Ringan Gilhaize, or, The Covenanters Part 14

Concerning that fearful treason, my grandfather never spoke without taking off his bonnet, and praying inwardly with such solemnity of countenance that none could behold him unmoved. Of all the remarkable pa.s.sages of his long life it was indeed the most remarkable; and he has been heard to say that he could not well acquit himself of the actual sin of disobedience in not obeying an admonition of the Spirit which was vouchsafed to him on that occasion.

For some time there had been a great variance between the King and Queen. He had given himself over to loose and low companions; and though she kept her state and pride, ill was said of her, if in her walk and conversation she was more sensible of her high dignity. All at once, however, when he was lying ill at Glasgow of a malady, which many scrupled not to say was engendered by a malignant medicine, there was a singular demonstration of returning affection on her part, the more remarkable and the more heeded of the commonality, on account of its suddenness, and the events that ensued; for while he was at the worst she minded not his condition, but took her delights and pastimes in divers parts of the country. No sooner, however, had his strength overcome the disease, than she was seized with this fond sympathy, and came flying with her endearments, seemingly to foster his recovery with caresses and love. The which excessive affection was afterwards ascribed to a guilty hypocrisy; for in the sequel it came to light that, while she was practising all those winning blandishments, which few knew the art of better, and with which she regained his confidence, she was at the same time engaged in unconjugal correspondence with the Earl of Bothwell. The King, however, was won by her kindness, and consented to be removed from among the friends of his family at Glasgow to Edinburgh, in order that he might there enjoy the benefits of her soft cares and the salutary attendance of the physicians of the capital. The house of the provost of Kirk o' Field, which stood not far from the spot where the buildings of the college now stand, was accordingly prepared for his reception, on account of the advantages which it afforded for the free and open air of a rising ground; but it was also a solitary place--a fit haunt for midnight conspirators and the dark purposes of mysterious crime.

There, for some time, the Queen lavished upon him all the endearing gentleness of a true and loving wife, being seldom absent by day, and sleeping near his sick-chamber at night. The land was blithened with such a.s.surances of their reconciliation; and the King himself, with the frank ardour of flattered youth, was contrite for his faults, and promised her the fondest devotion of all his future days. In this sweet cordiality, on Sunday, the 9th of February, A.D. 1567, she parted from him to be present at a masquing in the palace; for the Reformation had not so penetrated into the habits and business of men as to hallow the Sabbath in the way it has since done amongst us. But before proceeding farther, it is proper to resume the thread of my grandfather's story.

He had pa.s.sed that evening, as he was wont to tell, in pleasant gospel conversation with several acquaintances in the house of one Raphael Doquet, a pious lawyer in the Canongate; for even many writers in those days were smitten with the love of G.o.dliness; and as he was returning to his dry lodgings in an entry now called Baron Grant's Close, he encountered Winterton, who, after an end had been put to David Rizzio, became a retainer in the riotous household of the Earl of Bothwell. This happened a short way aboon the Netherbow, and my grandfather stopped to speak with him; but there was a haste and confusion in his manner which made him rather eschew this civility. My grandfather at the time, however, did not much remark it; but scarcely had they parted ten paces when a sudden jealousy of some unknown guilt or danger, wherein Winterton was concerned, came into his mind like a flash of fire, and he felt as it were an invisible power constraining him to dog his steps, in so much that he actually did turn back. But on reaching the Bow he was obligated to stop, for the ward was changing; and observing that the soldiers then posting were of the Queen's French guard, his thoughts began to run on the rumour that was bruited of a league among the papist princes to cut off all the Reformed with one universal sweep of the scythe of persecution, and he felt himself moved and incited to go to some of the Lords and leaders of the Congregation to warn them of what he feared; but, considering that he had only a vague and unaccountable suspicion for his thought, he wavered, and finally returned home. Thus, though manifestly and marvellously instructed of the fruition of some b.l.o.o.d.y business in hand that night, he was yet overruled by the wisdom which is of this world to suppress and refuse obedience to the promptings of the inspiration.

On reaching his chamber, he unbuckled his belt, as his custom was, and laid down his sword and began to undress, when again the same alarm from on high fell upon him, and the same warning spirit whispered to his mind's ear unspeakable intimations of dreadful things. Fear came upon him and trembling, which made all his bones to shake, and he lifted his sword and again buckled on his belt. But again the prudence of this world prevailed, and, heeding not the admonition to warn the Lords of the Congregation, he threw himself on his bed, without, however, unbuckling his sword, and in that condition fell asleep. But though his senses were shut, his mind continued awake, and he had fearful visions of b.l.o.o.d.y hands and glimmering daggers gleaming over him from behind his curtains, till in terror he started up, gasping like one that had struggled with a stronger than himself.

When he had in some degree composed his thoughts, he went to the window and opened it, to see by the stars how far the night had pa.s.sed. The window overlooked the North Loch and the swelling bank beyond, and the distant frith and the hills of Fife. The skies were calm and clear, and the air was tempered with a bright frost. The stars in their courses were reflected in the still waters of the North Loch, as if there had been an opening through the earth showing the other concave of the spangled firmament. But the dark outline of the swelling bank on the northern side was like the awful corpse of some mighty thing prepared for interment.

As my grandfather stood in contemplation at the window, he heard the occasional churme of discourse from pa.s.sengers still abroad, and now and then the braggart flourish of a trumpet resounded from the royal masquing at the palace,--breaking upon the holiness of the night with the harsh dissonance of a discord in some solemn harmony.--And as he was meditating on many things, and grieving in spirit at the dark fate of poor Scotland, and the woes with which the children of salvation were environed, he was startled by the apparition of a great blaze in the air, which for a moment lighted up all the land with a wild and fiery light, and he beheld in the gla.s.s of the North Loch, reflected from behind the shadow of the city, a tremendous eruption of burning beams and rafters burst into the sky, while a horrible crash, as if the chariots of destruction were themselves breaking down, shook the town like an earthquake.

He was for an instant astounded; but soon roused by the clangour of an alarm from the castle; and while a cry rose from all the city, as if the last trumpet itself was sounding, he rushed into the street, where the inhabitants, as they had flown from their beds, were running in consternation like the sheeted dead startled from their graves. Drums beat to arms;--the bells rang;--some cried the wild cry of fire, and there was wailing and weeping, and many stood dumb with horror, and could give no answer to the universal question.--"G.o.d of the heavens, what is this?" Presently a voice was heard crying, "The King, the King!"

and all, as if moved by one spirit, replied, "The King, the King!" Then for a moment there was a silence stiller than the midnight hour, and drum, nor bell, nor voice was heard, but a rus.h.i.+ng of the mult.i.tude towards St Mary's Port, which leads to the Kirk o' Field.

Among others, my grandfather hastened to the spot by Todrick's Wynd; and as he was running down towards the postern gate, he came with great violence against a man who was struggling up through the torrent of the people, without cap or cloak, and seemingly maddened with terrors. Urged by some strong instinct, my grandfather grasped him by the throat; for, by the glimpse of the lights that were then placing at every window, he saw it was Winterton. But a swirl of the crowd tore them asunder, and he had only time to cry, "It's ane of Bothwell's men."

The people caught the Earl's name; but instead of seizing the fugitive, they repeated, "Bothwell, Bothwell, he's the traitor!" and pressed more eagerly on to the ruins of the house, which were still burning. The walls were rent, and in many places thrown down; the west gable was blown clean away, and the very ground, on the side where the King's chamber had been, was torn as with a hundred ploughshares. Certain trees that grew hard by were cleft and riven as with a thunderbolt, and stones were sticking in their timber like wedges and the shot of cannon.

It was thought, that in such a sudden blast of desolation, nothing in the house could have withstood the shock, but that all therein must have been s.h.i.+vered to atoms. When, however, the day began to dawn, it was seen that many things had escaped unblemished by the fire; and the King's body, with that of the servant who watched in his chamber, was found in a neighbouring garden, without having suffered any material change,--the which caused the greater marvelling; for it thereby appeared that they were the only sufferers in that dark treason, making the truth plain before the people, that the contrivance and firing thereof was concerted and brought to maturity by some in authority with the Queen,--and who that was the people answered by crying as the royal corpse was carried to the palace, "Bothwell, Lord Bothwell, he is the traitor!"

CHAPTER x.x.xII

All the next day, and for many days after, consternation reigned in the streets of the city, and horror sat shuddering in all her dwelling-places. Mult.i.tudes stood in amazement from morning to night around the palace; for the Earl of Bothwell was within, and still honoured with all the homages due to the greatest public trusts. Ever and anon a cry was heard, "Bothwell is the murderer!" and the mult.i.tude shouted, "Justice, justice!" But their cry was not heard.

Night after night the trembling citizens watched with candles at their cas.e.m.e.nts, dreading some yet greater alarm; and in the stillness of the midnight hour a voice was heard crying, "The Queen and Bothwell are the murderers!" and another voice replied, "Vengeance, vengeance!--Blood for blood!"

Every morning on the walls of the houses writings were seen, demanding the punishment of the regicides--and the Queen's name, and the name of Bothwell, and the names of many more, with the Archbishop of St Andrews at their head, were emblazoned on all sides as the names of the regicides. But Bothwell, with the resolute bravery of guilt in the confidence of power, heeded not the cry that thus mounted continually against him to Heaven, and the Queen feigned a widow's sorrow.

The whole realm was as when the ark of the covenant of the Lord was removed from Israel and captive in the hands of the Philistines. The injured sought not the redress of their wrongs; even the guilty were afraid of one another, and by the very cowardice of their distrust were prevented from banding at a time when they might have rioted at will.

What aggravated these portents of a kingdom falling asunder, was the mockery of law and justice which the court attempted. Those who were accused of the King's death ruled the royal councils, and were greatest in the Queen's favour. The Earl of Bothwell dictated the very proceedings by which he was himself to be brought to trial,--and when the day of trial arrived, he came with the pomp and retinue of a victorious conqueror--to be acquitted.

But acquitted, as the guilty ever needs must be whom no one dares to accuse, nor any witness hazards to appear against, his acquittal served but to prove his guilt, and the forms thereof the murderous partic.i.p.ation of the Queen. Thus, though he was a.s.soilzied in form of law, the libel against him was nevertheless found proven by the universal verdict of all men. Yet, in despite of the world, and even of the conviction recorded within their own bosoms, did the infatuated Mary and that dreadless traitor, in little more than three months from the era of their crime, rush into an adulterous marriage; but of the infamies concerning the same, and of the humiliated state to which poor Scotland sank in consequence, I must refer the courteous reader to the histories and chronicles of the time--while I return to the narrative of my grandfather.

When the Earl of Bothwell, as I have been told by those who heard him speak of these deplorable blots on the Scottish name, had been created Duke of Orkney, the people daily expected the marriage. But instead of the ordinary ceremonials used at the marriages of former kings and princes, the Queen and all about her, as if they had been smitten from on high with some manifest and strange phrenzy, resolved, as it were in derision and blasphemy, notwithstanding her own and the notour popery of the Duke, to celebrate their union according to the strictest forms of the protestants; and John Knox being at the time in the West Country, his colleague, Master Craig, was ordered by the Queen in council to publish the bans three several Sabbaths in St Giles' kirk.

On the morning of the first appointed day my grandfather went thither; a vast concourse of the people were a.s.sembled, and the worthy minister, when he rose in the pulpit with the paper in his hand, trembled and was pale, and for some time unable to speak; at last he read the names and purpose of marriage aloud, and he paused when he had done so, and an awful solemnity froze the very spirits of the congregation. He then laid down the paper on the pulpit, and lifting his hands and raising his eyes, cried with a vehement sadness of voice,--"Lord G.o.d of the pure heavens, and all ye of the earth that hear me, I protest, as a minister of the gospel, my abhorrence and detestation of this hideous and adulterous sin; and I call all the n.o.bility and all of the Queen's council to remonstrate with her Majesty against a step that must cover her with infamy for ever and ruin past all remede." Three days did he thus publish the bans, and thrice in that manner did he boldly proclaim his protestation; for which he was called before the privy council, where the guilty Bothwell was sitting; and being charged with having exceeded the bounds of his commission, he replied with an apostolic bravery,--

"My commission is from the word of G.o.d, good laws, and natural reason, to all which this proposed marriage is obnoxious. The Earl of Bothwell, there where he sits, knows that he is an adulterer,--the divorce that he has procured from his wife has been by collusion,--and he knows likewise that he has murdered the king and guiltily possessed himself of the Queen's person."

Yet, notwithstanding, Mr Craig was suffered to depart, even unmolested by the astonished and overawed Bothwell; but, as I have said, the marriage was still celebrated; and it was the last great crime of papistical device that the Lord suffered to see done within the bounds of Scotland. For the same night letters were sent to the Earl of Murray from divers of the n.o.bility, entreating him to return forthwith; and my grandfather, at the incitement of the Earl of Argyle, was secretly sent by his patron Glencairn to beg the friends of the state and the lawful prince, the son whom the Queen had born to her murdered husband, to meet without delay at Stirling.

Accordingly, with the flower of their va.s.sals and retainers, besides Argyle and Glencairn, came many of the n.o.bles; and having protested their detestation of the conduct of the Queen, they entered into a Solemn League and Covenant, wherein they rehea.r.s.ed, as causes for their confederating against the misrule with which the kingdom was so humbled, that the Scottish people were abhorred and vilipendit amongst all Christian nations; declaring that they would never desist till they had revenged the foul murder of the King, rescued the Queen from her thraldom to the Earl of Bothwell, and dissolved her ignominious marriage.

The Queen and her regicide, for he could not be called her husband, were panic-struck when they heard of this avenging paction. She issued a bold proclamation, calling on her insulted subjects to take arms in her defence, and she published manifestoes, all lies. She fled with Bothwell from Edinburgh to the castle of Borthwick; but scarcely were they within the gates when the sough of the rising storm obliged him to leave her, and the same night, in the disguise of man's apparel, the Queen of all Scotland was seen flying, friendless and bewildered, to her sentenced paramour.

The covenanting n.o.bles in the meantime were mustering their clans and their va.s.sals; and the Earls of Morton and Athol having brought the instrument of the League to Edinburgh, the magistrates and town-council signed the same, and, taking the oaths, issued instanter orders for the burghers to prepare themselves with arms and banners, and to man the city walls. The whole kingdom rung with the sound of warlike preparations, and the ancient valour of the Scottish heart was blithened with the hope of erasing the stains that a wicked government had brought upon the honour of the land.

Meanwhile the regicide and the Queen drew together what forces his power could command and her promises allure, and they advanced from Dunbar to Carberry Hill, where they encamped. The army of the Covenanters at the same time left Edinburgh to meet them. Mary appeared at the head of her troops; but they felt themselves engaged in a bad cause, and refused to fight. She exhorted them with all the pith of her eloquence;--she wept, she implored, she threatened, and she reproached them with cowardice, but still they stood sullen.

To retreat in the face of an enemy who had already surrounded the hill on which she stood was impracticable. In this extremity she called with a voice of despair for Kirkcaldy of Grange, a brave man, whom she saw at the head of the cavalry by whom she was surrounded, and he having halted his horse and procured leave from his leaders, advanced toward her. Bothwell, with a few followers, during the interval, quitted the field; and, as soon as Kirkcaldy came up, she surrendered herself to him, and was conducted by him to the headquarters of the Covenanters, by whom she was received with all the wonted testimonials of respect, and was a.s.sured, if she forsook Bothwell and governed her kingdom with honest councils, they would honour and obey her as their sovereign. But the common soldiers overwhelmed her with reproaches, and on the march back to Edinburgh poured upon her the most opprobrious names.

"Never was such a sight seen," my grandfather often said, "as the return of that abject Princess to her capital. On the banner of the League was depicted the corpse of the murdered king, her husband, lying under a tree, with the young prince, his son, kneeling before it, and the motto was, 'Judge and revenge my cause, O Lord.' The standard-bearer rode with it immediately before the horse on which she sat weeping and wild, and covered with dust, and as often as she raised her distracted eye the apparition of the murder in the flag fluttered in her face. In vain she supplicated pity--yells and howls were all the answers she received, and volleys of execrations came from the populace, with Burn her, burn her, b.l.o.o.d.y murderess! Let her not live!"

In that condition she was conducted to the provost's house, into which she was a.s.sisted to alight, more dead than alive, and next morning she was conveyed a prisoner to Lochleven Castle, where she was soon after compelled to resign the crown to her son, and the regency to the Earl of Murray, by whose great wisdom the Reformation was established in truth and holiness throughout the kingdom--though for a season it was again menaced when Mary effected her escape, and dared the cause of the Lord to battle at Langside. But of that great day of victory it becomes not me to speak, for it hath received the blazon of many an abler pen; it is enough to mention, that my grandfather was there, and after the battle that he returned with the army to Glasgow, and was present at the thanksgiving. The same night he paid his last respects to the Earl of Murray, who permitted him to take away, as a trophy and memorial, the gloves which his Lords.h.i.+p had worn that day in the field; and they have ever since been sacredly preserved at Quharist, where they may be still seen. They are of York buff; the palm of the one for the right hand is still blue with the mark of the sword's hilt, and the fore-finger stool is stained with the ink of a letter which the Earl wrote on the field to Argyle, who had joined the Queen's faction; the which letter, it has been thought, caused the swithering of that n.o.bleman in the hour of the onset, by which Providence gave the Regent the victory--a conquest which established the Gospel in his native land for ever.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

After the battle of Langside, many of the n.o.bles and great personages of the realm grew jealous of the good Regent Murray, and, by their own demeanour, caused him to put on towards them a reserve and coldness of deportment, which they construed as their feelings and fancies led them, much to his disadvantage; for he was too proud to court the good-will that he thought was his due. But to all people of a lower degree, like those in my grandfather's station, he was ever the same punctual and gracious superior, making, by the urbanity of his manner, small courtesies recollected and spoken of as great favours, in so much that, being well-beloved of the whole commonality, his memory, long after his fatal death, was held in great estimation among them, and his fame as the sweet odour of many blessings.

Few things, my grandfather often said, gave him a sorer pang than the base murder by the Hamiltons of that most eminent worthy; and in all the labours and business of his long life, nothing came ever more pleasant to his thoughts than the remembrance of the part he had himself in the retribution with which their many b.l.o.o.d.y acts were in the end overtaken and punished. Indeed, as far as concerns their guiltiest instigator and kinsman, the adulterous Antichrist of St Andrews, never was a just vengeance and judgment more visibly manifested, as I shall now, with all expedient brevity, rehea.r.s.e, it being the last exploit in which my grandfather bore arms for the commonweal.

Bailie Kilspinnie of Crail having dealings with certain Glasgow merchants, who sold plaiding to the Highlanders of Lennox and Cowal, finding them dour in payment, owing, as they said, to their customers lengthening their credit of their own accord, on account of the times, the west having been from the battle of Langside unwontedly tranquil, he, in the spring of 1571, came in quest of his monies, and my grandfather having notice thereof, took on behind him on horseback, to see her father, Agnes Kilspinnie, who had lived in his house from the time of his marriage to her aunt, Elspa Ruet. And it happened that Captain Crawford of Jordanhill, who was then meditating his famous exploit against the castle of Dumbarton, met my grandfather by chance in the Trongait, and knowing some little of him, and of the great regard in which he was held by many n.o.blemen, for one of his birth, spoke to him cordially, and asked him to be of his party, a.s.signing, among other things, as a motive, that the great adversary of the Reformation, the Archbishop of St Andrews, had, on account of the doom and outlawry p.r.o.nounced upon him, for being accessory both to the murder of King Henry, the Queen's protestant husband, and of the good Regent Murray, taken refuge in that redoubtable fortress.

Some concern for the state of his wife and young family weighed with my grandfather while he was in communion with Jordanhill; but after parting from him, and going back to the Saracen's inn in the Gallowgait, where Bailie Kilspinnie and his daughter were, he had an inward urging of the spirit, moving him to be of the enterprise, on a persuasion, as I have heard him tell himself, that without he was there something would arise to balk the undertaking. So he was in consequence troubled in thought, and held himself aloof from the familiar talk of his friends all the remainder of the day, wis.h.i.+ng that he might be able to overcome the thirst which Captain Crawford had bred within him to join his company.

Bailie Kilspinnie seeing him in this perplexity of soul, spoke to him as a friend, and searched to know what had taken possession of him, and my grandfather, partly moved by his entreaty and partly by the thought of the great palpable Antichrist of Scotland, who had done the bailie's fireside such damage and detriment, being in a manner exposed to their taking, told him what had been propounded by Jordanhill.

"Say you so," cried the bailie, remembering the offence done to his family, "say you so; and that he is in a girn that wants but a manly hand to grip him. Body and soul o' me, if the thing's within the power of the arm of flesh he shall be taken and brought to the wuddy, if the Lord permits justice to be done within the realm of Scotland."

The which bold and valorous breathing of the honest magistrate of Crail kindled the smoking yearnings of my grandfather into a bright and blazing flame, and he replied,--

"Then, sir, if you be so minded, I cannot perforce abide behind, but will go forth with you to the battle, and swither not with the sword till we have effected some notable achievement."

They accordingly went forthwith to Captain Crawford and proffered to him their service; and he was gladdened that my grandfather had come to so warlike a purpose; but he looked sharply at the bailie, and twice smiled to my grandfather, as if in doubt of his soldiers.h.i.+p, saying, "But, Gilhaize, since you recommend him, he must be a good man and true."

So the same night they set out at dusk, with a chosen troop and band of not more than two hundred men. A boat, provided with ladders, dropped down the river with the tide, to be before them.

By midnight the expedition reached the bottom of Dumbuckhill, where, having ascertained that the boat was arrived, Jordanhill directed those aboard to keep her close in with the sh.o.r.e, and move with their march.

The evening when they left Glasgow was bright and calm, and the moon, in her first quarter, shed her beautiful glory on mountain and tower and tree, leading them as with the light of a heavenly torch; and when they reached the skirts of the river, it was soon manifest that their enterprise was favoured from on high. The moon was by that time set, and a thick mist came rolling from the Clyde and the Leven, and made the night air dim as well as dark, veiling their movements from all mortal eyes.

Jordanhill's guide led them to a part of the rock which was seldom guarded, and showed them where to place their ladders. He had been in the service of the Lord Fleming, the governor, but on account of contumelious usage had quitted it, and had been the contriver of the scheme.

Scarcely was the first ladder placed when the impatience of the men brought it to the ground; but there was a noise in the ebbing waters of the Clyde that drowned the accident of their fall, and prevented it from alarming the soldiers on the watch. This failure disconcerted Jordanhill for a moment; but the guide fastened the ladder to the roots of an ash tree which grew in a cleft of the rock, and to the first shelf of the precipice they all ascended in safety.

The first ladder was then drawn up and placed against the upper story, as it might be called, of the rock, reaching to the gap where they could enter into the fortress, while another ladder was tied in its place below. Jordanhill then ascended, leading the way, followed by his men, the bailie of Crail being before my grandfather.

They were now at a fearful height from the ground; but the mist was thick, and no one saw the dizzy eminence to which he had attained. It happened, however, that just as Jordanhill reached the summit, and while my grandfather and the bailie were about half-way up the ladder, the mist below rolled away, and the stars above shone out, and the bailie, casting his eyes downward, was so amazed and terrified at the eagle flight he had taken, that he began to quake and tremble, and could not mount a step farther.