Chapter VI (1)

The ceremony in the town-hall passed off with the greatest _éclât_; and the dinner was probably thought the finest part of the day's entertainment by all but the newly re-established noble himself. Flushed with the glories of the proceeding, and also with the wine he had swallowed to his own health and happiness, he sallied forth with his friends of the preceding day--except, of course, the Baron Beauvilliers--and, as he himself expressed it, was awake for anything, up to any lark.

"A lark, says my lord?" inquired the Duke de Vieuxchateau.

"Ay," replied the marquis, "if it's as big as a turkey, all the better. That champaign is excellent tipple, and would be cheap at eighty-four shillings per dozen."

The French nobles did not quite understand their companion's phraseology, but were quite willing to join him in any extravagance.

"What shall we do?" cried one; "shall we break open the jail?"

"No," said De Bouillon: "hang it! that's a serious matter. But I'll tell you what, I've no objection to knock down a charley."

"No, no! let's go to _Rouge et Noir_."

"Boys, boys!" at last exclaimed the Vicomte de Lanoy, "I'll tell you what we shall do,--Beauvilliers told me that, while we were all engaged at the dinner, he was going to seize a beautiful creature, and carry her off to the Parc d'Amour."

"Wrong, decidedly wrong!" said De Bouillon at this proposition. "Who is she?"

"Why, the companion, you understand, of an old twaddling fool, who has no right to so much beauty. Beauvilliers did not tell me his name, but 'tis only one of the _bourgeoisie_, and we surely have a right to do as we like with _them_."

"Ah yes! of course," replied De Bouillon, "I did not think of that. What then?"

"Why, sir, we shall play as good a trick on Beauvilliers as he designed for the ancient gentleman. Let's get there before him, and carry her from him!"

"Agreed, agreed!"

"No, no, I must declare off," said the marquis. "'Tis a bad business altogether, and this would make it worse."

"But who is to carry the lady?" inquired the duke, without attending to the scruples of his friend.

"Toss for it," suggested the vicomte. A louis was thrown into the air. "Heads! heads!" cried the nobleman. "Tails!" said De Bouillon.

"'Tis tails!" exclaimed the vicomte. "Marquis, the chance is yours--you've won."

"Oh! have I?" replied the unwilling favourite of fortune; "I've won, have I?"

"You don't seem overpleased with your good luck," said the duke; "give me your chance, and I shall know how to make better use of it."

"No, gentlemen, I'll manage this affair myself."

"Come on, then!--_vive la joie!_"--and with great joviality they pursued their way to the Parc d'Amour.

But they had been preceded in their journey to that hostelry by Louise, attended by Cecil Hope and Mr Cocker. By the administration of a douceur to the waiter, they obtained an _entrée_ to the apartment designed for the baron and his prey, and had scarcely time to ensconce themselves behind the window-curtain, when Miss Lucretia was escorted into the room. There were no symptoms of any violent resistance to her captors having been offered, and she took her seat on the sofa without any perceptible alarm.

"Well, them's curious people, them French!" she soliloquised when the men had left her. "If that 'ere baron fell in love with a body, couldn't he say so without all that rigmarole about Mr Bullion's behaviour, and pulling a body nearly to pieces? I'm sure if he had axed me in a civil way, I wouldn't have said no. But, lawkins! here he comes."

So saying, she enveloped herself in Louise's shawl, and pulled Louise's bonnet farther on her face, and prepared to enact the part of an offended, yet not altogether unforgiving beauty. But the door, on being slowly opened, presented, not the countenance of the baron, but the anxious face of Mr Bullion himself. The three French nobles pushed him forward. "Go on," they said; "make the best use of your eloquence. We will watch here, and guard the door against Beauvilliers himself."

The marquis, now thoroughly sobered, slowly advanced: "If I can save this poor creature from the insolence of those _roués_, it will be well worth the suffering it has cost. Trust to me, madam," he said, in a very gentle voice, to the lady: "I will not suffer you to be insulted while I live. Come with me, madam, and you shall not be interrupted by ever a French profligate alive." On looking closely at the still silent lady on the sofa, he was startled at recognising a dress with which he was well acquainted.

"In the name of heaven!" he said, "I adjure you to tell me who you are. Are you--is it possible--can you be my Louise!"

"No, Mr Bullion," replied Miss Lucretia, lifting up the veil, and turning round to the trembling old man. "And I must say I'm considerably surprised to find you in a situation like this."

"And you, madam--yourself--how came you here?"

"A young gentleman--nobleman, I should say--ran off with me here, and I expected him every minute when you came in."

"And Louise?" inquired the father, in an agitated voice--"when did you leave her? Oh! my folly to let her a moment out of my sight!--to reject Cecil Hope!--to bedizen myself in this ridiculous fashion! Where, oh where is Louise?"

"Here, sir," exclaimed that lady, coming forward from behind the window-curtain.

"And safe? Ah! but I need not ask. I see two honest Englishmen by your side."

"And one of them, sir, says he'll never leave it," said Louise.

"Stop a moment," replied the marquis. "Ho! gentlemen, come in."

At his request his companions entered the room.

"Gentlemen," said the marquis, "when I determined to reclaim my father's sword, I expected to find it bright as Bayard's, and unstained with infamy or dishonour. When I wished to resume my title, I hoped to find it a sign of the heroic virtues of my ancestors, but not a cloak for falsehood and vice. I warn you, sirs, your proceedings will be fatal to your order, and to your country. For myself, I care not for this sword,"--he threw it on the ground--"this filagree I despise,"--he took off his star and ribbon--"and I advise you to leave this chamber as fast as you can find it convenient."

The French nobles obeyed.

"Here, Cocker! off with all this silk and satin; get me my gaiters and flaxen wig; and, please Heaven, one week will see us in the little room above the warehouse."

"Preparing, sir, to move into Hertfordshire?" inquired Louise, leaning on Cecil's arm.

"Ay, my child; and, in remembrance of this adventure, we shall hang up among the pictures in the hall,

THE SWORD OF HONOUR."

MEMOIRS OF KIRKALDY OF GRANGE.[24]

[24] _Memoirs and Adventures of Sir Wm. Kirkaldy of Grange, Knight_,
&c. &c. WM. BLACKWOOD & SONS, Edinburgh and London.

It must be allowed that a perusal of Scottish history betrays more anomalies than are to be found in the character of almost any other people. It is not without reason that our southern neighbours complain of the difficulty of thoroughly understanding our national idiosyncrasy. At one time we appear to be the most peaceable race upon the surface of the earth--quiet, patient, and enduring; stubborn, perhaps, if interfered with, but, if let alone, in no way anxious to pick a quarrel. Take us in another mood, and gunpowder is not more inflammable. We are ready to go to the death, for a cause about which an Englishman would not trouble himself; and amongst ourselves, we divide into factions, debate, squabble, and fight with an inveteracy far more than commensurate with the importance of the quarrel. Sometimes we seem to have no romance; at other times we are perfect Quixotes. The amalgamated blood of the Saxon and the Celt seems, even in its union, to display the characteristics of either race. We rush into extremes: one day we appear over-cautious, and on the next, the _perfervidum ingenium Scotorum_ prevails.

If these remarks be true as applied to the present times, they become still more conspicuous when we regard the troublous days of our ancestors. At one era, as in the reign of David I., we find the Scottish nation engaged, heart and soul, in one peculiar phase of religious excitement. Cathedrals and abbeys are starting up in every town. All that infant art can do--and yet, why call it infant, since, in architecture at least, it has never reached a higher maturity?--is lavished upon the structure of our fanes. Melrose, and Jedburgh, and Holyrood, and a hundred more magnificent edifices, rise up like exhalations throughout a poor and barren country; the people are proud in their faith, and perhaps even prouder in the actual splendour of their altars. A few centuries roll by, and we find the same nation deliberately undoing and demolishing the works of their forefathers. Hewn stone and carved cornices, tracery, mullions, and buttresses, have now become abominations in their sight. Not only must the relics of the saints be scattered to the winds of heaven, and their images ground into dust, but every church in which these were deposited or displayed, must be dismantled as the receptacle of pollution. The hammer swings again, but not with the same pious purpose as of yore. Once it was used to build; now it is heaved to destroy. Aisle and archway echo to the thunder of its strokes, and, amidst a roar of iconoclastic wrath, the venerable edifice goes down. Another short lapse of time, and we are lamenting the violence of the past, and striving to prop, patch up, and rebuild what little remnant has been spared of the older works of devotion.

The same anomalies will be found if we turn from the ecclesiastical to the political picture. Sometimes there is a spirit of loyalty manifested, for which it would be difficult to find a parallel. The whole nation gathers round the person of James IV.; and earl and yeoman, lord and peasant, chief and vassal, lay down their lives at Flodden for their king. His successor James V., in no respect unworthy of his crown, dies of a broken heart, deserted by his peers and their retainers. The unfortunate Mary, welcomed to her country with acclamation, is made the victim of the basest intrigues, and forced to seek shelter, and find death in the dominions of her treacherous enemy. The divine right, in its widest meaning and acceptation, is formally recognised by the Scottish estates as the attribute of James VII.; three years afterwards, a new convention is prompt to recognise an alien. Half a century further on, we are found offering the gage of battle to England in support of the exiled family.

This singular variety of mood, of which the foregoing are a few instances, is no doubt partly attributable to the peculiar relationship which existed between the crown and the principal nobility. The latter were not cousins by courtesy only--they were intimately connected with the royal family, and some of them were near the succession. Hence arose jealousy amongst themselves, a system of feud and intrigue, which was perpetuated for centuries, and a constant effort, on the part of one or other of the conflicting magnates, to gain possession and keep custody of the royal person, whenever minority or weakness appeared to favour the attempt. But we cannot help thinking, that the disposition of the people ought also to be taken into account. Fierce when thwarted, and with a memory keenly retentive of injury, the Scotsman is in reality a much more impulsive being than his southern neighbour. His sense of justice and order is not so strongly developed, but his passion glows with a fire all the more intense because to outward appearance it is smothered. His ideas of social duty are different from those of the Englishman. Kindred is a closer tie--identity of name and family is a bond of singular union. Clanship, in the broad acceptation of the word, has died out for all practical purposes; chieftainship is still a recognised and a living principle. The feudal times, though gone, have left their traces on the national character. Little as baronial sway, too often tantamount to sheer oppression, can have contributed towards the happiness of the people, we still recur to the history of these troublous days with a relish and fondness which can hardly be explained, save through some undefined and subtle sympathy of inheritance. Though the objects for which they contended are now mere phantoms of speculation we yet continue to feel and to speak as if we were partisans of the cause of our ancestors, and to contest old points with as much ardour as though they were new ones of living interest to ourselves.

We have been led into this strain of thought by the perusal of a work, strictly authentic as a history, and yet as absorbing in interest as the most coloured and glowing romance. Sir William Kirkaldy of Grange, the subject of these Memoirs, played a most conspicuous part in the long and intricate struggles which convulsed Scotland, from the death of James V. until the latter part of the reign of Queen Mary. Foremost in battle and in council, we find his name prominently connected with every leading event of the period, and his influence and example held in higher estimation than those of noblemen who were greatly his superiors in rank, following, and fortune. In fact, Kirkaldy achieved, by his own talent and indomitable valour, a higher reputation, and exercised, for a time, a greater influence over the destinies of the nation, than was ever before possessed by a private Scottish gentleman, with the glorious exception of Wallace. In an age when the sword was the sole arbiter of public contest and of private quarrel, it was a proud distinction to be reputed, not only at home but abroad--not only by the voice of Scotland, but by that of England and France--the best and bravest soldier, and the most accomplished cavalier of his time. Mixed up in the pages of general history, too often turbidly and incoherently written, the Knight of Grange may not be estimated, in the scale of importance, at the level of such personages as the subtle Moray, or the vindictive and treacherous Morton: viewed as all individual, through the medium of these truthful and most fascinating memoirs, he will be found at least their equal as a leader and a politician, and far their superior as a generous and heroic man.

His father, Sir James Kirkaldy, was a person of no mean family or reputation. He occupied, for a considerable time, the office of Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, and, according to our author--

"Enjoyed, in a very high degree, the favour and confidence of
King James V.; and though innumerable efforts were made by his
mortal foe Cardinal Beatoun, and others, to bring him into
disgrace as a promoter of the Reformation, they all proved
ineffectual, and the wary old baron maintained his influence to
the last."

Old Sir James seems to have been one of those individuals with whom it is neither safe nor pleasant to differ in opinion. According to his brother-in-law, Sir James Melville of Halhill, he was "a stoute man, who always offered, by single combate, and at point of the sword, to maintain whatever he said;" a testimonial which, we observe, has been most fitly selected as the motto of this book, the son having been quite as much addicted to the wager of battle as the father; nor, though a strenuous supporter of the Reformation, does he appear to have imbibed much of that meekness which is inculcated by holy writ. He was not the sort of man whom John Bright would have selected to second a motion at a Peace Congress; indeed, the mere sight of him would have caused the voice of Elihu Burritt to subside into a quaver of dismay. Cardinal Beatoun, that proud and licentious prelate, to whose tragical end we shall presently have occasion to advert, was the personal and bitter enemy of the Treasurer, as he was of every other independent Scotsman who would not truckle to his power. But James V., though at times too facile, would not allow himself to be persuaded into so dangerous an act as countenancing prosecutions for heresy against any of his martial subjects; and, so long as he lived, the over-weening bigotry and arrogance of the priesthood were held in check. But other troubles brought the good king to an untimely end. James had mortally offended some of his turbulent nobles, by causing the authority of the law to be vindicated without respect to rank or person. He had deservedly won for himself the title of King of the Commons; and was, in fact, even in that early age, bent upon a thorough reform of the abuses of the feudal system. But he had proud, jealous, and stubborn men to deal with. They saw, not without apprehension for their own fate, that title and birth were no longer accepted as palliatives of sedition and crime; that the inroads, disturbances, and harryings which they and their fathers had practised, were now regarded with detestation by the crown, and threatened with merited punishment. Some strong but necessary examples made them quail for their future supremacy, and discontent soon ripened into something like absolute treason. Add to this, that for a long time the nobility of Scotland had fixed a covetous eye upon the great possessions of the church. In no country of Europe, considering its extent and comparative wealth, was the church better endowed than in Scotland; and the endeavours of the monks, who, with all their faults, were not blind to the advantages derivable from the arts of peace, had greatly raised their property in point of value. The confiscations which had taken place in Protestantised England, whereof Woburn Abbey may be cited as a notable example, had aroused to the fullest extent the cupidity of the rapacious nobles. They longed to see the day when, unsupported by the regal power, the church lands in Scotland could be annexed by each iron-handed baron to his own domain; when, at the head of their armed and dissolute jackmen, they could oust the feeble possessors of the soil from the heritages they had so long enjoyed as a corporation, and enrich themselves by plundering the consecrated stores of the abbeys. These were the feelings and desires which led most of them to lend a willing ear to the preaching of the fathers of the Reformation. They were desirous, not only of lessening the royal authority, but of transferring the whole property of the clergy to themselves; and this double object led to a combination which resulted in the passive defeat of the Scottish army at Solway Moss.

Poor King James could not bear up against the shock of this shameful desertion. Mr Tytler thus describes his latter moments:--

"When in this state, intelligence was brought him that his queen
had given birth to a daughter. At another time it would have
been happy news; but now, it seemed to the poor monarch the
last drop of bitterness which was reserved for him. Both his
sons were dead. Had this child been a boy, a ray of hope, he
seemed to feel, might yet have visited his heart; he received
the messenger and was informed of that event without welcome
or almost recognition; but wandering back in his thoughts to
the time when the daughter of Bruce brought to his ancestor
the dowry of the kingdom, observed with melancholy emphasis,
'It came with a lass, and it will pass with a lass.' A few of
his most favoured friends and counsellers stood around his
couch; the monarch stretched out his hand for them to kiss; and
regarding them for some moments with a look of great sweetness
and placidity, turned himself upon the pillow and expired. He
died 13th December 1542, in the thirty-first year of his age,
and the twenty-ninth of his reign; leaving an only daughter,
Mary, an infant of six days old, who succeeded to the crown."

Amongst those who stood around that memorable deathbed were the Lord High Treasurer, young William Kirkaldy his son, and Cardinal Beatoun. There was peace for a moment over the body of the anointed dead!

But even the death of a king makes a light impression on this busy and intriguing world. The struggle for mastery now commenced in right earnest--for the only wall which had hitherto separated the contending factions of the nobility and the clergy had given way. Beatoun and Arran were both candidates for the regency, which the latter succeeded in gaining; and, after a temporary alienation, these two combined against an influence which began to show itself in a threatening form. Henry VIII. of England considered this an excellent opportunity for carrying out those designs against the independence of the northern country, which had been entertained by several of his predecessors; and for that purpose he proposed to negotiate a marriage between his son Edward and the Princess Mary. Such an alliance was of course decidedly opposed to the views of the Catholic party in Scotland, and, moreover, was calculated to excite the utmost jealousy of the Scottish people, who well understood the true but recondite motive of the proposal. So long as Beatoun, whose interest was identified with that of France, existed, Henry was fully aware that his scheme never could be carried into execution; and accordingly, with that entire want of principle which he exhibited on every occasion, he took advantage of their position to tamper with the Scottish barons who had been made prisoners at Solway Moss. In this he so far succeeded, that a regular conspiracy was entered into for the destruction of the cardinal, and only defeated by his extreme sagacity and caution. It will be seen hereafter that the cardinal did not fall a victim to this dastardly English plot, but to private revenge, no doubt augmented and inflamed by the consideration of his arrogance and cruelty.

Beatoun, one of the most able and also dissolute men of his day, was a younger son of the Laird of Balfour--yet had, notwithstanding every disadvantage, contrived very early to attain his high position. He was hated, not only by the nobility, but by the lesser barons, from whose own ranks he had risen, on account of his intolerable pride, his rapacity, and the unscrupulous manner in which he chose to exercise his power. Among the barons of Fife, always a disunited and wrangling county, he had few adherents: and with the Kirkaldys, and their relatives, the Melvilles, he had an especial quarrel. Shortly after the death of James, the Treasurer was dismissed from his office, an affront which the "stoute man" was not likely to forget; and his son, then a mere youth, seems to have participated in his feelings. But the cruelty of Beatoun was at least the nominal cause which led to his destruction. Wishart, the famous Reforming preacher, had fallen into the hands of the cardinal, and was confined in his castle of St Andrews, of which our author gives us the following faithful sketch:--

"On the rocky shore, to the northward of the venerable city of
St Andrews, stand the ruins of the ancient Episcopal palace, in
other years the residence of the primates of Scotland. Those
weatherbeaten remains, now pointed out to visitors by the
ciceroni of the place, present only the fragments of an edifice
erected by Archbishop Hamilton, the successor of Cardinal
Beatoun, and are somewhat in the style of an antique Scottish
manor-house; but very different was the aspect of that vast
bastille which had the proud cardinal for lord, and contained
within its massive walls all the appurtenances requisite for
ecclesiastical tyranny, epicurean luxury, lordly grandeur,
and military defence--at once a fortress, a monastery, an
inquisition, and a palace.

"The sea-mews and cormorants screaming among the wave-beaten
rocks and bare walls now crumbling on that bleak promontory,
and echoing only to drenching surf, as it rolls up the rough
shelving shore, impart a peculiarly desolate effect to the
grassy ruins, worn with the blasts of the German Ocean, gray
with the storms of winter, and the damp mists of March and
April--an effect that is greatly increased by the venerable
aspect of the dark and old ecclesiastical city to the southward,
decaying, deserted, isolated, and forgotten, with its
magnificent cathedral, once one of the finest gothic structures
in the world, but now, shattered by the hands of man and time,
passing rapidly away. Of the grand spire which arose from the
cross, and of its five lofty towers, little more than the
foundations can now be traced, while a wilderness of ruins on
every hand attest the departed splendours of St Andrews."

George Wishart, the unhappy preacher, was burned before the Castle on the 28th March 1545, under circumstances of peculiar barbarity. We refer to the book for a proper description of the death-scene of the Martyr, whose sufferings were calmly witnessed by the ruthless and implacable Cardinal. But the avenger of blood was at hand, in the person of Norman Leslie, Master of Rothes. This young man, who was of a most fiery and intractable spirit, had some personal dispute with the cardinal, whom he accused of having attempted to defraud him of an estate. High words followed, and Norman rode off in wrath to the house of his uncle, John Leslie of Parkhill, a moody and determined Reformer, who had already vowed bloody vengeance for the execution of the unfortunate Wishart. Finding him apt for any enterprise, Norman instantly despatched messengers to the Kirkaldys of Grange, the Melvilles of Raith and Carnbee, and to Carmichael of Kilmadie, desiring them to meet for an enterprise of great weight and importance; and the summons having been responded to, these few men determined to rid the country of one whom they considered a murderer and an oppressor.

The manner in which this act of terrible retribution was executed is too well known to the student of history to require repetition. Suffice it to say that, by a _coup-de-main_, sixteen armed men made themselves masters of the castle of St Andrews, overpowered and dispersed the retainers of the cardinal, and quenched the existence of that haughty prelate in his blood. William Kirkaldy was not the slayer, but, as an accomplice, he must bear whatever load of odium is cast upon the perpetrators of the deed. We cannot help thinking that our author exhibits an unnecessary degree of horror in this instance. Far be it from us to palliate bloodshed, in any age or under any provocation: neither do we agree with John Knox, that the extermination of Beatoun was a "godly fact." But we doubt whether it can be called a murder. In the first place, old Kirkaldy knew, on the authority of James V., that a list of three hundred and sixty names, including his own and those of his most immediate friends, had been made out by the cardinal, as a catalogue of victims who were to be burned for heresy. This contemplated atrocity, far worse than the massacre of St Bartholomew, might not, indeed, have been carried into effect, even on account of its magnitude; but the mere knowledge that it had been planned, was enough to justify the Kirkaldys, and those marked out for impeachment, in considering Beatoun as their mortal foe. That the cardinal never departed from his bloody design, is apparent from the fact, that, after his death, a paper was found in his repositories, ordaining that "Norman Leslie, sheriff of Fife, John Leslie, father's brother to Norman, the Lairds of Grange, _elder and younger_, Sir James Learmonth of Dairsie, and the Laird of Raith, should either have been slain or else taken." The law at that period could afford no security against such a design, so that Beatoun's assassination may have been an act of necessary self-defence, which it would be extremely difficult to blame. As to the sacrilege, we cannot regard that as an aggravation. If a prelate of the Roman Church, like Beatoun, chose to make himself notorious to the world by the number and scandal of his profligacies; if, with a carnality and disregard of appearances not often exhibited by laymen, he turned his palace into a seraglio; and if his mistress was actually surprised, at the time of the attack, in the act of escaping from his bedchamber,--great allowance must be made for the obtuseness of the men who could not understand the relevancy of the plea of priesthood which he offered, in order that his holy calling might shield him from secular consequences. But further, is the fate of Wishart to go for nothing? Setting the natural influences of bigotry aside, and with every consideration for the zeal which could hurry even so good a man as Sir Thomas More to express, in words at least, a desire to see the faggot and the stake in full operation--what shall we say to the individual who could calmly issue his infernal orders, and, in the full pomp of ecclesiastical vanity, become a pleased spectator of the sufferings of a human being, undergoing the most hideous of all imaginable deaths? Truly this, that the brute deserved to die in return; and that we, at all events, shall not stigmatise those who killed him as guilty of murder. Poor old Sharpe was murdered, if ever man was, in a hideous and atrocious manner; but as for Beatoun, he deserved to die, and his death was invested with a sort of judicial sanction, having been perpetrated in presence of the sheriff of the bounds.

The tidings of this act of vengeance spread, not only through Scotland, but through Europe, like wildfire. According as men differed in religious faith, they spoke of it either with horror or exultation. Even the most moderate of the reforming party were slow to blame the deed which freed them from a bloody persecutor; and Sir David Lindesay of the Mount, the witty and satirical scholar, did not characterise it more severely than as expressed in the following verses:--

"As for the cardinal, I grant
He was the man we well might want;
God will forgive it soon.
But of a truth, the sooth to say,
Although the loon be well away,
The deed was _foully done_."

Meanwhile the conspirators had conceived the daring scheme of holding the castle of St Andrews against all comers, and of setting the authority of the regent at defiance. They calculated upon receiving support from England, in case France thought fit to interfere; and perhaps they imagined that a steady resistance on their part might excite general insurrection in Scotland. Besides this, they had retained in custody the son and heir of the Regent Arran, whom they had found in the castle, and who was a valuable hostage in their hands. The force they could command was not great. Amongst others, John Knox joined them with his three pupils; several Fife barons espoused their cause; and altogether they mustered about one hundred and fifty armed men. This was a small body, but the defences of the place were more than usually complete, and they were well munimented with artillery. Accordingly, though formally summoned, they peremptorily refused to surrender.

John Knox, when he entered the castle, was probably under the impression that he was joining a company of men, serious in their deportment, rigid in their conversation, and self-denying in their habits. If so, he must very soon have discovered his mistake. The young Reforming gentry were not one whit more scrupulous than their Catholic coevals: Norman Leslie, though brave as steel, was a thorough-paced desperado; and, from the account given by our author of the doings at St Andrews, it may easily be understood how uncongenial such quarters must have been to the stern and ascetic Reformer.

Arran had probably no intention of pushing matters to extremity, though compelled, for appearance' sake, to invest the fortress. After a siege of three weeks it remained unreduced; and a pestilence which broke out in the town of St Andrews, afforded the regent a pretext for agreeing to an armistice. Hitherto the conspirators had received the countenance and support of Henry VIII., who remitted them large sums from time to time, and promised even more active assistance. But this never arrived. Death at last put a stop to the bereavements of this unconscionable widower; and thereupon the French court despatched a fleet of one-and-twenty vessels of war, under the command of Leon Strozzio--a famous Florentine noble, who had risen in the Order of the Hospital to the rank of Prior of Capua--for the purpose of reducing the stubborn stronghold of heresy. Strozzio's name was so well known as that of a most skilful commander and tactician, and the weight of the ordnance he brought with him was so great, that the besieged had no hope of escaping this time; yet, on being summoned, they replied, with the most undaunted bravery, that they would defend the castle against the united powers of Scotland, England, and France. With such resolute characters as these, it was no use to parley further; and the Prior accordingly set about his task with a dexterity which put to shame the feeble tactics of Arran.

"By sea and land the siege was pressed with great fury. From the
ramparts of the Abbey Church, from the college, and other places
in the adjoining streets, the French and Scottish cannoneers
maintained a perpetual cannonade upon the castle. Those soldiers
who manned the steeples and St Salvador's tower occupied such
an elevation, that, by depressing their cannon, they shot down
into the inner quadrangle of the castle, the pavement of which
could be seen dabbled with the blood of the garrison; and, to
aggravate the increasing distress of the latter, the pestilence
found its way among them--many died, and all were dismayed.
Walter Melville, one of their bravest leaders, fell deadly sick;
while watching, warding, and scanty fare, were rapidly wearing
out the rest; and John Knox dinned continually in their ears,
that their present perils were the just reward of their former
corrupt lives and licentiousness, and reliance on England rather
than Heaven.

"'For the first twenty days of this siege,' said he, 'ye
prospered bravely: but when ye triumphed at your victory, I
lamented, and ever said that ye saw not what I saw. When ye
boasted of the thickness of your walls, I said they would be
but as egg-shells: when ye vaunted, England will rescue us--I
said, ye shall not see it; but ye shall be delivered into your
enemies' hands, and carried afar off into a strange country.'

"This gloomy prophesying was but cold comfort for those whom his
precepts and exhortations had urged to rebellion, to outlawry,
and to bloodshed; but their affairs were fast approaching a
crisis."

If John Knox showed little judgment in adopting this tone of vaticination, he is, at all events, entitled to some credit for his courage--since Norman Leslie possessed a temper which it was rather dangerous to aggravate, and must sometimes have been sorely tempted to toss the querulous Reformer into the sea.

The garrison finally surrendered to Leon Strozzio, but not until battlement and wall had been breached, and an escalade rendered practicable.

The prisoners, including William Kirkaldy, were conveyed to France, and there subjected to treatment which varied according to their station. Those of knightly rank were incarcerated in separate fortresses; the remainder were chained to oars in the galleys on the Loire. John Knox was one of those who were forced to undergo this ignominious punishment; and we quite agree with our author in holding that, "it is not probable, that the lash of the tax-master increased his goodwill towards popery."

William Kirkaldy was shut up in the great castle of Mont Saint Michel, along with Norman Leslie, his uncle of Parkhill, and Peter Carmichael of Kilmadie. But, however strong the fortress, it was imprudent in their gaolers to lodge four such fiery spirits together. They resolved to break prison; and did so, having, by an ingenious ruse, succeeded in overpowering the garrison, and, after some vicissitudes and wanderings, made good their escape to England.

After this event there is a blank of some years, during which we hear little of Kirkaldy. It is, however, an important period in northern history, for it includes the battle of Pinkie, the removal of the child, Queen Mary, to France, and her betrothment to the Dauphin. Kirkaldy seems not to have arrived in England until the death of Edward VI., when the Romanist party attained a temporary ascendency. We next find him in the service of Henry II. of France, engaged in the wars between that monarch and the Emperor Charles V. In these campaigns, says our author, by his bravery and conduct, he soon attained that eminent distinction and reputation, as a skilful and gallant soldier, which ceased only with his life.

Kirkaldy was not the only member of the stout garrison of St Andrews who found employment in the French service. Singularly enough, Norman Leslie, the head of the conspirators, had also a command, and was in high favour with the famous Constable Anne de Montmorencie. His death, which occurred the day before the battle of Renti, is thus graphically recounted in the Memoirs, and is a picture worth preserving:--

"The day before the battle, the constable, perceiving by the
manœuvres of the Spanish troops that Charles meant to take
possession of certain heights, which sloped abruptly down to
the camp or bivouac of the French, sent up Leslie's Scottish
lances and other horsemen to skirmish with these Imperialists,
and drive them back. Melville, his fellow-soldier, thus
describes him:--In view of the whole French army, the Master
of Rothes, 'with thirty Scotsmen, rode up the hill upon a fair
gray gelding. He had, above his coat of black velvet, his coat
of armour, with two broad white crosses, one before and the
other behind, with sleeves of mail, and a red bonnet upon his
head, whereby he was seen and known afar off by the constable,
the Duke d'Enghien, and the Prince of Condé.' His party was
diminished to seven by the time he came within lance-length of
the Imperialists, who were sixty in number; but he burst upon
them with the force of a thunderbolt, escaping the fire of their
hand-culverins, which they discharged incessantly against him.
He struck five from their saddles with his long lance, before it
broke into splinters; then, drawing his sword, he rushed again
and again among them, with the heedless bravery for which he had
ever been distinguished. At the critical moment of this unequal
contest, of seven Scottish knights against sixty Spaniards, a
troop of Imperial spearmen were hastily riding along the hill to
join in the encounter. By this time Leslie had received several
bullets in his person; and, finding himself unable to continue
the conflict longer, he dashed spurs into his horse, galloped
back to the constable, and fell, faint and exhausted, from his
saddle, with the blood pouring through his burnished armour on
the turf.

"By the king's desire he was immediately borne to the royal
tent, where the Duke d'Enghien and Prince Louis of Condé
remarked to Henry, that 'Hector of Troy had not behaved more
valiantly than Norman Leslie.'

"So highly did that brave prince value Norman Leslie, and so
greatly did he deplore his death, that all the survivors of his
Scottish troop of lances were, under Crichton of Brunstane,
sent back to their own country, laden with rewards and honours;
and, by his influence, such as were exiles were restored by the
regent to their estates and possessions, as a recompense for
their valour on the frontiers of Flanders."

Kirkaldy seems to have remained in France until the unfortunate death of Henry II., who was accidentally killed in a tournament. The estimation in which he was held, after his achievements in the wars of Picardy, may be learned from the following contemporary testimony:--

"I heard Henry II.," Melville states, "point unto him and say--'Yonder is one of the most valiant men of our age.'" And the same writer mentions "that the proud old Montmorencie, the great constable of France, treated the exiled Kirkaldy with such deference that he never addressed him with his head covered." This was high tribute, when paid to a soldier then under thirty years of age.

Ten years after he had been conveyed a prisoner from St Andrews on board the French galley, Kirkaldy returned to Scotland, but not to repose under the laurels he had already won. Soon after this we find him married, in possession, through the death of his father, of his ancestral estates, the intimate friend of Maitland of Lethington and of Lord James, afterwards the Regent Moray, and a stanch supporter of the Lords of the Congregation. This period furnishes to us one of the most melancholy chapters of Scottish history. Mary of Guise, the queen-regent, on the one hand, was resolute to put down the growing heresy; on the other, the landed nobility were determined to overthrow the Catholic church. Knox, who had by this time returned from France, and other Reformed preachers, did their utmost to fan the flame; and the result was that melancholy work of incendiarism and ruin, which men of all parties must bitterly deplore. Then came the French auxiliaries under D'Oisel, wasting the land, ravaging the estates of the Protestants, and burning their houses and villages; a savage mode of warfare, from which Kirkaldy suffered much--Fife having been pillaged from one end to the other--but for which he exacted an ample vengeance. The details of this partisan warfare are given with much minuteness, but great spirit, by the chronicler; and it did not cease until the death of Mary of Guise.

A new victim was now to be offered to the distempered spirit of the age: on the 19th August 1561, the young Queen Mary arrived at Leith. She was then in the nineteenth year of her age, and endowed with all that surpassing loveliness which was at once her dower and her misfortune. Her arrival was dreaded by the preachers, who detested the school in which she had been educated, and the influence she might be enabled to exercise; but the great mass of the people hailed her coming with acclamations of unfeigned delight:--

"Despite the efforts of these dark-browed Reformers, agitated
by the memory of her good and gallant father,--the king of
the poor--by that of her thirteen years' absence from them,
and stirred by that inborn spirit of loyalty which the Scots
possessed in so intense a degree, the people received their
beautiful queen with the utmost enthusiasm, and outvied each
other in her praise.

"Her mother's dying advice to secure the support of the
Protestants, and to cultivate the friendship of their leaders,
particularly Maitland of Lethington and 'Kirkaldy of Grange,
whom the Constable de Montmorencie had named the first soldier
in Europe,' had been faithfully conveyed to Mary in France by
the handsome young Count de Martigues, the Sieur de la Brosse,
the Bishop of Amiens, and others, who had witnessed the last
moments of that dearly-loved mother in the castle of Edinburgh;
and Mary treasured that advice in her heart--but it availed her
not."

Hurried on by her evil destiny, and persecuted by intrigues which had their origin in the fertile brain of Elizabeth, Mary determined to bestow her hand upon Darnley, a weak, dissolute, and foolish boy, whose only recommendations were his birth and his personal beauty. Such a marriage never could, under any circumstances, have proved a happy one. At that juncture it was peculiarly unfortunate, as it roused the jealousy of the house of Hamilton against that of Lennox; and was further bitterly opposed by Moray, a cold, calculating, selfish man, who concealed, under an appearance of zeal for the Protestant faith, the most restless, unnatural, and insatiable ambition. Talents he did possess, and of no ordinary kind: above all, he was gifted with the faculty of imposing upon men more open and honourable than himself. Knox was a mere tool in his hands: Kirkaldy of Grange regarded him as a pattern of wisdom. For years, this straightforward soldier surrendered his judgment to the hypocrite, and, unfortunately, did not detect his mistake until the Queen was involved in a mesh from which extrication was impossible. Moray's first attempt at rebellion proved an arrant failure: the people refused to join his standard, and he, with the other leading insurgents, was compelled to seek refuge in England.

All might have gone well but for the folly of the idiot Darnley. No long period of domestic intercourse was requisite to convince the unfortunate Queen that she had thrown away her affections, and bestowed her hand upon an individual totally incapable of appreciating the one, and utterly unworthy of the other. Darnley was a low-minded, fickle, and imperious fool--vicious as a colt, capricious as a monkey, and stubborn as an Andalusian mule. Instead of showing the slightest gratitude to his wife and mistress, for the preference which had raised him from obscurity to a position for which kings were suitors, he repaid the vast boon by a series of petty and unmanly persecutions. He aimed to be not only prince-consort, but master; and because this was denied him, he threw himself precipitately into the counsels of the enemies of Mary. It was not difficult to sow the seeds of jealousy in a mind so well prepared to receive them; and Riccio, the Italian secretary, was marked out by Ruthven and Morton, the secret adherents of Moray, as the victim. Even this scheme, though backed by Darnley, might have miscarried, had not Mary been driven into an act which roused, while it almost justified, the worst fears of the Protestant party in Scotland. This was her adhesion to the celebrated Roman Catholic League, arising from a coalition which had been concluded between France, Spain, and the Emperor, for the destruction of the Protestant cause in Europe. "It was," says Tytler, "a design worthy of the dark and unscrupulous politicians by whom it had been planned--Catherine of Medicis and the Duke of Alva. In the summer of the preceding year, the queen-dowager of France and Alva had met at Bayonne, during a progress in which she conducted her youthful son and sovereign, Charles IX., through the southern provinces of his kingdom; and there, whilst the court was dissolved in pleasure, those secret conferences were held which issued in the resolution that toleration must be at an end, and that the only safety for the Roman Catholic faith was the extermination of its enemies." To this document, Mary, at the instigation of Riccio, who was in the interest of Rome, and who really possessed considerable influence with his mistress, affixed her signature. The bond was abortive for its ostensible purposes, but it was the death-warrant of the Italian secretary, and ultimately of the Queen.

It is not our province to usurp the functions of the historian, and therefore we pass willingly over that intricate portion of history which ends with the murder of Darnley. It was notoriously the work of Bothwell, but not his alone, for Lethington, Huntly, and Argyle, were also deeply implicated. Bothwell now stands forward as a prominent character of the age. He was a bold, reckless, desperate adventurer, with little to recommend him save personal daring, and a fidelity to his mistress which hitherto had remained unshaken. Lethington, in all probability, merely regarded him as an instrument, but Bothwell had a higher aim. With daring ambition, he aimed at the possession of the person of Mary, and actually achieved his purpose.

This unhappy and most unequal union roused the ire of the Scottish nobles. Even such of them as, intimidated by the reckless character of Bothwell, had sworn to defend him if impeached for the slaughter, and had recommended him as a fitting match for Mary, now took up arms, under the pretext that he had violently abducted their sovereign. We fear it cannot be asserted with truth that much violence was used. Poor Queen Mary had found, by bitter experience, that she could hardly depend upon one of her principal subjects. Darnley, Moray, Morton, Lethington, and Arran, each had betrayed her in turn; everywhere her steps were surrounded by a net of the blackest treachery: not one true heart seemed left to beat with loyalty for its Queen. Elizabeth, with fiendish malice, was goading on her subjects to rebellion. The Queen of England had determined to ruin the power of her sister monarch; the elderly withered spinster detested the young and blooming mother. Why, then, should it be matter of great marvel to those who know the acuteness of female sensibility, if, in the hour of desertion and desolation, Mary should have allowed the weakness of the woman to overcome the pride of the sovereign, and should have opposed but feeble resistance to the advances of the only man who hitherto had remained stanch to her cause, and whose arm seemed strong enough to insure her personal protection? It is not the first time that a daring villain has been taken for a hero by a distressed and persecuted woman.

But Bothwell had no friends. The whole of the nobles were against him; and the Commons, studiously taught to believe that Mary was a consenting party to Darnley's death, were hostile to their Queen. Kirkaldy, at the instance of Moray, came over from his patrimonial estates to join the confederates, and his first feat in arms was an attack on Borthwick Castle, from which Bothwell and the Queen escaped with the utmost difficulty. Then came the action, if such it can be called, of Carberry Hill, when Bothwell challenged his accusers to single combat--a defiance which was accepted by Lord Lindesay of the Byres, but prevented from being brought to the test of combat by the voluntary submission of the Queen. Seeing that her forces were utterly inadequate to oppose those of the assembled nobles, she sent for Sir William Kirkaldy of Grange, as a knight in whose honour she could thoroughly confide, and, after a long interview, agreed to pass over to the troops of the confederates, provided they would again acknowledge and obey her as their sovereign. This being promised, she took her last leave of Bothwell, and her first step on the road which ultimately brought her to Lochleven.

We must refer our readers to the volume for the spirited account of these events, and of the expedition undertaken by Kirkaldy in pursuit of Bothwell, his narrow escapes, and sea-fights among the shores of Shetland, and the capture of the fugitive's vessel on the coast of Norway. Neither will our space permit us to dwell upon the particulars of the battle of Langside, that last action hazarded and lost by the adherents of Queen Mary, just after her escape from Lochleven, and before she quitted the Scottish soil for ever. But for the tactics of Kirkaldy, the issue of that fight might have been different; and deeply is it to be regretted that, before that time, the eyes of the Knight of Grange had not been opened to the perfidy of Moray, whom he loved too trustingly, and served far too well. It was only after Mary was in the power of Elizabeth that he knew how much she had been betrayed.

Under the regency of Moray, Kirkaldy held the post of governor of the castle of Edinburgh, and retained it until the fortress went down before the battery of the English cannon.

He was also elected Lord Provost of Edinburgh--a dignity which, before that time, had been held by the highest nobles of the land, but which has since deteriorated under the influence of the Union, and bungled acts of corporation. He was in this position when he seems first to have perceived that the queen had been made the victim of a deep-laid plot of treachery--that Moray was the arch-conspirator--and that he, along with other men, who wished well both to their country and their sovereign, had been used as instruments for his own advancement by the false and unscrupulous statesman. The arrest of Chatelherault and of Lord Herries, both of them declared partisans of Mary, and their committal to the castle of Edinburgh, a measure against which Kirkaldy remonstrated, was the earliest act which aroused his suspicions:--

"Upon this, Mr John Wood, a pious friend of the regent's,
observed to Kirkaldy, in the true spirit of his party,--

"'I marvel, sir, that you are offended at these two being
committed to ward; for how shall _we_, who are the defenders of
my lord regent, get rewards but by the ruin of such men?'

"'Ha!' rejoined Kirkaldy sternly, 'is that your holiness? I see
naught among ye but envy, greed, and ambition, whereby ye will
wreck a good regent and ruin the realm!'--a retort which made
him many enemies among the train of Moray."