Chapter XII: The Mercat Cross 137 (4)

In the meantime, Mary had written to the Laird of Grange, complaining of the harsh treatment to which she had been subjected, and protesting against the breach of faith of which she was the victim. His answer was to the effect that he himself had already reproached the Lords with their conduct towards her, but that they had shown him a letter of hers to the Earl of Bothwell, in which ‘Among many other fair and comfortable words,’ she promised never to abandon or forget him. ‘That,’ he said, ‘had stopped his mouth.’ He went on to express his wonder that her Majesty could consider herself wedded to a man who had but recently married another woman, and deserted her without any just ground. He besought her ‘to put him clean out of mind, seeing otherwise she could never get the love or respect of her subjects, nor have that obedience paid her, which otherwise she might expect;’ and he added ‘many other loving and humble admonitions, which made her bitterly to weep; for she could not do that so hastily, which process of time might have accomplished.’

Judging that the most practical means of destroying Bothwell’s influence would be to get possession of his person--a measure which had been strangely and, indeed, suspiciously neglected at Carberry--and to bring him to justice, Sir William readily accepted the command of an expedition having for its object the capture of the Earl. After Carberry, the Duke of Orkney had betaken himself to his dukedom, which had not yet seen its new master. Having met with a very hostile reception at the hands of Gilbert Balfour, the keeper of Kirkwall, he went over to Shetland, where the more friendly bailiff, Olaf Sinclair, supplied him with provisions. The two vessels with which he had come from the south being but small, he got possession of two Hanseatic ships, the _Pelican_ and the _Breame_. After forcibly seizing them and casting out their cargoes on the shore, as Geert Hemelingk related, he had obliged the two German skippers to sign a contract, so as to give his act of violence the appearance of a legitimate transaction, and had begun a piratical cruise amongst the islands. He was reported to have killed the Bishop of Orkney’s son and put all his servants out of the castle.

On the 12th of August, Kirkcaldy, with whom was Sir William Murray of Tullibardine, received seabrieves, ‘for the seeking, searching, and apprehension of the Earl of Bothwell and his accomplices.’ Exactly a week later, he set sail for Dundee, fully determined to give the pirate Earl no chance of escape. In a letter to Bedford, written immediately before his departure, he said: ‘And for my owne part, albeit I be no gud seeman, I promess unto your Lordship, gyf I may anes encounter hym, eyther be see or land, he shall either carie me with him, or else I shall bryng him dead or quick to Edinburgh.’

The squadron under his orders consisted of four ships--the _Unicorn_, on which he himself embarked, the _Primrose_, the _James_, and the _Robert_. They were all heavily armed, and had four hundred arquebusiers, besides the respective crews.

Calling at Kirkwall, Grange was informed that Bothwell was at Shetland, and at once made for the Bressay Sound. There the _Pelican_ and the _Breame_, with the two lesser craft, were seen lying at anchor. A number of the men belonging to the crews were on shore, and the Earl himself was dining with Sinclair. When those who remained on board caught sight of the squadron as it entered the Sound by the south, they slipped their cables, and setting all sail, steered for the northern channel. In spite of the remonstrances of his master-mariner, Kirkcaldy, bent on carrying out the dashing tactics which he had so often found successful in his cavalry charges on land, ordered every stitch of canvas to be crowded on the _Unicorn_, and hastened in pursuit. His ship sailed well, and was gradually gaining on the hindmost of the fugitives; but it drew more water than they. Even for them, the navigation of the rock-strewn channel was difficult and dangerous. One of them grazed a sunken reef, over which it barely managed to slip, though not without damage. The _Unicorn_ was less fortunate. Striking the same rock with violence, it filled and sank so rapidly that Grange and his men were with difficulty rescued by the other ships. The rock that caused the catastrophe is still known by the name of the vessel to which it proved fatal.

When Bothwell heard of Kirkcaldy’s arrival, he succeeded in reaching the _Pelican_, which, with its consorts, had retired to Unst, the most northerly of the islands. But before he could get safely away the pursuers were upon him again. There followed a sharp engagement which lasted three hours, and in the course of which the mast of his best ship was shot down. He owed his deliverance to a south-westerly gale which suddenly sprang up and drove him out to sea, together with two of his other ships. The fourth was captured; but Grange was obliged to return to Dundee with a few prisoners of inferior note. The Earl whom he had promised to take quick or dead, had escaped to Norway.

_IX._ LANGSIDE--AND AFTER

WHILST Sir William Kirkcaldy was cruising in the North, important events were taking place in the Capital. The enforced abdication of Queen Mary had been followed by the appointment of her half-brother, the Lord James, Earl of Murray, to be Regent of the Realm. One of his first acts was to obtain the surrender of Edinburgh Castle from Sir James Balfour, who had been made Governor of it by the interest of Bothwell. That had not prevented him, however, from siding with the Lords when he saw the success of their arms. But, ‘though they loved the treachery, they had no great liking for the man.’ And they were anxious to prevent the possibility of his again turning against them, if circumstances should seem to favour the Queen’s party. On the 24th of August, he agreed to deliver the fortress into the Regent’s hands, subject to certain conditions, of which one was that the Laird of Grange should succeed him as Governor and should pledge his word for his safety. When Kirkcaldy returned to Edinburgh, he found himself appointed to the command of what was then one of the most important strongholds in Scotland.

For a few months after this, the country enjoyed a brief respite. But the Queen’s friends had not abandoned her. On the third of May 1568, Murray, who was at Glasgow on justiciary business, received the unexpected and startling information that Mary had escaped from Lochleven the day before. The news was soon confirmed by a message from the Queen herself, who, as soon as she reached Hamilton, ‘sent a gentleman to the Earl of Murray and the other Lords, to declare that she was delivered by God’s providence out of captivity, and albeit she had consented to a certain kind of approving their authority, she was thereunto, for defence of her life, compelled; seeing God had thus mercifully relieved her, she now desired them that they would restore her with quietness to her former dignity and estate, and she would in like manner, wholly remit all manner of actions committed against her honour and person.’

Murray’s unconditional refusal to resign the regency and restore Mary, was followed on both sides by active preparation for war. In answer to his proclamation some 4,000 men assembled in Glasgow, which he had made his headquarters. Amongst them was a body of arquebusiers and archers, who had come from Edinburgh with Sir William Kirkcaldy. The Queen’s partisans had gathered round her in even greater numbers; and contemporary accounts estimate the strength of her forces at fully 6,000.

The Regent having received information that it was Mary’s intention to proceed to Dumbarton, drew up his army outside the Gallowgate Port, but, at the same time, he sent Kirkcaldy to reconnoitre the ground lying between the Clyde and Langside. He was thus prepared to intercept the royal forces, whether the northern or the southern side of the river were chosen for their line of march.

Early in the morning of the 13th of May, the Queen with her army started on her march to Dumbarton. From the elevated position which he held at the Calton, Murray perceived the advancing columns of the enemy as they neared Rutherglen. As soon as it was ascertained that the vanguard was not taking a northerly direction, for the purpose of crossing the Clyde at the Dalmarnock ford, Grange, with an arquebusier mounted behind each of his two hundred horsemen, rode with all speed back to Glasgow, forded the river at the east of the old Bridge, and made for Langside, where the road to Dumbarton lay between a commanding eminence and the Clyde, and where he had already selected an advantageous position. On reaching Langside hill, he posted his footmen at the head of a narrow lane, where cottages and gardens afforded them shelter and made it impossible for the enemy’s cavalry to dislodge them.

With his infantry and his ordnance, which was carried in carts, Murray made all haste towards Langside, along the route already taken by Grange. Although he had further to march than had his opponents, the comparative slowness of their movements, due partly to their greater numbers, and partly to the confidence which they felt that no attempt would be made to hinder their progress, enabled him to reach the village and to take up his position before they came in view. As soon as Lord Claud Hamilton, who commanded the 2,000 men of the Queen’s vanguard, saw that the village was occupied, he made an attempt to carry the lane in which Grange had posted his infantry. A sharp fire checked the advance, and threw the assailants into confusion for a time. Rallying, however, they courageously and fiercely stormed the hill held by Murray. Grange, to whose experience and discretion it had been left to ‘encourage and make help where greatest need was,’ was at this point; and, as the foremost ranks came to close quarters, he gave his men an order which illustrates the peculiar mode of warfare of the time. He called out to them, says Melville, who was present, ‘to let their adversaries first lay down spears, to bear up theirs.’ A stubborn struggle ensued. According to Buchanan’s account, the two brigades held out a thick stand of pikes like a breast-work before them, and fought desperately for half-an-hour, without yielding ground on either side; insomuch that they whose long spears were broken, hurled pistols, daggers, stones, fragments of lances, and whatever was at hand, into the faces of the enemy.’

Another remarkable incident is mentioned by Melville. ‘So thick,’ he says, ‘were the spears fixed in others’ jacks, that some of the pistols and great staves that were thrown by them which were behind, might be seen lying upon the spears.’

In the meantime, Grange perceived that the right wing of the Regent’s vanguard, chiefly composed of men from the Barony of Renfrewshire, was beginning to waver. Hastening to them, he called out that the enemy was already giving way, and besought them to hold out till he returned with reinforcements. Then riding at full speed to the Regent’s left wing, which had been standing in reserve, he obtained a body of fresh troops, with which he dashed at the enemy’s flank. This movement decided the fate of the battle. The vanguard of the Queen’s army was forced to fall back upon the main body, which, instead of supporting it and enabling it to rally, broke into precipitate flight. Grange pursued with the cavalry; but he ‘was never cruel,’ and moreover, the Regent had issued orders to save and not to kill, so that there were but few taken, and fewer slain. No indiscriminate slaughter of his fleeing countrymen was needed to make the victory complete and decisive. His clever tactics and his courageous behaviour had secured that already.

On the 8th of May 1568, immediately before his departure to join the forces of the Regent in Glasgow, Sir William Kirkcaldy, being obliged to withdraw a considerable part of the garrison on which the safety, no less of the Capital than of the stronghold depended, took the precaution of securing the active co-operation of the citizens themselves, for the repression of any insurrectionary movement in the Queen’s favour, by means of a mutual bond signed by himself on behalf of the Castle, and by Sir Simon Preston of Craigmillar, Provost of Edinburgh, acting for himself, the bailies, Council, and community. With many protestations of loyalty to the ‘most undoubted sovereign’s Regent and Governor, James, Earl of Murray,’ and with strong expressions of indignation at the ‘unnatural and ungodly proceedings’ of those who were convened in arms against him, it bound each of the contracting parties to assist the other ‘at all times and in all places needful, against all and sundry.’

After his return from the brief but decisive expedition, to the success of which he had materially contributed, the Governor of the Castle was entrusted with the custody of some of the most important of the prisoners taken at Langside. A few months later, his steady adherence to the Regent brought him the double distinction of being raised to the dignity of Provost of Edinburgh, and of being not only denounced by the leaders of the faction which still looked upon the exiled Mary as the lawful sovereign, but actually ordered by them to constitute himself a prisoner, within twenty days, in the Castle of Dumbarton. When next he appeared as a prominent actor in the politics of the time, circumstances had worked startling changes in the respective positions of parties, and were already hurrying public men towards a momentous crisis, under the influence of which old ties were to be violently severed, and new sympathies and new aims were to bring former friends into bitter conflict with each other.

The policy which Elizabeth had adopted from the moment when the Scottish Queen was in her power, and the discovery of her scheme for assuming the virtual management of Scottish affairs, after obtaining possession of the infant prince, had produced a strong revulsion in the feelings of many who had hitherto looked trustingly and hopefully towards England; and Murray’s popularity, already shaken by his severity towards Mary’s adherents, after the battle of Langside, sank lower and lower as proof after proof of his subserviency to the English Government was produced by his opponents. Those who, realising the difficulty of his position, and believing that he was as much the victim as the accomplice of the unscrupulous policy of Elizabeth and her astute minister, Cecil, were still inclined to give him credit for sincerity and honesty of purpose, felt their confidence in him die away when, to propitiate Elizabeth, he consented to the impeachment of Maitland. Amongst them was Kirkcaldy. At first, indeed, he could not bring himself to believe in the Regent’s responsibility for the step. Writing to Bedford, he confessed that he was unable to give a better or certain ground for the committing of Lethington to ward but the malice and envy of some of his enemies, who by means of a faction, had craftily induced the Regent to do that which he was most unwilling to do. He was assured, he said, that Murray in his heart sorely repented that ever he had yielded to their passions; and he felt no doubt that the trial would result in a declaration of the innocence of Lethington and the confusion of his enemies.

The confidence which Kirkcaldy still endeavoured to feel in his old friend Murray, was roughly shaken by a letter which he received from Lord Doune, and from which he learnt that it was a part of the Regent’s plan to get possession of Edinburgh Castle, and to entrust it to the keeping of the Laird of Drumwhazel. So far as he was personally concerned, Grange was so heartily tired of public life, of the plotting and counter-plotting which seemed to have become the very essence of politics, that he would very willingly have surrendered his command, and have withdrawn altogether from the Court. For the sake of Lethington, however, whose danger he fully realised, and to whom he knew that he might be of service so long as he retained the power and influence which the possession of the Castle gave him, he determined to remain at his post. At the same time, he thought it his duty to remonstrate with Murray, and to point out to him the injustice of his conduct towards the Secretary, as well as towards Sir James Balfour who had also been arrested, and in whom Kirkcaldy was in so far interested, that, on taking over the command of the Castle, he had pledged his word for the safety of the former Governor. In his reply, Murray endeavoured to throw the whole responsibility upon the Council. The members, he alleged, were so banded together against Maitland and Balfour, and the charge of murder brought against both of them was so grave, that he could not take it on himself to release them from custody. He promised, however, that, at his next meeting with Kirkcaldy, he would explain his views and show them to be perfectly honourable. In the meantime, he besought him to suspend his judgment.

Sir William refused to be satisfied with the obvious evasion, and he met it with a bold and vigorous measure. Seeing that it was really intended to bring Maitland and Balfour to trial for their lives he demanded that Morton and Archibald Douglas should be dealt with in the same manner. He charged them with being ‘upon the council, and consequently art and part of the King’s murder.’ In support of the accusation he offered to meet them in single combat with Lord Herries as his fellow-champion. This stayed the proceedings against the two prisoners for a while. Still protesting that he was a helpless and unwilling agent in the matter of their impeachment Murray informed Kirkcaldy that he intended to send Balfour to St Andrews, and to bring Lethington to Edinburgh for the purpose of entrusting him to the safe-keeping of the Governor of the Castle. At the same time, however, Grange received information that this apparent concession hid a treacherous plot against himself. It was intended to make the Secretary an instrument to draw his friend, the Governor, from the Castle into the town, under pretence of handing the prisoner over to him; and then to retain him until the fortress had been given over to Drumwhazel. Kirkcaldy was subsequently to be sent home, and to be appeased with a gift of the Priory of Pittenweem.

According to Melville, Morton had devised a more unscrupulous plot, with a view to revenging himself upon Kirkcaldy. ‘He had appointed four men to slay Grange at the entry of the Regent’s lodging, without the Regent’s knowledge.’ But the Governor had a scheme of his own, which effectually thwarted those of his two adversaries. Arguing that if, as he declared, the Regent had really been coerced into sanctioning the arrest of Lethington, he would be glad of his escape; but that if, on the contrary, he were playing a double game, his disappointment at losing his prisoner would expose his treachery, the Laird of Grange resolved to rescue Maitland from the hands of his enemies.

On his arrival in Edinburgh the Secretary was committed to the custody of Alexander Hume of North Berwick. That same evening, about ten o’clock, Kirkcaldy went to Hume with an order bearing what purported to be the Regent’s signature. Hume knew that Murray and the Laird had but lately been on terms of the closest friendship; but he does not appear to have been aware of their more recent estrangement and antagonism. Suspecting no deception, and very possibly unacquainted with the Regent’s handwriting, he assumed the genuineness of the document presented to him, and allowed Maitland to be quietly conveyed to the Castle.

When Murray and his friends learnt that the Secretary was no longer in their power they were in great perplexity, ‘supposing all their counsels to be disclosed.’ It was thought best, however, that the Regent should cover his anger for the time, and that he should take the earliest opportunity of calling upon Grange at the Castle as though nothing had happened. This he did the very next day. But in his anxiety to deceive the Governor he protested too much, and gave him more fair words than he was wont to do, ‘which Grange took in evil part.’

The Castle was becoming the headquarters of Murray’s opponents. He had, prior to Maitland’s arrest, induced the Duke of Chastelherault and Lord Herries to come to Edinburgh with a view to discussing the position of affairs, and had then handed them as prisoners to the custody of the Governor. Grange had duly received them, but he treated them as friends and as guests, and protested against the treachery of which they had been the victims. John Wood, an ardent partisan of the Regent’s, was sent to the Castle for the purpose of appeasing and conciliating the Governor. The substance of their conversation, as reported by Melville, goes far to explain Kirkcaldy’s attitude towards the party of which he had once been a zealous supporter. ‘I marvel at you,’ said Wood, ‘that you will be offended at this; for how shall we, who are my Lord’s dependers, get rewards, but by the wreck of such men?’--‘Yea,’ replied Grange, ‘is that your holiness? I see nothing among you but envy, greediness, and ambition; whereby you will wreck a good Regent, and ruin the country.’

In spite of Murray’s assumed indifference, Lethington’s escape caused him the most grievous disappointment and annoyance; and it was evident that he and Grange were gradually being carried further apart. With a view to preventing an open rupture between them, Melville devised a plan, which he took it on himself to lay before the Regent. He suggested that Lethington should retire to France, and that after his friend’s departure, Kirkcaldy should, of his own accord, resign his command of Edinburgh Castle. The Regent, however, still protested that he bore Maitland no ill-will, and had no wish to drive him into exile. As to Grange, he said he had too many obligations to him, and too great proofs of his fidelity to mistrust him. It had never been his intention, he again declared, to take the Castle from him; and if it were not in his keeping already, he would entrust it to him rather than to any other. He even went further than that, and denied that he entertained any suspicion of either Grange or the Secretary. In proof of the sincerity of his words, he went up to the Castle and ‘conferred friendly with them of all his affairs, with a merry countenance, and casting in many purposes, minding them of many straits and dangers they had formerly been together engaged in.’ But both Kirkcaldy and Maitland were too well acquainted with him, and had too long ‘been his chief advisers under God,’ not to detect the violent effort which this show of friendship cost him. No good to either party resulted from the interview. Indeed, it is scarcely possible to doubt that an irremediable breach was only prevented by Murray’s tragic and untimely end. He was shot by Bothwellhaugh on the 23rd of January 1569. Political differences were forgotten in the presence of death; and Kirkcaldy’s grief at his former friend and comrade’s untimely fate was heartfelt and sincere. When Murray’s body was solemnly carried to its resting-place in the Cathedral of St Giles, he was amongst those who came to pay him the last tribute of respect. It was he who, bearing the banner of the murdered Earl, headed the mournful procession from Holyrood to the church.

_X._ DEFECTION?

DURING the troubled days that intervened between the death of Murray and the regency of Lennox, Sir William Kirkcaldy, whilst continuing to assert his allegiance to the youthful King, maintained his intercourse with Maitland and the other leading men of the party which openly favoured the captive Queen. The correspondence of the time bears evident testimony to the importance which his possession of the Castle gave him, and to the doubts and fears with which his conduct inspired Elizabeth’s ministers. On the 7th of April 1570, Randolph, who had returned to Scotland, wrote to Cecil that he had found in Grange great honesty and dutifulness to his sovereign. Less than a week later he repeated the statement, but with a suggestive limitation, and with the expression of his fears that the Laird of Grange might be ‘enchanted’ by Lethington, whose efforts to bring back his mistress to Scotland were attributed rather to a desire ‘to spite others than to profit himself.’ Writing to Cecil on the 21st of the same month, Sussex, the leader of the English forces that had recently spread devastation through Teviotdale, informed him that ‘Grange was vehemently suspected of his fellows;’ and ‘the defection of Grange’ was one of the indications which, about the same time, he gave Elizabeth of the gradual falling off of the King’s adherents. In a communication bearing the date of the 25th, Morton forwarded a scarcely less unfavourable account. The furthest they could get from the Captain of the Castle, he told Randolph, was that he should remain neutral. In explanation of this luke-warmness, the writer repeated a rumour current at the time, that Kirkcaldy had been bribed by Mary with the gift of the Priory of St Andrews. That, he added, was the Secretary’s device, for _Judas non dormit_.

A similar report had reached the Governor’s ears, and he gave it a direct and emphatic denial, in a letter which he addressed to Randolph on the 26th of April, and which deserves notice as containing his own apology for the line of conduct he was following:--

‘BROTHER THOMAS,--I received your writing this Wednesday at nine of the clock, and perceive thereby of divers and sundry reports ye have heard of me, and of your desires therefore to be assured, either by word or writ, what ye may trust unto. Therefore, this is to assure you, that I remain, and shall continue, the King’s faithful subject, and shall maintain his authority aye and while the same be taken away by order of law. As to the pursuit of my Lord Regent’s murder, I shall be as ready to the revenging thereof as any in Scotland; but I will not take the deadly feud upon me of all the Hamiltons, as some would I should do.

‘My grey hair has let me understand what truth and constancy is in our nobility; therefore, brother, albeit I will not enterprise as I have done, yet I pray you and others not to have the worst opinion of me; for since he is dead I mind never to subject myself over-far to any of them that are left behind, for I know their humour and condition too well. I am sure it is come to your ears, that I should give over this house for the Priory of St Andrews, to the Lord Seaton; which, truly, was never meant nor yet laid to my charge, but is only sown abroad by them that hate me, and would make me odious to the world. Therefore, this shall be to assure you, and all others, that I shall keep this house to the King’s behalf, until an order be taken, or else the highest house in it shall be the lowest. But now, to be plain with you, your manner of proceedings make many to suspect ye intend to do otherwise with us than ye have set out by your proclamation; for so have ye begun upon the Lord Maxwell, who has never offended you, nor yet left the King’s obedience, nor yet had to do with your rebels.

‘As I wrote before unto you, seeing that ye have wrecked Teviotdale, whereby your Mistress’s honour is repaired, I pray you seek to do us no more harm; for I am sure in the end you shall lose more than you can gain thereby; for the Queen your Mistress shall spend much silver, and lose our hearts in the end; for whatsoever ye do to any Scotsman, the whole nation will think them interested thereby. Amongst other things, I am sure there come many evil reports of me to you, for the putting to liberty of my prisoners. But when ye shall understand what I had for me so to do, I trust ye shall be satisfied. As I spoke to you and wrote, if your Mistress pleases she may take up this whole division that is in Scotland, and make the whole to be hers and at her devotion. I will trouble you no further; but, I pray you, do as ye would be done to; or else, all the cloaks ye can cover your cause with will be disclosed in the end. I am preparing this house to resist all that shall pursue, and to hold you at the gate, whensoever ye put on your jack. Till farther occasion, I bid you heartily well to fare. At Edinburgh Castle, 26th April, at eleven hours, in haste.--Your brother in perpetuum,

W. KIRKCALDY.’

Following closely upon this, Grange dispatched to the Earl of Sussex a further and fuller explanation of his conduct. It was in reply to a letter which the Lord-Lieutenant had written a few days earlier, and of which the substance may easily be inferred from Kirkcaldy’s reply.

‘MY VERY GOOD LORD,--I have received your letter, dated at Berwick, the 26th of this instant, the sum whereof is to utter unto me such occurrents as by report have gone to your Lordship of my doings, to the end that by my affirmation or reproving of them, your Lordship may understand what credit may be given to the said reports. The whole matter rests in two heads--the one that I have declined from mine old friends in this realm, which heretofore have desired the amity of England; the other that I have given countenance, or gone further, with others that have showed another course of their doings, and capitulated with the French. Both the points are general, and therefore the more difficult for me to answer them particularly. Yet for your Lordship’s satisfaction, I will not leave you altogether unanswered. As to the former point--that I have declined from my old friends--I trust none of themselves will blame me of inconstancy in friendship; and by the contrary, sure I am such as have of old used friendly dealings with me, and were worthy of themselves with whom an honest man might maintain friendship, are yet still with me in the same degree of amity they were wont to be. No occasion hath proceeded of me, by my behaviour, to the breaking thereof; as also that all my friends, so far as I know, are yet still desirous of the amity of England. If any man in this realm will charge me herein particularly, when, by his own letter or speech to myself, he will utter his mind, I shall answer him accordingly. As to the other point, I have not altered my accustomed form of dealing with the nobility of this realm, nor used me otherwise towards them than becomes a man of my mean estate. I have not given countenance to any that, to my knowledge, mean unhonestly either to Scotland or England; nor yet have gone either further or nearer with any that in their doings have showed an undutiful course. Who have capitulated with the French, or after what sort, I know not. A Frenchman, indeed, was lately here, sent, as he affirmed, from the King of France. With him I spake, upon his desire; and therein, I think I have done nothing against my duty. For, this realm being at peace with all nations, I see no cause why the subjects of all nations may not freely resort amongst us, and have communication with us in peaceable manner, principally Princes’ avowed servants. In all his conference with me, I assure your Lordship, he used no language with me prejudicial to the amity betwixt these two realms. How others have in particular dealt with him, I know not. But for mine own part, I wish no occasion be offered, on either part, to disturb the quietness of this Isle; and whosoever shall offer best means for the maintenance thereof, his doings I shall best allow. For conclusion, as I have ever naturally been affected towards the amity of England, and, in particular, at my poor power, have borne a special devotion towards the Queen’s Majesty, as well for benefits received of her father and brother, by me and my friends, as for Religion’s sake, and her honourable dealings with this realm, in the beginning of her Majesty’s reign, so I will wish her Highness shall procure the union of this nobility, and I doubt not she may bring it to pass, if it please her. And if your Lordship will take that course in hand, I trust assuredly it shall be easy for your Lordship to begin and for her Majesty to end whereby the whole nobility of Scotland may remain at her Majesty’s devotion; and I, for my part, most earnestly desire it. And so, leaving to trouble your Lordship further, for the present, I commit your Lordship to the protection of God. At Edinburgh Castle, the 29th of April, 1570.

WM. KIRKCALDY.’

Grange’s letters were not agreeable to the English agents. To accept his explanation would have been to admit that, as he very clearly hinted, the defection was not on his side, but on that of the English Government, which, now that it had Mary in its power, was working as persistently and as unscrupulously as ever the Guises had done, to reduce Scotland to political dependence and subjection, and was consequently losing the confidence and alienating the sympathy of many of those who had been staunch supporters of the English alliance so long as they recognised in it a guarantee of their own liberty. Randolph’s reply, written on the first of May, ignored the important point, and confined itself to the secondary matters mentioned by Grange. The writer expressed his satisfaction at learning the Governor’s determination to maintain the King’s authority, but professed his inability to understand the meaning of the proviso ‘until the same be taken away by order of law.’ He justified the severe treatment of Maxwell on the ground that he had received and maintained the Queen of England’s rebels; and, as to the liberation of the Castle prisoners, he oracularly pronounced that Kirkcaldy would some day repent it. He avoided expressing either belief or incredulity in respect of the bestowal and acceptance of the Priory of St Andrews, which the Laird had directly and emphatically denied, by bantering his ‘brother William’ about his unfitness to figure as an ecclesiastic. ‘It was indeed most wonderful unto me,’ he said, ‘when I heard that you should become a Prior. That vocation agreeth not with anything that ever I knew in you, saving for your religious life, led under the Cardinal’s hat, when we were both students in Paris.’ He concluded with a sarcastic allusion to Kirkcaldy’s letter to the Lord-Lieutenant. ‘The Earl of Sussex has made me privy to a very eloquent, fine-written letter of yours, which passes my wit to understand. Either you have lately altered your hand, your style, your manner, and your meaning, or used the pen of some fine secretary.’

Sussex’s reply was even less conciliatory. He considered the principal points raised by him to be utterly unanswered. He was quite aware that it was lawful for Kirkcaldy to use conference with the French or any other nation, but he remembered the time when he would not have dealt with them without the Queen of England’s knowledge and consent. As to the earnest desire that the Queen should take in hand the union of the nobility of Scotland, those words were very honourable but general, and yielded no ground to conceive the writer’s meaning in particulars. Referring to himself, he said that the course he had hitherto held consisted of two points: the one, to be revenged on such as had maintained the rebels of England; and the other, to continue by all means the good affection borne towards the Queen of England by many of the nobility of Scotland, of which number he had always accepted Grange to be a special person to be accounted of.

Perceiving from this that Sussex was not ‘fully satisfied with his last writing,’ Kirkcaldy informed him that he meant to send a special friend to let him know ‘his full intentions in all things.’ If this messenger was ever sent, the result of his mission was not satisfactory; for, on the 4th of May, the Lord-Lieutenant addressed what he himself called ‘a plain letter’ to the Lairds of Grange and Lethington. After reproaching them with the ingratitude of their conduct towards the Queen of England, he warned them that, if they continued in their course, he would take the field with all the forces at his disposal, and not fail to take that revenge which should be honourable for his Mistress.

Neither threats nor blandishments could avail to turn Kirkcaldy from the purpose which he had set himself. That which, to those who were anxious and impatient to have the weight of his influence and the support of his authority on their side, seemed the result of a halting policy, was due to his earnest and sincere desire to avert, if possible, an outbreak of hostilities. He still cherished a lingering hope that Elizabeth might adopt a course of action which would not oblige him wholly to cast aside his old sympathy with England. As late as the 5th of July, Randolph was able to say of him that ‘he doubted not of his honesty.’ If proof were required that the whole responsibility for the apparently vacillating conduct of those who, like Grange, put the welfare of their country above mere party considerations, lay with the English Queen, it could be adduced in the very words of her own agent. Writing to Sussex, Randolph did not hesitate to inform him that the public feeling was one of distrust in Elizabeth, ‘who so often changed her course.’ That, he said, was in almost every man’s speech, and preached in pulpit plainer than he listed to write.

About the middle of July, the King’s Lords, as the opponents of the exiled Queen were now called, took a step which did not augur well for the pacification of the country. They held a convention in Edinburgh, for the purpose of conferring the Regency on Lennox, who had practically been chosen by Elizabeth. He had been for years a pensioner on her bounty, and he was known to be wholly devoted to her interests.

If Grange had been actuated by the sentiments of hostility which some chose to attribute to him, he could have struck a decisive blow by bringing down the Tolbooth about the ears of those who were assembled within it with the intention of sanctioning and adopting a policy which he believed to be fraught with danger to Scotland. He contented himself, however, with absenting himself from the convention, to which he had been summoned, as a member of the Privy Council,--a dignity which he held in virtue of his office, as Provost of Edinburgh, and with refusing ‘to shoot off any piece of ordnance upon request, after the proclamation.’

Instead of giving Grange credit for his attitude of neutrality, Sussex chose to take umbrage at it. In another of those letters which he prided himself on writing ‘somewhat plainly,’ he reproached the Governor with inconsistency in professing to be ‘at the Queen of England’s devotion in all matters that might continue the amity between both realms,’ and yet refusing to join the Lords convened in Edinburgh. On the very same day, the Earl showed the sincerity of his own desire for amity by writing to Cecil, to suggest a pretext on which the West Borders of Scotland might be invaded, and the Scots weakened--a pretext which Elizabeth admitted that she ‘liked very well,’ and which, before long, was duly seized upon.

Throughout all this plotting and intriguing, the party which had Knox and the Presbyterian clergy at its head, still continued, in its hostility to Mary, to put faith in Elizabeth and her ministers. To the members of it, Grange’s policy caused the greatest anxiety, and the remonstrances which they deemed it their duty to address to their former champion were frequent and vigorous. Verse as well as prose was brought to bear upon him, and a ‘Hailsome Admonition,’ published by the balladist, Robert Semple, presumably about the beginning of September, when the interference of both France and Spain was feared, may serve to show the spirit of these exhortations. It opens with an ungrudging recognition of Grange’s services in the past:--

O Lamp of licht and peirless Peirll of pryse!
O worthy Knicht, in martiall deidis most ding![3]
O worthy wicht, most vailzeant, war, and wyse!
O Captaine, ay constant to the King!
O Lustie Lord, that will na wayis maling!
O Barroun bauld, of Cheualry the floure!
O perfyte Prouest, but maik into this Ring![4]
O gudely Grange, but spot vnto this houre!

After recapitulating Kirkcaldy’s exploits, the poet touches on a delicate subject--the disinterested policy of England--and indicates by his doubtless sincere belief in it, the real and essential cause of disagreement between Grange and his former associates.

Quhat neids ye skar, thocht Ingland do support vs,
To puneis sic as proudly dois Rebell?
That tyme at Leith thou knawis they did comfort vs,
And maid vs fre quhen strangers did vs quell,
And never socht na profitte to thame sell:
Thou neids not feir, that hous thay never craifit:
The Regent sayis, sa far as I heir tell,
Wald thow be trew thair can na better haif it.

A threat more sorrowful than angry, of Divine vengeance, if the Captain abandoned the cause which Semple and his friends still believed to be that of religion, closes the spirited poem:--

Thocht at this tyme thow haif that warlyke craig,
And is in hart curagious and bald,
God will nocht mys to scurge the with a plaig
Gif in his caus thow lat thy curage cald.
As thow may se, thick scurgis monyfald
Lich vpon thame that proudly dois disdane.
Except the Lord be watche man of the hald,
Quha walkis the same, thair laubour is in vane.

Before the close of the year 1570, an incident which was not directly connected with the politics of either party, and to which but little importance would probably have been attached, but for the intense excitement of the times, brought Kirkcaldy into direct conflict with John Knox himself. In the beginning of December, Sir William’s first cousin, John Kirkcaldy, the same in whose quarrel he had fought with Ralph Evers, was called to attend a justice-court in Dunfermline, as a juryman on a murder trial. During his stay in the town, he was attacked, whilst peacefully going to church, by George and Laurence Durie, brothers to the Commendator of the Abbey, and by several friends of theirs, amongst whom was a young man named Henry Seton. The immediate cause of the quarrel is not stated. But the two families stood on such bad terms that a very slight circumstance may have sufficed to give rise to it. According to Grange’s statement, the house of Durie had done many injuries to him and his; and he attributed the death of his father-in-law, the Laird of Raith, who had been executed on a charge of treason, to the animosity of the head of that family. ‘Since that time,’ he asserted further, ‘the Duries had continuallie troubled Raith’s posteritie and friends, in their righteous titles, native estates and possessions.’ On the present occasion, the actual aggressor was George Durie, who ‘ignominiously buffeted John Kirkcaldy with his fist.’ When the latter attempted to defend himself, he was set upon by Laurence Durie, and Henry Seton, and would, in all probability, have been killed, if the Provost had not opportunely interfered. A few days later, Seton, being in Edinburgh, chanced to meet some of the Laird of Grange’s servants in the streets, and insulted them, not with words, but ‘with jesting and mocking countenance.’ This having been reported to the Laird, he resolved to punish the young man for the double offence of abetting the Duries and affronting the Kirkcaldys. For this purpose he sent six of his men to Leith, where Seton was to embark on his return journey to the Fifeshire shore, and gave them instructions to administer a sound castigation with cudgels, but, on no account to use their arms. Finding himself suddenly attacked, the young man drew his sword, and used it to such good purpose that one of his assailants fell seriously wounded to the ground. At the sight of his blood, his companions forgot the restriction that had been put upon them, and continued the fray with sharper weapons. Out-numbered as he was, Seton might have succeeded in reaching the boat that was waiting for him, if he had not unfortunately tripped and fallen over a cable. As he lay helpless, some of the aggressors thrust their swords into him, and left him dead on the shore. After perpetrating this outrage, they retreated at full speed towards the Castle, closely followed by a number of the citizens. One of them was captured before reaching the North Loch, which was frozen at the time, and over which the other four succeeded in crossing. Here the pursuers were held in check by the Captain, who having noticed the chase, had come out with a body of soldiers, and threatened to fire if any further attempt were made to molest the fugitives.

Fleming, the one man who had been captured, and in whose defence it was subsequently urged that he was not actually concerned in the murder, was lodged in the Tolbooth; and his release having been refused, Kirkcaldy determined to take the law into his own hands, and to set him free. The Governor must still have had many sympathisers in the city, for it is stated that ‘the deacons of the crafts were easily persuaded to assist him in his wicked enterprise.’ Having ordered a battering-ram to be made ready for use against the prison gate, if force should be necessary, and got the guns of the Castle loaded and prepared for action, Kirkcaldy, at the head of a strong body of men, set out, without noise or clamour, between six and seven o’clock, on a dark evening, a few days before Christmas, for the purpose of liberating James Fleming. Men armed with culverins and pikes were posted so as to prevent access, by any side approach, to the street leading from the Castle to the prison. Grange and Lord Home stationed themselves above the Upper Tron, with the object of securing a safe retreat; and the Laird of Drylaw was sent forward to demand the surrender of the prisoner. That having been refused by the jailor, the battering-ram was brought forward, and the gates were forced open. According to reports circulated at the time, the soldiers not only carried off their comrade Fleming, but also set free another prisoner--a woman--probably Bothwellhaugh’s wife, who had been apprehended on a charge of complicity in the murder of the Regent. After Kirkcaldy and his men had returned from their nocturnal expedition, ‘nine great cannons were discharged’ from the ramparts, ‘to give the Regent who was then in the town, a defiance in his face.’ Fortunately, however, for the guns were shotted, ‘no harm was done, but that John Wallace’s house was shot through, and a barn in the Cannongate.’

John Knox was in Edinburgh at the time; and raised his powerful voice in condemnation of ‘so slanderous, so malapert, so fearful, and so tyrannous a deed. For,’ said he, ‘if the committer had been a man without God, a throat-cutter, one that had never known the works of God, it would have moved me no more than other riots and enormities which my eyes have seen the Prince of this world, Satan, to raise by his instruments. But to see the stars fall from heaven, and a man of knowledge commit so manifest treason, what godly heart cannot lament, tremble, and fear? God be merciful! for the example is terrible, and we have all need earnestly to call to God, that we be not led into temptation; but specially to deliver us from the company of the wicked; for, within these few years, men would have looked for other fruits than have budded out of that man.’

As soon as the Reformer’s rebuke was communicated to him, Kirkcaldy replied to it in a letter which he addressed to Craig, the minister of the church, to whom it was delivered as he was in his pulpit. It ran as follows: ‘This day John Knox, in his sermon, called me, openly, a murderer and a throat-cutter, wherein he hath spoken farther than he is able to justify. For I take God to witness, if it was my mind that the man’s blood should have been shed, of whom he calleth me the murderer. And the same God I desire, from the bottom of my heart, to pour out his vengeance suddenly upon him or me, which of us two hath been most desirous of innocent blood. This I desire you, in God’s name, to declare openly to the public. At Edinburgh Castle, the 24th of December 1570.’

Craig, however, refused to comply with the request contained in the latter part of the letter, stating that he would read nothing from the pulpit without the knowledge and consent of the Kirk. In another letter, which he wrote to the Kirk Session of Edinburgh, Kirkcaldy gave his version of what had happened, throwing all the blame on the Duries, and protesting his innocence of any intention to cause the death of Seton.

To the first of these letters, Knox publicly made reply on his next appearance in the pulpit, denying that he had ever made use of the words imputed to him. ‘Is there any of you,’ he asked, ‘that heard me, in this public place, call the Laird of Grange, now Captain of the Castle of Edinburgh, a cruel murderer, an open throat-cutter, and one whose nature I had long known to be bloodthirsty? I accused indeed, that unjust and cruel murder; I affirmed the violating of the house of justice to be treason; and finally I complained, that the like enormity and pernicious example I never saw in Scotland. Not but I had seen murder and rebellion before; yea, I have seen magistrates gainstood, and the supreme magistrates of the Crown besieged in their own tolbooth; and I have seen condemned persons violently reft from the gallows and gibbet. But none of all these forenamed can be compared to this last outrage. For, if the masters and authors of this last riot had been known before to have been open throat-cutters, bloodthirsty men, and such as had been void of the true fear of God, I would have been no more moved at this time, than I have been at other times before. But, to see stars fallen from Heaven; to see men who have felt as well God’s judgments as mercies, in a past; and to see men of whom all godly hearts have had a good opinion--to see, I say, such men so far carried away, that both God and man are not only forgot, but also publicly despised, is both dolorous and fearful to be remembered.’ Then, referring to Kirkcaldy’s escape from Mont Saint-Michel, the preacher continued: ‘For I have known that man in his greatest extremity, when he might have set himself at freedom by shedding of blood, at the counsel of sober men, he utterly refused all such cruelty, and took a hazard to the flesh most fearful; which God notwithstanding blessed, having a respect to the simplicity of his heart. And, therefore, then I said, and yet I say, that this example in him is the most terrible example that ever I saw in Scotland. I know that some have made other report. But, in their face I say, that of their father the Devil they have learnt to lie, wherein if they continue without repentance, they shall burn in Hell.’