CAMBUSKENNETH.
"Oh, wide is the sorrow in landwart and borough,
And dark is the symbol on proud Falkland's wall!
For James the true-hearted, our prince hath departed,
The king of broad Scotland lies dead in his hall!"
_Ballads and Lays_.
Preparations for the young king's coronation were suspended until
after the interment of his father, whose body had been conveyed to
Cambuskenneth Abbey; and also until after the general pacification of
the kingdom. All the realm south of the Tay acknowledged him as
king; the Castles of Edinburgh and Stirling were surrendered to him;
and now he began the task of rewarding his father's friends, and
punishing his own pretended adherents, by appointing Sir John Lundie
of that Ilk, governor of Stirling, and the Laird of Balgillo, captain
of Broughty. On this Sir Patrick Gray, and Sir James Shaw, and
others of their party, retired to their own houses, and brooding on
revenge, entered into a closer correspondence with the agents of
Henry VII.
Thus did James punish Shaw for shutting his father out of his own
castle.
Dissension for a time seemed to be suspended around the coffin of the
murdered king, whose remains were borne with all the pomp of
regality, and all the solemnity of the Romish faith, from the Abbey
to the great Church of St. Mary of Cambuskenneth; and there those
grasping lords and loyal chiefs, who had so lately crossed their
swords in mortal strife at Sauchieburn, met side by side, in secret
prayer and sorrow--or making an outward show of both: the tall and
dark-browed Angus; the good and pious Montrose; the brave hero of
Rhodez, the Preceptor Knollis, in the robes of his order; the veteran
Lord of Concressault; the ambitious Drummond; the turbulent chiefs of
the Homes and Hepburns; the half-savage Steward of Menteith; the
rough Forester of Drum; and all the great officers of the state and
household, gorgeously apparelled and carefully _armed_.
The heralds and pursuivants, the guards and beads-men, with the
prelates of the then powerful but withal crumbling hierarchy; the
Archbishop of St. Andrew's, primate of the kingdom, with the _ten_
other bishops, (the Right Reverend Lord of Dunblane was still a
prisoner in England), with their mitres, crosiers, and crossbearers,
attended by many a relique, censer, banner, and taper, were also
there.
These prelates really sorrowed for the king, unless where family
influence and rank curbed or warped their natural feelings; but the
majority of the temporal lords, while wearing armour, a strong
evidence of their mutual distrust of each other, contrived to veil
all emotions under a calm exterior; and with their heads bent low,
and bearing lighted tapers in their gauntletted hands, they followed
through that long and lofty aisle the purple-velvet coffin in which
their slaughtered monarch lay, with the crown of "Fergus, father of a
hundred kings," the sword and sceptre above him; and there, to the
sound of trumpet, bell, and organ, amid the half-hushed murmur of a
thousand tongues that prayed, they lowered him into his narrow home,
beside his wife, the queen, Margaret of Oldenburg.
As the vault closed over him, faint and distant came the boom of the
minute-guns, as they rang from the dusky towers of Stirling, where
the royal standard hung, half hoisted, in the sunny air.
Sir Andrew Wood, Barton, Falconer, and their barge's crew, stood by
the closing grave, and there was not an eye unmoistened among them
when Rothesay dropped the velvet cord that lowered down his father's
head; but the Admiral could not repress his inclination to compliment
Lord Drummond and other nobles "on the great _fortitude_ they
displayed on this sorrowful occasion," a jibe which made them knit
their brows.
But now none may say where James III. of Scotland and the Isles, or
his queen, Margaret of Oldenburg, are lying; for the noble Abbey of
St. Mary has been swept from its foundations; one remnant alone
survives--a lofty tower; and though the peasants still pretend to
remember the royal grave, and point it out to visitors, not a stone
remains to mark the tomb of the murdered monarch, for the place is
now a bare greensward.
The sorrow and remorse of the young prince, his successor, were long
and deep; and it was by the advice of the good abbot, Henry of
Cambuskenneth, he resolved to atone for the part he had taken against
his father by wearing next his skin a belt of iron, to which every
year he should add a weight, while he shortened it by a link.
While this remarkable belt was preparing,--while Gray and Shaw were
plotting with England,--while Borthwick lurked in Berwick, and
rewards were offered in vain for the murderers of the king,--while
Sir Andrew Wood busied himself in preparing a fleet to meet one which
Henry VII. was said to be secretly preparing against Scotland, while
openly he avowed his intentions of pressing by diplomacy the long
projected marriage of the Duke of Rothesay, now James IV., with his
daughter, Margaret Tudor, of dubious reputation,--while the Bishop of
Dunblane was still detained in England, in defiance of international
law,--while all these events were passing, or in progress, measures
were taken by Lord Drummond to have his daughter Margaret--now
restored to her family--acknowledged as queen-consort by the king,
who spent much of his time in the charm of her society at Dundee and
Dunblane. But fresh delays occurred, for the late king's loyal
adherents had risen in arms, inspired by that wild inborn love of
justice so natural to the Celt--for every Scottish Lowlander has,
more or less, Celtic blood in his veins.
Beaton, the miller of Bannock, now related the barbarous manner in
which James III. had been butchered. Lord Forbess, in armour, rode
through the clans on the northern slopes of the Grampians, displaying
upon his lance a bloody shirt, said to have been taken off the king's
body; the venerable Earl of Lennox joined him at the head of five
thousand Highlanders; but the Lords Drummond, Home, and Hailes,
marched against them with all their vassals. Favoured by information
received from a deserter named Alexander Mac Alpine, Lord Drummond
surprised these loyal insurrectionists in their camp at the Moss of
Sassentilly, near Stirling, and routed them, after a brisk
engagement, with great loss of life.
Pushing on from thence, he took the Castle of Dunbarton, which the
Earl of Lennox and the Lord Lyle endeavoured in vain to defend.
For these services Drummond received a grant of Lennox's forfeited
lands in the lordship of Menteith; Home was appointed Lord Warden of
the Eastern Marches and High Chamberlain of Scotland. In the same
month, Hailes obtained the Earldom of Bothwell, with all the
forfeited estates of John Ramsay, the loyal Laird of Balmain, who had
fallen at Sauchieburn when charging at the head of the royal guard;
he was moreover made Lord Warden of the Western Marches, High Admiral
of Scotland, and master of the young king's household; so old Lord
Drummond returned to court in excellent humour with himself, and
highly delighted to find that a shower of favours had descended upon
his two intended sons-in-law.
James IV. had painful doubts regarding the fight at Sassentilly; for
the men who were defeated there had been his father's dearest
friends, and the banner they fought under was no feudal flag or royal
standard, but the gory garment borne on the lance of the Lord Forbess.
He asked his father-in-law if there was anything he could bestow upon
him.
"I seek naught," said he; "I am a lord of that ilk, and the Drummonds
have no need of titles; terror and antiquity had caused their name to
be venerated enough in the land."
This was but a species of the pride that aped humility; but it was so
peculiar that the young king laughed. Without much pressing, the old
lord accepted the office of Justice-general of Scotland--and a deal
office it proved to most of his enemies; but "the contumacy of those
gipsies," his daughters, proved a source of continual annoyance to
him.
As corruption and bribery were (and not unfrequently are still) the
highway to public offices in Scotland, it is wonderful that we do not
find Shaw or Gray installed as lord advocate; but that official was
merely a lawyer then, without any pretence of being a statesman, and
so the post was not held in great repute.
The reader may marvel whether Master--we beg pardon--Sir Hew
Borthwick was troubled by his conscience; but it must be borne in
mind, that those facile Scots, who from time to time (since the days
of Sir John Menteith down to a very recent period) have sold
themselves to English ministers, never had a conscience to trouble.
Besides, a few acts of slaughter, more or less, in a lifetime, were
of little consequence in those days; thus any twinges experienced by
our Scottish cosmopolite were principally those of fear.
One fact is _certain_; there is no record of Stirling, Shaw, or Gray
ever having been punished for abetting him in the barbarous
assassination of the king; and though even _he_ escaped all judicial
penalties, his ultimate fate was not a happy one, as shall be seen in
the sequel to the events we have narrated.
As time progresses and the world turns round, even the most serious
events are fated to be faintly remembered or soon forgotten: thus,
the grave of the unhappy James III. was barely closed, when his young
successor in the assembled parliament was forced to give his royal
sanction to an act which was brought forward and carried by an
overwhelming majority of the powerful lords and their adherents, the
commissioners of shires and burghs--an act which declared that the
slaughter of the late king and of his followers was the just reward
of their own crimes and deceit; and that James IV. "and the _trew_
Lordis and Barronis that were with him in the same field were
innocent, free and quyte of the slauchters;" and that copies of this
deed, with their seals attached thereto, should be sent to the
Vatican, to the courts of "France, Hispanzie, Denmark, and other
realmes as shall be expedient for the tyme."
The old Mareschal de Concressault, who, as a Scottish baron, had a
seat in the house, now demanded from the prior of St. Andrew's his
passport, with a safe escort back to France; and in addressing the
three estates upon the late events, he adverted severely on the
spirit of treason, conspiracy, and rebellion, which seemed to be
spreading over Europe, every kingdom and state of which had been
convulsed, as well as Scotland.
"To wit, my lords," he continued, "France under Louis XI., Flanders
and Holland under Charles the Warlike, Gueldres under Duke Arnold,
who is now imprisoned by his own son, and England under Henry VI. and
Edward IV. But rest assured, my lords, that in each and all of these
countries, a just Heaven will punish those who have advanced, with
swords drawn and banners displayed, against the Lord's anointed!"
"Laird of Pitmilly, this is but pyots talk," was the insolent reply
of Angus; "for we remember, my lords, that Louis of France, Charles
of Burgundy, John II. of Portugal, and Richard III. of England, have
all endeavoured to play the tyrant in their own countries, as well as
King James in Scotland; and if they have not been duly punished for
it in this world, they will assuredly smart for it in the next!"
And then, as the veteran Concressault left the assembly for ever, the
grim Scottish nobles only smiled as they played with their long
swords, and remembered that they had forced James III., when seated
on the same throne now occupied by his sad-eyed son, to _stitch_ the
patent of James Douglas, Lord of Dalkeith and Earl of Morton, the
parchment of which he had torn in a fit of just indignation at the
"inordinate royalties and privileges it contained."
Though no declaration of war had been made--for Henry had yet hopes
of achieving an alliance by marriage--political relations between
Scotland and England were somewhat dubious. Thus, to prevent any
hostile interference with the French ambassador, Sir Andrew Wood,
with the _Yellow Frigate_ and a ship named the _Flower_, was ordered
by the Lord High Admiral Hailes, now Earl of Bothwell, to convey the
Sieur de Monipennie to Brest; and thus he prepared for sea with all
speed.