Chapter XII: The Mercat Cross 137 (5)

In a letter to the Kirk-Session, Knox again denied having called Kirkcaldy a murderer and a cut-throat; but maintained that he had only done his duty in publicly denouncing a public outrage. Unwilling to prolong the controversy, Kirkcaldy declared himself satisfied that the words at which he had taken offence were uttered in lament, and for amendment of his fault, and not to his hurt, injury, or defamation, and formally withdrew his complaint. But Knox was not content with a view that implied a recantation on his part; and on the following Sunday, when the Captain, after nearly a year’s absence from Divine Service, again appeared in St Giles’s, the Reformer, construing his presence into an open defiance, denounced ‘proud contemners,’ and warned them that God’s mercy appertained not to such as, with knowledge, proudly transgressed, and thereafter most proudly maintained their transgression.

The excitement produced by an open quarrel between two such men as Knox and Kirkcaldy was not confined to the Capital. Exaggerated rumours were circulated from town to town, and in several places there arose a belief that Grange had sworn the death of the Reformer. Acting on this, a number of noblemen and gentlemen wrote from Ayr to the Laird of Grange, to signify their strong condemnation of his conduct. They could hardly believe, their protest ran, that he who had been, not a simple professor, but a defender of religion, could be moved to do any harm to him on whose safety the prosperity and increase of religion depended; and they deprecated any hostile design against the man whom God had made both the first planter, and also the chief waterer of his Kirk amongst them, and whose welfare was as dear and precious to them as their own.

Kirkcaldy had thought the incident of sufficient importance, under the existing circumstances, to justify his reporting it directly to the English Government himself. In replying to his letter, it suited Cecil to adopt the lofty moral tone which he knew would meet with the approval of the Clerical party. After condemning the ‘heinous fact,’ and expatiating on its guilt in one ‘having a place of government committed to him, and having for so many years made the world think that he professed the Evangel,’ he closed his letter in these sharp terms:--‘how you will allow my plainness I know not; but surely I should think myself guilty of blood if I should not thoroughly mislike you; and to this I must add, that I hear, but yet am loath to believe it, that your soldiers that broke the prison have not only taken out the murderer your man, but a woman that was there detained as guilty of the lamentable death of the late good Regent. Alas! my Lord, may this be true? And, with your help, may it be conceived in thought that you--you, I mean, that were so dear to the Regent, should favour his murderers in this sort. Surely, my Lord, if this be true, there is provided by God some notable work of His justice to be shewed upon you; and yet I trust you are not so void of God’s grace: and so for mine old friendship with you, and for the avoiding the notable slander of God’s word, I heartily wish it to be untrue.’

Cecil had no reason to congratulate himself on having given credence to details for which he had not the authority of Kirkcaldy himself. In reply to his epistle, the Captain of the Castle was able to inform him that the woman, whose supposed escape had aroused his indignation, was still in the Tolbooth.

_XI._ THE HOLDING OF THE CASTLE

IN the summer of 1570, the treacherous advice of Sussex had been followed, and, under pretence of punishing those who had given shelter to the rebellious Dacres, he had been sent, with an army of four thousand men, into Annandale, which he ravaged with such remorseless ferocity that, in his own words, not a stone house was left to an ill neighbour within twenty miles of Carlisle. This unjustifiable act of aggression may be looked upon as one of the immediate causes that led Grange decisively and irrevocably to throw in his lot with the party which refused to recognise the authority of Lennox. A two months’ truce delayed what had now become an inevitable step on his part. And even then, when the crisis came, it had been hurried on by Lennox’s action. On the 19th of March, before the actual expiration of the armistice, he caused proclamation to be made in Edinburgh, forbidding, upon pain of treason, that any should serve Grange, and commanding those who were already with him to leave him within three days. On the same afternoon, Kirkcaldy retaliated by causing Captain Melville to go through the town, with beat of drum, offering pay to all such as would repair to the Castle. Next day he took possession of the Abbey and of St Giles’s, and put men and munitions into them. He further levied provisions from the Leith merchants, and took every measure of prudence and precaution that a long military experience suggested, with a view to enabling the Castle to stand a long siege. He was so satisfied with the result of his efforts that he indulged in a ‘rowstie ryme’ in which, besides reviling his enemies and casting upon them the entire responsibility for the calamities under which the country was groaning, he proudly set forth all that he had done to resist any attempt on their part to drive him from his stronghold.

For I haue men and meit aneugh,
They know I am ane tuilyeour teoch,
And wilbe rycht sone greved:
When thei haue tint als mony teith,
As thei did at the seige of Leith,
They wilbe faine to leive it.
Then quha, I pray you, salbe boun
Thair tinsall to advance?
Or gif sic compositione
As thei got then of France?
This sylit, begylit,
They will bot get the glaikis;
Cum thai heir, thir tuo yeir,
They sall not misse thair paikis.[5]

On the 13th of April, when, in answer to his call, a considerable number not only of soldiers, but of powerful noblemen and gentlemen also, had gathered about him, he issued a proclamation in which he charged the Earl of Lennox with having unlawfully usurped the government of the kingdom, and with having unjustifiably circulated calumnies, injuries, and untrue reports about him, and which, after declaring with pardonable pride and damaging truth, that he had risked his life for Scotland when the new Regent was against it, he closed with a characteristic challenge:--

‘If anie gentleman undefamed, of my qualitie and degree, of his factioun and perteaning to him, will say the contrare heerof but I am a true Scotish man, I will say he speeketh untruelie, and leeth falslie in his throat; and denounce by thir presents to whatsomever persons will take the said querrell in hand, I sall be readie to fight with him on horsebacke or on foote, at time and place to be appointed, according to the lawes of armes.’

When the Captain’s preparations were complete, he set himself to the task of training the garrison. For that purpose he devised a sham assault, which the chronicler who records it, ignorant of military matters, sets down as a foolish skirmish, and as mere boastful display. His graphic description of it, however, is interesting as a quaint picture of mediæval warfare. ‘The one part of the Captan’s souldiours tooke upon them to skirmishe, in manner of an assault to the Castell; the other part of the Captan’s gentlemen took upon them the defence and keeping of the Castell. The skirmishe continued from eight houres at night till nyne. It was demanded from the Castell, who these were that troubled the Captan, under silence of night? It was answered by the other partie below, that they were the Queen of England’s armie. These beganne brawling and flytting; and these in the Castell answered, “Away, lubbard! Away, blew-coat! I defy thee, white-coat!” “Dirt in your teeth!” “Hence, knaves, and goe tell that whoore, your mastresse, yee sall not come heere. We lett you know, we have men, meat, and ordinance for seven yeeres.” About the end of the skirmishe, three cannons were discharged, and the counterfoot assaulters tooke the flight.’

That no misrepresentation of the course which he had been driven into adopting should supply the English Government with a pretext for laying the resumption of hostilities to his charge, Kirkcaldy wrote a full justification of his conduct to Sussex, Leicester, and Burghley. It ran as follows: ‘I have received your letter, dated at Westminster the 7th of this instant, and thereby understand that your Lordships have, upon the sight of my letters and the Marshal of Berwick’s report, rightly conceived my meaning touching the pacification of these inward troubles and continuation of the amity between these two realms, which course I intend still to follow further, so far as I may conveniently. I greatly mislike that a part of this nobility should go about by all means to destroy the other; and would wish that on both parts they should moderate their passions, being content every one of his own rank and degree, and not seek by extraordinary means one to overthrow the other. As to the amity between the realms, if any occasion has fallen out of late time, or shall fall out hereafter, which may disturb, change, or diminish the intelligence happily begun, I protest that I have detested, and shall detest such as are the occasioners thereof; and wish that your Lordships hold hand to remove all such incidents as may breed a misliking on your part; the best whereunto is to procure that the Queen’s Majesty, your sovereign, hold the balance equal to both the sides, showing like favour and good countenance to both, so that neither party may think themselves prejudged till the difference for the title for the Crown may by her means be compounded, or brought to an end. For my own part, the Earl of Lennox (whom I never thought a fit person to bear any rule, for the great imperfections which are known to be in him) has so ungently, unreasonably and unlawfully used me, that he has compelled me to provide for my own security, and of the place which I have in charge, and to stand upon my guard with him. Besides many injuries and wrongs which he before had done, against all good order, to me and my friends, whereat I partly winked, and lightly overlooked them, he has of late charged by open proclamations, that all the soldiers which I keep for the preservation of this place, do depart from me and leave my service, by which doing he has uttered his ill-will and intention he had to denude me of my forces, whereby the place, for lack of men to defend it, might fall as a prey in his hands. And when he saw that his commands in that behalf were not obeyed, his malice has burst out further, to set further false and calumnious proclamations against me, full of injurious language, such as neither he nor any of his faction dare maintain, thinking thereby to have made me odious to the people. But my behaviour in times past, and hazarding of my person and goods, for the liberty of my country and duty to my friends is so well known in Scotland, that I am not afraid that anything the Earl of Lennox or his faction can speak or do, who has not as yet given the like proof, may make men that know me to doubt of my honesty. Since he has made open demonstration to be my enemy, I could do no less than let him know the like of me, and so have been forced to join myself with such of the nobility as would concur with me, and provide every way for my own surety, wherein I doubt not but your Lordships will not only bear with me, but also allow of my doings.

‘For nature teaches both men and beasts to procure means for their own preservation, and to avoid all things tending to the contrary. And yet I dare undertake, if it shall please the Queen’s Majesty your mistress, to prosecute the course she has begun, for according the difference for the title of the Crown, and to show her favour in the mean season indifferently to both parties, that number of noblemen, with whom I have joined myself, shall be as far at her Majesty’s devotion, and as able every way, and as willing, to entertain the good intelligence between the realms as any others; and, indeed, they are no less able to serve her Majesty’s turn. As to the abstinence mentioned in your Lordships’ letter, I shall willingly accommodate myself to everything accorded between the Commissioners for both parties, not only in the order of the Castle of Edinburgh, but all other things lying in my power; and shall attempt nothing farther than the surety of myself and place I have in charge shall force me, unless the others attempt to do injury to me or my friends, in which case the Earl of Lennox shall have no cause to look for quietness, if he make occasion to me and my friends to stand in doubt of our own surety; for I am resolved to use him as he shall do me and my friends. I have seen heretofore how the former abstinences have been kept on his part, and I know what harm my friends have sustained under the colour thereof; so that I would look for little better at his hand now, were not the trust I repose in her Majesty, who I doubt not will overrule him and bridle him from disordered doings; upon the confidence whereof, her Majesty shall have experience what reverence I bear to her Highness, and how far I respect your Lordships’ advice. As to the common quietness in the town of Edinburgh, and people therein, I assure myself none of them will complain; for of truth, there is no man within the compass of the same has received injury or violence, by word or deed, of me or any of mine; whereof I desire your Lordships to assure her Majesty. So, not willing to trouble your Lordships farther, I commit your Lordships to the protection of the Almighty God. From Edinburgh Castle, the 21st of April 1571.

Your Lordships’ to command,

W. KIRKCALDY.’

Hostilities between the garrison of the Castle and the Regent’s forces, which were encamped at Leith, began on the 29th of April, with a skirmish at Lowsilea. Next day, Kirkcaldy issued a proclamation, commanding all who sympathised with Lennox, to leave the city within six hours, and requiring the citizens to be within doors, after nine o’clock every night. Two days later, he followed this up by demanding the keys of the city from the bailies, and setting his own men to guard the gates; and his next step was to plant artillery on the roof and steeple of St Giles’s.

About the beginning of May, the Regent made an attempt to hold a Parliament, but was driven off by the Castle guns. On learning this, Queen Elizabeth made a great show of indignation. It was ‘necessary for her that the Regent and his party should not be ruined.’ Nor, indeed, did it suit her that either faction should obtain the upper hand independently of her. She consequently directed Sir William Drury to tell Grange and the noblemen joined with him, that she strongly disapproved of their conduct in preventing the Regent and his friends from holding a Parliament to appoint commissioners to treat with those of the Queen of Scots. In energetic language she desired him to ‘condemn Kirkcaldy of falsehood and untruth’ if it were actually the case that he had said, as had been reported to her, that Lennox was ‘sworn English against his country,’ and meant to deliver all the castles and strongholds to her; and to require him to give her full satisfaction on this point. She further instructed him to inform the Captain that, if he continued to increase the troubles of the realm, she would ‘judge that to be true which, by some had been long doubted, that he and his companions were partially disposed, for their own lucre and to maintain their disordered authorities, to continue these inward troubles, by pretending to favour the Queen, with whom it was known that, before time, they could not be content.’ If this should not be enough, Drury was to add “some sharper speech” of his own.

In his reply to this communication, Kirkcaldy assured the Queen of England that his enemies had misreported him. Had it really been the intention of Lennox and his party to choose persons authorised to carry on the negotiations referred to by her Highness, he would have given them free access to Edinburgh. But he had been told by Morton himself, that ‘the treaty was dissolved in England, and clean cut off without any promise of abstinence, or hope of recontinuation.’ He pointed out that, if the Lords did not get entrance into the town, they, nevertheless, did hold a Parliament outside the walls; and, as they did not then appoint commissioners, he concluded that it had never been their object to do so. He denied ever having told the people, in his proclamations, that Lennox was ‘sworn English against his country;’ but he admitted that, in private conversation, he had said that the Earl was the Queen of England’s subject by oath. Again protesting his pacific intentions, his unselfish aims, and his respect for Elizabeth, he offered to do battle against any gentleman undefamed, of England or Scotland, who dared charge him with having written or uttered any word against her honour.

Elizabeth admitted that Grange’s reply was not unreasonable, and that she did not mislike it. In truth, she found it admirably suited to her purpose. On the strength of its conciliatory tone, she could approach Lennox, and bring pressure to bear on him, by declaring that his opponents were ready to accept her mediation, and by making him responsible for the continuance of hostilities, unless he, too, consented to submit the whole quarrel to her arbitration. It was in this sense that, on the 7th of June, she addressed another long letter of instructions to Sir William Drury.

Apart from a series of sorties and raids, which contemporary chroniclers faithfully record, with scrupulous minuteness, even, at times, to the names of the wounded, and the nature of their hurts, no incident of special interest marked the civil war till the 11th of June. On that day Kirkcaldy, to whose knowledge it had come that he had publicly been accused of being a traitor and a murderer, issued a public challenge, offering to fight, in single combat, and to the death, any man, of whatsoever estate he might be, who took it on himself to support such a charge. It was taken up by Alexander Stuart of Garlies. He ridiculed the style assumed by Grange--a style more befitting the chief nobility or even the Royal Blood, than one whose father had but eight ox-gangs, and whose progenitors were, for the most part, saltmakers. ‘Nevertheless,’ he continued, ‘although thou art so notorious a traitor, that this action should be decided by other judges than by the adventure of arms, I, Alexander Stuart of Garlies, will offer myself to prove thy vile and filthy treason with my person against thine, as the law and custom of arms requireth: with protestation, that it shall not be prejudicial to my honour, nor to my blood, to compare myself with so late a printed gentleman, manifestly known to have committed, at sundry times, divers treasons; and taken out of the galleys to be kept for the gallows.’

There ensued a long correspondence between Grange and Garlies. Stripped of the accusations, recriminations, and contemptuous allusions to birth and rank, it resolved itself into a wrangle as to the choice of a fitting place for the encounter. Neither party would accept the views of the other as to a sufficiently neutral ground; and after dragging through many weeks, the quarrel was left undecided.

In the meantime, Grange had figured in a less personal and more important incident. Under his auspices, the Queen’s Lords, to whom he delivered the regalia for the occasion, held a Parliament in Edinburgh. Their first act was to invalidate Mary’s abdication, and, as a consequence, to repudiate the transfer of the royal authority to her son and the Regent acting on his behalf. The next was to decree that no change should be made in the form of religion or administration of the sacraments. At a subsequent sitting, they pronounced a decree of forfeiture against the Earl of Morton and some two hundred of the King’s party. In retaliation, the King’s Lords, in a Parliament of their own, held at Stirling, dealt in the same manner with their opponents. But their meeting was to be marked by an event of far greater moment. Grange, who had been informed of their imprudent negligence in not even appointing guards to insure their safety, planned a daring expedition, of which the object was nothing less than the capture of all the leading men of the faction, including the Regent himself.

It was at first Kirkcaldy’s intention to conduct the raid in person. But the Lords and Council would not allow him, alleging that ‘their only comfort under God consisted in his preservation.’ They undertook scrupulously to follow his instructions, and at his earnest request, promised to respect the lives of the captives. He yielded to their urgent entreaties, but not till the Laird of Wormeston, one of the most honourable gentlemen of the party, had pledged his word to save the Regent’s life at every risk.

Between five and six o’clock on the evening of the 3rd of September, Huntly, accompanied with three hundred and forty horse, set out from Edinburgh, and reached Stirling before day-break. Dismounting about a mile from the town, lest the clattering of the horses’ feet should betray them, the party entered it by a secret passage, between four and five in the morning. Lennox and his friends were surprised in their houses and captured. They would have been brought safely to Edinburgh if the soldiers and Borderers had not fallen to spoiling. The disorder which followed enabled the enemy to rally. There was a sharp skirmish, in the course of which the Regent was shot. Wormeston had proved so faithful to his trust that the fatal bullet passed through his body before striking Lennox.

The assailants were ultimately obliged to retire, but not till they had held possession of the town for more than three hours. On their return to Edinburgh, they were very unwelcome guests to the Laird of Grange. He was convinced that if, by bringing the Regent to Edinburgh, he had been able to withdraw him from the influence of Morton and of the English agent Randolph, an end might have been put to the disastrous struggle. With the death of Murray a peaceful settlement became well nigh hopeless.

Captain George Bell and James Calder, who had been taken prisoners on the retreat from Stirling, were by torture, compelled to confess that they had special instructions from the Hamiltons to slay the Regent. Calder’s confession is significantly signed ‘James Calder with my hand laid on the pen because I cannot write.’ In a very remarkable letter addressed by Grange and Lethington to Drury, the blame of Lennox’s death is imputed to his own associates, who are accused of using the opportunity given by the tumult for obtaining that which they had long sought after. The writers not only point out that the Hamiltons, whom the Regent had the greatest cause to fear, were those who surprised him in his house, and that they might have taken his life then and there; but they also assert that they themselves had previously been urged to concur in Murray’s destruction.

Within twenty-four hours a new Regent was appointed. Randolph was anxious that the choice of the Lords should fall on Morton, but they preferred to elect the Earl of Mar.

_XII._ THE MERCAT CROSS

THE Earl of Mar’s Regency lasted a little over a year,--from the beginning of September 1571 to the 29th of October 1572. The secret history of the period is contained in a long series of communications between Elizabeth and her Ministers on the one hand, and the heads of the two contending parties on the other. The subject was still the pacification of the Kingdom; but the discovery of the Duke of Norfolk’s plot, in favour of Mary Stuart, had modified the English Queen’s policy with respect to the Castilians, as the holders of the Castle were termed. It supplied her with a plausible excuse for casting aside even the semblance of a desire to reinstate her captive; and the spirit in which the negotiations with Grange and Lethington were conducted is illustrated by the following summons delivered to them in her name:--‘Her Majesty’s pleasure is, that ye leave off the maintenance of civil discord, and give your obedience to the King, whom she will maintain to the uttermost of her power. And if ye will so do, she will deal with the Regent and the King’s party to receive you in favour, upon reasonable conditions, for security of life and livings. In respect the Queen of Scots hath practised with the Pope, other Princes, and her own subjects, great and dangerous treasons against the state of the country, and destruction of her own person, she will never suffer her to be in authority, so far as in her lieth; nor to have liberty while she liveth. If ye refuse these offers, her Majesty will presently aid the King’s party with men, munition, and other things against you. Whereupon her Majesty desireth your answer with speed.’

In the meantime, hostilities were being carried on with the greatest ferocity by both factions. As Bannatyne reports, there was ‘nothing but hanging on either side.’ The chronicles and the correspondence of the time record, as common occurrences, the most cold-blooded atrocities. It is related in the Historie of King James the Sext, that a band of Queen’s soldiers from Edinburgh were attacked by a body of the King’s partisans, to whom they were obliged to surrender and give up their weapons. ‘But the horsemen of Leith, after they had received them as prisoners, slew fifteen of the most able and strong men of them; the remainder they drove to Leith like sheep, stabbing and dunting them with spears, where they were all hanged without further process.’ Randolph reported to Lord Hunsdon that nothing was left undone on either side that might annoy the other, that the Regent, to keep the Castilians from victuals, had placed men in Craigmillar, Redshawe, and Corstorphine, and had broken down all the mills to the number of thirty or more within four miles of Edinburgh, and that he had sent three hundred Highland men to the villages and cottages about the town to intercept and spoil all that attempted to repair to the Castle. Those of the other side made reprisals by hanging not only the prisoners whom they had received to mercy, but those who afterwards fell into their hands. Lord Hunsdon informed Elizabeth that four horsemen of the Castle having been taken in a skirmish, were immediately hanged; and that those of the Castle, for revenge, after dinner, hanged five of their opponents. When fuel was scarce in the town, the garrison of the Castle threw down several houses of the adverse faction, and sold the timber at an exorbitant price. They further appointed a functionary, nick-named by the populace the Captain of the Chimneys, to take account of such houses as had been abandoned by King’s men, and sell them by public auction. These stern proceedings so terrified the neutral citizens, that they fled to Leith; but instead of finding protection there they were driven back to the Capital, and threatened with the gibbet as spies. So strictly were supplies to the city prohibited that the country people who attempted to smuggle in provisions were barbarously put to death. Two men and one woman, from Wester Edmonstoune, were hanged for bringing leeks and salt to Edinburgh. Lethington, writing to Queen Mary, told her that when poor women hazarded, during the night, to bring in some victuals for themselves and their poor bairns, they were hanged without mercy.

‘By that way,’ he said, ‘they have hangit a great number of women, and some of them with bairn, and parted with bairn upon the gallows, a cruelty not heard of in any country.’ If both parties displayed the same vindictive spirit in the commission of these outrages, the voice of the people by whom ‘this form of dealing was called the Douglas wars,’ proclaimed the guilt of Morton as the originator of them.

That Grange and his friends were not responsible for continuing the disastrous struggle, even the English agents admitted. Lord Hunsdon, writing to Burghley, about the end of April, confessed that it passed his capacity any more to deal with the parties in Scotland. ‘The Castle side,’ he said, ‘require surety of their lives, lands, goods, and honours, where they have reason; and the keeping of the Castle, because they would be loath to put themselves into their new reconciled friends’ hands until they see some proof how they and their friends will be dealt with. On the King’s side, their malice is so deadly against some of the Castle as they have more respect to be revenged than regard to the Commonwealth; others are so resolved to keep such offices, spoils, and authority as they possess by these troubles, that they will never agree to any composition by treaty; the meaner sort who live upon entertainment and such spoils as now and then they can get, and live uncontrolled of any whatsoever they do, cannot abide to hear of peace.’

For the next three months negotiations still dragged on. Neither threats nor persuasions could induce Kirkcaldy to consent to the one condition without which his opponents were determined that there should be no peace--the surrender of the Castle. In an evil hour for themselves however, he and Lethington so far yielded to the representations and solicitations of the English Court as to agree to a truce. The conditions were that it should last for two months from the 30th of July; that, during that time there should be a meeting of the noblemen of the Kingdom to treat for peace; and that, if they should not agree, they should refer the difference between them to the arbitration of the King of France and Queen of England, promising upon their honour to accept all the conditions their Majesties should propose to them. During the truce all the subjects of the realm should be at liberty freely to traffic, haunt, or converse together unmolested. The town of Edinburgh was to be set at liberty the same as it was when the late Regent quitted it on the 27th of January 1570; and the Castle to be kept with no greater garrison than it had at that date.

On the 11th of the following month Grange and Lethington had already ground for complaint that, contrary to promise, ‘the town was still guarded and garrisoned as a town of war.’ A few days later they drew up a formal protest in which they stated that the Capital was occupied by companies of soldiers and townsmen, who kept watch and ward day and night, and continually used the Kirk and Tolbooth as guard-houses. Leith also, they said, was guarded as in time of war, in contravention of the abstinence. Men-at-arms were lodged upon the poor, to be fed at their expense; and in many cases the inhabitants were forbidden to enter their own houses, which had been taken possession of by the soldiery.

In the beginning of September, a new agent, Killegrew, was dispatched to Scotland for the ostensible purpose of effecting a compromise between the two parties, but in reality with a view to arranging with Morton for the secret execution of Queen Mary. All that his intervention achieved was the prolongation of the truce till the 1st of January. The result of his secret mission, however, was to secure the complicity of Mar and Morton in Elizabeth’s scheme for the destruction of her rival, on condition that they should receive help from England for the subjugation of the Castilians, at the expiration of the truce.

When Killegrew arrived in Scotland, the Earl of Mar was lying ill at Tantallon Castle, and it was there the English ambassador had his first interview with him. He recovered sufficiently to be removed to Stirling. On the 27th of October, it was reported to Burghley that he had been bled, and was ‘somewhat amended.’ The very next day, however, he died, with a suddenness that gave rise to a suspicion of poison. Rather less than a month later, Morton was chosen to succeed him.

The day that the new Regent was elected, there occurred another important event, which was destined to exercise great influence on Kirkcaldy’s fate. On that same 24th of November, John Knox died in Edinburgh, to which he had returned shortly before in a sinking condition. As he lay on his death-bed he desired his friend, David Lindsay, the minister of Leith, to take a message from him to the Laird of Grange. “‘Go, I pray you,’ he said, ‘and tell him that I have sent you to him yet once to warn him; and bid him, in the name of God, leave that evil cause, and give over that Castle. If not, he shall be brought down over the walls of it with shame, and hang against the sun. So God hath assured me.’ Mr David thought the message hard, yet went to the Castle, and meeteth first with Sir Robert Melville walking on the wall, and told him what was his errand; who, as he thought, was much moved with the matter. Thereafter he communed with the Captain, whom he thought also somewhat moved. But he went from him in to Secretary Lethington, with whom, when he had conferred a little, he came out to Mr David again, and said, ‘Go, tell Mr Knox he is but a drytting prophet.’ Mr David returned to Mr Knox and reported how he had discharged his commission; but that it was not well accepted of the Captain after he had conferred with the Secretary. ‘Well,’ said Mr Knox, ‘I have been earnest with my God anent the two men. For the one, I am sorry that so shall befall him, yet God assureth me that there is mercy for his soul. For the other, I have no warrant that ever he shall be well.’ Mr David thought the speech hard, yet laid it up in his mind till Mr Knox was at rest with God, and found the truth which he had spoken within a few days after.”

When the last day of the truce arrived, no step towards the pacification of the Kingdom had been taken. The King’s party continued to make demands which the Castilians, hopeful of help from the King of France, absolutely refused to entertain, and the resumption of hostilities was inevitable. On the 1st of January, at six o’clock in the morning, Kirkcaldy ‘warned all men to take heed to themselves, by a shot of a piece out of the Castle.’ A little later in the morning, ‘the war began by shot of arquebuss, but did no harm.’ Next day the Castilians fired eight rounds at the steeple of St Giles’s. No one was hurt in the church itself, but some shot that missed it, having broken down the neighbouring chimneys, one poor man was killed and two were wounded by their fall. If Killegrew’s reports to Burghley are to be believed, either the Castle gunners must have been poor marksmen, or Grange must at first have instructed them to discharge their artillery rather in the hope of frightening the citizens than for the purpose of causing them serious loss or injury. One despatch states that on the 16th of January they fired eighty-seven cannon and culverin shot at the town, ‘but did no more harm but killed one dog going to the Regent’s house.’ Men, women, and children, the writer asserts, walked quietly in the streets, as though there were no shot; and even went to the church, which had been fenced in with a rampart of turf, faggots, and other stuff. One of the chroniclers, on the other hand, presents a wholly different picture. ‘None,’ he says, ‘might walk safely on the streets of Edinburgh for shooting out of the Castle.’ The truth may not improbably be that the gunners could fire effectively enough when it was thought there was occasion for it.

Before the end of the first month the besieged were already beginning to suffer from want of water. On the 25th, Killegrew informed Burghley that they had found it necessary to get their supply by sallying out of a postern beside St Cuthbert’s Church and drawing it from St Margaret’s well, hard by. The besiegers, noticing this, poisoned the well with white arsenic and new lime stones, and filled it up with dead carrion. The garrison then devised a plan for drawing water out of a ditch near the Castle; but before it could be put into execution, the Regent was informed of it by a deserter, and drained the ditch. In the same communication, Killegrew stated that the surveyor of Berwick and Mr Fleming, the master-gunner, had been with the besiegers for the last week, and were helping Morton to lay out the trenches, of which the works were progressing apace.

It was not to open warfare alone that Kirkcaldy’s enemies trusted to force him into subjection. Even before the resumption of hostilities, Morton had begun negotiations with the Queen’s Lords in other parts of the country. One after another, the Captain’s former associates fell away from him. Sir James Balfour was the first, Argyle, Huntly, Chastelherault, and the Hamiltons followed; and their submission made it hopeless and useless for the lesser men to stand out alone. By the beginning of April, the Privy Council was able to announce that ‘good peace was restored over all the country, the Castle of Edinburgh excepted.’

From another quarter too, there fell an unexpected blow. Through the treachery of his own wife, James Kirkcaldy, who had hitherto successfully acted as his brother’s agent with the Court of France, was captured, together with a considerable sum of money, which Mary had supplied from her dowry, and on which the Castilians were depending. Within the Castle, Maitland was as firm and uncompromising as the Governor himself; indeed, his enemies attributed the obstinate resistance of the soldier to the ‘enchantment’ cast over him by the statesman. But though the Secretary’s mental vigour was undiminished, his bodily health was so shattered that, when it was intended to discharge the heavy ordnance, he had to be carried down into the low vault of ‘David’s Tower,’ as he could not ‘abide the shot.’

For all this, there was no wavering on the part of Kirkcaldy. He felt the fullest confidence as to his ability to hold out, so long as he had Morton alone to deal with; and he believed that fear of irritating the French Court, and unwillingness to incur the heavy expenses of sending a siege train to Scotland might yet deter Elizabeth from lending active assistance to the Regent. In spite of the besiegers’ utmost efforts to prevent him, he continued the work of fortifying the Castle with earth, stone, and timber; and indeed, in his determination to ‘give the Earl of Morton and all his men of war enough to do to wait upon him,’ he omitted nothing that experience could suggest or courage carry out, to add to the natural strength of the fortress.

Unfortunately for the Captain, the six or seven score fighting men that made up his garrison were not all animated with the same spirit. Not one of them had ever stood a siege before, and the hardships which they had to undergo were beginning to tell on them both morally and physically. Obliged, with but little intermission, to fight their guns by day, and by night to repair the damage done to their outworks, and having to subsist on the one pint of water and the scant rations of salt-beef that Lady Kirkcaldy distributed to them daily, ‘they were all ill-like in the face with over-working or watching.’ They were beginning to feel too that there was no remedy or recompense to be looked for at Grange’s hands; and some of them, indeed, were already anxious to make terms for themselves. As the Captain’s increasing watchfulness left them no opportunity of communicating directly with the enemy, they cast a letter enclosed in a glove over the walls, trusting to the finder to take it to those for whom it was intended. It contained a request that, if there were any hope of mercy for the garrison, a certain sign should be made in a certain place, and they would come forth. On the part of Morton, nothing was left undone to foster this spirit of mutiny; and his secret agents were not only authorised to promise a free pardon in his name, to such as were already planning to desert from the Castle, but also to bribe the others, by distributing two thousand crowns amongst them.

The discontent that was spreading amongst his men did not escape the Captain’s vigilance. Calling them together, he asked if any amongst them wished to abandon the cause. Lord Home’s resolute reply, that he would serve as a private soldier, both by day and night, ‘stopped the mouths of the meaner sort,’ though, according to Killegrew, they meant to make a very different answer, and though many were anxious to come away, if only they might well get forth.

In the meantime, the negotiations which had been dragging on between the Regent and the English Court, had effected a definite result. On the 13th of April, a proclamation issued in the name of King James, announced that the assistance of England had been secured, with a view to putting an end to the Civil War, and that a body of English troops would soon arrive to reinforce the besieging army. Twelve days later, an English contingent, under Sir William Drury, arrived in Edinburgh, and a final summons was sent to Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange, and the other holders and retainers of the Castle of Edinburgh, to surrender it, with the artillery, munitions, and household stuff; and to remove, devoid, and rid themselves, their wives and servants forth of it, within six hours. Being intended for the wavering soldiers, and not for their resolute leader, this summons was not delivered to the Governor in writing, but was publicly proclaimed by a herald. To drown his voice Kirkcaldy ordered his drums to beat; and the only reply he vouchsafed to make was, that he wist not what the messenger had declared.

The ordnance sent from England was disembarked at Leith, on the 26th of April. Next day, besides running up the Scottish Queen’s standard, the Governor of the Castle hoisted ‘a banner of red colour, denouncing war and defiance, upon the chief tower of the Castle called King David’s Tower.’ Including ‘both tag and rag,’ there were at that moment one hundred and ninety-two persons within the Castle. Forty-two of them were women, and thirteen were boys. That left a hundred and thirty men, not all soldiers, besides the Governor himself; and of these according to Killegrew’s information, eighteen of the best would fain have been out.

It took much longer than had been anticipated to get the ordnance into position. By the 5th of May, of twenty-four pieces of battery and four mortars, there were but six planted; and the month was half through before ‘the artillery of England was placed about the Castle of Edinburgh in this manner. On the north side of Mr John Thornton’s lodging on the Castle Hill lay the cannon royal, and two other cannons; on the crofts of the Grey Friars, lay three great culverin; at the Scots crofts lay six great culverin; above the west side of St Cuthbert’s Kirk lay two Scottish iron pieces; at the north side two Scots great culverins, and my Lord Argyle’s cannon, with four pott pieces; at the lang gait on the east side of the said pott pieces lay three small pieces, with strong and deep trenches in all parts.’ At length, on Sunday, the 17th of May, at one in the afternoon, ‘some of the pieces began to speak such language that it made them in the Castle think more of God than they did before.’ When the first ‘tier’ of ordnance was discharged, the women within the walls uttered a great and lamentable cry, ‘terming the day and hour black.’ ‘The soldiers, however,’ says Drury, ‘showed themselves in no small companies here and there, but especially they showed many on the top of St David’s Tower, with great pride displaying two ensigns, and shooting at every advantage they saw.’ To what good effect the Castilians plied their guns may be learnt from Birrell’s Diary. ‘Ther wes,’ he says, ‘a very grate slaughter amongst the English canoniers, sundries of them having ther legges and armes torne from their bodies in the aire by the viholence of the grape shot.’

On the 21st of May the English gunners began battering St David’s Tower; and two days later a large portion of it came crushing down. The 26th saw the capture of an important position called the ‘Spur.’ This disaster, combined with the growing dissatisfaction of his men, who complained that Lady Grange scanted their victuals, that were scant enough already, at length obliged the Governor to beat a parley. A two days’ truce was granted, and negotiations were opened with a view to the surrender of the Castle. The three thousand great shot, which, according to Drury’s computation, had been fired at the fortress, had wrought such havoc that no practicable means of exit was left. In order to meet Drury, Grange, Pitarrow, and Robert Melville had to be let down by a rope over the wall.

The conditions demanded by the besieged were that they should have surety for the lives and livings of all that were within the Castle, that Lethington and Lord Home, because of particular quarrels might go into England, and that Grange should remain in Scotland, with a licence to depart the realm if he found himself ill-used. Morton was quite willing to spare the soldiers, and he took special care that they should be informed of it; but he insisted that the surrender should be unconditional as regarded Grange, Lethington, and nine others, including the two goldsmiths who had coined money for the use of the Castilians. On hearing this, Kirkcaldy went back to the Castle determined to hold out to the last. But the men were now in open mutiny. They declared their determination of hanging Maitland from the battlements if he did not urge Grange to surrender, and of handing the Governor himself to Morton, if he still refused to yield. There was no alternative. On the 29th of May Sir William gave himself up to Drury who, in recognition of the courage which he had displayed, allowed him to leave the Castle with his arms. The citizens had suffered too much at his hands to entertain any generous feeling towards him, and as he and his companions were led through the crowd to the lodgings of Drury, jeers and insults were heaped upon him. The balladist Semple has described the scene:--

‘Thair wes compleit the prophecie of Knox:
Doun fra that Crag Kirkcaldy sall reteir,
With schame and sclander lyke ane hundit fox.’

With gild[6] of pepile sa thay brocht thame doun,
As birdis but plumis, spulizeit of the nest:
Part cryde: ‘quhair is he? lat vs se the loun;
Go to and staen him; lat him tak na rest.’

Quhen thay yt buir him saw thame selfis opprest,
Thay cryit for succour for to saue thair lyuis:
The Generallis lugeing, thair thay thocht it best,
Thay led him in, thay war sa red[7] for wyuis.’

For three days Grange was allowed to go about freely, rather as a guest than a captive, but at the end of that time he was treated as a prisoner.

One of Morton’s first cares, after the surrender of Edinburgh Castle, was to demand that the jewels which Queen Mary was known to have left there when she fled from her capital, should be delivered up to him. His greed, however, was doomed to disappointment. The greater part of the treasure upon which he was so characteristically anxious to lay hands, had already been disposed of. Indeed, the Queen’s diamonds had been the chief source of the garrison’s credit during the three years that the Castle was held for her. In 1570 several objects of value had been sent by Kirkcaldy to be sold in London. Elizabeth, however, had got information, and not only stopped the sale, but ordered the articles to be detained. The Governor met with better success in France; and when, in the following spring, his brother arrived in Leith with munitions and stores, it was commonly reported that they had been purchased with the price of some of Mary’s diamonds.

The next year, another parcel of jewels was said to have been sold to a secret agent of Queen Elizabeth’s for two thousand five hundred pounds. At various other times, objects of value had been given in pledge to merchants and others for moneys advanced to supply the needs of the beleaguered garrison. There was consequently but little left at the time of the surrender; but to prevent even that from falling into Morton’s hands, some of it had been hidden in a crevice of the Castle rock. A confession having been extracted from Morsman to the effect that at the last moment he had made over certain valuables to Kirkcaldy, the Governor was called upon to restore them. He replied that he had, indeed, got some gear in an evil favoured clout, but did not see what it was, and had thrown it into an open coffer in his room. He protested that he had taken nothing out of the Castle but the clothes on his back and four crowns in his purse.

From the moment that Grange and Lethington surrendered as prisoners to the English, Morton resolved that their lives should pay the penalty of their open defiance of his authority, and he did not hesitate to declare that he thought them ‘fitter for God than for this world, for sundry considerations.’ He accordingly demanded that they should be given over to him; and after some hesitation real or pretended, Elizabeth granted his request. Whilst she still seemed to be wavering the two prisoners wrote the following appeal to Burghley:--

‘MY LORD,--The malice of our enemies is the more increased against us, that they have seen us rendered in the Queen’s Majesty’s will, and now to seek refuge at her highness’s hands. And, therefore, we doubt not but they will go about by all means possible to procure mischief; yea, that their cruel minds shall lead them to that impudency to crave our bloods at her Majesty’s hands. But whatsoever their malice be, we cannot fear that it shall take success; knowing with how gracious a Princess we have to do, which hath given so many good proofs to the world of her clemency and mild nature, that we cannot mistrust that the first example of the contrary shall be shewn upon us. We take this to be her very natural, _Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos_.