William Boyd, 4th Earl of Kilmarnock, was beheaded on Tower Hill on 18 August 1746 for his part in the Jacobite rising. Arthur Elphinstone, Lord Balmerino, was executed with him.

Kilmarnock had joined the Jacobite army during the rising of 1745. He was captured following the Battle of Culloden on 16 April 1746, when government forces defeated the Jacobite army.

They took him to London and tried him for high treason alongside Balmerino and George Mackenzie, Earl of Cromartie. All three were condemned to death. Cromartie’s sentence was later remitted, but attempts to obtain mercy for Kilmarnock failed.

Kilmarnock and Balmerino were taken to Tower Hill for execution on 18 August. Contemporary prints show the scaffold surrounded by guards and large crowds, with spectators also watching from temporary stands, windows and rooftops.

The two men were beheaded separately. Kilmarnock died four months after his capture following Culloden.

His execution was one of several carried out against prominent participants in the Jacobite rising. Jacobite mourning rings later commemorated Kilmarnock, Balmerino and other executed supporters of the rising.