On a glorious morning of the first days of June, James III. began his march for Stirling, once the El Dorado of the Scottish nobles during his reign, as Linlithgow was in the time of James IV., and Falkland in the time of James V.
The gentle breath of the morning stole along the heather braes, and the sound of the river was heard as it murmured on its yellow shores. Above the hills the sun was rising in his summer splendour, and the winding Forth blushed red as the shades of night retired. The peaks of the Ochil mountains glittered as the mist rolled away from their summits; the mavis and merle sang among the woods of Alloa; but the dew lay long in the grassy haughs and hollows, where the peaceful shepherds, who heeded little the godless strife of lords and earls, were winding their horns, while the colley dogs barked and yelled when herd and hirsel came forth from bught and penn.
Though less accustomed to armour than most of his turbulent subjects, James was attired in a heavy suit, which he valued highly for having been worn by his father at the sieges of Thrave and Roxburgh. It was gorgeously inlaid with ornamental and religious devices; the back and breastplates were composed of several pieces, to render them flexible, and the thighs wera defended by an apron of chain mail. Above his salade (a peculiar headpiece, first introduced from Germany during the reign of James II.) he wore a cap of maintenance, surmounted by the imperial crest, the lion in defence; while the royal arms, the lion rampant, within the double tressure, were everywhere emblazoned on the caparisons of his horse, the head of which was encased in a chanfron of tempered steel.
Another helmet for battle was borne behind the king by the Laird of Touch, who was hereditary armour-bearer and esquire of the royal body; his standard was borne by Scrimgeour, the Constable of Dundee, also its hereditary bearer. The lances of the Royal Guard, under Ramsay, Lord Bothwell, wearing over their armour scarlet jupons, trimmed with yellow (the royal livery), rode close around, in front and in rear of the king, near whom were Sir William Knollis, preceptor of Torphichen, wearing the black côte d'armes of his order, with its white cross of eight points; the old Sieur de Concressault, clad in a gorgeous suit of Milan plate, with his orders of knighthood sparkling on his breast, his swallow-tailed pennon borne before him by one esquire, and his helmet behind him by another. With this group rode the venerable Montrose, the king's first counsellor, attended by many gentlemen, among whom were Sir David Falconer, who, as a soldier, had resolved to share the dangers of the campaign; while the admiral, Barton, and Mathieson had returned to their ships to guard the passage of the river below Alloa.
The royal army was nearly thirty thousand strong, and gathered strength at every tower and hamlet as it marched westward, by the margin of the Forth, towards Stirling. There were the well-accoutred horsemen and spearmen of the North Lowlands, in their steel caps and buff coats, with iron gloves and gorgets; Highland archers in their long lurichs of chain and conical helmets of steel, with short bows and ponderous swords—all brave and determined, but unruly and, unfortunately, inferior in equipment to the fine troops of the revolted nobles. The cannon were few and small, their principal one being the Lion, a brass gun, cast in Flanders for James I., in 1438; it weighed 3000 lbs., and was inscribed with a long Latin legend.
Save the hum of the marching squadrons as it rose on the morning air, the tramp of horses, and the tread of feet, the rustle of the many-coloured banners and pennons of baronial families, clans and burghtowns, or an occasional word of command, there were no sounds of military triumph accompanied this march to Stilling. In respect for the king's sorrow and recent bereavement, no Lowland drum was beaten, no trumpet blown, or bagpipe gave a note to the breeze; and most of the peers and gentlemen were thoughtful and downcast, or conversed only in low and subdued tones; for it was an age of omens, and many portending evils had been seen; and thus, their minds, being as it were forewarned of unhappy results, attended to the most trivial things, and drew from them dark and mighty conclusions.
Passing through the woods of Tullibody, the forces crossed the beautiful Devon, which is fed by a hundred streams that pour down from the Ochils, and rush united through a channel of rock, among wild, romantic, and richly-wooded glens, towards the Forth. The royal troops passed through the little village of thatched cottages, from the low chimneys of which the smoke of fires, that were fed with fir and oak from the neighbouring bog, was curling high above the rich green foliage. The cottars stood at their doors, and held up at arm's-length their little ones, to see the passing king, and in the hope, perhaps, that they might catch a glance of the royal eye; men, old and bent with age, stretched their thin hands towards him in blessing, and the tears came into the eyes of James when, after a long silence, he turned to those about him, and said—
"It is these poor people, and such as these, I love: and it it at such a time as this I feel myself a king. Believe me, my good Montrose, the prayers and wishes of the lowly reach Heaven more readily through these roofs of thatch, than those that rise from baron's halls and great cathedral aisles; for, as Saint Mungo said of old, the poor are the children of God. I would that all Scotland were as single in purpose and as true in heart as these poor cottars now."
To this no one replied, and after another silent pause, James continued, in the same bitter strain:
"How many of my forefathers have shed their blood for this ungrateful people, who will slay me, even as they slew James I. at Perth? Fighting for Scotland, my father fell at Roxburgh, by a cannon, in the very armour I now wear; yet how few of her nobles have one drop of blood for me? Like the very demons of violence, crime, and ambition, they will traverse all the land in arms; burghs will be sacked, and homesteads laid in ashes; towers stormed and battles fought, for there is no hand can restrain them but One, and even that seems armed against me now!"
"Alas!" said the Treasurer Knollis, in a low voice, as he laid a hand on the cross of his order; "alas! that your majesty should speak thus; doth not the Holy Writ tell us, that 'man is born to trouble, even as the sparks fly upward?'"
"Where, beyond the little band here, have I a friend?"
The Lord of St. John of Jerusalem pointed upwards, saying,
"The wisdom and the repining of man are alike folly in the sight of Heaven."
"I beseech your majesty to be of good cheer," said Montrose; "thirty thousand loyal hearts are under your royal banner; and another day may see your enemies routed, baffled, and destroyed."
"Duke, I have ever heard it said that the most noble way of destroying one's enemies was to make them friends; but in every attempt to gain these hostile peers, I have signally failed. Our long projected banquet, which was to cement the bonds of friendship——"
"For God's love, speak not of that," said Montrose, betraying a storm of anger in his eye and manner; "for never shall I know one hour of peace until I have discovered and nailed on Stirling cross the hand which forged the letter proud Angus so exults in!"
And now old Stirling's "towers and town" arose before the marching troops, all steeped in summer haze and brilliant sunlight—that gorgeous palatial fortress, so rich in statues, ornament, and carving—so lofty and so strong, rising tower above tower, and rampart over rampart, on that stupendous rock that terminates the steep on which the quaint old burgh clusters, with all its gable-ended houses, its grey turrets, and antique courts, its shady wynds and masses of fantastic masonry, with gardens all around, and orchards in full bloom; while, seen at intervals, the winding Forth swept through the fertile vale below, so rich in dark green coppice and golden fields of corn, and teeming all with natural loveliness—bounded by the dark and purple peaks of the mighty Ochils and the mightier Grampians—by a thousand hills and more, that look down on plains where Scotland fought three of her most glorious battles.
By old Stirling bridge, so famed in the annals of the past for pageantry and strife—so narrow and so steep, with its deep-ribbed arches that span the river Forth, the king crossed at the head of his troops, and for three hours they continued to defile along that lofty gangway of stone, with banners waving, and spears and helmets shining in the sun. Strong walls and fortified portes then enclosed the town. Its eastern barrier, "a formidable arch of ponderous masonry, sprung from columns of basaltic rock, twenty feet in diameter. A jagged portcullis and solid gates closed the path by night, and their state keys of solid silver are yet preserved in the town-house."
No provost, bailies, or dean of guild, in furred gowns, appeared on bended knee to present these keys to James as he passed through the arched portal which then secured the centre of the bridge; and the streets beyond it were silent and deserted, for the people were stricken with fear and awe, as his forces marched through towards the Torwood; for he had resolved to encamp beyond the walls, and thus relieve the burgesses of his favourite town from the presence of the wild and unruly northern clans who adhered to his cause and crown.
Intending to remain in Stirling until more of the Highland chiefs could join him, and being anxious to meet the prince his son, whom he believed to be in the castle with Shaw the governor, of whose defection he was still ignorant, James rode up the Broad Wynd, attended by a few of his guard, by Bothwell, its captain, Montrose, the Sieur de Monipennie, Sir David Falconer, and others who were his best friends, and who formed a glittering troop as they approached the castle, which was James's favourite residence, and which he had greatly embellished, having built therein a parliament-house, the magnificent oak roof of which was but recently and recklessly torn down by the British government, and sold for firewood!
As the cavalcade advanced up the hill, they were surprised to find a strange banner—the red heart of Douglas—flying upon the castle in place of the blue national ensign, while the gates were closed, the drawbridge up, the walls lined by the garrison, and the cannon pointed against them.
Glances of inquiry and suspicion were exchanged by the attendants of the king, whose pale face was turned with stern scrutiny upon the armed ramparts, so he ordered a trumpet to be sounded, and with the umbriere of his salade up rode forward boldly to the edge of the ditch.
"Is the Laird of Sauchie, my captain of Stirling, within your gates?" he asked, in a firm and haughty manner.
"I am here, at the service of your grace," replied that arch-conspirator, as he appeared all armed, save the head, at the wall above the portcullis.
"Thou false traitor and mansworn subject," said James, "why am I received in this fashion at my own castle-gate? Do ye not see the royal banner and the guard in our livery?"
"As plainly as may be," replied Sauchie, with the coolest assurance; "and what of it?"
James thought of his dead queen, and controlled the gust of proper indignation that swelled within him at the insolent bearing of his subject.
"Am I to understand that you decline us entrance here?"
"I regret to say that your majesty surmises justly."
"Soldiers!" he exclaimed, "I am James, your king! Lieutenant-governor, Allan Cochrane of Dundonald, arrest the traitor Sauchie, and lower the bridge; arrest him, I command you all on your allegiance."
The Laird of Dundonald curled up his mustachios in silence, while Sauchie laughed aloud; but no man stirred upon the walls, though all gazed upon each other in evident doubt and trepidation.
"Will no man there desire the prince, my son, to appear before me," said the poor king.
Then Sauchie answered:
"The prince, your son, is with the lords, in arms, beyond the Torwood, and is birling his bicker in Callendar Hall."
This intelligence cut James to the soul, and he turned to Concressault, with a glance full of reproach and inquiry.
"I could not tell your majesty such evil tidings," replied the old soldier; "though I saw the prince, pale, sad, and I am glad to say it, looking miserable enough, among those evil-minded lords."
"And thou, David Falconer?" said the king.
"I was silent for the same reason."
"It was kindly meant, sirs—kindly meant; but it makes the blow more heavy to-day. Wifeless and sonless, in one week—I may well be crownless and lifeless the next. Oh, who that could have a crust and cup of water in peaceful obscurity would be king of Scotland? One word ere we go, Sir James of Sauchie, and answer me truly on your soul as a Christian man, is my son in arms against me of his own free will?"
"I know not; but the nobles, now in arms to demand justice, took him away with them."
"Justice is in the hand of Heaven; and yet these rebel lords would seek it at the head of forty-thousand spears."
"I know not in whose hand it may be, and care not," replied the insolent Shaw; "but time will prove all."
"Time will also avenge thy perfidy!" said James, with bitterness; "fie on thee, traitor; fie! But I shall neither curse nor ban thee, for thy father was a good knight and loyal man; and this conduct in thee is enough to make his bones shake in their coffin in Cambuskenneth aisle. Foully and basely hast thou deceived me, for to thee were entrusted alike the custody of this my royal castle and of my eldest son; but I shall yet be avenged, and have thee rewarded as thou deservest."
It is related that James then shook his clenched hand at the subtle traitor on the battlement above him; and all his train made the same menacing gesture, as they wheeled their horses round and descended into the town.
"Yest'reen I saw the new moon
With the auld moon in her arm;
And if we gang to sea, master,
I fear we'll come to harm.
They had na' sailed a league, a league,
A league, but barely three,
When the lift grew dark, the wind blew loud
And gurly grew the sea."
Scottish Ballad.
The evening was cold and grey; the shrill wind swept over the German Sea, tearing the surf here and there from the crests of the murky waves, which reflected the colour of the inky scud that traversed the lowering sky heavily and swiftly in flying masses overhead.
Scattered far apart, three English ships are striving to make headway against the freshening gale that blows from the east, and at every fresh gust strains their almost close-reefed canvas as if to blow it out of the bolt-ropes; and seizing their ponderous spars, their intricate top-hamper and heavy-towering poops, every moment careens them over to leeward. Hardly they beat, and bravely too; for a foreign, and it may be a hostile shore is lying with all its rocky terrors on their lee, for these ships are the Harry, the Cressi, and White Rose.
They dared not signal for pilots as they passed the little fisher towns that nestle in the creeks and crannies of that tremendous coast, which rises like a wall of rock along the northern sea; and if they had fired guns and shown their colours, it may be doubted whether a pilot could have come off in such tempestuous weather "It freshens fast, this plaguey breeze," said John o'Lynne, turning his weather-beaten face to windward; "but ere this I have weathered many a tough Levanter, and seen St. Elmo's light lay the spirit of the storm, as it burned blue for half a fathom or so below our maintruck, and along the topsail-yard."
"Ay, John," responded Howard, "thou mayst have been all round the world, and outside it too—yea, have doubled the Cape of Storms, and yet never have seen a more dangerous or damnable coast than this of Buchan here!"
"Should we not take a reef in that foresail and the maintopsail?"
"Nay—ouf! what a mouthful of salt water!—nay, stand on; see, the rocks fall back and the land opens! Ho!—St. George for England! we may yet get into safe riding, and thank God and St. Mary we have neither started tack or sheet."
"Or had aught carried away from truck to keel—from sprit-sail to poop-lantern."
"A board of the forechain-plates hath been torn off; but we will plank it anew in Scottish fir," said Howard, with a smile. "The old Harry hath carried her canvas and shipped her seas most nobly; she is the most manageable craft 'tween Thames and Humber, and though we have not a dry hammock or doublet on board, we will be all right and ataunto ere long. Will Selby, pass the word forward for a posset of sack, and then wear the ship round, John o'Lynne, for that bight on the lee bow opens fast; and though I never was but once in these seas before, I remember me of finding safe anchorage hereabout. Get ready a culverin, as a signal to our craft to windward, and run up St. George's cross, but for a minute only; lest the gimlet eyes of some wary Scots may espy it from yonder devilish bluff, as we wear ship and make to port."
"I hear a strange sound," said Dick Selby, putting a tarry hand behind his red, weatherbeaten ear.
"'Tis the storm fiend laughing," said John o'Lynne.
"Nay," said Howard, "'tis the waves roaring in a cavern, and mingling with the boom cf breakers on the beach; and now we should see Phillorth Church and sands; and lo! there they are to leeward—let her fall off a few points—so—yare—John, yare, and bravely!"
Rattray Point, that low and dangerous promontory, with its burgh town, not a vestige of which now remains, were left astern, and soon Kinnaird, that tremendous headland on the Buchan coast reared its weatherbeaten brow above the foam, where the wave that rose upon the far Norwayn shore breaks upon its iron front; and now, as Howard said, Phillorth opened its friendly bay, overlooked by an ancient castle belonging to the Frazers, and its kirk of St. Modan, the confessor of King Couran.
The Harry fired a gun as a signal to her consorts, and right before the wind they stood in between the foam-drenched promontories of Cairnbulg and Frazerburgh, and came to anchor in the bay or roads, where, as the high bluffs protected them from the fury of the sea, they rode in safety.
"Thank God and St. George our anchor is down, and seems to hold bravely too!" said Howard, as the ship swung round and everything was furled, fore and aft.
"But how fareth this dainty Scottish dame to-day?" asked John o'Lynne.
Howard coloured deeply, and pretending not to have heard, looked fixedly at the bluff of Cairnbulg.
"Dost thou affect her, shipmate o' mine?"
Still no answer.
"Ahoy, my captain! thou'st seen her to-day, I warrant."
"Who?" asked Howard, fretfully.
"The lady—our prisoner, who hath never set her pretty foot on our wetted deck since that misty night we were off Tay mouth."
"How could she do so, when the wind hath blown a tempest since, and we have shipped an ocean and more of this bitter Scottish sea? She is low in heart, and sunk in health and spirit—poor little damsel—my heart bleeds for her!"
"And yearns for her too—is it not so, Edmund Howard?"
"It yearns in vain, then," said Howard, with a sigh; "for she is impregnable."
"Faith she must be if thou has failed in getting the weather-gage of her; thou hast been kind to her as father, brother, and lover, all in one," continued the talkative lieutenant; "and I doubt not, she will make such a report of thee to old King Harry as may win thee a pair of golden spurs."
"A stout fellow who wears a sword and faces salt water—a Howard least of all—should not owe his spurs to a petticoat, John o'Lynne," said his captain, coldly; "but I would to Heaven she had never set foot on board the Harry; and I hope its heaviest malison will fall on yonder villanous Scots who are plotting this poor girl's ruin, and who brought her to us—on Borthwick more than all! That night his face was white as our flag; but one day I hope to see it turn blue as a Scot's one!"
Then, the coast which is now covered by one of the most thriving burghs of regality in Scotland, was lonely and somewhat bare. The high promontories, the level shore, the old castle of the Lairds of Phillorth, the older church which was their burial place; the green Mormond Hill, with thickets of fine oak and dense clumps of red-stemmed Scottish firs, composed the scenery of the bay, in which the waves rolled blue and calmly, notwithstanding the storm that flecked with foam the sea without.
For several days the gale continued, and for these days the English ships rode at their anchors, without their crews molesting the shore, or being molested from thence: for it happened that the old Baron of Phillorth was marching with his chief, the Lord Lovat, and all his retainers, to join the king's host; so that none were left behind to guard his lady and their tower but old men and boys. Moreover, although Barton had been slain in the Downs, and Lord Angus had ravaged all Northumberland, the kingdoms of Scotland and England were rather in a state of suspicion and alarm, than of war, as the wary Henry VII. had no wish for that event, being anxious to cement the bonds of an offensive and defensive alliance by the projected marriage of Rothesay with his daughter, the voluptuous Margaret Tudor.
Howard knew nothing of all that had been passing at Dundee, Stirling, and elsewhere, during these several days of stormy and arduous beating to windward; and Margaret Drummond, his prisoner, knew of course no more. She had now become somewhat composed, and ceased alike to threaten, to entreat, and to weep, save when she thought of her motherless and abandoned infant.
While thus compelled by the stormy eastern wind to loiter off the Scottish coast, the amiable and gallant Howard became deeply impressed by the beauty, the gentleness, and sadness of Margaret Drummond; and he felt all this the more keenly, because he was too well aware that he was the contemptible instrument of causing sorrow and distress to one so beautiful. Daily he resolved never more to enter her cabin, and hourly he broke the resolution; for the charm of her presence was too strong for his heart to resist.
Frequently in his secret thoughts he cursed the cruel and subtle policy of his king, and the cupidity of the infamous Scottish traitors who pandered to him, and sold for English gold their faith and services.
At one time he had almost resolved to land her on the coast, near some seaport town or baronial castle, and then bear away for the Thames, and surrender himself to Henry's wrath; or to quit his ships and seek a shelter among the wild Northumbrian moss troopers. Thus, fearful of adding fresh poignancy to her grief by commencing his homeward voyage, he loitered in the bay near Frazerburgh, while the gale moderated and veered round favourably to the north-west; while water, wine, and provisions became scarce on board the ships; while tall Dick Selby the gunner, Anthony Arblaster, captain of the crossbows, who had lost an eye at the Battle of Bosworth, and others of the crew, looked strangely in each other's faces, and muttered under their bushy beards; and John o'Lynne, who had been gruffly told to "haul taut and belay, and to mind his own affairs," strode sulkily up and down the larboard side of the poop, with his hands thrust far into the pockets of his coarse blue gaberdine, shouldering master Quentin Kraft, for whom he had no great love or liking, and whistling to console himself, as he sipped a peg-tankard of sack that stood on the binnacle-head, and looked crossly from time to time at the flying clouds, and the long whip-like pennon that streamed towards old England.
In deep thought, poor Howard often walked quite as hurriedly on the other side of the poop, and was frequently heard to mutter—
"Alas, for thee, Eddy Howard—thou art a lost and ruined man!"
"Ruined people are dangerous," grumbled John o'Lynne, under his long wiry mustachios, which were always encrusted with saline particles; "misfortune is infectious, and I would fain see the ship cleared of this here piece of Scottish trumpery."
"And bearing away for the Nore and Thames, which we are never likely to see again if this work lasts," added Dick Selby, emptying the lieutenant's posset in pure inadvertence. "St. Mary be praised, we gave these Buchan-bouillars a wide berth, though! else we had all found our graves in the Scotsman's sea."
"I would rather you had taken a pull at your slack jawing tackle, than my sack posset, Master Selby," said the lieutenant, gruffly; "so please to sheer off when next it stands here, and before you come aft again, give one look at the Book of Good Manners."
On this day the weather was calm and clear; the wind had almost died away, and for the first time since she came on board, Margaret had ascended to the poop, supported on the arm of Howard, and well muffled in rich Muscovite sables, for the muffly (or muff and tippet) were then worn by the ladies in Scotland. Howard dared scarcely look his own lieutenant in the face; for now the weather had cleared so completely that he was at last deprived of every vestige of excuse for lingering off the Scottish coast.
Upon that coast—on the granite brows of Cairnbulg and the loftier bluff of Kinnaird with its cavern a hundred feet in depth, on old Phillorth with its woods, and the Mormond Hill covered to its summit with green moss and purple heather, on the beach in front and the flat champaign beyond, Margaret bent her sad and anxious eyes. Round them the blue bay shone like a mirror; but not a Scottish ship was near. Close by were the consorts of the Harry, lying at anchor, with their yards braced sharply up and their heads to the wind, and in the open sea without were a number of those Dutch vessels called bushes, which, until the beginning of the seventeenth century, were permitted by the Scottish government to fish in the Loch of Strathbeg, which was then an arm of the sea, though now it is more than a mile from it.
Howard saw the expression of Margaret's dark and beautiful eyes, as she gazed in silent sorrow on the shore and on the narrow strip of water, little more than half a bowshot, that separated her from the yellow beach on which that water rippled, and as she turned pleadingly and reproachfully to him, he felt that his own gaze became disordered; and dreading that she would renew those earnest entreaties with which he dared not comply—entreaties to be landed on any point or place from whence she could make her way to the nearest hut or house—he begged her to be seated, and to excuse him, and hurried to the fore-part of the vessel on some pretented duty, despatching to her the pretty Cicely and the black-eyed Rose, who were gaily chatting with Dick Selby and Anthony the archer, in the waist, and in the sunny side of the starboard gun-tier, and were looking as spruce and charming as the hideous dress then worn by the women of England would permit; for their gowns were cut square at the neck, with enormous sleeves confined at intervals from the elbow to the wrist, or worn like "bishop's sleeves," as they were named in London. On their heads were flowing capuchons turned back, as we may still see them in some of Holbein's portraits.
Finding herself an object of attention and considerable speculation among the crew, who (honest souls!) knew little of the mission and less of the object which had brought them into Scottish waters, the sensitive Margaret soon retired again to her cabin, and there Edmund Howard followed her, by a temptation which he could not resist—lured by the sound of her voice, and the soft expression of her eyes; for these, though speaking only of sorrow and reproach, were too powerful and too seductive to be easily withstood.
Though his visit had been respectfully heralded by little Will Selby, the gunner's brother, Howard found Margaret seated in a chair near the cabin windows, still watching the shore, then shining in the meridian sun. She had thrown aside her hood, and wore only her caul of gold, under which her soft fair hair fell in a shower of glittering curls down her back,—for such was then, and for long after, the fashion. The sunlight streamed through the cabin window, and Margaret's bright tresses seemed to form a glory round her mild Madonna face, which was so pure, so fair, and exquisitely soft; while the deep sadness and solemn thoughts that hovered in her heart, made her eyes seem of a darker and a deeper blue than they really were.
She gave Howard but one glance as he entered, and turned again to the stern windows, from whence the bright water rippled away like lines of light towards the pebbled shore, from which she deemed herself about to be taken as a punishment for having violated the laws of the Church, and brought discord into the royal family.
"You have soon quitted the deck, lady," said Howard, on whose handsome face there were impressed all the doubt and hesitation which now rendered strange and abrupt his usually open-hearted and elegant manner; "would not a little more of the breeze that blows from yonder waving woods have revived you, after such long confinement in this close cabin here."
"Not unless I was under their branches, sir, which I am not likely to be while you are captain of this caravel," replied Margaret, without raising her eyes.
Howard then pressed her to partake of a luncheon of preserved strawberries, quince marmalade, macaroon biscuits, hippocrass and orange wine, which stood untasted on the cabin table; but she coldly declined. He stood silent for a minute, and his heart swelled under his well-embroidered doublet, as he leaned over her chair and gazed upon the bright soft tresses that fell on the girl's neck,—for Margaret was yet a girl, though maternity had given a roundness to her beautiful form, even as premature sorrow had given a sadness to her charming face and manner.
Of that maternity and her marriage Edmund Howard was ignorant, but knowing that the heir of Scotland loved her, he dared not speak of his own growing passion; for what had he to offer, compared with all of which he was depriving her. Yet Margaret could read that rising sentiment in his speaking eye and kind persuasive voice, and in his softened manner,—it fretted and provoked her. A woman has an intuitive or instinctive perception when a man is in love with her, let him do ever so much to conceal it; and in the present instance Howard was too much of an English sailor, and too little of a courtier, to show false colours.
"For the hundreth time, lady," said he, "I beseech you to be assured that if your fate was in my own hands, you would be conducted to any part of Scotland you desired; and there would I leave you, though in doing so my heart should break for ever!"
Margaret smiled bitterly, but did not reply.
"Alas, lady, think better of me," urged Howard, sighing deeply; "think better of me than to believe me a mansworn wretch like Sir James of Sauchie, or a sordid slave like those other Scots who have betrayed you to Henry of England. Lady, I see a cloud now gathering on your beautiful brow; I am but a plain speaking English seaman (somewhat of a courtier once, it might be); I have no wish to take the wind out of any man's sails, but I do think, that while so many rascals tread her soil, this same Scotland of yours is not worth mourning for."
"And dost think I have only the woods and mountain to weep for? Have I not my father—my four sisters, and my——" she dared not add "child!"
"Lady, the love of kings and princes is like foam on the sea—a thing that comes and goes with every puff of wind, and so passes away for ever. Kings are but a hollow-hearted race at best; their lives and their loves are made alike subservient to policy and statecraft; and your Scottish kings have ever, as it were, been among breakers and shoal water since Scotland had a name; for her nobles are a race of hereditary traitors, such as have no parallel in Europe—men ever ready to sell her liberty and barter her honour for foreign gold."
"Who spoke of kings or princes," asked Margaret; "not I surely, sir—my lips never uttered the name of king or prince?"
"But your heart did, madam," said Howard, sadly. "Oh, do not conceal your secret thoughts from me. My own sentiments enable me to sound the depth of yours too surely for my own peace."
"I think, sir captain, I might have wearied you by this time."
"Nay, lady, nay; does the miser ever weary of his treasure?" continued poor Howard, getting into deeper water every moment. "I count not the hours you are with me, unless to reckon how long it may be till we are separated by King Henry, and my sun sets in a dark and hopeless sea."
"And when will this happen?" asked Margaret, making a violent effort to control a rising sob.
"When we drop our anchors by the Tower of London."
"Oh, thou art a wretch—a minion—the slave of servile slaves!" said Margaret, covering her face, and giving way to one of those wild bursts of grief which always convulsed her when the memory of the babe from which she had been so cruelly torn, arose more poignantly within her; "begone, and leave me to the horror thou hast wrought me."
"Madam," said Howard, with increasing sadness, "I take kind Heaven to witness, that I seek no higher ornament than the admiration you withhold from me; no greater glory than the love I can never win. You have thrice held out bribes to me, as if I wore some sordid Scottish lord or servile English clown, instead of being a gentleman of spotless coat-armour and reputable bearing. I have not deserved contempt thus, even at your hands, for your presence here has wrecked my peace as surely as it has wrecked your own; but alas! from very different causes. Dearly as he loves you, madam—and God who hears him only knows how dearly,—Edmund Howard will never again ask grace of one who has stigmatised him as a king's minion and a sordid wretch. I dare not land you on the Scottish coast; and I have now but one hope—that we shall fall in with old Andrew of Largo, and that after I have died fighting on my deck, you may be given to those whom you love by the lads I leave behind me; though I fear much that bold Dick Selby would rather throw a match in his magazine and blow the old Harry up, than see St. Andrew's cross above St. George's ensign! Farewell, madam—I will never trouble you more."
Repenting her harshness, and impressed by Howard's calm and noble demeanour, Margaret would have called him back; but he sprang upon deck, and summoning John o'Lynne, ordered him to prepare for sailing—to man the windlass and heave short, and to cast loose the courses, while Dick Selby fired a culverin as a signal to their consorts, the White Rose and Cressi, to put to sea.
"I will no longer act the traitor to my king," thought Howard, "or be the plaything of this proud beauty, who wrongs me in her heart, and treats my honest passion with the cold indifference of an anchor-stock. Too long have I been the laggard and the lover, and now the play is ended!"
"Ho! for England—cheerily, my hearts!" cried the gunner, as he summoned a squad, who cast loose and loaded a culverin; "I thought we should have ridden in this here cove till our anchors rusted and our cables rotted—or till the hungry devils of the Scottish sea had picked our ribs as clean as ivory. Ready the match! we have cruised long enough in these here northern latitudes to wish for home again!"
The culverin flashed redly from the dark port-hole; the woods of Phillorth, the cave and rocks of Kinnaird, and the shores of the bay, gave back the report with a hundred reverberations, as the courses fell and swelled out in the western breeze, when the anchors were apeak, and the topsails sheeted home, and the white flags with St. George's red cross were displayed from the gaff-peak and mainmast-head, as the stately Harry moved slowly out of that lonely northern bay, and once more began to roll upon the stormy waters of the Scoto-German sea, which broke in foam above the ghastly reefs then known as Phillorth Briggs.
"On earth 'twas yet all calm around,
A pulseless silence, dread, profound,—
More awful than the tempest's sound."
Lalla Rookh.
It is recorded in history that James III. made a second effort to overcome the treason of Shaw, but in vain. The message delivered by Sir David Falconer and Lord Bothwell, commander of the Royal Guard, was received with derision and contempt; and for the evening and night the king remained in the town of Stirling, with all his troops around it, and fully resolved to fight the insurgents on the morrow, if they advanced against him.
Rumours of their great strength made the few faithful nobles who adhered to James doubtful of victory and fearful for his safety; thus, the good old Duke of Montrose desired Sir David Falconer to bear a message to Sir Andrew Wood, who was still anchored off Alloa, requesting him to have his boats along the beach and near the Carse, to take off all fugitives and wounded men of either party who might pass that way. As the Torwood—a vast forest of primeval oaks which covered most of the Carse to the eastward of Stirling—was full of wolves, wild deer, and, worse than these, the hunting and wandering parties of the insurgents, this duty was a task of no ordinary danger; but the gallant captain of the king's arquebusses prepared for it with alacrity; resolving, if molested, to trust to a ready hand, a sharp sword, and a swift horse.
Accoutred in his harness, back, breast, and head-pieces, armlets and gloves, or, as the Acts of James I. say, "weel horsed and weel harnished as gentlemen oucht to be," with lance, sword, dagger, and a hand-gun at his saddle-bow, Falconer quitted his lodgings in the Friars' Wynd, near the Meal-market, and rode down the steep streets of Stirling on his mission, just as the sun was setting afar off behind the mountains of the Highland frontier. He had wisely taken from his helmet the knot of red and yellow ribbons—the royal colours—which the Duchess of Montrose and her dames d'honneur had prepared and bestowed upon the gentlemen of the royal army; thus he had nothing to distinguish him as he rode on his solitary mission, and he could pass for loyalist or traitor, according to circumstances.
He passed out of Stirling by an ancient porte near the Wolf's Craig, where, in the war of Donald V., a sentinel, when asleep, and been awakened by the growl of a wolf, and started to his sword just in time to find a horde of Saxon invaders close by; they were routed; and to this day we may still see on the old burgh seals a wolf, recumbent on a rock, with seven stars above it in the sky, in memory of how the town was saved. As Falconer gave his steed a draught of the pure spring that flows from St. Ninian's well, a dark frocked figure—an Augustine of Cambuskenneth apparently—was similarly occupied in watering his nag, a stout Galloway cob.
"Good morrow, father; I hope you are come to bless the cause of the king," said Falconer. But he received no answer; so leaving the well and chapel behind, he wheeled off to the left, between the deepening shadows of the Torwood and the stupendous eminence crowned by the town; and at a rapid trot pursued the old Roman route towards the north-west.
This time-worn path was solitary and deserted; at such a crisis none were abroad save well-armed men, and now all these in the neighbourhood were within the walls of Stirling or cantoned around it. In the stillness of the summer eve, he heard the cattle lowing in the Queen's haugh, where the herds of the Queen were grazing, for the lordship of Stirling was the dowry of the queens-consort of Scotland.
The summer moon rose clearly and brightly above the dark foliage of the Torwood, and its silver light mingled with the yellow flush of the western sky, and threw forward in black and bold relief the sharp ridge of Stirling, with its castled rock, its turreted chateaux and old square gothic spire; the wooded Abbey Craig, on which were the ruins of a castle, with the Forth winding like a gigantic snake of silver between thickets of beautiful coppice, and forming those green links of rich alluvial land which, in all ages, have been so proverbial for their pasture and fertility. Above these towered the lofty Abbey of St. Mary of Cambuskenneth—massive, rich, and strong, as when King David built it three hundred and forty years before; and lights began to twinkle in the painted windows of its church and dormitories as the daylight faded behind the gigantic Ochils, and as the river that swept around it turned from silver to a cold, yet bright star-studded blue; and the mighty bell which swung in the highest tower was tolling the hour of ten, and summoning the Augustines to prayer, as the arquebussier rode on, and passing the abbey and river on his left, dipped into the wood. The head of this great abbey was usually a powerful and wealthy lord. Henry, the then abbot, was sent ambassador to England a few years after the period we write of.
As the last note of its melodious bell—which, strange to say, as yet lying in the Forth, just where the Reformers sunk it—died away upon the wind, and the road grew dark as the lofty oaks of the Torwood arched their branches over it, forming, as it were, a lofty tunnel of twined and matted foliage, Falconer thought he heard the hoofs of a horse behind him: he checked his own for a moment, and looked back. He saw only the monk mounted on his stout little cob, and well muffled up in his black gown and cowl: so the soldier turned and rode on, though it was evident that the stranger had also for a moment checked his speed.
As Falconer crossed the Bannock he again looked back; the monk was still in sight, preserving his distance, and pursuing at a trot, the old Roman way. Falconer turned to ride back and meet this follower, who immediately wheeled round and galloped in the opposite direction to avoid him.
"Poor friar—my harness frightens him!" thought Falconer, as he resumed his way. "By my faith, but these are sharp times, when peaceful monks and men of God tremble at the sight of their own countrymen!"
He soon dismissed the circumstance from his mind, on remembering that it was a peculiarity of the Augustines or Canons Regular, that they took charge of parish churches and performed ecclesiastical functions in any place, whereas the contemplative orders never left their convent walls. As he passed Polmaise (or the Pool of Rotting, so named from the thousands of bodies that lay unburied there after the Battle of Bannockburn), he again heard the hoofs of the priest's cob following closely and warily behind him.
"'Tis intolerable, this!" said Falconer, as ideas of spies and assassins were suggested to his mind, and he remembered that twice he had recently escaped a barbarous death. "Come on, good father," he cried, "come on, and fear nothing, for I am a peaceful man, though armed, as you see."
To this the priest made no response, but again wheeled his horse to the right, and dashed into the recesses of the Torwood.
"Suspicious, this!" thought Falconer; "and if I find thee tracking me again, I will try the effect of a hand-gun shot on thee, wert thou the last of all the friars in Scotland."
He listened for a time, but all was still, save some distant and uncertain sounds that rose from the recesses of the forest and floated in the still air overhead; but whether these were the notes of hunting horns recalling straggling parties, or wild wolves baying at the summer moon, seemed uncertain; so, once more he resumed his way, and at a hand-gallop passed the manor of Throsk, crossed the fertile Carse, turned round a link of the Forth, and descended to the Craigward or King's Ferry, where the river is still crossed by a boat.
Here the Forth is only half-a-mile broad at high water. Opposite lay dusky Alloa, with its lights twinkling among masses of quaint old buildings, and the smoke of their chimneys ascending into the pure still air of the evening, which had now almost blended with the dewy night. The woods, the castle, and the town were reflected downward in the stream, in the mid-channel of which were the Yellow Frigate and Queen Margaret, with their consorts, lying at anchor, with all their boats hoisted in, their courses loose, the upper portlids triced up and the guns run out; strong watches were on deck, with battle-axe and arquebuss, and all ready for sea and service at a moment's notice.
Dismounting, Falconer took his horse by the bridle and led it close down to the water-edge at the Craigward, and selecting a place where the boor-trees grew thick and mingled with the wild Scottish roses and the woodbine in a matted screen, over a scaured bank which the river had scooped as if to form a place of concealment, he looked cautiously round and listened for a moment, and all was still, save the ripple of the stream as it flowed towards the sea. He placed to his mouth a silver-mounted bugle that hung at his girdle, and blew one low, winding, and peculiar note. It floated away over the river, and ere it died in the distance, the shrill whistle of Archy the boatswain was heard on board the admiral's ship—a boat plashed as it was lowered into the moonlit water, the crew were seen to drop lightly down from the chains, and the oars gleamed, as Cuddie the coxswain pushed off from the carved and painted side of the high and formidable caravel.
At that moment Falconer heard something crackling among the boor-trees above his head. He looked upward suspiciously, but could perceive nothing.
"Tush," thought he, "I have scared some red fuimart or todlowrie from its lair—yet every leaf that stirs startles me to-night."
He had forgotten the suspicious friar; but had he looked more narrowly he might have seen that respectable personage, with his head uncowled, with neck outstretched, with a hand behind one ear to let not a sound escape, and with grey, malignant eyes, half starting from their sockets, while, screened among the leaves, he bent over the bank to see and hear what this bugle-sound, the answering whistle, and shore-rowed boat portended—for our monk was a spy!
"Sordid, mean, and miserly, he has made various compacts, he has made a compact with pride; a compact with avarice; a compact with knavery; a compact with ambition; a compact with contempt; a compact with mammon; a compact with all the evil passions, and with all the fiends!"—Tantalus.
"Welcome as a fair wind!" said Barton, leaping lightly ashore, though he was heavily armed in a suit of black unpolished armour, and carried in his hand a Jedwood axe—"Welcome, doughtie Davie."
"And welcome thou, my comrade and shipmate," replied Falconer, as they drew off their steel gloves, and shook hands, but without a smile, for their hearts were full of stern thoughts.
"What tidings are there 'long shore, eh?" asked Barton.
"Evil enough—the lords are all in arms in the Carse, and to-morrow we hope to give them battle."
"Would I might leave the ship and share it with thee!"
"And why not?" asked Falconer.
"The admiral——"
"True—true."
"'Tis said these lords have a hundred thousand men under their banner."
"Rumour says even more," added Falconer.
"But rumour is a landlubber, and often lies: and the king, how many?"
"Only thirty thousand men, to my certain knowledge, but all good men and true, and God will bless their cause. Have any tidings of Howard's ships reached thee yet?"
"Not a whisper—nor has a boat boarded us since the king marched west from Alloa. On board we hear no more than a deep-sea lead, when down. Would that we could meet him!" added Robert Barton, twisting his mustachios. "To me the opening cannon of that English fleet were welcome as a peal of merry marriage bells. Any message from the fair sisters in Strathearn?"
"Alas, none! and I suppose there is no intelligence of the lost Lady Margaret?"
"None—a strange mystery!"
"Can she be with Rothesay among the rebel lords?"
"Impossible! for Rothesay then would leave their banner. Hostility, despair, and old Lord Drummond's wiles alone detain the prince among them; for Sir James Shaw, who twice to-day bent the cannon of Stirling against the king, and also Sir Patrick of Kyneff, declare aloud that James has hidden or poisoned her."
"I should like to meet, on clear deck or open field, an armed man who would say so much to me!" said Barton, grasping his Jedwood axe.
"Dost think we will have a fair day for the battle to-morrow; for the rain so bedevils our gun-matches."
"Fair—I think so," said Barton, looking at the starry sky. "As Archy the boatswain says—
"When the mist takes to the German sea,
Fair weather, shipmate, it will be;
But when the mist rolls owre the land,
The rain comes pouring off the sand;"
so the mist took to the sea this morning. And now, shipmate of mine, what errand brings thee to the Craigward to-night?"
"A message from the Duke of Montrose to the admiral."
"Well, and what is his grace's desire?"
"That, as we have, perhaps more chance of being vanquished than victorious on the morrow, he will keep his boats along the shore here, to take off all fugitives and wounded men, and so provide a safe retreat for the king, who in case of reverse (which God avert!) will be conveyed by faithful friends this way."
"So James retreats this way!" said the lurker overhead.
"And how shall we know him?" asked Barton.
"By the Lord Lindesay's famous grey horse, which he is to ride on the morrow, and by a yellow plume in his helmet."
"Good," said Barton; "I shall note them in the log-book of my memory."
"Good, and so shall I," muttered the friar, overhead. "A grey horse and a yellow plume will be readily known on the morrow."
"Hark," said Barton, as the listener withdrew; "dost thou not hear something?"
"Can we be watched?" exclaimed Falconer, grasping the hand-gun at his saddle-bow. "A muffled man—one at least in a friar's cowl, followed me to-night, pace for pace, from the Wolf Craig to the Polmaise."
"Cuddie—ho, there!—keep the boat close in," cried Barton, looking sharply round him. "A friar, said ye—and there is one, even now, at the top of the Craigward!"
Barton sprang to the summit of the bank with all the agility of a sailor, and grasping the lurker by the frock, as he was crawling away, dragged him roughly down to the beach.
"How now, sir friar, what seek you here?" asked Falconer, recognising the priest he had met at the Wolf Craig.
"A passage across the ferry."
"Then you are not likely to get it, for the rebels have burned the boat, and the oarsmen have fled," replied Barton, releasing him, and half ashamed of having shown so much warmth before a clergyman. "Why did you not come boldly forward and say go at once, good friar, instead of crawling about there like a parboiled parton—eh?"
"This is not a time to venture rashly among armed men."
"The friar is right," said Falconer; "and such was perhaps his reason for avoiding me in the Torwood."
"Moreover, I am a friend of the Lord Drummond, bound on a peaceful mission to two gentlemen of the king's ships," said the friar, the upper and lower parts of whose face were concealed by his hood.
"We know most of the men in the king's ships, father," said Barton, in an altered tone; "and for whom may your message be?"
"Robert Barton, captain of the Yellow Frigate, and Sir David Falconer, captain of the king's arquebussiers."
There was a pause, during which the persons mentioned gazed at each other and then at the friar.
"Priest, thou gibest us," said Barton, bluntly; "for we are the men you speak of."
"How shall I be assured of that, sirs?"
"Ask our names of the boat's crew, if you doubt us," said Falconer.
"It is enough—I now recognise ye both, sirs."
"A sudden recognition!"
"Well, friar, thou'st the weathergage of us, and knowest our rank and rating now; but what would the Lord Drummond with us?" asked Barton.
"Step a little this way; what I have to tell must not be overheard," said the friar, drawing them a few paces from the boat.
"Sir David Falconer, you love the Lord Drummond's daughter, Sybilla?"
Falconer was silent, for the sound of that beloved name made his heart leap under his cuirass.
"And you, Robert Barton, love her sister, Euphemia?"
"Silence, friar!" said Barton, angrily; "what hast thou to do with this?"
"Thus much, that the Lord Drummond, the High Steward of Strathearn, sent me to say, that if you will make the admiral prisoner, seize his ships, and deliver them to the lords, ye yet win your brides; but refuse, and you shall never see them more."
"Villain monk, thou liest!—the Lord Drummond is a gentleman!" said Falconer, furiously.
"He is more," said the monk, sneeringly; "he is a Scottish noble."
"In that word noble lies a world of treason," said Barton; "but he was wise to send a priest on this infernal mission, for with this axe I had cloven a layman to the chine."
"Very likely," sneered the monk again; "for useful and honourable men are never appreciated in this world—they are ever unfortunate."
"Such priests as thee will be fully appreciated in the world to come," said Falconer.
"Do not let us quarrel, sirs," said the tempter, with assumed meekness, crossing his hands upon his breast; "I am but the Lord Drummond's mouthpiece; and he said, Sir David, that your pay as captain of the king's arquebussiers would go but a short way, with a houseful of little Davies and Sybies crying for bannocks, cheese, and Christmas-boxes."
This sneer enraged the soldier, but he heard it with apparent disdain.
"So you will not win your brides, fair sirs—yea, with as many gold pieces each as would fill a Linlithgow firlot."
"English, no doubt," said Falconer.
"Of course," added Barton; "what other coin could pay for Scottish treason? No—we will not win our brides thus, but by lance and sword will we win them on the morrow; so, base slubberdegullion, slip your cable and sheer off—begone, or by my father's bones, now bleaching in the English Downs, I will tie thee in thy Mar's frock as in a sack, and sink thee with a whinstone bullet; though thou art more likely to die with a fathom of rope than a fathom of water over thy shaven crown! Away; ship your oars, my hearts," he added, springing into the boat, as Falconer leaped on his horse; "Farewell, gossip Davie—God speed thee back to Stirling, and give us victory on the morrow. I will not forget to look for the yellow plume, though I pray it may never come here on the head of a fugitive king. Give way, lads; we have been off a full hour by the glass;—give way for the ship."
The boat shot off from the shore into the stream, the rowers keeping time with Dalquhat, who pulled the stroke oar, and all their blades flashed in the moonlight, as Sir David Falconer, without bestowing a word or glance on the recreant friar, galloped up the slope and along the Carse by the old Roman Way that led to Stirling.
The moment they were gone, the friar threw back his hood and displayed to the white moon, then sailing high aloft in the clear blue sky, the evil visage of Hew Borthwick, over the deep sinister eyes and hateful mouth of whom a laugh spread as he said—
"Fools! The bodachs of Angus, the men of the Mearns, the Whelps of the Black Bitch, and the Souters of Selkirk—yea, even the canny folk of Aberdeen—are in arms against you, and yet ye hope for victory! I am now a Stirling laird, duly infeft and seized with earth and stone. Well, well! they laugh merrily who laugh the last. A little more of Henry's gold, and my fortune is made! In the battle of to-morrow, a crown will be lost and won; and I shall gain a thousand crowns if I can bear to Berwick-gate sure tidings of King James's death! The yellow plume—-the yellow plume,—I shall watch for it in yonder field to-morrow as one who is damned watches for the first blink of redemption!"
"I would the wind that is sweeping now
O'er the restless and weary wave;
Were swaying the leaves of the cypress bough
O'er the calm of my early grave."
Scottish Song.
The morning of the 11th June, 1488, rose brightly over Stirling and its magnificent scenery.
Almost with dawn, tidings reached King James that the insurgent nobles, at the head of a vast force, had left Falkirk some hours before daybreak, and were on their march through the Torwood to attack him. The unfortunate monarch now found himself peculiarly situated.
His Castle of Stirling, the only adjacent place of security in case of reverse, was closed against him; while the nobles as they marched by the old Roman road which ran through the recesses of the Torwood, barred the only route to the capital. Thus, in the event of defeat, James could turn nowhere for succour but to the admiral's boats at the Craigward, as arranged by the faithful Falconer.
He summoned a council of his chiefs—Montrose, Glencairn, Menteith, Ruthven, Semple, the Preceptor of Torphichen, and others; and they were unanimously of opinion that he should commit their cause and fortunes to the hazard of a battle. Immediately on this decision being come to, the steep streets and old fantastic alleys and wynds of Stirling echoed to the brattle of drums, the clang of trumpets, the twang of Border horns, and the yelling of the mountain pipe, as the royal troops, horse and foot, spearmen, archers, and knights—all sheathed in mail, with horses richly trapped; burgesses and yeomen in splinted jacks, steel gloves, and morions; and clansmen with their long linked lurichs, tuaghs, and two-handed swords, marched past its walls and barrier-ports, by the ancient road, which then, as now, led towards the rampart that extended from the Forth to the Clyde, and advanced eastward in three heavy columns, all animated by enthusiasm, for the royal cause, and by the highest spirit and determination.
At that time the insurgents were passing the Carron, so famed of old in our Highland songs and Lowland history as the scene of many a bloody contest with "the kings of the world;" for there the wings of their pride were shorn, and the line of their conquests marked for ever by the swords of the Scottish Gaël.
The vast extent of the Torwood—the Sylvæ Caledonia of antiquity—and all the foliaged hills that rise around the "Bulwark of the North," were clad in the richness of their summer beauty. The air was laden with perfume exhaled from the waving woods and teeming earth; the sky was without a cloud, save where a few specks of gold or fleecy white floated in the distant east. The dew was glittering on everything, from the topmost leaves of the Torwood's giant oaks to the little mary-flower and red-eyed daisy that grew below them. All nature seemed fresh and bright and beautiful. The wild violet and the mountain roses that grew thickly by the wayside scented the air, and its purity was enchanting. It seemed rather a morning for a merry hunting or hawking party, than the stern debate of Scottish civil war; and as pipe and trumpet, with the tramp of barbed horses and the tread of heavily-armed men, rang on the pavement of the Roman Via, and awoke the leafy echoes of the forest, the wild erne screamed in the oaken glade, and the cushat dove fled from the hateful sound.
After hearing mass in the Dominican church, and confessing himself to Henry, Abbot of Cambuskenneth, the king mounted his horse amid a flourish of trumpets. He was a peaceful and amiable prince—one more suited to our own civilized time than that age of blood and cold iron; and thus he felt somewhat unused to the ponderous but gorgeous suit of armour in which he was cased and riveted; and all uncheered by the enthusiasm wound him, the flashing of arms, and the braying of martial music, as the drums and fifes, horns and trumpets, of Lord Bothwell's guard (first embodied by James II.), played merrily,
"Cou thou the rashes greene O,"
or by the historical memories of the ground over which he marched, for the Scottish Marathon lay close at hand; he rode silently and moodily on, with his helmet closed, to conceal the tears that came unbidden to his eyes, as he thought of his dead wife, his son's desertion, the unjust accusations against him, and the coming slaughter which nothing but his own death could perhaps avert.
"Another hour will bring us in sight of the foe," said the old Duke of Montrose, whose armour was richly ornamented, though somewhat old-fashioned; for his head-piece had the oreillets and long spike worn in the days of Murdoch, the Regent Duke of Albany, and his horse was gaily housed in his colours; gules, a fess checque argent and azure, the bearings of the Lindesays of Crawford; "and in one hour after that, your majesty will find yourself enabled to punish and repay the treason of Sauchie. I would give my best barony to see his head rolling on the Gowling Hill of Stirling!"
"Time will show, duke," said James, with a sigh. "God wot, I have no wish to shed the blood of my people; but I never liked this Laird of Sauchie; his soul was an abyss, and I never could fathom his thoughts."
"His chief friend and follower—a man named Hew Borthwick—was in Stirling last night, disguised in a friar's frock. This man is a spy and traitor; yet he escaped us, and took the eastern road, doubtless to tell what he has seen; and for all the Howe of Angus, I would not have lost that fellow's head."
"Borthwick! have I not heard that name before?"
"Doubtless; he is a well-known bully, pimp, and brawler, who hovers about the discontented lords."
"Is he well-born?"
"Hell-born would be nearer truth, if rumour pedigrees him right," replied Montrose; "but what aileth your majesty?" he asked, perceiving the king to shudder so much that the joints of his armour rattled.
"A grue came over me," said the poor king, and Montrose was silent, for neither were above the superstitions of the time; and in Scotland people still believe that an involuntary shudder is caused either by a spirit passing near or when we tread upon the ground which is to be our grave.
A shout, a clamorous hurrah from the vanguard, announced that the foe was in sight; and as the king, with his forces, debouched from the Torwood, he came in view of the long array of his insurgent lords; and Falconer, who rode with the royal guard, shook his lance aloft in fierce ecstasy, as he thought the moment was now approaching when he might meet Hailes and Home, singly or together, in close and mortal combat.
The insurgents were posted at the bridge over the Carron, and were formed in three strong columns, the whole strength of which has been variously stated, for their exact number has never been ascertained. Some historians have estimated them at one hundred and eighty thousand, which is doubtless a great exaggeration. Their force, however, was sufficiently formidable to appal the mind of the heart-broken king.
The Lords Hailes and Home commanded the first column, which was composed of the men of Berwickshire and East Lothian; and Falconer's quick eye soon distinguished the chevron of the first, and the green banner of the second, with its yellow lion waving above the flower of the Scottish spearmen.
With this body rode the traitor Borthwick, armed like a simple knight, and wearing a close helmet.
The second column was composed of the fierce clans of Galloway and the hardy Bordermen from the Liddel, the Annan, the Tweed, and the Teviot, all clad in jacks of splinted steel, with long lances and two-handed swords, well mounted, and ranged under the terrible Red Heart of Angus—the banner of a thousand battles, a thousand crimes and glories!
In the third column, led by the Lord High Constable, were the men of the central Lowlands (under the nominal command of the Duke of Rothesay), and in this column the insurgents had the hardihood to display the royal standard of the kingdom. Lord Drummond, the Steward of Menteith, Sir Patrick Gray, the Forester of Drum, Sir William Stirling of Keir, Sir James Shaw, who had come from Stirling Castle, with many more malcontent noblesse, were around the prince, as guards and spies upon his conduct.
The aspect of these long triple lines as they stood in order of battle by the banks of the Carron, with their deep masses of long spears that vibrated like the stalks of a ripe cornfield, their many silken standards waving in the wind, and all their bright harness shining in the meridian sun, as knight and noble galloped from troop to troop and band to band, was too formidable to leave the unhappy king the shadow of a hope that he could ever come to an amicable arrangement with them, which he would gladly have done had his forces been the most numerous.
He formed his little army of thirty thousand men into four columns. The first was commanded by the aged Earl of Menteith, under whom were the banners and vassals of the Lords Erskine, Gray, Ruthven, Graham, and Maxwell; the second was led by the Earl of Glencairn, and consisted chiefly of the western clans; the third was led by the Lord Boyd and the young Lord Lindesay, who carried the gauntlet of Angus on his spear.
The main body, in which was the royal guard under Lord Bothwell, was led by the king and Montrose. It consisted principally of men from Fife, Angus, and Stormont. In front were the Great Lion and a few other pieces of cannon. James III. rode at the head, distinguished above all around him by the loftiness of his stature, the brilliancy of his armour, the collar of the Thistle, and his towering yellow plume.
On both sides all were well armed according to the fashion of the time and country, for the Scots excelled in the manufacture of weapons; and at that time every gentleman possessing ten pounds' worth of land was compelled to have a complete suit of harness, with sword, spear, and dagger; every yeoman, a basinet, steel gloves, bow, shafts and buckler, sword and dirk. From an early period the nation were good gunners; they first used cannon in the war against the English in the year 1340; and in after years the Parliament ordered that every proprietor whose lands were a hundred pounds of new extent, should provide a hackbut, while every hundred-merk-land should equip two field-pieces; consequently, the nobles had plenty of cannon in this fatal field of Sauchieburn.
As the lines were approaching each other, the faithful Lord Lindesay of the Byres rode up to the king, attended by an esquire who led a grey horse of beautiful proportions—one which was deemed unrivalled in Scotland for beauty, strength, and fleetness. "I beg," said he, "that your majesty will accept of this steed from me; should we lose this eventful field—which God and St. Andrew avert—your majesty may fully trust your sacred life to this animal's agility and sureness of foot; for if you can but keep your saddle, my favourite grey will never fail you."
"He has been carefully bred," said the Duke of Montrose, "and possesses the fifty-four gifts of a good horse."
"Fifty-four, duke?" reiterated the king, stroking the fiery animal as it pressed on the powerful curb, and caracoled from side to side; "on my faith, a goodly number!"
"Examine him, please your majesty," continued the handsome young donor, throwing up his umbriere; "he hath a woman's breast, with a lion's courage; the eye of a bull, with the patience of a sheep; the strength of a Spanish mule, with the fleetness of a Scottish deer; and the ears of a wolf! You will find him no cutter of gowans. Keep his head well up, and, by the faith of Lindesay, he will never fail under you!"
How fatal a gift this fiery horse proved will be shown in the sequel!