THE FIRST SCOTTISH REVOLUTION.
"Shall I resign the sceptre of my sires,
And give the haughty barons leave to reign?
No! perish all before that fatal hour
I will sustain the majesty of kings,
And be a monarch while I'm a man!"--_Runnamede_, Act 4.
It was the meridian of the 1st of June, 1488.
Partial gleams of sunlight fell or died away and flashed again
alternately on the ancient town and still more ancient tower of
Alloa, the stronghold of the Erskines, which crowns those strata of
rock that lie between the fertile carse and the higher grounds, and
break off abruptly above the harbour. The narrow and irregular
streets of this picturesque little burgh were clustered round the
strong donjon, the walls of which are eleven feet thick, and more
than ninety feet high, and had often in Scotland's braver times
repelled the chivalry of the first Plantagenets. A few crayers and
barks, with their brown pitched sides and browner sails, were lying
beside the rough stone quay that forms the pow or creek into which a
rivulet flows.
The old lime-trees and venerable avenues of hedge, closely clipped in
the French fashion, were in thick foliage around the old grey walls;
the tide was full, and the Forth ran slowly past, still, calm, and
waveless, as, with an imperceptible motion, the tall ships of Sir
Andrew Wood warped close towards the town.
The gleam of arms was seen in the quaint old streets; steel helmets
and cuirasses glittered on the quay, for armed men were watching the
approaching ships, and a blue banner with a pale sable was unfurled
on the tower, where Thomas, ninth Lord Erskine and second Earl of
Mar, a loyal and irreproachable noble, with a numerous band of
men-at-arms, drawn from his barony of Alloa, his forestry of
Clackmannan, his estates of Nisbet, Pit-arrow, and Newton, awaited
the landing of the king.
The nobles were everywhere rising in arms, and repairing to various
muster-places, some for the king, but many more to fight for Angus,
and against the court, in vindication of their imaginary rights and
assumed privileges; while the hearts of the people, like their
liberties, were oppressed and cast down.
It was a peculiarly close and sultry mouth, the June of 1488 and on
this day in particular the air was breathless, hot, and still.
Lowering thunderclouds, through the openings of which; the sunlight
shot in sickly flakes, obscured the summer sky. Omens of evil
preceded the coming civil war. In the fertile carse of Gowrie the
peasantry had observed numbers of field-mice lying dead about the
footpaths among the ripening corn--dead without any apparent cause.
A wonderful scorpion had been killed in the jousting haugh of
Linlithgow; and a terrible comet--men called it a fiery
dragon--passed over the Castle of Rothesay, from whence it was
visible between the Polestar and the Pleiads, and for three nights
this source of terror floated in the darkened sky. The stone unicorn
on the cross of Stirling uttered a cry at midnight; the shadowy
figures of armed knights were seen to encounter on the battleground
where Wallace defeated the army of Edward I., under the brow of the
Abbey Craig; the helmeted or hooded fish, called monachi marini,
which never appear in the Scottish seas but as the presage of some
terrible event, were seen to swarm in the firths and bays; and, to
his great dismay, Jamie Gair had thrice netted an entire shoal of
them. The minds of the people (naturally and constitutionally
superstitious) became filled with the most dire forebodings of the
great events that were at hand; and on the hearts of none did these
omens fall more heavily than those of the two sisters, Euphemia and
Sybilla Drummond, who were secluded in their father's solitary Castle
of Drummond, where no tidings reached them of their missing Margaret,
and where they could only hear vague and flying rumours of the great
events which then convulsed the kingdom.
Their father's words when he left Strathearn for the insurgent camp
had made them aware only of two things:--that he would fight to the
death against the false king who had carried off his favourite
daughter, and that _they_--on the rout of James's forces and the
destruction of his favourite courtiers--should become, one Countess
of Hailes, and the other Countess of Home, or he would never see
their faces more.
At this time, it was not exactly known by the king and his court
where the malcontent nobles held their tryst, or where the crown
prince of Scotland was. Some said they were in Stirling with Sir
James Shaw; others said, at Linlithgow; and many asserted they had
retired as far off as the Douglasses' Castle of Thrave, in the wild
and distant province of Galloway.
Many loyal and gallant gentlemen were now flocking to the royal
standard with all the armed men they could muster; and with his most
faithful adherents, James held a solemn conclave, or council of war,
in the hall of the Castle of Alloa. On this occasion he was
accompanied by the old admiral, by Sir Mathieson, Captains Barton and
Falconer, than whom there were none present more eager to meet the
insurgent lords in battle, that they might have an opportunity of
avenging on Home and Hailes their late atrocities at Dundee. There,
too, were Sir William Knollis, the preceptor of the Scottish knights
of Rhodez; the old Marshal de Concressault; and young Ramsay Lord of
Bothwell, with many gentlemen of his band--the Royal Guard--who wore
the king's livery--red doublets, faced and slashed with yellow.
These crowded around James, and on their glittering arms and excited
faces the sunlight fell ill deep broad flakes of hazy radiance,
through the grated windows of the old Gothic hall.
The sadness and dejection of James were apparent to all, as the noble
Earl of Mar, the captain of Dunbarton--a peer whose family stood
proudly pre-eminent in the annals of Scottish loyalty--conducted him
to a chair on a dais at the end of the hall, over which hung a
crimson cloth of state.
"On this unhappy day," said the Earl, "your majesty is more welcome
to my house of Alloa than if you came to me flushed with the triumph
of a hundred battles."
"I thank you kindly, my Lord of Mar," said he; "you are one of the
few who know that through life I have struggled against an untoward
and unhappy fate--or, as it would seem, an irrevocable destiny, which
I can neither conquer nor avoid. Gladly would I change my father's
crown for a shepherd's bonnet, and this lofty place for the sphere of
those happy peasants who, in their narrow world, seem to pass through
life without meeting an obstacle, simply because they are without
ambition, and have few enemies. I never knew that the poor could be
so happy till within these last few days which I spent among the
brave hearts of good Sir Andrew's frigate."
"Hard work maketh a light heart at times," said the admiral, as his
eyes glistened; "and I can assure your majesty, that never shipmate
of mine would turn landsman again, to be bearded by every painted
baron, and bullied by every cock-laird and cow-baillie whom he met at
kirk or market."
"Are there no tidings yet of Rothesay?" asked James.
"None on which we can rely," replied the Earl of Mar.
"Or of Angus?"
"A body of horsemen, supposed to be his, marched eastward through the
Torwood two days ago," replied the Duke of Montrose; "but whether
bound for Edinburgh, or home to Galloway, no man can say; but the
loyal nobles are gathering fast, and seven are now in waiting to pay
their duty to your majesty."
"Seven--only seven, of all the peers of Scotland!"
"But seven is a fortunate number," said Father Zuill; "and even may
prevail, when thirty might fail."
"Admit them at once, Earl of Mar," said James, "for this is not a
time when a king of Scotland can trifle with his friends."
Marshalled by ushers, preceded by pages, and followed by esquires
bearing their swords and helmets, there now entered seven nobles, all
of whom the king knew well, and now they were the more welcome that
they came completely armed. Among them were--Alexander, Earl of
Glencairn, a Lord of the Privy Council, who had fought for James
against the nobles in the Raid of Blackness; the aged Earl of
Menteith, who in his youth had been a hostage for James I.; the Lords
Graham, Ruthven, Semple, Forbess, and Gray, the High Sheriff of
Forfar--a cousin of Sir Patrick, the infamous Governor of Broughty.
Though all unlettered and ignorant of scholarcraft as the most humble
peasant of their time, all these lords had a high and noble
bearing--for the age was one when pride of birth and long descent,
with high military renown, were valued more than life; and, moreover,
they were all hardy, strong, and athletic--browned by exercise,
hunting, and hosting, and inured to war by the incessant feuds of the
clans; thus, they wore their globular cuirasses, large elbow plates,
and immense angular tuilles, or thigh-pieces, as easily as if they
were garments of the softest silk. James rose up to welcome them,
and each in succession knelt to kiss his hand.
"Welcome, my lords," said he; "what tidings bring you of our friends
and foes?"
"I have brought your majesty three thousand good infantry from
Cunninghame and Kyle," said Glencairn; "the same brave men who won me
a coronet on the field of Blackness."
"A thousand thanks, brave Cunninghame! And thou, Ruthven?"
"A thousand and three brave fellows on horseback, all armed with
morion, jack, and spear."
"And I, fifteen hundred archers and claymores," said the Lord
Forbess, a weather-beaten and long-bearded noble, who wore the
ancient Celtic lurich, with a plaid of his green clan-tartan,
fastened by a silver brooch, upon his left shoulder; "I would they
were as many thousands, to conquer or die in this good cause!"
All had a good report to make of their vassalage, and the king's
spirit rose on finding, by computation, that these faithful peers had
marched to Alloa somewhere about thirty thousand horse and foot, with
many Highland archers; but these forces had very few cannon, and the
only arquebussiers on whom they could rely were those of Sir Andrew
Wood's ships.
"Montrose," said he, "mount messengers and despatch letters to those
lairds who are captains of the Border castles; desire them to keep
tryst at Melrose, and come in with all their lances and archers
without an hour's delay."
Montrose, whose principal scribes were the poor poets who hovered
about the court--such as William Dunbar and others--soon had the
messages written and given to gentlemen of trust, who concealed them
in the scabbards of their swords and poniards; and after being landed
on the Carse of Stirling by the boats of the _Yellow Frigate_, they
departed on the spur towards the south.
While James was taking counsel of the loyalists on what course he
should pursue, the venerable Duke of Montrose-Crawford entered again,
with an expression of gloom and dejection so strongly marked on his
face, that all the nobles turned towards him inquiringly.
"What now, my good Montrose," said the agitated king--"you have bad
tidings--but what other can come to me? Have blows been struck, or
has my poor son been slain? Speak, duke, for this suspense is
torture."
"I have tidings, indeed, of double evil," said the aged peer, slowly,
as if considering in what terms to impart them. "The Earls of
Huntly, Errol, and Marischal, and the Lord Glammis, at the head of
more than ten thousand men, have crossed the Forth at Stirling--"
"To join me--well?"
"Nay, to join the Earl of Angus, it is supposed; for they marched
right under the cannon of the castle, and took their route through
the Torwood."
"For where?" asked James, growing pale.
"None know. The prince--"
"Was with them," said James, bitterly.
"Nay, God forbid! He is said to be with Sir James Shaw, in the
Castle of Stirling."
"'Tis well; we shall join him there, and together march against these
rebel peers," said James, with flashing eyes. "Errol shall tyne his
constable's staff, and perhaps his head with it. Is it agreed, my
lords, that we march for Stirling and leave the ships of Sir Andrew
Wood to guard the passage of the Forth?"
A murmur of assent replied.
"Let us to horse, then," said the king; "I would the queen were here,
instead of praying at St. Duthac's shrine, in Ross. But to horse,
sirs; and now what ails thee, kind Montrose?" asked James, placing a
hand on the old man's shoulder, on perceiving that amid the general
bustle which ensued, the donning of helmets and buckling of swords,
this most faithful and aged noble stood irresolute, with sorrow
impressed in his eyes and upon his face.
"Allace, your majesty," said he, "there are tidings of serious evil;
the queen----"
"Is ill--my dear and loving Margaret; she left me sick and ailing
sorely," said James, clasping his hands; "she is ill, while I am
loitering here to play for a glittering bauble; she is ill, and
where?"
"Allace the day! she is dead and in her coffin!" said Montrose, as he
covered his kind old face with his hands and burst into tears.....
The unfortunate monarch was so crushed by these evil tidings, that
his heart seemed almost broken, and his spirit sank lower than ever.
His guiding-star was gone now, for she on whose advice he had ever
relied as his most faithful friend and counsellor, during a stormy
and unhappy life, was dead.
Margaret of Oldenburg, daughter of Christian I. of Denmark, Sweden,
and Norway, had been a woman of great beauty and amiability, tact and
discernment, and their marriage had been a happy one, though at first
purely political, having been brought about by Andrew, Lord Evandale,
High Chancellor of Scotland. James had loved well his beautiful
Dane, and they had three children, Rothesay, Alexander, Duke of Ross,
and the little Prince John, styled, for a time, Earl of Mar. For
eighteen years she had been his chief comfort amid every affliction,
and the partner and soother of his sorrows; for the gentle Margaret
had been all to him that a wise and politic queen, a dear and
affectionate wife could be.
Mistrusting even the few nobles who had joined him (the faithful
Montrose excepted), James lingered in deep sorrow another day at the
old tower of Alloa, and then resolved to join the prince, his son, in
the Castle of Stirling, there to assure him by the most solemn vows a
heart-broken man might make, that he was innocent of Margaret
Drummond's abduction, and would use every means to discover her.
After that, he resolved to shut himself up in the fortress until the
Highland clans--ever loyal and ever true--came down from the northern
hills to his succour; for now rumour said that Grant of Grant, and
Sir James Ogilvie of Lintrathen (afterwards the ambassador to
Denmark), Hugh, Lord Lovat, with many of the Forbesses, Gordons,
Keiths, and Meldrums had risen in arms, and were marching south to
defend and enforce the royal authority on the rebellious Lowland
lords.
By this time sure tidings were brought to Alloa, that the Earl of
Angus, the Lords Drummond, Hailes, and Home, Sir William Stirling of
the Kier, Sir Patrick Gray, and many others, had set up the standard
of REVOLT at the town of Falkirk, in the fertile Carse of Stirling,
where all the discontented lords and landholders of the three
Lothians, Galloway, and the Borders, had joined them, with all the
armed men they could collect; and together they formed a league,
which for strength and daring had no parallel in the previous history
of the kingdom, save the raid of the Douglasses in the reign of James
II.
Sir James Shaw of Sauchie, Gray of Kyneff, and their minion, the
infamous Borthwick, were among the most active in creating this
unwarrantable rebellion.
The ancient burgh of Falkirk, which is so beautifully situated among
the lands of the now fertile carse, was _then_ surrounded by a dense
forest of oaks and beeches, and near it lay a great morass, through
which the Carron--that stream so famed in Celtic song and Roman
war--flowed past the old Castle of Callendar, whose lords were for
centuries comptrollers to the king. This town was then little more
than a village, and consisted merely of a High-street and the Kirk
Wynd, which led to the church of St. Modan, the pointed spire of
which rose above the antique tenements of the Knights of Rhodez,
whose preceptor possessed most of the property within the rising
burgh. It was surrounded by a fortified wall having ports, one of
which is yet remaining in the Back Row. Being loftily situated, and
commanding an extensive view in every direction, it was admirably
adapted for the muster-place of the rebel lords, whose whole desire
was now to lure the unfortunate king to try their strength in battle.
The town was filled by their troops; the cavalry occupied the
High-street and Churchyard, while the chiefs had their quarters in
the Castle of Callendar, the family seat of James, Lord Livingstone,
where they held council by day, and wassail by night, drinking the
comptroller's wine, and broaching his Lammas ale, "to the confusion
of the king and of his parasitical favourites."
Here they were visited by the venerable and valiant Sieur de
Concressault, who came alone, or at least attended only by three
horsemen--one who bore his banner, a second who carried his helmet,
and a third who sounded a trumpet; and, penetrating into the flushed,
proud, and riotous company, who were drinking and roistering in the
hall of Callendar, where they
"Carved at the meal with gloves to steel,
And drank their red wine through the helmet barred,"
the marshal boldly announced to them what he had been desired to say
by a mandate recently received from his master, the King of France.
But before he spoke, this good soldier was shocked to perceive the
young Duke of Rothesay (whom all the loyalists believed to be in
Stirling) among these dark and fierce conspirators; for the false and
subtle Shaw and others retained the heir of the crown among them, to
give a colour and pretext to all their illegal actions--or at least,
that on his young head some of the blame of revolt, and shame of
defeat, should fall. He seemed pale and sad, and crushed in spirit;
for he now felt convinced--thanks to the reiterations of Borthwick,
Shaw, and Gray--that his father had destroyed both Margaret and her
child; and as he was one of those who think it "better to have loved
and lost, than never to have loved at all," his bitterness was great
indeed.
"Marshal de Concressault," said he, "how did the king, my father,
receive the tidings that I had left Dundee with these noble peers,
and that they were in arms?"
"He wept."
"'Twas well," said Lord Drummond, sternly; "kings weep but seldom,
and their tears are precious."
"Ay," added the grim and bearded Steward of Menteith; "and there be
some in Scotland who shall yet greet tears of blude before this wark
is owre! But what seek ye here, Laird of Pitmilty--speak! for our
swords are longer than our patience?"
"My lords," said the ambassador, "the Kings of France and England
declare that they consider it to be the common cause of all monarchs
to protect the Sovereign of Scotland against you; for subjects must
not be permitted to give laws unto a king, who, even although he were
a tyrant, cannot be amenable to the authority of the people; for we
have yet to learn that it is from them, rather than from God, he
receives his throne and power."
All laughed loudly at this, for the "right divine" was never valued
much in the Lowlands of Scotland; but Angus, who presided, struck his
mailed hand like thunder on the table, and sternly imposed silence.
"Your king is not a tyrant, my lords," continued the aged marshal,
warming as he spoke; "nay, we all know that no lady in the land was
ever more good or gentle. And his errors, if he hath any, are the
result of youth and evil counsellors----"
At this remark, a storm of angry mutterings pervaded the cuirassed
and helmeted assembly.
"But suppose these men have done you wrong, my lords, is it wise, or
is it noble, in a wild desire for vengeance, to endanger the safety
of the most ancient kingdom in Europe, and the honour of its throne?
These princes desire me to say, firmly and boldly, that no state can
be so pure that corruption cannot creep into it; that you, my lords
and gentles, should be cautious how ye shake the framework of the
Scottish monarchy, and shatter its government, for they are ready to
resent it; and, moreover, John, King of Denmark, Ferdinand of Spain,
Maximilian of the Romans, the Dukes of Austria, Muscovy, Burgundy,
and Brittany are ready to join France and England in punishing this
revolt; and his Holiness Innocent VIII., by the voice of his legate,
armed with full pontifical powers, will, ere long, pour the terrors
of his indignation on all who are in rebellion against the Scottish
crown."
Many a brow was knit, and many a sward half-drawn at this bold
speech; but Angus waved his mailed hand, and again the multitude were
still.
"Go back, De Concressault--go back to those false carles who sent you
here," said he; "or, further still, to all those barbarous dukes and
foreign kings, and tell them that the sacred rights of an old
hereditary nobility shall not be shared with, or trampled on, by
clodpoles and merchant-skippers, by hewers of wood and drawers of
water, by men accustomed less to the sword than to the plough and
hammer, the handloom and the tiller. Begone, I say, my Lord of
Concressault; for if within another hour you are found within a mile
of Callendar Yew, by the bones of St. Bryde, and by the soul of the
_Dark Grey Man_, from whom my blood is drawn, I will hang you on its
highest branch, as the taghairm of victory to our cause!"
"Be it so," replied the Sieur de Monipennie, as he drew himself up
with an air of scorn and military pride, and closed the umbriere of
his helmet, as he donned it in defiance of them all. "On a coming
day, I hope to requite this foul insult, and teach thee, Lord of
Angus, that a Scottish gentleman--a Marshal of France--is as good as
any peer that ever came of the Douglas Blood, and better, it may be."
Turning from the hall, he left Callendar with all speed, and crossed
the Carse in the direction of the Forth, to rejoin the king at Alloa.
"How happy all these titled villains will be now," said the marshal
to his esquire, who was no other than David Falconer.
"Nay, they may be _glad_, but scarcely _happy_," he replied. "There
are our ships. Barton sees us, and sends off a boat."
"Say nought about our having seen that madcap prince among the
rebels," said the old soldier; "for his father the king hath over
many sorrows already to thole."
The moment the ambassador left Callendar, Sir James Shaw summoned
Borthwick, who had been duly infeft in his three tenements in the
burgh of Stirling.
"Mount," said he; "mount and ride, with forty chosen men, to
Linlithgow, and thence to Edinburgh; display our banners at the burgh
crosses--rouse the Gutterbloods of the Good Town, and the Whelps of
the Black Bitch; say that the Falkirk Bairns and the vassals of Carse
and Callendar have joined us to a man. Rouse one, rouse all against
the parasites of James! those base-born courtiers who oppress the
people--shout fire and sword, horse and armour! It is easy to gather
the rascal mob, and raise an outcry. Here are a hundred lyons and
rose-nobles----"
"English?"
"Ay, English rose-nobles," replied the subtle Laird of Sauchie, with
one of his snaky smiles; "scatter them among the rabble; say they are
from the good and charitable nobles--ha, ha! from Angus and from
Drummond! Bait and draw on the _canaille_; threaten them with war
and pestilence; foretel the ruin of the burghs and the invasion of
their privileges. Select villains--thou knowest many--harangue and
arm them; say blood must flow. To arms by tout of horn and tuck of
drum--against the court--and the muster-place is Callendar Wood.
Say, to arms with Angus! who, like Warwick the Englishman, will
become a maker of kings and a breaker of crowns in more ways than
one. Tell the people and the poor that they must no longer be the
stock-fish and foot-balls of the rich and noble; tell the rich and
great that the base multitude have risen for plunder and the
assumption of absurd privileges. Here, take my sword, it is a good
Banffshire blade, and away to Edinburgh; see Napier, the provost, and
say all I have said; for the papal legate is coming, and if once he
sets his red legs on Scottish ground, the burghs are lost to the
nobles for ever!"
While Sauchie repaired to his governorship in the Castle of Stirling,
the firebrand Borthwick departed on his rebellious mission; for the
revolted peers dreaded that, on the arrival of the Legate Adriano di
Castello, who was hastening from Rome, the burgesses, and all who
feared the censures of the Church, might join King James before a
decisive battle was fought or a Revolution achieved.
The artful minion was very successful in his mission, and soon after,
the flower of the Lothian spearmen--the finest infantry in
Scotland--joined the rebel lords at Falkirk.