"Three of your ancestors, madam, were Constables of France."
"That's nothing to boast of," returned Louise; "no, not if they had been inspectors of police."
"You are incorrigible, girl, and have not sense enough to have a proper feeling of family pride."
"Haven't I? Am I not proud of all the stories uncle David tells us of his courage, when he was mate of an Indiaman? and aunt Jenkison—don't you remember, sir, how she dined with us at Christmas, and had to walk in pattens through the snow, and tumbled in Cheapside?"
A laugh began to form itself round the eyes of the French magnate, which made his countenance uncommonly like what it used to be when it was that of an English merchant. Louise saw her success, and proceeded.
"And how you said, when the poor old lady was brought home in a chair, that it was the punch that did it?"
"He, he! and so it was. Didn't I caution her, all the time, that it was old Jamaica rum?" broke out the father; but checked himself, as if he were guilty of some indecorum.
"And don't you remember how we all attended the launch of uncle Peter's ship, the Hope's Return? Ah, they were happy days, father! weren't they?"
"No, madam; no—vulgar, miserable days: forget them as quick as you can. I tell you, when you resume your proper sphere, every eye will be turned to your beauty: nobles will be dying at your feet."
"I trust not, sir," hurriedly burst in Mr Hope. "I don't see what right any nobles will have to be dying at Louise's feet."
"Don't you, sir?" said Louise. "Indeed! I beg to tell you, that as many as choose shall die at my feet. I'll trouble you, Mr Hope, not to interfere with the taste of any nobleman who has a fancy to so queer a place for his death-bed." But while she said this, she tapped him so playfully with her little white hand, and looked at him so kindly with her beautiful blue eyes, that the young gentleman seemed greatly reassured; and in a few minutes, as if tired of the conversation, betook himself to the other room.
Suddenly a great noise was heard in the street, and interrupted the lectures of father and aunt on the dignity of position and the pride of birth. Miss Lucretia and Louise ran to the window, and saw a cavalcade of carriages, with outriders, and footmen on the rumble, and all the stately accompaniments of the old-fashioned family coach, which, after a slow progress along the causeway, stopped at the hotel door.
"My friends! my noble friends!" exclaimed the marquis; "and I in this miserable dress!"
"The noble men! the salts of the earth!" equally exclaimed Miss Smith; "and I in my morning gownd!"
Saying this, she hastily fled into her bed-room, which, according to the fashion of French houses, opened on the sitting-room, and left the father and Louise alone.
The father certainly was in no fitting costume for the dignity of his new character. He was dressed according to the fashion of the respectable London trader of his time—a very fitting figure for 'Change, but not appropriate to the Marquis de Bouillon de Chateau d'Or. Nor, in fact, was his disposition much more fitted for his exalted position than his clothes. To all intents and purposes, he was a true John Bull: proud of his efforts to attain wealth—proud of his success—proud of the freedom of his adopted land—and, in his secret heart, thinking an English merchant several hundred degrees superior in usefulness and worth to all the marquises that ever lived on the smiles ofthe Grand Monarque. The struggle, therefore, that went on within him was the most ludicrous possible. To his family and friends he presented that phase of his individuality that set his nobility in front; to the French nobles, on the other hand, he was inclined to show only so much of himself as presented the man of bills and invoices; and in both conditions, by a wonderful process of reasoning, in which we are all adepts, considered himself raised above the individuals he addressed.
"Did they see you at the window?" he said, in some trepidation, while the visitors were descending from their coaches.
"To be sure," replied Louise; "and impudent-looking men they were."
"Ah! that's a pity. Do, for heaven's sake, my dear, just slip in beside your aunt. They are a very gay polite people, the nobles of France—"
"Well; and what then?"
"And they might take ways of showing it, we are not used to in England. Do hide yourself, my dear—there, that's a good girl." And just as he had succeeded in pushing her into the bedroom, and begged her to lock herself in, the landlord of the hotel ushered four or five noblemen into the apartment, as visitors to the Marquis de Bouillon. The eldest of the strangers—about forty years old—bespangled with jewels, and ornamented with two or three stars and ribbons, looked with some surprise on the plainly drest and citizen-mannered man, who came forward to welcome them.
"We came to pay our compliments to my lord the Marquis de Bouillon de Chateau d'Or."
"And very glad he is to see you, gentlemen," said their host.
"You?—impossible! He speaks with an English accent."
"An impostor!" replied another of the nobles, to whom the last sentence had been addressed in a whisper."
"I am, indeed,—and truly glad to make your acquaintance, I assure you."
"Well," resumed the Frenchman, "let me present to you the Viscount de Lanoy—the Baron Beauvilliers—the Marquis de Croissy—for myself, I'm Duc de Vieuxchateau."
"Sit down, gentlemen—I beg," said De Bouillon, after bowing to the personages named. "A charming place this Tours, and I'm very glad to see you—fine weather, gentlemen."
"I trust you have come with the intention of residing among us. Your estates, I conclude, are restored along with your titles."
"No, gentlemen, they're not. But we may manage to buy some of them back again. How's land here?"
"Land?" inquired the duke, rather bewildered with the question.
"Yes—how is it, as to rent? How much an acre?"
"'Pon my word, I don't know. When I want money I tell the steward, and the people—the—serfs, I suppose, they are—who hold the plough and manage the land—give him some, and he brings it to me."
"Oh! but you don't know how many years' purchase it's worth?"
To this there was no answer—statistics, at that time, not being a favourite study in France.
"But, marquis," inquired another, "hasn't the King restored you your manorial rights—yourdroits de seigneur?"
"No, sir."
"Then what's the use of land without them?" was the very pertinent rejoinder.
"What are they, sir?" inquired the marquis.
"Why, if a tenant of yours has a pretty daughter," said one.
"Or a wife," said another.
"Or even a niece," said a third.
"Well, sir, what then? I don't take."
"Oh, you're a wag, marquis!" replied the duke. "Didn't I see, as we stopt before your window, a countenance radiant with beauty?"
"Eyes like stars," chimed in another.
"Cheeks like roses. Aha! Monsieur le Marquis—who was it?—come!"
"Why, that,—oh, that,—that's a young lady under my protection, gentlemen; and I must beg you to change the conversation."
"Indeed! you're a lucky fellow! The old fool mustn't be allowed to keep such beauty to himself."
"Certainly not," returned the vicomte, also in a whisper.
"Lucky!" said De Bouillon—"yes, gentlemen, I am lucky. If you knew all, you would think so, I'm sure."
"She loves you, then, old simpleton?"
"I think she does—I know she does—"
"May we not ask the honour of being presented?"
"Some other time, gentlemen—not now—she's not here—she's gone out for a walk."
"Impossible, my dear lord; we must have met her as we came up stairs."
"She has a headache—she's gone to lie down for a few minutes," said the marquis, getting more and more anxious to keep Louise from the intrusion of his visitors.
"I have an excellent cure for headaches of all kinds," exclaimed the baron, and proceeded towards the bed-room door. The Marquis de Bouillon, however, put himself between; but the duke and vicomte pulled him aside, and the baron began to rat-tat on the door.
"Come forth, madam!" he began, "we are dying for a sight of your angelic charms. De Bouillon begs you to honour us with your presence. Hark, she's coming!" he added, and drew back as he heard the bolt withdrawn on the other side.
"Stay where you are! don't come out!" shouted De Bouillon, still in the hands of his friends. "I charge you, don't move a step!" But his injunctions were vain; the door opened, and, sailing majestically into the room, drest out in hoop and furbelow, and waving her fan affectedly before her face, appeared Miss Lucretia Smith—
"Did you visit to see me, gentlemen? I'm always delighted to see any one as is civil enough to give us a forenoon call."
The French nobles, however, felt their ardour damped to an extraordinary degree, and replied by a series of the most respectful salaams.
"Profound veneration," "deepest reverence," and other expressions of the same kind, were muttered by each of the visiters; and in a short time they succeeded, in spite of Miss Lucretia's reiterated invitations, in bowing themselves out of the room. They were accompanied by the marquis to their carriages, while Miss Smith was gazing after them, astonished, more than pleased, at the wonderful politeness of their manner. Louise slipt out of the bed-room, and slapt her astonished aunt upon the shoulder—
"You've done it, aunt!—you've done it now! A word from you recalls these foreigners to their senses."
"It gives me a high opinion," replied Miss Smith, "of them French. They stand in perfect awe of dignity and virtue."
Great were the discussions, all that day, among the English party in the hotel—the father concealing his disappointment at the behaviour of his fellow nobles, under an exaggerated admiration of rank, and all its attributes; Louise professing to chime in with her father's ideas, for the pleasant purpose of vexing Cecil Hope; Mr Cocker still persuading himself the Frenchmanship of his old master was a little bit of acting that would end as soon as the curtain fell; and Miss Lucretia devising means of making up for her failures with so many curates, by catching a veritable duke. With the next morning new occupations began. The marquis, dressed in the fantastic apparel of a French courtier, exchanged compliments with his daughter, who was also magnificently attired, to do honour to the occasion. Mr Hope tried in vain to get her to sink from the lofty style she assumed, and had strong thoughts of setting off for Hertfordshire, and marrying a farmer's daughter out of revenge. The father was so carried away by family pride, and the daughter enjoyed the change in her rank so heartily, that there seemed no room in the heart of either for so prosaic a being as a plain English squire. And yet, every now and then, there gleamed from the corner of Louise's eye, or stole out in a merry tone of her voice, the old familiar feeling, so that he could not altogether give way to despair, but waited in patience what the chapter of accidents might bring. At one o'clock the marquis set off for the town-hall, where he was to gothrough the ceremony of reclaiming his father's sword, and have the blot on the scutcheon formally removed; after which he was to entertain the town authorities, and the neighbouring nobility, at dinner; the evening to conclude with a ball, in the preparation for which the ladies were to be left at home. Mr Hope accompanied him to the door of the town-hall,—but there he professed to find his feelings overpowered, and declined to witness the ceremony that, he said, broke the connexion which had existed so long between the names of Hope and Bullion; but, ere he could return to the hotel, several things had occurred that had a material influence on his prospects, and these we must now proceed to relate. Miss Lucretia Smith continued her oratory in the ears of her devoted niece after the gentlemen had gone, the burden thereof consisting, principally, in a comparison between the nobles of France and the shopocracy of London,—till that young lady betook herself to the bedroom window already mentioned, to watch for Cecil's return. She had not been long at her watch-post, when a carriage, with the blinds drawn up, and escorted by seven or eight armed men, with masks on their faces, pulled up at the door. Of this she took no particular notice, but kept looking attentively down the street. But, a minute or two after the closed carriage drove under theporte cochère, a young gentleman was ushered into the presence of Miss Smith, and was, by that young lady, received with the highestempressementpossible. She had only had time to improve her toilette by putting on Louise's shawl and bonnet, which happened to be lying on a chair; and, in spite of the shortness of the view she had had of him the day before, she immediately recognised him as one of her brother's visiters, the Baron Beauvilliers.
"Permit me, madam," he said, in very good English, "to apologise for my intrusion, but I have the authority of my friend De Bouillon to consider myself here at home."
"Oh, sir, you are certainly the politest nation on the face of the earth, you French—that I must say; but I may trust, I hope, to the honour of a gent like you? You won't be rude to an unoffended female? for there ain't a soul in the 'ouse that could give me the least assistance."
The baron bowed in a very assuring manner, and, taking a seat beside her, "May I make bold, madam, to ask who the tawdry silly-looking young person is who resides under De Bouillon's protection?"
"Sir—under Mr Bull—I mean, under the marquee's protection? I don't understand you."
"Exactly as I suspected. I guessed, from the dignity of your appearance, that such an infamous proceeding was entirely unknown to you. Command my services, madam, in any way you can make them available. Let me deliver you from the scandal of being in the same house with a person of that description."
"Oh, sir!" replied Miss Smith, "you are certainly most obliging. When we are a little better acquainted perhaps—in a few days, or even in one—I shall be happy to accept your offer; but, la! what will my brother-in-law say if I accept a gentleman's offer at minute's notice?"
Miss Smith accompanied this speech with various blushes and pauses, betokening the extent of her modest reluctance; but the baron either did not perceive the mistake she had made, or did not think it worth while to notice it.
"I will convey the destroyer of your peace away from your sight. Show me only the room she is in. And consider, madam, that you will make me the proudest of men by allowing me to be your knight and champion on this occasion."
"Really, sir, I can't say at present where the gipsy can be. Brother-in-law has been very sly; but if I can possibly ferret her out, won't I send her on her travels? Wait but a minute, sir: I'll come to you the moment she can be found."
But the baron determined to accompany her in her search, and together they left the room, two active members of the Society for the Suppression of Vice. Louise had heard the noise of voices, without distinguishing or attending to what was said, but a low and hurried tap at the door now attracted her notice.
"Miss Louise—ma'am—for heaven's sake, come out!" said the voice of Mr Cocker through the key-hole; "for here's a whole regiment of them French, and they wants to run away withYOU."
"With me, Cocker!" exclaimed Louise, coming into the parlour. "What is it you mean?"
"What I say, miss—and your aunt is as bad as any on 'em. She's searching the house, at this moment, to give you tip into their hands. She can't refuse nothing to them noblesse, as she calls 'em. The gentleman has gone down to the court-yard to see that nobody escapes, and here we are, like mice in a trap."
"Go for Cecil, Cocker; leave me to myself," said Louise—her features dilating into tiger-like beauty, with rage and self-confidence. "Go, I tell you—you'll find him returning from the town-hall—and bid him lose not a moment in coming to my help." She waved Mr Cocker impatiently from her, and returned for a moment into the bed-room.
"Madam, hist! I beg you will be quick!" exclaimed the baron, entering the parlour; "I can't wait much longer. What a detestable old fool it is!" he went on, in a lower voice; "she might have found the girl long ere this. "Well, well, have you found her?" he continued, addressing Louise, who issued from the bed-room in some of the apparel of her aunt, and assuming as nearly as she could the airs and graces of that individual. "Tell me, madam, where she is."
"La! sir, how is one to find out these things in a moment—besides, they ain't quite proper subjects for a young lady to be concerned with," replied Louise, keeping her bashful cheek from the sight of the baron with her enormous fan.
"Then, madam, point with that lovely finger of yours, and I shall make the discovery myself."
Louise pointed, as required, to the gallery, along which, at that moment, her quick eye caught the step of Miss Lucretia; and the baron, going to the door, gave directions to his attendants to seize the lady, and carry her without loss of time to the Parc d'Amour, a hotel on the outskirts of Tours. He then closed the door, and listened—no less than did Louise—to the execution of his commands.
"There, madam," he said, as the scuffle of seizure and a very faint scream were heard, "they've got her! Your pure presence shall never more be polluted by her society. A naughty man old De Bouillon, and unaccustomed to the strict morality of France. Adieu!"
"Adieu, sir!" said Louise; but there was a tone in her voice, or something in her manner, that called the attention of her visitor. He went up to her, laid his hand upon the fan, and revealed before him, beautiful from alarm and indignation, was the face of Louise de Bouillon! "So, madam! this was an excellent device, but I have more assistance at hand. Ho! Pierre! François!" he began to call. "I have another carriage in the yard—you sha'nt escape me so."
"Stop, sir!" exclaimed Louise, and placed herself between him and the door. "These are not the arts of wooing we are used to in England. I expected more softness and persuasion."
"Alas, madam, 'tis only the shortness of the opportunity that prevents me from making a thousand protestations. But, after all, what is the use of them? Ho! François!"
As he said this, he approached nearer to Louise, and even laid his hand upon her arm. But with the quickness of lightning, she made a dart at the diamond-covered hilt of her assailant's sword, and pulling it from the sheath, stood with the glittering point within an inch of the Frenchman's eyes.
"Back, back!" she cried, "or you are a dead man—or frog—or monkey—or whatever you are!"
Each of these names was accompanied with a step in advance; and there was too savage a lustre in her look to allow the unfortunate baron to doubt for a moment that his life was in the highest peril.
"Madam," he expostulated, "do be careful—'tis sharp as a needle."
"Back, back!" she continued, advancing with each word upon his retreating steps—"you thread-paper—you doll-at-a-fair—you stuffed cockatoo—back, back!" And on arriving at the bed-room door, she gave a prodigiously powerful lunge inadvance, and drove her victim fairly into the room, and, with an exclamation of pride and triumph, locked him in. But, exhausted with the excitement, she had only time to lay the sword on the table, wave the key three times round her head in sign of victory, and fall fainting into the arms of Cecil Hope, who at that moment rushed into the room.
The ceremony in the town-hall passed off with the greatestéclât; and the dinner was probably thought the finest part of the day's entertainment by all but the newly re-established noble himself. Flushed with the glories of the proceeding, and also with the wine he had swallowed to his own health and happiness, he sallied forth with his friends of the preceding day—except, of course, the Baron Beauvilliers—and, as he himself expressed it, was awake for anything, up to any lark.
"A lark, says my lord?" inquired the Duke de Vieuxchateau.
"Ay," replied the marquis, "if it's as big as a turkey, all the better. That champaign is excellent tipple, and would be cheap at eighty-four shillings per dozen."
The French nobles did not quite understand their companion's phraseology, but were quite willing to join him in any extravagance.
"What shall we do?" cried one; "shall we break open the jail?"
"No," said De Bouillon: "hang it! that's a serious matter. But I'll tell you what, I've no objection to knock down a charley."
"No, no! let's go toRouge et Noir."
"Boys, boys!" at last exclaimed the Vicomte de Lanoy, "I'll tell you what we shall do,—Beauvilliers told me that, while we were all engaged at the dinner, he was going to seize a beautiful creature, and carry her off to the Parc d'Amour."
"Wrong, decidedly wrong!" said De Bouillon at this proposition. "Who is she?"
"Why, the companion, you understand, of an old twaddling fool, who has no right to so much beauty. Beauvilliers did not tell me his name, but 'tis only one of thebourgeoisie, and we surely have a right to do as we like withthem."
"Ah yes! of course," replied De Bouillon, "I did not think of that. What then?"
"Why, sir, we shall play as good a trick on Beauvilliers as he designed for the ancient gentleman. Let's get there before him, and carry her from him!"
"Agreed, agreed!"
"No, no, I must declare off," said the marquis. "'Tis a bad business altogether, and this would make it worse."
"But who is to carry the lady?" inquired the duke, without attending to the scruples of his friend.
"Toss for it," suggested the vicomte. A louis was thrown into the air. "Heads! heads!" cried the nobleman. "Tails!" said De Bouillon.
"'Tis tails!" exclaimed the vicomte. "Marquis, the chance is yours—you've won."
"Oh! have I?" replied the unwilling favourite of fortune; "I've won, have I?"
"You don't seem overpleased with your good luck," said the duke; "give me your chance, and I shall know how to make better use of it."
"No, gentlemen, I'll manage this affair myself."
"Come on, then!—vive la joie!"—and with great joviality they pursued their way to the Parc d'Amour.
But they had been preceded in their journey to that hostelry by Louise, attended by Cecil Hope and Mr Cocker. By the administration of a douceur to the waiter, they obtained anentréeto the apartment designed for the baron and his prey, and had scarcely time to ensconce themselves behind the window-curtain, when Miss Lucretia was escorted into the room. There were no symptoms of any violent resistance to her captors having been offered, and she took her seat on the sofa without any perceptible alarm.
"Well, them's curious people, them French!" she soliloquised when the men had left her. "If that 'ere baron fell in love with a body, couldn't he say so without all that rigmaroleabout Mr Bullion's behaviour, and pulling a body nearly to pieces? I'm sure if he had axed me in a civil way, I wouldn't have said no. But, lawkins! here he comes."
So saying, she enveloped herself in Louise's shawl, and pulled Louise's bonnet farther on her face, and prepared to enact the part of an offended, yet not altogether unforgiving beauty. But the door, on being slowly opened, presented, not the countenance of the baron, but the anxious face of Mr Bullion himself. The three French nobles pushed him forward. "Go on," they said; "make the best use of your eloquence. We will watch here, and guard the door against Beauvilliers himself."
The marquis, now thoroughly sobered, slowly advanced: "If I can save this poor creature from the insolence of thoseroués, it will be well worth the suffering it has cost. Trust to me, madam," he said, in a very gentle voice, to the lady: "I will not suffer you to be insulted while I live. Come with me, madam, and you shall not be interrupted by ever a French profligate alive." On looking closely at the still silent lady on the sofa, he was startled at recognising a dress with which he was well acquainted.
"In the name of heaven!" he said, "I adjure you to tell me who you are. Are you—is it possible—can you be my Louise!"
"No, Mr Bullion," replied Miss Lucretia, lifting up the veil, and turning round to the trembling old man. "And I must say I'm considerably surprised to find you in a situation like this."
"And you, madam—yourself—how came you here?"
"A young gentleman—nobleman, I should say—ran off with me here, and I expected him every minute when you came in."
"And Louise?" inquired the father, in an agitated voice—"when did you leave her? Oh! my folly to let her a moment out of my sight!—to reject Cecil Hope!—to bedizen myself in this ridiculous fashion! Where, oh where is Louise?"
"Here, sir," exclaimed that lady, coming forward from behind the window-curtain.
"And safe? Ah! but I need not ask. I see two honest Englishmen by your side."
"And one of them, sir, says he'll never leave it," said Louise.
"Stop a moment," replied the marquis. "Ho! gentlemen, come in."
At his request his companions entered the room.
"Gentlemen," said the marquis, "when I determined to reclaim my father's sword, I expected to find it bright as Bayard's, and unstained with infamy or dishonour. When I wished to resume my title, I hoped to find it a sign of the heroic virtues of my ancestors, but not a cloak for falsehood and vice. I warn you, sirs, your proceedings will be fatal to your order, and to your country. For myself, I care not for this sword,"—he threw it on the ground—"this filagree I despise,"—he took off his star and ribbon—"and I advise you to leave this chamber as fast as you can find it convenient."
The French nobles obeyed.
"Here, Cocker! off with all this silk and satin; get me my gaiters and flaxen wig; and, please Heaven, one week will see us in the little room above the warehouse."
"Preparing, sir, to move into Hertfordshire?" inquired Louise, leaning on Cecil's arm.
"Ay, my child; and, in remembrance of this adventure, we shall hang up among the pictures in the hall,
The Sword of Honour."
It must be allowed that a perusal of Scottish history betrays more anomalies than are to be found in the character of almost any other people. It is not without reason that our southern neighbours complain of the difficulty of thoroughly understanding our national idiosyncrasy. At one time we appear to be the most peaceable race upon the surface of the earth—quiet, patient, and enduring; stubborn, perhaps, if interfered with, but, if let alone, in no way anxious to pick a quarrel. Take us in another mood, and gunpowder is not more inflammable. We are ready to go to the death, for a cause about which an Englishman would not trouble himself; and amongst ourselves, we divide into factions, debate, squabble, and fight with an inveteracy far more than commensurate with the importance of the quarrel. Sometimes we seem to have no romance; at other times we are perfect Quixotes. The amalgamated blood of the Saxon and the Celt seems, even in its union, to display the characteristics of either race. We rush into extremes: one day we appear over-cautious, and on the next, theperfervidum ingenium Scotorumprevails.
If these remarks be true as applied to the present times, they become still more conspicuous when we regard the troublous days of our ancestors. At one era, as in the reign of David I., we find the Scottish nation engaged, heart and soul, in one peculiar phase of religious excitement. Cathedrals and abbeys are starting up in every town. All that infant art can do—and yet, why call it infant, since, in architecture at least, it has never reached a higher maturity?—is lavished upon the structure of our fanes. Melrose, and Jedburgh, and Holyrood, and a hundred more magnificent edifices, rise up like exhalations throughout a poor and barren country; the people are proud in their faith, and perhaps even prouder in the actual splendour of their altars. A few centuries roll by, and we find the same nation deliberately undoing and demolishing the works of their forefathers. Hewn stone and carved cornices, tracery, mullions, and buttresses, have now become abominations in their sight. Not only must the relics of the saints be scattered to the winds of heaven, and their images ground into dust, but every church in which these were deposited or displayed, must be dismantled as the receptacle of pollution. The hammer swings again, but not with the same pious purpose as of yore. Once it was used to build; now it is heaved to destroy. Aisle and archway echo to the thunder of its strokes, and, amidst a roar of iconoclastic wrath, the venerable edifice goes down. Another short lapse of time, and we are lamenting the violence of the past, and striving to prop, patch up, and rebuild what little remnant has been spared of the older works of devotion.
The same anomalies will be found if we turn from the ecclesiastical to the political picture. Sometimes there is a spirit of loyalty manifested, for which it would be difficult to find a parallel. The whole nation gathers round the person of James IV.; and earl and yeoman, lord and peasant, chief and vassal, lay down their lives at Flodden for their king. His successor James V., in no respect unworthy of his crown, dies of a broken heart, deserted by his peers and their retainers. The unfortunate Mary, welcomed to her country with acclamation, is made the victim of the basest intrigues, and forced to seek shelter, and find death in the dominions of her treacherous enemy. The divine right, in its widest meaning and acceptation, is formally recognised by the Scottish estates as the attribute of James VII.; three years afterwards, a new convention is prompt to recognise an alien. Half a century further on, we are found offering the gage of battle to England in support of the exiled family.
This singular variety of mood, ofwhich the foregoing are a few instances, is no doubt partly attributable to the peculiar relationship which existed between the crown and the principal nobility. The latter were not cousins by courtesy only—they were intimately connected with the royal family, and some of them were near the succession. Hence arose jealousy amongst themselves, a system of feud and intrigue, which was perpetuated for centuries, and a constant effort, on the part of one or other of the conflicting magnates, to gain possession and keep custody of the royal person, whenever minority or weakness appeared to favour the attempt. But we cannot help thinking, that the disposition of the people ought also to be taken into account. Fierce when thwarted, and with a memory keenly retentive of injury, the Scotsman is in reality a much more impulsive being than his southern neighbour. His sense of justice and order is not so strongly developed, but his passion glows with a fire all the more intense because to outward appearance it is smothered. His ideas of social duty are different from those of the Englishman. Kindred is a closer tie—identity of name and family is a bond of singular union. Clanship, in the broad acceptation of the word, has died out for all practical purposes; chieftainship is still a recognised and a living principle. The feudal times, though gone, have left their traces on the national character. Little as baronial sway, too often tantamount to sheer oppression, can have contributed towards the happiness of the people, we still recur to the history of these troublous days with a relish and fondness which can hardly be explained, save through some undefined and subtle sympathy of inheritance. Though the objects for which they contended are now mere phantoms of speculation we yet continue to feel and to speak as if we were partisans of the cause of our ancestors, and to contest old points with as much ardour as though they were new ones of living interest to ourselves.
We have been led into this strain of thought by the perusal of a work, strictly authentic as a history, and yet as absorbing in interest as the most coloured and glowing romance. Sir William Kirkaldy of Grange, the subject of these Memoirs, played a most conspicuous part in the long and intricate struggles which convulsed Scotland, from the death of James V. until the latter part of the reign of Queen Mary. Foremost in battle and in council, we find his name prominently connected with every leading event of the period, and his influence and example held in higher estimation than those of noblemen who were greatly his superiors in rank, following, and fortune. In fact, Kirkaldy achieved, by his own talent and indomitable valour, a higher reputation, and exercised, for a time, a greater influence over the destinies of the nation, than was ever before possessed by a private Scottish gentleman, with the glorious exception of Wallace. In an age when the sword was the sole arbiter of public contest and of private quarrel, it was a proud distinction to be reputed, not only at home but abroad—not only by the voice of Scotland, but by that of England and France—the best and bravest soldier, and the most accomplished cavalier of his time. Mixed up in the pages of general history, too often turbidly and incoherently written, the Knight of Grange may not be estimated, in the scale of importance, at the level of such personages as the subtle Moray, or the vindictive and treacherous Morton: viewed as all individual, through the medium of these truthful and most fascinating memoirs, he will be found at least their equal as a leader and a politician, and far their superior as a generous and heroic man.
His father, Sir James Kirkaldy, was a person of no mean family or reputation. He occupied, for a considerable time, the office of Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, and, according to our author—
"Enjoyed, in a very high degree, the favour and confidence of King James V.; and though innumerable efforts were made by his mortal foe Cardinal Beatoun, and others, to bring him into disgrace as a promoter of the Reformation, they all proved ineffectual, and the wary old baron maintained his influence to the last."
"Enjoyed, in a very high degree, the favour and confidence of King James V.; and though innumerable efforts were made by his mortal foe Cardinal Beatoun, and others, to bring him into disgrace as a promoter of the Reformation, they all proved ineffectual, and the wary old baron maintained his influence to the last."
Old Sir James seems to have been one of those individuals with whom it is neither safe nor pleasant to differ in opinion. According to his brother-in-law,Sir James Melville of Halhill, he was "a stoute man, who always offered, by single combate, and at point of the sword, to maintain whatever he said;" a testimonial which, we observe, has been most fitly selected as the motto of this book, the son having been quite as much addicted to the wager of battle as the father; nor, though a strenuous supporter of the Reformation, does he appear to have imbibed much of that meekness which is inculcated by holy writ. He was not the sort of man whom John Bright would have selected to second a motion at a Peace Congress; indeed, the mere sight of him would have caused the voice of Elihu Burritt to subside into a quaver of dismay. Cardinal Beatoun, that proud and licentious prelate, to whose tragical end we shall presently have occasion to advert, was the personal and bitter enemy of the Treasurer, as he was of every other independent Scotsman who would not truckle to his power. But James V., though at times too facile, would not allow himself to be persuaded into so dangerous an act as countenancing prosecutions for heresy against any of his martial subjects; and, so long as he lived, the over-weening bigotry and arrogance of the priesthood were held in check. But other troubles brought the good king to an untimely end. James had mortally offended some of his turbulent nobles, by causing the authority of the law to be vindicated without respect to rank or person. He had deservedly won for himself the title of King of the Commons; and was, in fact, even in that early age, bent upon a thorough reform of the abuses of the feudal system. But he had proud, jealous, and stubborn men to deal with. They saw, not without apprehension for their own fate, that title and birth were no longer accepted as palliatives of sedition and crime; that the inroads, disturbances, and harryings which they and their fathers had practised, were now regarded with detestation by the crown, and threatened with merited punishment. Some strong but necessary examples made them quail for their future supremacy, and discontent soon ripened into something like absolute treason. Add to this, that for a long time the nobility of Scotland had fixed a covetous eye upon the great possessions of the church. In no country of Europe, considering its extent and comparative wealth, was the church better endowed than in Scotland; and the endeavours of the monks, who, with all their faults, were not blind to the advantages derivable from the arts of peace, had greatly raised their property in point of value. The confiscations which had taken place in Protestantised England, whereof Woburn Abbey may be cited as a notable example, had aroused to the fullest extent the cupidity of the rapacious nobles. They longed to see the day when, unsupported by the regal power, the church lands in Scotland could be annexed by each iron-handed baron to his own domain; when, at the head of their armed and dissolute jackmen, they could oust the feeble possessors of the soil from the heritages they had so long enjoyed as a corporation, and enrich themselves by plundering the consecrated stores of the abbeys. These were the feelings and desires which led most of them to lend a willing ear to the preaching of the fathers of the Reformation. They were desirous, not only of lessening the royal authority, but of transferring the whole property of the clergy to themselves; and this double object led to a combination which resulted in the passive defeat of the Scottish army at Solway Moss.
Poor King James could not bear up against the shock of this shameful desertion. Mr Tytler thus describes his latter moments:—
"When in this state, intelligence was brought him that his queen had given birth to a daughter. At another time it would have been happy news; but now, it seemed to the poor monarch the last drop of bitterness which was reserved for him. Both his sons were dead. Had this child been a boy, a ray of hope, he seemed to feel, might yet have visited his heart; he received the messenger and was informed of that event without welcome or almost recognition; but wandering back in his thoughts to the time when the daughter of Bruce brought to his ancestor the dowry of the kingdom, observed with melancholy emphasis, 'It came with a lass, and it will pass with a lass.' A few of his most favoured friends and counsellers stood around hiscouch; the monarch stretched out his hand for them to kiss; and regarding them for some moments with a look of great sweetness and placidity, turned himself upon the pillow and expired. He died 13th December 1542, in the thirty-first year of his age, and the twenty-ninth of his reign; leaving an only daughter, Mary, an infant of six days old, who succeeded to the crown."
"When in this state, intelligence was brought him that his queen had given birth to a daughter. At another time it would have been happy news; but now, it seemed to the poor monarch the last drop of bitterness which was reserved for him. Both his sons were dead. Had this child been a boy, a ray of hope, he seemed to feel, might yet have visited his heart; he received the messenger and was informed of that event without welcome or almost recognition; but wandering back in his thoughts to the time when the daughter of Bruce brought to his ancestor the dowry of the kingdom, observed with melancholy emphasis, 'It came with a lass, and it will pass with a lass.' A few of his most favoured friends and counsellers stood around hiscouch; the monarch stretched out his hand for them to kiss; and regarding them for some moments with a look of great sweetness and placidity, turned himself upon the pillow and expired. He died 13th December 1542, in the thirty-first year of his age, and the twenty-ninth of his reign; leaving an only daughter, Mary, an infant of six days old, who succeeded to the crown."
Amongst those who stood around that memorable deathbed were the Lord High Treasurer, young William Kirkaldy his son, and Cardinal Beatoun. There was peace for a moment over the body of the anointed dead!
But even the death of a king makes a light impression on this busy and intriguing world. The struggle for mastery now commenced in right earnest—for the only wall which had hitherto separated the contending factions of the nobility and the clergy had given way. Beatoun and Arran were both candidates for the regency, which the latter succeeded in gaining; and, after a temporary alienation, these two combined against an influence which began to show itself in a threatening form. Henry VIII. of England considered this an excellent opportunity for carrying out those designs against the independence of the northern country, which had been entertained by several of his predecessors; and for that purpose he proposed to negotiate a marriage between his son Edward and the Princess Mary. Such an alliance was of course decidedly opposed to the views of the Catholic party in Scotland, and, moreover, was calculated to excite the utmost jealousy of the Scottish people, who well understood the true but recondite motive of the proposal. So long as Beatoun, whose interest was identified with that of France, existed, Henry was fully aware that his scheme never could be carried into execution; and accordingly, with that entire want of principle which he exhibited on every occasion, he took advantage of their position to tamper with the Scottish barons who had been made prisoners at Solway Moss. In this he so far succeeded, that a regular conspiracy was entered into for the destruction of the cardinal, and only defeated by his extreme sagacity and caution. It will be seen hereafter that the cardinal did not fall a victim to this dastardly English plot, but to private revenge, no doubt augmented and inflamed by the consideration of his arrogance and cruelty.
Beatoun, one of the most able and also dissolute men of his day, was a younger son of the Laird of Balfour—yet had, notwithstanding every disadvantage, contrived very early to attain his high position. He was hated, not only by the nobility, but by the lesser barons, from whose own ranks he had risen, on account of his intolerable pride, his rapacity, and the unscrupulous manner in which he chose to exercise his power. Among the barons of Fife, always a disunited and wrangling county, he had few adherents: and with the Kirkaldys, and their relatives, the Melvilles, he had an especial quarrel. Shortly after the death of James, the Treasurer was dismissed from his office, an affront which the "stoute man" was not likely to forget; and his son, then a mere youth, seems to have participated in his feelings. But the cruelty of Beatoun was at least the nominal cause which led to his destruction. Wishart, the famous Reforming preacher, had fallen into the hands of the cardinal, and was confined in his castle of St Andrews, of which our author gives us the following faithful sketch:—
"On the rocky shore, to the northward of the venerable city of St Andrews, stand the ruins of the ancient Episcopal palace, in other years the residence of the primates of Scotland. Those weatherbeaten remains, now pointed out to visitors by the ciceroni of the place, present only the fragments of an edifice erected by Archbishop Hamilton, the successor of Cardinal Beatoun, and are somewhat in the style of an antique Scottish manor-house; but very different was the aspect of that vast bastille which had the proud cardinal for lord, and contained within its massive walls all the appurtenances requisite for ecclesiastical tyranny, epicurean luxury, lordly grandeur, and military defence—at once a fortress, a monastery, an inquisition, and a palace."The sea-mews and cormorants screaming among the wave-beaten rocks and bare walls now crumbling on that bleak promontory, and echoing only to drenching surf, as it rolls up the rough shelving shore, impart a peculiarly desolate effect to the grassy ruins, worn with the blasts of the German Ocean, gray with the storms of winter, and the damp mists ofMarch and April—an effect that is greatly increased by the venerable aspect of the dark and old ecclesiastical city to the southward, decaying, deserted, isolated, and forgotten, with its magnificent cathedral, once one of the finest gothic structures in the world, but now, shattered by the hands of man and time, passing rapidly away. Of the grand spire which arose from the cross, and of its five lofty towers, little more than the foundations can now be traced, while a wilderness of ruins on every hand attest the departed splendours of St Andrews."
"On the rocky shore, to the northward of the venerable city of St Andrews, stand the ruins of the ancient Episcopal palace, in other years the residence of the primates of Scotland. Those weatherbeaten remains, now pointed out to visitors by the ciceroni of the place, present only the fragments of an edifice erected by Archbishop Hamilton, the successor of Cardinal Beatoun, and are somewhat in the style of an antique Scottish manor-house; but very different was the aspect of that vast bastille which had the proud cardinal for lord, and contained within its massive walls all the appurtenances requisite for ecclesiastical tyranny, epicurean luxury, lordly grandeur, and military defence—at once a fortress, a monastery, an inquisition, and a palace.
"The sea-mews and cormorants screaming among the wave-beaten rocks and bare walls now crumbling on that bleak promontory, and echoing only to drenching surf, as it rolls up the rough shelving shore, impart a peculiarly desolate effect to the grassy ruins, worn with the blasts of the German Ocean, gray with the storms of winter, and the damp mists ofMarch and April—an effect that is greatly increased by the venerable aspect of the dark and old ecclesiastical city to the southward, decaying, deserted, isolated, and forgotten, with its magnificent cathedral, once one of the finest gothic structures in the world, but now, shattered by the hands of man and time, passing rapidly away. Of the grand spire which arose from the cross, and of its five lofty towers, little more than the foundations can now be traced, while a wilderness of ruins on every hand attest the departed splendours of St Andrews."
George Wishart, the unhappy preacher, was burned before the Castle on the 28th March 1545, under circumstances of peculiar barbarity. We refer to the book for a proper description of the death-scene of the Martyr, whose sufferings were calmly witnessed by the ruthless and implacable Cardinal. But the avenger of blood was at hand, in the person of Norman Leslie, Master of Rothes. This young man, who was of a most fiery and intractable spirit, had some personal dispute with the cardinal, whom he accused of having attempted to defraud him of an estate. High words followed, and Norman rode off in wrath to the house of his uncle, John Leslie of Parkhill, a moody and determined Reformer, who had already vowed bloody vengeance for the execution of the unfortunate Wishart. Finding him apt for any enterprise, Norman instantly despatched messengers to the Kirkaldys of Grange, the Melvilles of Raith and Carnbee, and to Carmichael of Kilmadie, desiring them to meet for an enterprise of great weight and importance; and the summons having been responded to, these few men determined to rid the country of one whom they considered a murderer and an oppressor.
The manner in which this act of terrible retribution was executed is too well known to the student of history to require repetition. Suffice it to say that, by acoup-de-main, sixteen armed men made themselves masters of the castle of St Andrews, overpowered and dispersed the retainers of the cardinal, and quenched the existence of that haughty prelate in his blood. William Kirkaldy was not the slayer, but, as an accomplice, he must bear whatever load of odium is cast upon the perpetrators of the deed. We cannot help thinking that our author exhibits an unnecessary degree of horror in this instance. Far be it from us to palliate bloodshed, in any age or under any provocation: neither do we agree with John Knox, that the extermination of Beatoun was a "godly fact." But we doubt whether it can be called a murder. In the first place, old Kirkaldy knew, on the authority of James V., that a list of three hundred and sixty names, including his own and those of his most immediate friends, had been made out by the cardinal, as a catalogue of victims who were to be burned for heresy. This contemplated atrocity, far worse than the massacre of St Bartholomew, might not, indeed, have been carried into effect, even on account of its magnitude; but the mere knowledge that it had been planned, was enough to justify the Kirkaldys, and those marked out for impeachment, in considering Beatoun as their mortal foe. That the cardinal never departed from his bloody design, is apparent from the fact, that, after his death, a paper was found in his repositories, ordaining that "Norman Leslie, sheriff of Fife, John Leslie, father's brother to Norman, the Lairds of Grange,elder and younger, Sir James Learmonth of Dairsie, and the Laird of Raith, should either have been slain or else taken." The law at that period could afford no security against such a design, so that Beatoun's assassination may have been an act of necessary self-defence, which it would be extremely difficult to blame. As to the sacrilege, we cannot regard that as an aggravation. If a prelate of the Roman Church, like Beatoun, chose to make himself notorious to the world by the number and scandal of his profligacies; if, with a carnality and disregard of appearances not often exhibited by laymen, he turned his palace into a seraglio; and if his mistress was actually surprised, at the time of the attack, in the act of escaping from his bedchamber,—great allowance must be made for the obtuseness of the men who could not understand the relevancy of the plea of priesthood which he offered, in order that his holy calling might shield him from secular consequences. But further, isthe fate of Wishart to go for nothing? Setting the natural influences of bigotry aside, and with every consideration for the zeal which could hurry even so good a man as Sir Thomas More to express, in words at least, a desire to see the faggot and the stake in full operation—what shall we say to the individual who could calmly issue his infernal orders, and, in the full pomp of ecclesiastical vanity, become a pleased spectator of the sufferings of a human being, undergoing the most hideous of all imaginable deaths? Truly this, that the brute deserved to die in return; and that we, at all events, shall not stigmatise those who killed him as guilty of murder. Poor old Sharpe was murdered, if ever man was, in a hideous and atrocious manner; but as for Beatoun, he deserved to die, and his death was invested with a sort of judicial sanction, having been perpetrated in presence of the sheriff of the bounds.
The tidings of this act of vengeance spread, not only through Scotland, but through Europe, like wildfire. According as men differed in religious faith, they spoke of it either with horror or exultation. Even the most moderate of the reforming party were slow to blame the deed which freed them from a bloody persecutor; and Sir David Lindesay of the Mount, the witty and satirical scholar, did not characterise it more severely than as expressed in the following verses:—