After the battle of Langside, many of the nobles 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 bloody 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, rehearse, 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 noblemen, for one of his birth, spoke to him
cordially, and asked him to be of his party, assigning, 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
pronounced 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, wishing 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 soldiership, 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 shore, 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.
At that juncture delay was death to success. It was impossible to pass
him. To tumble him off the ladder and let him be dashed to pieces, as
some of the men both above and below roughly bade my grandfather do, was
cruel. All were at a stand.
Governed, however, by a singular inspiration, my grandfather took off
his own sword-belt and also the bailie's, and fastened him with them to
the ladder by the oxters and legs, and then turning round the ladder,
leaving him so fastened pendent in the air on the lower side, the
assailants ascended over his belly, and courageously mounted to their
perilous duty.
Jordanhill shouted as they mustered on the summit. The officers and
soldiers of the garrison rushed out naked, but sword in hand. The
assailants seized the cannon. Lord Fleming, the governor, leaped the
wall into the boat that had brought the scaling ladders and was rowed
away. The garrison, thus deserted, surrendered, and the guilty prelate
was among the prisoners.
As soon as order was in some degree restored, my grandfather went with
two other soldiers to where the bailie had been left suspended, and
having relieved him from his horror, which the breaking daylight
increased by showing him the fearful height at which he hung, he brought
him to Jordanhill, who, laughing at his disaster, ordered him to be one
of the guard appointed to conduct the Archbishop to Stirling.
In that service the worthy magistrate proved more courageous, and
upbraided the prisoner several times on the road for the ill he had done
to him. But that traitorous high priest heard his taunts in silence, for
he was a valiant and proud man; such, indeed, was his gallant bearing in
the march that the soldiers were won by it to do him homage as a true
knight: and had he been a warrior as he was but a priest, it was thought
by many that, though both papist and traitor, they might have been
worked upon to set him free. To Stirling, however, he was carried; and
on the fourth day from the time he was taken he was executed on the
gallows, where, notwithstanding his guilty life, he suffered with the
bravery of a gentleman dying in a righteous cause, in so much that the
papists honoured his courage as if it had been the virtue of a holy
martyr; and Bailie Kilspinnie all his days never ceased to wonder how so
wicked a man could die so well.