all this, he had refused to disclose the names of Catholics to whom he had been ministering. After a few hours’ rest, he was brought back in front of the judges, still resisting threats and promises to save his skin. On the 24 th of December he was taken by horseback to Glasgow, where for weeks he was shackled to a heavy iron, unable to sit up without help. In a letter smuggled out of prison, he wrote : "I lie burdened with an iron weight of 200lb, awaiting death unless I accept what is offered with the King’s clemency; that is, a rich provostry and abjure the faith. Having been tortured once by a vigil of nine nights and eight days, I now await a second torture and afterwards death. The gaoler will be coming back." Banishment for saying Mass, like others, was no longer an option. The Ogilvie case had now gone further, and the King wanted him to repudiate the Pope or die. On the 18 th of January, 1615, King James intervened directly to draft a list of five questions, all designed to force the priest into accepting, or rejecting, the "divine right" of the King in all matters, spiritual and temporal, which he sent to Spottiswoode..