"And such, young man, the Hamiltons of Preston ever found each gentleman of your house to be."
"For that compliment, again I thank you."
He had now completed his arming, in which Preston courteously assisted him; and on drawing his sword, he could no longer restrain the rage and indignation with which his heart was bursting, and in this tide of wrath he included his preserver with his enemies.
"Allen Duthie of Millheugh," said he sternly, while his eyes glared under the peak of his helmet, "I brand thee as a false coward and foul thief; and such I shall prove thee to be, in the face of all men, at a fitting time. I am now ready to depart; and gladly will I do so," he added, with a furtive glance at Preston; "for, of a verity, the air of this place suffocates me."
"Ere ye go," said Preston, drawing off his glove, "Florence Fawside, in presence of these lords and gentlemen, for the good offices that have passed between us, last night and to-day, I offer you my friendship and alliance, to the end that our feud be stanched, and committed to oblivion."
"You ask me this," said the young man with rising anger, "while wearing at your side the same sword that slew my poor father and my brother Willie!"
"Nay, if that be all, though with this sword, my forefather, with his Scots, held the bridge of Verneuil, in Anjou, against Duke Clarence's English billmen, I will shiver the blade to atoms——"
"Keep your sword, Preston," replied Florence; "ere long, you will require it for other purposes. Friendship cannot exist with hatred,—alliance with mistrust."
"You will never live to comb a beard as grey as mine, if you speak thus rashly through life," said Preston grimly.
"I speak like my father's son; and I care not for dying early, if I die as my father lived and died—with honour!"
"'Tis said like the brave son of a brave father; but once more, Fawside, remember you gave me life last night—to-day I give you life and liberty."
"Taunt me not with the service, old man. 'Tis well we are still, I thank God, equal! My blood boils hotly, Preston; and, despite the good you do me, I must remember my vow. Our fathers' feud is but renewed: draw—a life I have given—a life I will peril again, even here; so, come on!"
"In this hostile hall?"
"Where place so fitting as this foul den of would-be murder and robbery?"
"Rash fool! If I am slain, your life will be forfeited," replied the baron, drawing back a pace.
"I care not," replied the youth wildly and mournfully—for the events of the morning had filled his soul with a fury which required an object whereon to expend itself; "at my mother's knee as a child, at the altar of God as a man, I have sworn a thousand times to slay thee, even as ye slew my father under tryst, wherever and whenever I met thee—and now the hour is come!"
During this new dispute, the three lords, and the group around them, looked on and listened with approving smiles; for to them it seemed that Preston had merely come in time to save them the trouble of killing their prisoner.
"If he escape," said Glencairn, "we can beset the paths from Cadzow, and watch for his departure. Our squire-errant rides alone, and must fall an easy prey."
"But," said his son, "if the letters be delivered, what then shall we have?"
"Vengeance!"
"Preston changes colour," said Bothwell, with a sardonic smile; "there will be such a raid in my sheriffdom, as Lothian hath not seen since Sir Ralf Evers, the Englishman, knocked with his gauntlet on the Bristo-gate, at Edinburgh."
"And thereafter had his brains knocked out at Ancrumford," said Kilmaurs, who slew him there; "but, hush, the storm grows apace."
At Fawside's last remark, Preston's wrinkled cheek grew deathly pale.
"Bairn, begone," said he loftily, "lest I send thee to thy mother in a colt's-halter. Go—I scorn the accusation, as I scorn your anger. If I took your father's life in feud, 'twas fairly done in open fray, andnotunder tryst; and that life I saved twice at Flodden, from the Lord Surrey's band of pikemen. Go—go, I say, and God bless thee;—the wish may be all the better, that it cometh from the lips of a man whose years are wellnigh three score and ten."
"The murderer of my father and my brother! Draw, lest I smite ye where ye stand!"
"Never! your blood is owre red on my hands already."
"Hah, 'tis a coward I am confronting."
"Shame on thee, Fawside, to say so," exclaimed the Earl of Bothwell, who began to watch this strange scene with new and more generous interest.
Preston became fearfully pale, and trembled with emotion, while his staunch henchmen, Mungo Tennant and Symon Brodie, uttered a shout of anger, and drew their swords.
"Recal that bitter word, boy?" said Hamilton, hoarsely.
"Coward, coward!" continued Florence, menacing his throat with the point of his sword.
Preston struck it contemptuously aside with his bare hand, and gasped for breath. He then made an attempt to draw his sword; but relinquishing the hilt, by a violent effort mastered his emotion.
"Boy," said he, "my pride and my spirit are passing away from me. There was a time when, by a glance, I had almost slain thee for an insult such as this—but that day is gone, yea, gone for ever! A coward, I?" he continued, with a wild, choking laugh, while the tears started to his reddened eyes; "rash fool! thy brave father, whose spirit may now witness this meeting, would never so have taunted me; but I am old enough to bear even this from thee. Go, I say, in peace; for on this right Land of mine there is already more than enough of the blood of your family."
In five minutes after this, Florence had left the tower of Millheugh, and found himself riding through the green glades of Cadzow Forest, the upper foliage of which was glittering in the noonday sun.
Mentally he rehearsed his late meeting with Preston, and now his own heart—as his better passions resumed their wonted sway—began to accuse him of acting harshly, and without grace or generosity. Despite himself, his cheek began to redden with a glow of honest shame, for the taunts he had hurled upon a gentleman whose years were so many, and whose high valour had been so often and so undoubtedly proved in battle; but these thoughts were immediately stifled, as the tall form, and grave, resentful face of his stern mother seemed to rise before him, and gave rise to other ideas; then, lest he might be followed by the men of Bothwell or Glencairn, he spurred his fleet grey to a gallop, and pushed on rapidly for the residence of the regent.
When princely Hamilton's abodeEnnobled Cadzow's Gothic towers,The song went round, the goblet flow'd,And wassail sped the jocund hours.Scott.
The Avon, a tributary of the Clyde, flows through a beautiful valley, the sides of which are clothed with magnificent timber of great size and age. Embosomed amid the thickest part of this forest, surrounded by trees which were planted during the reign of David I., and overhanging a rushing torrent, the rocks of which are covered by masses of dark ivy and luxuriant creeping-plants, stands the castle of Cadzow, now an open ruin, having been dismantled in the wars of Queen Mary's time, but which, at the epoch of our story, had banners on its ramparts and cannon at its gate, being in all the strength and pride of a feudal stronghold as the residence of a princely and powerful chief, James Earl of Arran, who, by his position as regent, was the first subject in the realm.
This castle is about a mile distant from the town of Hamilton, where Florence was informed that the regent, though at Cadzow, was preparing, with all his train, to depart for Stirling. This venerable fortress once gave a name to the whole district, and both were anciently the property of the crown of Scotland, as there are yet extant charters granted by Alexanders II. and III. dated at "our Castle of Cadzow;" but David II. gifted to Walter, the son of Sir Gilbert of Hamilton, his lands of Cadzow and Edelwood, in the county of Lanark; and thereafter on the whole territory was bestowed the present name of Hamilton, the castle and forest alone retaining their ancient designation.
Many horses, saddled and richly caparisoned, held by grooms, liverymen, pages, or men-at-arms, were grouped under the trees of the park; and the bustle of preparation previous to departure was evident in and about the castle as Florence rode up to the gate, where his arrival attracted but little attention amid the throng of nearly a hundred gay cavaliers, who were waiting for the appearance of the regent.
After some inquiry, our new-comer found a page wearing the livery of the house of Hamilton, and desired him to say that a gentleman from Edinburgh requested the honour of an audience.
"You cannot see the regent," replied the page bluntly, while switching a few specks of dust from his white leather boots with a fine laced handkerchief.
"Why so?"
"His grace is at dinner," was the brief reply.
"He sits long; 'tis one by the dial."
"Kings are pleased to be hungry sometimes, and a regent may be so, too."
"Thou saucy jackfeather, say instantly to the captain of the guard, the usher, or whoever is in waiting, that I, Florence Fawside of that ilk, bearer of letters from the queen-mother and the king of France, am here at his castle gate, or, by the furies! I will scourge you with my bridle, were you the last, as I verily believe you are the first, of your race in Scotland!"
This imperious speech crushed even the proverbial insolence of the court page, who was a son of Hamilton of Dalserfe. He reddened with anger, and frowned; then he gave a saucy smile and withdrew, saying,—
"I shall do your bidding, sir."
In a few minutes after, the messenger found himself ushered into a stately hall, and in the presence of the Regent of Scotland.
James, second earl of Arran and tenth in descent from the founder of his house, who rose to favour under King Alexander II., was a peer of noble presence. He had been the loyal friend of the late King James V., whom he accompanied in his expedition to the Orcades and Western Isles in 1536, and with whom, in the September of that year, he embarked for France, and was present at his nuptials with Magdalene de Valois, the eldest daughter of Francis I., in the church of Notre Dame at Paris. She died soon after, a young and beautiful queen of twenty summer days; and the king, about a year after, espoused the daughter of René of Lorraine, Mary, whom we have already had the pleasure of introducing to the reader. As regent of Scotland, Arran passed many patriotic laws, one of which, sanctioning the issue of the new Bible which Father William, a Dominican, had translated into the Scottish tongue, procured him, on one hand the affection of the Reformers, and on the other the hatred of those who adhered to the Church of Rome.
He was above the middle height; he had that peculiar length and gravity of visage which the shorn hair and peaked beard imparted to the faces of all the great and noble of his time, as we may see in the portraits of Francis I., Philip II., James V., of Raleigh, Morton, Murray, and others; his eyes and hair were dark; when he smiled, it was haughtily, with his lips closed; while the troubles incident to his time and government gave him a saddened and preoccupied look. He wore a hongreline of blue velvet laced with gold braid, and so called from the pelisse of the Hungarians. This species of doublet was buttoned close under the chin, but was open below, to display a cuirass of the finest steel inlaid with magnificent carving. It had been presented by Christian II. of Denmark to his father, who had led five thousand Scots to succour that monarch in the war of 1504.
He was attended by four pages, all sons of barons of the surname of Hamilton—to wit, the young lairds of Dalserfe, Broomhall, Allershaw (who in manhood and in after years fought at Langside "for God and Queen Mary"), and Bothwellhaugh, a grave and resolute boy, who twenty years later was to slay the regent Maray. Clad in cloth-of-gold, with gold chains at their necks, they had his armorial bearings embroidered on the breasts of their doublets, and, though mere boys, they were armed like men, with swords and daggers.
"Welcome to Cadzow," said the regent, presenting his hand, which Fawside kissed respectfully. "You have come from France, I am informed?"
"With M. le Chevalier de Villegaignon."
"Villegaignon!" reiterated the regent coldly, but with surprise. "He hath come and been gone again these several weeks. How comes it to pass, young sir, that I have only now the honour of seeing you?"
"The honour is mine, Lord Arran. As regent of Scotland, all honour must, after our young queen, flow from you."
Arran gave a cold smile, and replied,
"This is well-timed flattery, and proves that you have not spent seven years, as I have heard, with the Duchess Anne of Albany without benefit."
Fawside bowed, and presented the letter of Henry II.
"What spots are these on the cover?" exclaimed Arran. "Blood! You have been fighting, sir—been wounded! Where was this? And you have delayed——"
"Three swords in one's body are likely enough to cause delay; and I, my lord, have had these, with a stroke or so, from a partizan to boot. Hence the delay of which your grace complains."
"Indeed! I must inquire into this. But such brawls are now of hourly occurrence. Retire, gentlemen," said he to the four pages; who at once withdrew to resume their game of primero in the antechamber.
Florence briefly and modestly, but with an indignation that grew in spite of himself, related the dangers he had undergone, first in the streets of Edinburgh and latterly in the tower of Millheugh, to which he had been snared by the letter given from the hand of Champfleurie; and as he proceeded, the broad brow of Arran grew black as a thunder-cloud, and his whole face assumed a sombre expression.
"Now, heaven grant me patience!" he exclaimed, striking his sword on the floor; "there is more than a mere brawl in this: treason lies under it—treason and a conspiracy; and, by my father's soul, I shall hang them all!"
"Hang nobles?"
"Well, the more titled rascals shall have the perilous honour of having their heads sliced off by an axe,—the grim privilege of nobility; but the more common rogues I shall hang high and dry, like scarecrows in a cornfield."
"My lord regent, I beseech you not to embroil yourself with powerful peers like Cassilis, Bothwell, and Glencairn, for a small matter like my three sword-cuts."
"Knaves who are at faith and peace with England, as I am told," continued Arran, pursuing his own thoughts.
"True, my lord; but when we find among them a man like Hugh Earl of Eglinton, who is constable of Rothesay, bailie of Cunningham, and chamberlain of Irvine, to attempt punishment would embroil your whole government, and peril the Queen's authority."
"And both are so weak, that no later than last year, without the assistance of the prior of Rhodes, and his galleys, I could not dislodge a few sacrilegious rebels from the castle of St. Andrew's! Yet we are strong,—we Hamiltons," continued the regent loftily; "the blood of our house has mingled with that of our kings, and run over Scotland in a thousand channels; but you counsel well and wisely, Fawside; for there are times when I fear that the envy of these malcontent lords will destroy me, and level even the throne."
"Fear them not, my lord; that man is worth little who excites not envy."
"Faith, thou art right, boy!" said the regent cheerfully; "and though those who wronged thee are perhaps too numerous and powerful for me to punish at present, a time shall come; and meanwhile, I will not the less reward your worth and bravery; and now, sir, for the letter of the Valois."
As he read it, the contents seemed to please him; his eyes sparkled; a glow suffused his cheek, and an expression of triumph spread over all his features.
"We are to have auxiliaries from Henry II. to strengthen my government, and enable me to resist the wiles and wishes of the English protector, so that our young queen shall wed the heir of France, andnotthe son of the last Tudor! Good—good! Monsieur d'Essé d'Epainvilliers is to be lieutenant-general; Monsieur d'Andelot, colonel of two thousand French men-at-arms," he muttered, reading the names of those soldiers who served at the siege of Leith, and in the campaign of 1548; "the Rhinegrave will bring three thousand Almayners armed with pike and arquebuse; Monsieur Etanges is to be colonel of a thousand gendarmes on horseback; Signor Pietro Strozzi will lead a thousand Italian veterans; M. le Chevalier de Dunois is to be general of the ordnance; and the Sieur Nicholas de Villegaignon, knight of Rhodez, and admiral of the galleys of France, shall bring twenty-two war-ships, and sixty-two transports, all bearing the red lion of Scotland. 'Tis good, 'tis noble of King Henry, and worthy the spirit of the old alliance with France.
'Fall—fall, whatever befall,Our Lion shall be lord of all!'
If we have war with England,—and hourly I expect a declaration of it, the sooner these succours arrive the better, for there are many men in Scotland so foully corrupted by English gold, that I tremble at the prospect of leading a Scottish army to the field, lest it crumble by the very corruption of our peers."
"The galleys and transports were lying in the harbour of Brest, where I saw them when I sailed; and they wait——"
"Wait—for what?"
"The arrival of the troops, who are all chosen men, and are now on their march from the frontiers of Italy; but I have yet another letter for your grace."
"From whom?"
"Her majesty the queen-mother."
The brow of Arran darkened for a moment, as he opened and read the missive.
"She exults at the prospect of having so many French men-at-arms to fence her daughter's throne, and fight the English; but let me be wary, lest they fight with Scottish men as well. Sir, if you love me——"
"Oh, your excellency!"
"And wish to serve me," resumed the regent, grasping the arm of Fawside, and bending his keen dark eyes upon him, "you must avoid that dangerous Frenchwoman."
"Who, my lord?" stammered Fawside.
"The widow of the late king; for she plots deeply to deprive me of the regency, which is the darling object of her ambition, and the hope of the Guises; and this I know so well, that I dare scarcely lay my head on its pillow at night, for fear that a hand with a dagger is concealed behind the arras,—avoid her, I say; avoid her!"
Florence coloured deeply as the beautiful face and form of the royal widow seemed to rise before him, with the dearer image of her friend. Arran now insisted on his visitor being seated; and the purport of King Henry's letter having put him in the best of humours, he became more conversational. He walked about the room, and as he did so, or stood with his back to the fire, he said,—
"I presume, sir, that you know how hard a task the loyal and faithful have to perform here in Scotland, to maintain the national league with France, in the face of secret treaties, formed, orsaidto have been formed, by certain of our lords, who were the prisoners of King Henry after the field of Solway, and whose plots, by the seven pillars of the house of wisdom, a wise man will be needed to unravel."
"In France, I heard such things talked of openly; and that Henry VIII. had the audacity to propose, if you would put the little Queen Mary into his murderous hands, to give his daughter Elizabeth in marriage to your son, now captain of the Scottish guard, and, with an army, to make you king of all Scotland beyond the river Forth."
"You heard rightly, sir," said Arran, with a scornful laugh; "'twas a knave's hope—a madman's project; and then he tried gold; but had he offered all the precious metal that Michael Scott cheated the devil of, he would have failed with James of Arran!"
"And how did wise Sir Michael cheat the devil?"
"Know ye not the story?" asked the earl, smiling.
"No, my lord."
"The Evil One was as marvellously overreached as when Michael employed him to make ropes of sea-sand. He cut a hole in the crown of his bonnet, and here, in Cadzow wood, holding it over the mouth of a coalheugh, which the devil saw not, so curiously had the wizard concealed it, he tauntingly offered to barter his soul for the said bonnet full of gold-dust."
"And the devil——"
"Was outwitted, as he had to fill the pit ere he could fill the bonnet. So had Henry of England offered me all the gold which the infernal pit of Michael of Balwearie contained, he had failed to tempt me; though I fear that a less bribe has tempted many others, who pretend to be merely averse to the residence of our queen in France; but, after our conference at Stirling, I have resolved that she sail for Brest; for I would rather see the daughter of James V. lying by his side at Holyrood than wedded to son of him who, three years ago, carried fire and sword into Scotland, and who broke the gentle heart of Catharine of Aragon!"
"But what of the Protector Somerset?"
"He may meet us again in battle, when and where he will; and now, sir, if you will accompany me to Stirling, whither I set forth in a few minutes, you must refresh; for on my faith you look both weary and worn."
Florence, in truth, felt and looked as the regent said; for after his long ride from Edinburgh, and the adventures of the past day and night, he was becoming faint and pale. The regent sounded a silver whistle, which lay on the table, and was then used in lieu of a hand-bell. The young laird, of Dalserfe, the senior page, appeared; and to him Arran remitted the duty of attending to the wants of his visitor. The latter, though he would have preferred returning to Edinburgh,feltthat the wish of Arran to have his company so far as Stirling implied a command, obedience to which became more palatable when he discovered that Mary of Lorraine and the ladies of her court would be present at the intended conference.
The regent, a man of great penetration, though too quiet and well-meaning to govern a people so turbulent as the Scots, saw in Florence a young man, travelled, brave, intelligent, of good position, of high spirit, and—what was much more remarkable in 1547—of education. He felt that such a man might prove invaluable to his household and government, and was anxious to attach him to his person.
This idea proved fortunate; for, by accompanying the regent to Stirling, he eluded the followers of Bothwell and Glencairn, some twenty or so of whom, with loaded arquebuses, were at that moment lurking in the forest of Cadzow, for the express purpose of cutting him off, if he came forth from the castle alone.
Right hand they leave thy cliffs, Craigforth!And soon that bulwark of the north,Grey Stirling, with its tower and town,Upon their fleet career look'd down.Scott.
On the way from Cadzow to Stirling, though frequently honoured by the society of the regent, who requested him to ride near his person, Florence was sad, sombre, and abstracted; for his heart was full of fiery and bitter thoughts. In Arran's train there rode a hundred horse, mostly gentlemen, all well mounted, richly apparelled, and splendidly armed. As many of these were Hamiltons, they viewed with some jealousy and mistrust the sudden familiarity which seemed to exist between the stranger and their chief. The events which had taken place since the night of his landing at Leith had almost soured his heart against his own countrymen; at least these events had filled it with a thirst for vengeance on all who were in league against the regent Arran; for with those, and such as those, he correctly classed the men who had laid such deadly snares for his destruction, and had pursued with such rancour one who had done them no wrong.
Champfleurie he had resolved to slay, without much preface or ceremony, on the first available opportunity. He had similar benevolent views regarding the laird of Millheugh, the Lord Kilmaurs, and so many others, that, had he possessed the hands of Briareus, and had in every hand a sword, he would not have found them too many to fulfil his mental and hostile engagements. His old inborn and hereditary hatred of Preston was still unwavering, though tinged with compunction; for he could not but remember and acknowledge the generosity of the old man on whose grey hairs he had hurled his scorn, his obliquy, and defiance.
And then came to memory his love—his unknown love—so beautiful and so playfully mysterious—a countess, yet one whose name he had failed to discover among the many countesses who, by the policy or loyalty of their husbands, clustered about the person of Mary of Lorraine; for it was becoming evident to all, that if a false move in the great games of war and politics were made by Arran, she, when supported by the Guises, a French army under D'Essé d'Epainvilliers, and those Scottish lords who adhered to her, would not fail to obtain for herself that which she prized more than life—the regency of Scotland.
The train of Arran rode rapidly, to reach Stirling in time, lest the train of the queen-mother, who was coming from Edinburgh, might enter the town before them; and on this journey Florence could perceive, from incidents that occurred, how the people and the times were changing.
The wild white bulls were seen in great numbers about the woods of Cumbernauld, and the gentlemen of the regent's troop pursued and shot one of great size and beauty for mere sport, while it was grazing on the wild furzy heath of Fannyside-muir. They assigned the carcass to three of the Queen's bedesmen, or blue-gown beggars, who were passing, and then rode heedlessly on their way; though on an oak by the wayside there hung the festering and hideous remains of two poor Egyptians, who had been put to death by Malcolm Lord Fleming of Cumbernauld for having slain one of these useless white oxen for food.
At Templar-denny, they crossed the Carron by an ancient bridge of four pointed Gothic arches, built by the Knights of the Temple in the reign of David I.; and there, as the glittering train of Arran rode through the village, the whole population were assembled on the bank of the river, in wild commotion, to duck a woman accused of witchcraft, while the air was rent by shouts of—
"A witch! a witch!—banes to the bleeze, and soul to the deil!"
The victim was a hag, old enough, and ugly enough, to support the character. She had dwelt apart from all in a wretched hut upon the haunted Hill of Oaks, and was accused of working much evil to a man who once mocked her years. By one spell she had stopped his mill for nine days and as many nights; thus, though the Carron swept through the mill-race with the fury of a summer flood, the old moss-encrusted and wooden wheel stood still and immovable; but when itdidturn, it was with a vengeance indeed! It whirled with such velocity that the mill took fire and was soon reduced to ashes; and all this she had achieved by the simple agency of burying a black cat alive, and casting above it three handfuls of salt.
She shrieked piteously for aid and for mercy, as Arran's glittering train swept past; but the age of chivalry was gone—vile superstition had taken its place; and all these hundred lords, knights, and gentlemen, rode on their way, abandoning this unhappy being to the fury of a mob, who soon ended her sufferings in the waters of the Carron, which swept her body to the Firth.
The Reformation, with the superstition of witchcraft, grew and flourished side by side in Scotland.
As the regent's train traversed the district famed still as the Scottish Marathon, a proof was seen of the progress the whole kingdom was making towards a universal apostasy from Rome. Though a body of Cistercian nuns, on a pilgrimage from the priory of Emanuel, on the Avon, were heard singing thesexte, or noonday service of their order, in the chapel of St. Mary at Skoek, and the harmony of their sweet voices came delightfully on the soft wind that swayed the masses of wavy grain, and rustled the foliage of the Torwood at Bannockburn, one of those crosses which piety of old had placed in almost every Scottish village, had been overthrown in the night; the arms of this symbol of redemption had been shattered, and the effigy of the Great Martyr was dashed to fragments, which were strewed over the roadway.
Florence was neither devout nor bigoted, yet, like many of the regent's train, he felt that there was something in this new spectacle and sacrilege which deeply wounded his heart, and all the old traditions—if we may so name the solemn faith in which his mother reared him, and in which so many of his ancestors had died—rushed like a flood upon his soul. Several gentlemen checked their horses, and frowned or muttered; others smiled heedlessly and covertly, for the day was coming when all reverence for the cross and triple crown of Rome would be lost amid the stern opposition of one portion of the Scottish nation and the apathetic indifference of the other.
And many a band of ardent youths were seen,Some into rapture fired by glory's charms,Or hurl'd the thundering car along the green,Or march'd embattled on in glittering arms.Beattie.
The Regent Arran, with his gay train—their armour, jewels, and lace all flashing in the sunshine—came at a gallop through the magnificent glades of the old Torwood, and entered Stirling by its lower gate, at the moment that the cannon from the lofty castle, under the orders of Hans Cochrane, the Queen's master-gunner, began to boom from the ramparts; and the bells of the Dominicans, in the Friar Wynd, and of the Franciscans, among whom King James IV. was wont to pass each Good Friday on his bare knees, "in sackcloth shirt and iron belt," rang merrily; and the vast silver-toned bell which King David hung in the great tower of Cambus Kenneth, on the green links of Forth, replied in the distance.
The steep and narrow High Street of Stirling was so densely crowded by the burgesses and population of the adjacent villages, by country farmers and bonnet-lairds on horseback, each with his gudewife cosily trussed on a pillow behind him—and also by the trains of the Queen and Queen-mother, that it was with difficulty Arran could approach, with his plumed hat in hand (he had given his helmet to young Dalserfe), to pay his proper respects and take his place on the right hand of Mary of Lorraine, while his retinue mingled with hers.
The day was beautiful, clear, and serene; and the charming purity of the air, with the lofty situation of Stirling, rising on its ridge of rock from a vast extent of fertile plain, curving hills, blue river, and green forest scenery, that spread for miles around it, till mellowed faint and far away in sunny mist and distance, might have made one think that it was on some such August day that King William the Lion, in his last sickness, when the prayers of the Church, and when the subtle medicines drained from his fairy goblet, failed to save him, thought of Stirling, and begged his courtiers to bear him there, that he might inhale its delightful atmosphere, and live yet a little longer.
Amid the ceaseless hum of conversation, the air rang with cries, laughter, the confused clamour, caused by the trampling of thousands of feet and iron hoofs in the narrow space, where this dense and dusty throng, like the waves of a human sea, seemed to be broken against the abrupt abutments of the houses, wynds, and alleys; the towers of turnpike stairs and out-shots, or at times by the lowered lance, the levelled arquebuse, or clenched hand of some exasperated man-at-arms who became incommoded by the pressure upon his mailed person.
Every window was full of faces, and every out-shot, fore-stair, and doorhead, every ledge, moulding, and even the tops of some of the houses, bore a freight of bare-headed and bare-legged urchins, who, excited by the cannon, the bells, the crowd, the music, and the general hubbub, waved their caps or bonnets, and lent their shrill voices to swell the great chorus of sounds by which the Queen-mother, her little daughter, and the Regent Arran, were welcomed into the loyal and ancient burgh of Stirling, whose noble castle was to our kings of old what Windsor was to the house of England, and Aranjuez to the line of Castile, a summer palace, and—if such could be found in stormy Scotland—a place for recreation and repose.
The Earl of Bothwell, outwardly still a loyal noble, with a troop of spearmen, all cuirassed, helmeted, and on horseback, led the van; then came the great officers of state, mounted on caparisoned horses, each with his train of grooms and lackeys, many wearing their robes or official insignia; thus Bothwell wore at his neck a silver whistle, and on his banner an anchor, in virtue of his office as Lord High Admiral of Scotland.
First came the Lord Chancellor, John Hamilton, archbishop of St. Andrew's, a mild and gentle statesman, of great presence and dignity, thelastCatholic primate of Scotland. He was barbarously murdered in 1571, at the bridge of Stirling, and in his last moments was insulted by his enemies compelling him to wear his pontifical robes.
Then came the Lord High Treasurer, John Hamilton, abbot of Paisley, brother of the Regent; and the Comptroller of Scotland, William Commendator, of Culross, each in the robes of his order. Then followed the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, bearing it in a velvet purse embroidered with the royal arms. This statesman was William Lord Ruthven, of the fated line of Gowrie, and father of the stern Ruthven, who looked so pale and ghastly through his barred helmet on that night twenty years after, when David Rizzio was slain in the north tower of Holyrood.
The Secretary of State, David Panater, bishop of Ross, keen-eyed and shaggy-browed, bent his stern glance over the multitude. This was a learned prelate, poet, and statesman, who was once prior of St. Mary's beautiful isle, and for seven years was Scottish ambassador in France. Then came the laird of Colinton, who was Lord Clerk Register, but who handled his two-handed sword better than his pen, riding beside the bishop of Orkney, who was lord president of the Court of Session, and a dabbler in the literature of the day—a scanty commodity withal.
The Great Chamberlain of Scotland came next. He was Malcolm Lord Fleming of Cumbernauld, a brave and proud peer, who possessed a vast estate, having no less than twelve royal charters of lands and baronies in various counties. He was without armour, but wore a doublet of shining cloth of gold, with a chain and medal, also of gold, at his neck. Thirty gentlemen in armour, and as many servants in livery coats, armed with swords and petronels, and all bearing the name, arms, and colours of Fleming, rode behind him. Then, amid many other gentlemen, rode Claude Hamilton, of Preston, with his train of rough fellows, armed with helmet, jack, and spear, headed by his drunken butler, Symon Brodie, who had encased his portly person in a suit of remarkably rusty old iron, furnished with a capacious casque of the fifteenth contury, from the hollow depths of which he swore at the crowd as confidently as if he had been an arquebusier of the royal guard.
Preceded by many barons of parliament, wearing their crimson-velvet caps, which were adorned by golden circles, studded with six equidistant pearls, and by many bishops, abbots, and priors, in many-coloured robes, came M. d'Oysell, the ambassador of France, and Monsignore Grimani, patriarch of Venice and legate of Pope Paul III. A Venetian, feeble, nervous, sallow-visaged, and black-eyed, he had come to urge upon the Scottish hierarchy "the necessity for crushing the growing heresy, lest the church of God should fall." As if he had been a cardinal priest, two silver pillars were borne before him by two Dominican friars, between whom rode a Scottish knight of Rhodes or Malta, from the preceptory of Torphichen, armed on all points, wearing the black mantle of his order, and bearing aloft the Roman banner, on which were gilded the triple crown of the sovereign pontiff and the symbolical keys of heaven.
The clamour of the populace was hushed as this solemn personage approached; but it was no spirit of reverence that repressed them; for, sullen and contemptuous, the Reformers as yet muttered only under their beards, and scowled beneath their bonnets at the envoy of "the pagan fu' o' pride;" for the time was one of change—the old faith all but dead, and the new was little respected and less understood.
We have said that the train of the Regent Arran joined that of the Queen-mother. He felt something of pique and envy at its splendour, yet he courteously rode bareheaded by her side. In taking his place there, Fawside fell back, and, being pressed by the density of the crowd against the corner of a house, was compelled to remain there inactive on horseback while this glittering procession, amid which so many of his personal enemies—such as Preston, Cassilis, Glencairn, and Ealmaurs—bore a part, passed on. The sight of these in succession filled his heart with a longing for retributive justice upon them—a longing so deep and high, that the emotion swelled his breast till the clasps of his cuirass were strained to starting; yet, remembering that he was there alone—but one among many, common prudence compelled him to remain quiescent for a time.
Led by Champfleurie came the Queen's band of armed pensioners or arquebusiers, wearing the arms and livery of Scotland and Lorraine. These soldiers were first embodied by the widow of James V., and existed as a portion of the Stirling garrison, wearing the Quaint costume of her time until 1803, when they were incorporated with one of the garrison battalions formed by George III. On this day they were preceded by the Queen's Swiss drummers, her trumpeters, violers, and tabourners, all clad in yellow Bruges satin, slashed and trimmed with red, and led by M. Antoine, in whom Florence immediately recognized the pretended dumb valet of his mysterious habitation.
Then came the widowed queen herself, looking rather pale, but beautiful as ever. She was seated in a chariot, then deemed a wonderful piece of mechanism. It was twelve feet long by six wide, and rumbled along on four elaborately-carved wheels. It was drawn by six switch-tailed Flemish mares, each led by a lackey in scarlet and yellow, and was lined and hung with "doole-claith, or French black," as old Sir James Kirkaldy of Grange, her treasurer, styles it. Before it, an esquire bore her husband's royal banner, for the painting of which, in gold and fine colours, Andro Watson, limner to King James V., received the sum of four pounds.
By her side was a little girl, whose sweet and childlike face was encircled by a triangular hood of purple velvet edged with pearls. This girl, with the dimpled cheeks and merry eyes, which dilated and glittered with alternate delight, surprise, and alarm at the bustle around her, was the queen of all the land, the only child of James V.; and old men who had fought at Solway, at Flodden, and at Ancrumford—aged soldiers, who had carried their white heads erect in Scotland's bloodiest battles,—veiled them now, and prayed aloud that God might bless her.
The conventional smile upon the beautiful face of Mary of Lorraine was like the cold brightness of a winter sun, for many upon whom her smiles were falling she loved little and suspected much; and thus she smiled on Arran when he bowed to his horse's mane to kiss her gloved hand. But the childlike Queen Mary laughed aloud, and held out both, her pretty hands to the bearded earl, with a smile so sweet and natural, that even the cold and politic noble was moved, for it was the simple greeting of youth to a familiar face; while with her mother he was on the terms of two well-bred people who are shrewdly playing a selfish game and quite understand each other. Yet, as he gazed on the clear bright limpid eyes and smiling face of the beautiful child, he more than half repented the departure from that treaty by which she was to have become the bride of his son, the Lord Hamilton, who was then a soldier in France—a treaty which would have placed the house of Arran on the Scottish throne. Mary's object was to obtain the regency, and with it the permanent custody of her daughter till she came of age; while Arran, as next heir to the throne, was resolved to hold both in his own hands, at all hazards and at all perils.
In the Queen's chariot were four ladies, who, like herself, wore the black velvet dool-cloak, the large hood of which, in the fashion of the time, was pulled so far over the face as to impart to the wearer the aspect of a mourner at a funeral.
While all his pulses quickened with eagerness and anxiety, Florence strove to pierce the crowd that stood between him and this great mis-shapen and slowly-moving vehicle, which contained the two queens and their ladies; but under their capacious hoods he failed to discover the face of her he sought.
Suddenly one raised her gloved hand and lightly threw back the front of her hood. The action gave Florence a start like an electric shock.
"'Tis she!" he exclaimed, on recognizing the soft features, the dark eyebrows and hair of his unknown. "And now I cannot fail to discover her, as many here must know the names and rank of the ladies of the tabourette."
He turned to a person who, like himself, was on horseback, but who, being completely wedged in by the crowd, sat in his saddle gazing passively at the pageant, which ascended the steep street towards the castle of Stirling. He was well armed, and wore the livery and badges of a trooper of the house of Glencairn, yet seemed, withal, to be a gentleman. In short, this person, who was gazing, apparently, with the vacant curiosity of a mere spectator, was one of the most enterprising actors in our drama—Master Edward Shelly, the Englishman. To him, all this affair was but one other feature in the perilous political game he had been ordered to play, and which, in his soul, he despised.
He knew that the beautiful, noble, and wealthy wife proposed for him by the Scottish malcontents, was among the attendants of the two queens; and though, as a soldier, a Boulogner, tolerably indifferent on the subject of matrimony in general, and, as an Englishman of 1547, especially indifferent on the matter of a Scottish wife, he certainly had some curiosity again to see this lady, whom, as yet, he had never addressed, but whom he had repeatedly passed in the streets, or seen at mass, and once at a hawking-party on Wardie Muir, when in attendance on Mary of Lorraine, like whom, she was a graceful and expert horse-woman.
The eyes of these two men were lighted by smiles, and the colour in their cheeks heightened as they saw the fair young face, so suddenly revealed from the sombre shadow of the doole-cloak; but an examination of their smiles will prove that they resulted from different emotions.
Florence expressed in his moistened eyes all his soul felt of honest joy and love on beholding one so dear to his heart—a heart as yet unhackneyed in the ways of the world; and the warm flush came and went on his smooth boyish cheek, while every pulse beat rapidly.
The smile that spread slowly over the handsome and sunburned face of Edward Shelly, expressed only satisfaction, with (it might be) a dash of triumph, that she was all we have described her to be. Even in that age he was past the years of romantic or sudden attachments. Shelly was verging on forty; and his latter twenty years had been spent in Calais and other English garrisons in France: thus, in some respects, his morality, especially as regarded women, fitted him as loosely as his leather glove.
"So ho, my future wife!" he muttered, twisting his thick moustache up to his eyes, in the clear blue of which drollery was perhaps the prevailing expression.
"My love, unknown love!" whispered Florence in the depth of his heart, and then a sadness came over all his features and his soul, he knew not why.
These two persons, the man and the youth, the careless and the impassioned, the triumphant and the sad, conscious that the same face attracted them, now turned towards each other, and spoke.
"Worthy sir, can you favour me with the name of that lady who has just thrown back her hood?" asked Florence, in a voice that was almost tremulous, as if he feared the secret of his heart would be exposed.
"And who is now speaking to the little queen?"
"Yes."
"'Tis Madeline Home, the Countess of Yarrow."
"Yarrow!" reiterated Florence in a breathless voice.
"Yes, the niece, and some say, heiress, of Claude Hamilton of Preston, who hath just passed upward with a train of horse, and his butler, a drunken lout, like a huge lobster at their head."
Had a cannon exploded at his ear, Florence could not have been more astounded than by this revelation of a relationship so fatal to the romance and success of his love.
"She is beautiful, my friend," continued the Englishman, looking at her, with his head on one side, with the air of a connoisseur admiring a horse, a yacht, or a picture; "what think you of her?"
"That one so fair, so noble, must have many, perhaps too many lovers," sighed the young man in a voice of bitterness, as he cast down his eyes.
His manner was so strange, that Shelly now turned sharply towards him, and from the expression of his face began to gather, or to fear, that there were in Stirling more lovers already than were quite necessary; but the Queen's great chariot passed on; the crowd collapsed in its rear; the two horsemen were roughly separated, and Florence, bewildered by what he had just heard, mechanically followed the Regent's train towards the Castle of Stirling. He had but one thought:—
"Countess of Yarrow; she is the Countess of Yarrow, whose father's sword was foremost on the day my father fell!"
This, then, was the reason why she and the Queen, with a tact and secrecy which thus defeated the end in view, had so studiously concealed her name from him. But what availed their tact and secrecy now?
To love the niece, the ward and successor, the nearest and only kinswoman of Claude Hamilton, the man whom, since infancy, he had been taught to abhor,—the slayer of his father, the slayer of his brave brother Willie; he whom he had registered a thousand impious vows to destroy whenever and wherever they met,—at church or in market, in field or on highway; he whose name in Fawside Tower had been a household word for all that was vile and hateful; he whose friendship he had so totally scorned, and on whose white hairs he had heaped obloquy and hurled defiance!
Alas! it produced a terrible chaos of thought and revulsion of feeling. Here Father John of Tranent would recognize the finger of Heaven, pointing a way to soothe the angry passions of men, and to a lasting peace between the rival races; but then Dame Alison, that stern daughter of the gloomy house of Colzean, would only recognize a snare of the Evil One, who was seeking to deprive her of her "pound of flesh,"—of her just and lawful meed of vengeance!
Full of these distressing reflections, Florence followed the train of the Queen into the Castle of Stirling, and, dismounting within the arched gate, which is defended by round towers, that are still of great strength, and were then surmounted by steeple-like roofs of slate, he joined the Regent's suite, who were now all on foot. Hence the loud and incessant jingling of spurs of gold, of silver, and of Ripon steel, upon the pavement of the yard, the staircases, and the great hall, where the conference was to be held, proved how great was the number of men of distinction who followed Mary of Lorraine and the Regent to council.
As the former alighted from her chariot, there occurred (according to the narrative of the vicar of Tranent) one of those incidents, which were frequent in those simple times, when royalty was easier of access than now.
An aged woman, wearing a curchie and tartan cloak, threw herself on her knees, and lifting up her hands, exclaimed,—
"Heaven save your grace!"
"What seek you?" asked the Queen, pausing.
"Charity;—my gudeman died on Flodden Hill wi' his four sons and his three brethren."
"My poor woman," said Mary of Lorraine, detaching a purse from her girdle, and placing it in the hand of the mendicant, "then we have each lost a husband for Scotland."
The Countess of Yarrow led the little Queen Mary by the left hand.
The Regent Arran gave his right hand, ungloved, to her mother; their suites formed in procession; and, while the trumpets sounded shrill and high, they ascended to the hall, between ranks of pikemen and arquebusiers facing inwards.
The bells continued to toll; still the populace without shouted their acclaim; still the iron culverins and brass moyennes thundered in smoke and flame from the massive bastions and arched loopholes, wreathing the grey turrets with fleecy vapour, and waking the distant echoes of the Torwood and the Abbey Craig; while, that nothing might be wanting to swell the combination of noises, two old lions, pets and favourites of the late King James, to whom they had been sent by the Emperor Charles V., roused angrily from their lethargic noonday dose, were pawing, prancing, and bellowing in that small court, which, from their presence there, is yet named the Lions' Den.
Oh, gentlemen of Scotland! oh, chevaliers of France!How each and all had grasp'd his sword and seized his angry lance,If lady-love, or sister dear, or nearer, dearer bride,Had been like me, your friendless queen, insulted and belied!Bon Gaultier.
This meeting took place in that magnificent hall which was built by James III. for banquets and the meeting of parliament. It is one hundred and twenty feet long; and to the taste for architecture, which led him to embellish it in a style of the most florid beauty (long since destroyed by the utilitarian barbarism of the Board of Ordnance), with his love for painting, poetry, music, and sculpture, he owed much of that malignity which embittered his short life, and ultimately led to his fatal and terrible end in the adjacent field of Sauchieburn.
Unlike the rough, rude tower which crowns the tremendous precipice that overhangs the valley, and from the small windows of which our earlier monarchs, such as the four Malcolms, the three Alexanders, and the three Roberts, were wont to survey the mighty landscape of wood and wold, mountain and rock, through which the snaky Forth winds far away to sea,—with the giant Grampians, deep, dark, and purple, cut by the hand of God into a hundred splintered peaks, mellowing in distance amid the skies of gold and azure,—unlike this rude tower, we say, from the battlements of which men had seen Wallace win his victory, by the old bridge, and Bruce sweep Edward's host from Bannockburn,—the buildings of James III. in Stirling Castle are covered by quaint pilasters, deep niches, elaborate carvings, and rich mouldings; by columns and brackets, supporting statues of Venus, Diana, Perseus, Cleopatra, James V., and Omphale.
The hall had a lofty roof of oak, from which hung English, Moorish, and Portuguese banners, taken in battles at sea by the gallant Bartons; by Sir Andrew Wood, of Largo, in his famousYellow Frigate; and by Sir Alexander Mathieson, the "old king of the sea." Its walls were covered by gaudy frescoes, or pieces of tapestry, the work of Margaret of Oldenburg and the ladies of her court. At the upper end stood the throne, under the old purple canopy of James IV., until whose reign the royal colour in Scotland had been purple; and on a table, before this lofty chair, lay the sceptre, the sword of state, and the crown,—that crown of thorns, and of sorrow, which more than one valiant king of Scotland has bequeathed to his son on the battlefield,—the fatal heritage of a fated line of kings.
During a flourish of trumpets, the little queen was placed upon the throne, where she gazed about her smiling, while a mixture of childlike wonder, alarm, and drollery glittered in her dark and dilating eyes. On her left hand sat Mary of Lorraine, a step lower down; on her right stood the Regent, in his shining doublet, leaning on his long sword. Behind the former were grouped the Countesses of Yarrow, Mar, Huntly, Errol, and Orkney, in their long dool-cloaks; behind the latter was a gay suite of lesser barons and gentlemen of the surname of Hamilton, gorgeously attired and armed.
With an emotion of irrepressible sadness, Mary of Lorraine gazed round the beautiful hall, and on the splendid but silent crowd which filled it; glittering in armour, lace, velvet, silk, jewellery, plumage, and embroidery. Then her fine eyes drooped on the child by her side.
To her, Stirling Castle was a place of many sad and stirring associations. There, her husband, the magnificent and gallant James V., was born, and crowned in the same year in which his father fell in battle. It was his favourite residence, and the scene of many of his merry frolics, as the gudeman of Ballengeich; and there their only surviving child, Queen Mary, had been crowned in 1543, when only nine months old,—crowned queen of a people who were to cast her forth as a waif upon the sea of misfortune; but on whose annals the story of her sorrows, and of their shame has cast a shadow that may never fade.
Many conflicting public and private interests were involved in the result of this convention of estates, or conference at Stirling.
The marriage of the young queen with the heir of France, or with the boy Edward VI.; and hence the great question of peace or war with England; involving the lives of thousands, who were doomed never to see the close of autumn.
Bothwell looked forward with confidence to the rejection of the French marriage, and to himself obtaining the hand of an English princess, when he could exult over Mary of Lorraine, who had trifled with his love, as with the love of many others, as already related, for reasons of her own, and slighted him in the end.
M. d'Oysell, the ambassador of Henry II., confidently anticipated the successful issue of that diplomacy which would ultimately make him a peer of France, knight of St. Michael, and perhaps lord of some forfeited Huguenot seigneurie.
M. Grimani, the patriarch of Venice, had also in view the maintenance of the ancient league between France and Scotland; that the hydra-headed heresy of the latter might be destroyed by fire and sword, if the power of the preacher failed.
Claude Hamilton, of Preston, already saw in imagination his coming patent of the earldom of Gladsmuir, as others of his faction—Cassilis, Glencairn, and Kilmaurs—did their pensions, places, and profits, if the English marriage was achieved.
Edward Shelly, somewhat to his own surprise, felt a combination of selfishness and delight, at the prospect of winning a rich and beautiful wife—a young countess, and perhaps an earldom, as the reward ofhisdiplomacy; while poor Florence Fawside, ignorant of all these secret springs of action, which moved the wise and good, or the titled knaves around him, looked gloomily forward to the sequel of the feud he had yet to foster, and to the consequent loss, for ever, of a love that was all the more seductive and alluring because such a passion was new to his heart, and that she who was its origin, had thrown much that was romantic around it. Although the poor lad knew it not, on the decision of these lords and barons, loyal and true, or rebel and false, depended, perhaps, the sequel of his love; for the object of it was to be bartered, as Shelly phrased it, "like a bale of goods," to a foreign emissary, as the price of his services in assisting to subvert the liberties of Scotland. In his sudden grief, on discovering the abyss of old hereditary hate that yawned between himself and Madeline Home, he forgot even the wrongs he had to avenge upon the Laird of Champfleurie and others, who had plotted for his destruction. He forgot all but her presence, and that she was lost to him!
All Lowland Scotland stood on tiptoe, watching with anxiety the result of a debate that was to give her an English king, or was still further to cement the league of five hundred years, by placing the French dauphin on the throne of the Stuarts; we sayLowlandScotland, for the Celts, ever at war among themselves, viewed with disdain or heeded not whatever was done, beyond their then impassable boundary, the Grampians.
Arran looked forward to having the regency placed more securely in his hands, and resolving that, if it passed, as ultimately it did, into the firmer grasp of Mary of Lorraine, to resort at once to arms, and hoist the standard of revolt on his castle of Cadzow.
Let us see how all this ended.
The debate was stormy, for many of the speakers were rude and brief in speech, rough, unlettered, fierce, and turbulent. Frowns were exchanged, gauntleted hands were clenched, and more than once the pommels of swords and poniards were ominously touched, among both parties; for though the proud spirit and patriotism of many were roused to fiery action by the great event at issue, there were others, whom we need not name—theScottish utilitariansof 1547—whose cupidity and selfishness alone were enlisted in the cause; but vain were their exertions. The letter of Henry of Valois, the production of which caused many an eye to lour on Florence, who, absorbed in his own thoughts, was all unconscious that he was observed at all,—the energy of his ambassador, M. d'Oysell, and the eloquence of Mary of Lorraine, when united to her own beauty and her husband's memory, bore all before them! Hence the proposals of the English Protector, Somerset, were abruptly rejected, with something very much akin to disdain. In his letters there was assumed a dictatorial tone, which could not fail to offend the loyal portion of the Scottishnoblesse.
"By his holiness Pope Julius II.," said Arran with a kindling eye, "it was ordained in 1504, that at his court the king of Scotland should take precedence of the kings of Castile, of Hungary, Poland, Navarre, of Bohemia, and Denmark; and that he should recognize no superior but God and His vicegerent on earth: then whence this grotesque loftiness of tone from a regent of England?"
The patriarch of Venice and the French ambassador beheld this growing indignation with evident satisfaction; while glances of ill-concealed anger and dismay were exchanged by those whose names were affixed to the indenture which, at that moment, Shelly carried in the secret pocket of his jazarine-jacket. Cassilis, who had little patience and less politeness, openly insulted the legate by terming Pope Julius "a shaveling mass-monger and pagan priest."
"My lord, my lord!" exclaimed the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, growing pale with anger; "beware lest he excommunicate thee with bell, book, and candle!"
"I care not," replied the sullen earl, frowning at the primate under the aventayle of his helmet; "for I am ready to maintain, wi' the auld Lollards o' Kyle, that the pope is a pagan, who exalteth himself against God, and above Him; that he can neither remit sins nor the pains of purgatory by mumbling Latin, or scribbling on a sheep-hide; that the blessing of a bishop is worth less than a brass bodle, and that Paul III. is the head o' the crumbling kirk of Antichrist!"
The sallow Venetian trembled with horror and anger at these words, and raised his thin white tremulous hands to heaven.
"Sancta Maria!" he exclaimed; "silence, thou false peer, lest I have thee burned quick!"
Cassilis laughed aloud, till every joint in his armour rattled.
"I am Gilbert Kennedy," said he, "and can betake me to my auld house in the wilds o' Carrick; so send your faggots there; and, hark ye, sir legate, I, who have hanged a monk, may feed the crows with a patriarch."
Cassilis was a stern and ferocious lord, so none dared to reply. He was a tyrant over his vassals, who found his avarice insatiable; yet it was always exerted in form of feudal law. Thus, on the marriage of each of his daughters (he had two—Jean, married to the Earl of Orkney, and Catherine, to the Laird of Banburrow), or the knighting of his sons, the master, and Sir Thomas of Colzean; or for the maintenance of feuds with his neighbours, he had mulcted them heavily by the ordinance which made it "lesome to the lord to seek sic help frae his men conforme to their faculties and the quantitie of their lands;" in short, to tax them, and seize the best of the goods in stable, byre, roost, and cheese-room, whenever the lord pleased, or found an urgent necessity for so doing.
The arguments and energy of this avaricious peer, of Glencairn, Kilmaurs, and others, who were in secret the agents or adherents of Somerset, if they failed to convince the mass who heard them, of the advantages that might accrue from a nuptial and political union with England, succeeded at last in filling with undefined alarm the bosom of Mary of Lorraine, whose finely nervous and aristocratic, yet soft temperament, was as ill calculated to withstand the turbulence, cupidity, and savagery of these atrocious peers, as in after-times her daughter to withstand their sons. She knew the falsehood of those with whom she had to contend, and who were now collected in a gloomy group near the council-table. Her soft cheek, from having the pink tinge of a sea-shell, crimsoned; her beautiful eyes filled with light, and, with a hand white as marble, grasping an arm of her innocent daughter's throne, she rose to speak, and then all were hushed to silence, and every eye was turned towards her.
"My lords and gentlemen," said she, gathering courage from the emergency of the moment and the presence of M. d'Oysell and the patriarch of Venice, "the holy religion which was planted in this soil a thousand years ago, and which flourished so broadly and so well, yielding good fruit, has been all but uprooted! A cardinal priest, a prince of the Church, has been barbarously murdered in his own archiepiscopal palace, and, gashed by wounds, his naked corpse has been suspended from its ramparts in the light of noon! Already, by this tremendous act, the altar of God has been defiled and the temple shaken to its foundation. Through the dim vista of events to come, I look forward with fear and sorrow to the future reign of my little daughter, the child of the good King James V.—that King James whom Pope Julius made defender of the faith, and girt with a sword sharpened by his holy hand on the altar-stone of St. Peter, against all heretics, especially those of England,—that James V., whose young and noble heart was broken by the rebel spirit of his peers, by their treason to Scotland in the cabinet, and their cowardice at the battle of Solway. Nay, never frown on me, or rattle your swords, my lords of Cassilis and Glencairn," she added, waving her small white hand, on which the jewels flashed like the scorn that lighted up her eyes; "I am a woman, and claim a woman's privilege to speak; and thus I repeat again, that I anticipate the future of my daughter, a Stuart and a Guise, among you with grief and horror! The Earls of Bothwell and Glencairn have spoken well and plausibly; but apart from all, the Duke of Somerset's conditions, which are unworthy the Scottish crown and degrading to the Scottish people, what happiness could be my daughter's in wedding the son of the apostate Henry,—he who was the horror of all modest women,—he who espoused Anne Boleyn, knowing her to be his own daughter, and yet laid her head on the block; who violated his promises to Anne of Cleves, and sent her fair successor also to the block; who murdered the aged Countess of Salisbury, and sent more than seventy thousand of his subjects to await his appearance before the judgment-seat of God; he who, by his lusts, and by his treason to the Holy See, made all England turn, in one day, heretic! Yet it is to the son of this man you would wed her in helpless infancy; and to the custody of his creature Somerset you would yield her, the daughter of Scotland and of France!"
A deep silence succeeded this outburst. At last Arran spoke.
"Fear not, madam," said he; "being the next kinsman to the crown, I am, by the ancient custom of our mother country, the tutor or custodian of its infant sovereign, and, with God's will, I shall remain so!"
"None dare dispute this right, Lord Earl," said Mary.
"None, save the king of England or his representative," urged Glencairn; "and he does so by the right of a treaty for the marriage of Edward with the daughter of King James, a treaty——"
"Which we do not recognize," interrupted Arran.
"What cared Henry of England for treaties?" exclaimed Arran's brother, the Archbishop of St. Andrew's,—"he who trampled on all laws, human and divine?"
"He hath gone to the place of his reward, sir priest," replied the rude Glencairn; "and now we have to deal, not with a dead king, but with the Duke of Somerset."
"A heretic as stout," continued the incensed primate, "though perhaps less lecherous and lustful."
"Lustful enough of our Scottish blood," said the gallant Earl of Huntly, with a smile, "if we may judge of his campaign among us here in '44, when we knew him as Edward Earl of Hertford."
"The result of all this chattering will be that we shall have war," said Glencairn. "The English will come——"
"With their Spanish and German auxiliaries——"
"Well, let them come," retorted Arran. "Our hills are steep, our streams are deep and swift, our hearts, I hope, as stout, and the swords bequeathed to us by our sires from a thousand bloody fields, are sharp and sure as ever! Let Somerset come, with his English billmen, his German pikes, and Spanish arquebuses: when true to herself, Scotland is unconquerable!"
"Thou art right, my lord," added the patriarch of Venice; "her people are unconquerable. But among her nobles are men ever ready to bend their necks to any chain of gold, or sell their faith and honour to the highest bidder!"
Perceiving that their design of having the English marriage accomplished was on the eve of being hopelessly frustrated,—that the proposals of the Valois were all but formally accepted by the regent and Mary of Lorraine, those who were in secret league with England became desperate, and Kilmaurs at last conceived the artful idea of embroiling Arran with the Queen-mother on a point concerning which he knew them to be remarkably sensitive. The smile of this crafty young lord was a mere twitch of the mouth, an unpleasant grimace at best; yet such a smile his visage wore when, during a pause in this strangely-conducted controversy, he said to Arran, in a low and stern voice,—
"Beware, my lord regent, lest this French marriage be not a plot of the Guises merely to involve us in a war with England."
"For that I care little. But to what end would it be?"
"An alteration in the regency."
Arran changed colour, and eyeing the young lord askance, asked, through his clenched teeth,
"That I may be succeeded by whom?"
"The Queen-mother, very probably."
"'Tis false, my Lord Kilmaurs!" exclaimed Mary of Lorraine, haughtily, "I say so—I, Mary, Queen of Scotland!"
"Under favour, madam," said Arran, reddening with annoyance, "you are neither Queen of Scotland nor the Scots, but simply queen-mother of the sovereign. There is a difference, you will pardon me. Henry of Valois is king of France; Edward VI. is king of England; but our monarchs have ever been kings of the Scots; for the SOIL belongs to the people."
"That whilk they soak so readily wi their gude red bluid, may weel be theirs," said the aged Earl of Mar.
"Bravade as ye may," urged Kilmaurs, "'tis all a plot of the Guises; and such I will maintain it to be."
"Now, grant me patience to scorn this base calumny!" said Mary of Lorraine, growing alternately red and pale with anger; for though she coveted this post in her heart, she knew too well the danger of making an enemy of Arran. "Good, my lords; I have made no struggle for the regency, nor have ever ventured to compete with my cousin Arran."
"Madam," said Arran coldly, "what right could you have pled?"
"Right enough," replied the Queen, veiling her anger by a smile; "nor am I quite without precedents either."
"Indeed!" said Arran, while Kilmaurs twitched the velvet mantle of Cassilis, and smiled to see the train on fire; "will you please to state this right?"
"A mother's right to rear her tender offspring; and Heaven knows that thought engrossed my whole heart, after the death of my two sons at Bothesay, and of my late husband and beloved king."
"God sain him! God rest him in his grave at Holyrood!" muttered the loyal old Earl of Mar, raising his bonnet; "he was the father of the poor."