"Gowrie, Gowrie, Gowrie!" cried the voice of Sir John Hume from the
antechamber, almost as if he had been calling to a dog; and the next
moment the gay knight entered with his face all radiant. "Where are
the once sharp ears of the noble earl?" he continued, "ears that would
have heard the hunter's, halloo, from Stirling to Linlithgow. Why, I
called to you out of my high window in the High Street as you rode by,
till the echo at the Blackford hills shouted out Gowrie; and you
spurred on as if you had stopped your ears with wax, like Don Ulysses
when in danger of the fair ladies on the shore. Would to Heaven all
our mariners would do the same when they first land."
"I did not hear you, Hume," answered Gowrie, in a grave tone. "In
truth, my friend, my heart is very sad, and my outward faculties have
little communication with the spirit within. But what makes you look
so joyful?"
"One of the strange revolutions of the court of King Solomon,"
answered Hume; "whether his majesty has found out some sovereign
remedy for dispelling the black humours, or for warming and comforting
the spleen; or whether his favourite brack has cast him a litter of
peculiarly fine pups; or whether Queen Elizabeth has declared him heir
to the throne of England, or the Queen of Sheba has sent word to say
she will be here to-morrow, or--But never mind, something or another
has turned the gall and verjuice into honey and sweetness, and
especially towards your dearly beloved family. He ran after Beatrice
to-day to the queen's very knees, vowing he would fasten her shoe,
while I was forced to stand by looking demure; and he actually gave
Alex a hawk--it is not worth a bodle, by the way, but still the gift
was something, considering who it comes from."
"I wrote to him from Perth," said Gowrie, "beseeching him to give me
an answer to the suit, which I told you I had preferred, and he has
never replied my letter."
"Done on purpose to fret you," answered Hume; "he said so before the
whole court this very day, and called you a love-lorn gallant."
"I care not what he calls me," replied the earl, "so that he do but
consent freely."
"He does consent," replied his friend, "and all your troubles on that
score, Gowrie, are at an end. So smoothe your wrinkled brow, my noble
lord, and give cold care to the wind."
"Are you quite sure?" demanded the earl, hardly believing the joyful
tidings.
"Surer than of my own existence; for that I know nothing about,"
answered Hume, "had it not been for that overt act, I should have
doubted his majesty's sincerity, for his sunshine is not always
summer. But deeds speak for themselves. I will tell you how it all
happened.--Three days ago he was in an awful mood, and pulled more
points off his hose than he had money in his coffers to put on again;
but just then came in the news of Stuart of Greenallan's death without
heirs, and all his moveables are seised to the crown, besides a large
sum in ready money, which he left by will to the king--knowing he
would take it if he did not. Well, this windfall mollified him
mightily, and he has been improving ever since. But this morning he
has had a dispute with three ministers touching church government, and
Heaven knows what besides, and he quoted all sorts of books that
nobody ever heard of before--long screeds of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew,
till I believe, upon my life, the poor bodies were quite, as they
said, _dumfounded_, and fairly gave in. I would wager my best horse
against a tinker's donkey, they did not understand a word, and the
king himself not half of what he poured forth upon them; but they
owned in the end that his majesty was right and they were wrong, for
they could not confute his arguments or reply to his authorities. One
old fellow, indeed, made some fight for it, and answered in Greek and
Hebrew too; but the king had two texts for every one of his, and so he
too was beat in the end. From that moment he has been all frolic; and
this afternoon he held up your letter before dear Beatrice's eyes, and
asked if she knew who that came from. So she answered, gaily, 'From
one of your majesty's sweethearts, I suppose.' 'Faith, no such thing,'
said James, 'but I'll try and make him a sweetheart before I've done,
and that by giving him his sweetheart too. It's from your own brother,
John, saucy lassie--a most disconsolate epistle, because I forgot to
tell him he should have the bonny bird he's so brodened upon. But he
shall have her notwithstanding; and I trust she'll plague him till she
makes him more complutherable.' Then Beatrice burst into a peal of
laughter, so clear, so merry, so joyful, that it set the whole court
off, king and queen and all, till James, wiping his eyes, told her to
'haud her guffaw,' or she should not be married herself for a month
after you; and then she laughed more gaily than before, but petitioned
that she might be permitted to write to you, and tell you of his royal
grace. That, the king would not hear of, saying, 'No, I forbid any one
to write him a scrape of a pen. Then shall we have him coming with a
face as long as a whinger, and his heart full of disloyal repinings,
to know if we are minded to condescend to his request.' But the dear
girl answered, with her own good sense, 'More chance of his heart
being full of sorrow lest he have offended your majesty.' However, the
king would not consent that any one should write to you, saying he
wished to see what you would do, and exacted a promise that neither
Beatrice nor Alex would say a word. Me, he did not so bind; but yet it
were better not to let him know that you have been informed."
"I am a bad dissembler, John," replied the earl, "and I fear that the
joy in my heart will shine out on my face, do what I will. However, I
will do my best to look sad; but is not this a strange person for a
king--a strange scene for a court?"
"You would have thought it stranger still, had you but seen the
whole," answered Hume. "All the time he was speaking, he held the hawk
I have told you of on his hand, and kept stroking it down the back, at
which it screamed, and then his gracious majesty called it sometimes
greedy gled, and sometimes courtier, till Herries, who thinks he can
venture anything, asked why he called it courtier."
"What did he answer?" inquired Gowrie.
"Why, he put on what he would call a pawky look," replied the other,
"and said, 'Because it is like the horseleech's daughter, doctor. It
aye lifts up its neb, and scrawks for more.'"
Both Gowrie and Hume laughed gaily at this sally, the one in hearing
and the other in telling; for the young earl's heart was lightened,
and such creatures of circumstance are we, that, with a mind relieved,
a reply seemed to him full of humour, which a minute or two before he
would have thought nought but a coarse and vulgar jest.
"How did Herries bear the rebuke?" asked Gowrie; "for to him it must
have been a severe one."
"Oh, with his own bitter humour," answered the knight. "He said, 'Ay,
sir, it is sad how we are led by example. Every one, man and beast,
follows his master.' To which the king replied, good naturedly enough,
'Haud yer peace, ye doited auld carle! If you followed your master
I'se warrant you'd no pluck but be plucked--you'd be the doo and no
the gled.' However, I think that Herries is not so great a favourite
as he once was; and I am not sorry for it, for he was ever an enemy to
both your house and mine, Gowrie, and is one of those cold-blooded,
ever-ready men, who never miss an opportunity to do ill to another by
a quiet insinuation pointed by a jest."
"I know him not at all," answered Gowrie. "Alexander and Beatrice love
him not; but one need never fear an open enemy. It is the covert
attack, the blow struck behind one's back, the quiet lie spoken,
forsooth, in confidence, that one fears; for they are like the
poisoned weapon of the Italian bravo, which slays, though the wound be
but a scratch."
"For the present I do not think you need fear him in any way," replied
Sir John Hume; "but go early to-morrow, Gowrie, and take advantage of
the tide of favour at the flow."
The conversation then took a more general turn. The various characters
of the personages of the court of King James were discussed by the
earl and his friend, and the prospects of the country generally were
spoken of in a lighter and a gayer spirit than the earl could have
shared in an hour before. Some little word--one of those accidental
expressions which often set the mind galloping in a different
direction from that which it was previously pursuing--led the earl's
thoughts suddenly to his brother; and he said, "By the way, Hume,
Beatrice seems to think that Alex is even in less favour than myself
with his majesty, and I could not induce her to explain the matter
fully. She referred me to you, saying you would be able to inform me
what was the cause of James's dislike."
"The simplest in the world," answered Hume. "The king dislikes him,
because he thinks the queen likes him--too much. The truth is, James
is jealous; and, like all suspicious people, hates the object of his
suspicion, endures his presence at the court simply for the purpose of
entrapping him, and watches for every opportunity to find a motive to
take revenge."
"But is there any cause for this suspicion?" asked Gowrie, very
gravely. "Can Alex have been mad enough, wicked enough, to have
afforded any just grounds for such jealousy?"
"On my life I believe not," replied Hume. "The queen makes no secret
of her liking for handsome young men; and Alex is certainly as fine a
looking lad as ever mounted a horse or drew a sword. She contends
strongly, too, for that liberty of action which we northern people do
not conceive a privilege of fair ladies. She will go where she likes,
do what she likes, and see whom she likes, without being responsible
to any tribunal but that of conscience. This is her doctrine; and, by
Heaven, she practises what she preaches. The king may make himself as
absolute as he will out of his own house, but he will not be despotic
there very easily. Then again, her majesty likes the gallant part of
the old chivalry, and thinks that love and devotion are every lady's
due from every courtly gentleman. There must be a touch of romantic
passion in it, too, to please her; and she goes into these little
amourettes in the most light-hearted way possible, without a thought
of evil, I do believe. It is all too open--too bold, to be criminal.
But the king, on the contrary, takes a very different view of these
matters. While he claims to himself the right of the utmost
familiarity of manner and lightness of speech with man, woman, and
child, he would have all ladies as prim and demure as nuns, and as
obedient as a spaniel dog. In point of policy, Alex committed a great
error in attaching himself to the queen instead of to the king, for,
it is sad to say, one cannot be a favourite with both."
"I would rather he were a _favourite_ with neither," said Gowrie. "He
might serve both, love both, merit the friendship of both; but to be
the minion of either king or queen is not for one of my race."
"Well, well," answered his friend, "he is still a very young man, but
right at heart, I am sure; and I trust he will see that these
gallantries with the queen, however innocent, are, at the least,
improper."
"I must make him see it," said Gowrie, and turned the conversation,
which ended soon after by Hume leaving him to his own thoughts.
The following morning broke cold and cheerless; but at as early an
hour as was consistent with propriety, Gowrie presented himself at the
palace, and was readily admitted to an audience. The king was in the
act of pushing out of the room, with his own hands, in a jocular but
somewhat rude manner, no less a personage than Sir Hugh Herries,
saying, "There, get along with you. You are a saucy body, and were we
not the best natured monarch that ever lived, we should not bear with
your gibes.--Ah, my Lord of Gowrie! Now you've come for an answer to
your letter, I ween?"
"If it may please your majesty to give me one," answered Gowrie, with
as grave a face as he could put on, while the king retired into his
cabinet again, and took his seat.
"You see, my lord," said James, with a very serious air, "this is a
matter of much importance, and which requires full consideration and
deliberation on our part. Now I'll warrant that you're for wanting to
cut the matter short, and to be married to the lady directly;" and he
looked up slily in the earl's face.
"My own inclination would of course lead as your majesty supposes,"
replied Gowrie; "and I think, in many points of view, it would be the
best plan; but the lady herself desires that our union should be
delayed till the month of September next, if it please your majesty to
consent for that time."
"She's a very discreet young lady," said the king. "Feggs! most lasses
would be all agog to be a married woman, and Countess of Gowrie. Well,
my lord, we'll consider of it."
Gowrie now felt alarmed and mortified. Whether the king had changed
his mind since the preceding night, or whether he was merely sporting
with his feelings for his own amusement, the young lover felt a degree
of impatience which he was afraid would break forth in some angry
words if he stayed longer; and therefore, with a silent bow, but a
heated cheek and disappointed air, he retired towards the door.
James let him reach it and lay his hand upon the lock, but then
stopped him, exclaiming, "Hoot, man, come hither--don't go away in the
dorts, like a petted bairn. Come hither to your king, who is willing
to act as a good and kind father to you and to all his leal subjects,
if they will let him."
Gowrie returned with a brighter look. "There, now," continued James,
who in many instances was acute enough; "you are laughing now; and
I'll warrant that your titty, or the lad Alex, has been telling you of
the grace and favour we intend to show you."
"I can assure your majesty," answered Gowrie, "that I have neither
seen nor heard from my brother or sister during the last four or five
days; but I can perceive, by your majesty's countenance, that you
intend to deal graciously with me in this matter."
"I'm thinking you're a false chiel," said James, laughing; "and you
think that a fine fleeching speech, about my countenance, as you call
it; but I'll tell you what, earl, if I thought my face would tell what
I'm thinking of when I didn't want it, I'd claw the skin off it with
my own ten fingers; for let me inform you, sir, it's a principal point
of kingcraft to be able to speak with a sober and demure countenance,
whatever the matter in hand may be, whether merry and jocose, or sad
and serious. Men should never be able to tell, by the looks of a
sovereign, whether he be thinking of a burial or a marriage, a birth
or a death."
"But wise kings, sire," answered Gowrie, "are ever apt to double the
value of the favours they confer by gracious looks and words."
"That's well said," said the king, with an inclination of his head.
"That's spoken like a prudent and well-nurtured lad; and we do intend
graciously towards you, and will give you proof thereof. We will
consent to your marriage with this lady in the month of September
next, as you suppose; and, moreover, we will give you that consent in
writing, for there are certain conditions which, as you know well, you
yourself agreed to, and which we have embodied here in this paper, as
a sort of proviso, qualifying our consent."
Gowrie was a little startled by this announcement; but the king soon
relieved him from all anxiety, by showing him the paper, which was to
the effect that he, the king, authorized and consented to the marriage
of John Earl of Gowrie and the Lady Julia Douglas, a ward of the
crown, upon the condition that the Lady Julia Douglas should
previously execute, in due form, a renunciation of all claims, founded
upon any grounds whatsoever, to the lands of Whiteburn, and to all
other estates, money, goods, or chattels whatsoever, once in
possession of the last Earl of Morton. Otherwise the authorization was
to have no effect. The sense was enveloped in an immense mass of legal
verbiage, which would have been totally unintelligible to any one
unacquainted with the language of the Scottish courts; but Gowrie had
made a point of bestowing some study upon the laws of his native land,
and the meaning was quite clear to him.
"To these conditions I agree at once, sire," he said; "and am willing
to give your majesty an undertaking, under any penalty you please,
that the renunciation specified shall be made."
James caught readily at this idea; and being fond of showing his skill
in such matters, he at once drew up, with his own hand, the form of
undertaking which was proposed, and to which Gowrie willingly put his
hand, on receiving the written consent of the king to his marriage.
"And now, my lord, away to Trochrie," cried the king, as Gowrie kissed
his hand, "and bring your bonny birdy out of her nest.--Ay, you may
stare, and look stupified, but if you think you can hoodwink your king
like a gyr falcon on its perch, you'll find yourself mistaken, like
many another man has been.--Well, well, say nothing about it. We
forgive you, man; and if you don't think us the most gracious monarch
that ever lived, you're an ungrateful lad."
"Indeed, sire, I do think your majesty most gracious," replied Gowrie,
a good deal moved; "and I will do my best to prove my gratitude; but
before I go to Trochrie, I had better have this renunciation drawn up
in due form by some people of the law, that I may at once obtain the
Lady Julia's signature, and lay it at your majesty's feet."
To this plan James cordially acceded; and Gowrie, taking his leave,
was retiring to share his joy with his sister Beatrice, and to
endeavour to persuade his brother to withdraw from the court, where
his presence was a source of jealousy and dissension, when there was a
gentle tap at the door, and an usher put in his head, saying, "Here is
the Italian merchant, may it please your majesty."
"Bring him in--bring him in," cried James. "Stay a little, my good
lord; this is a man from the country you know so well, bringing wares
to show us, and we will have your judgment upon his bonny toys."
Gowrie would fain have escaped, but there was no resource; and the
Italian merchant, as he was called, though in fact he might have
ranked better as a pedlar, was brought into the king's presence. The
young earl instantly recognised a man from whom he himself had
occasionally purchased wares in Padua, which was at that time famous
for its manufactories of silk; and the merchant himself, after
saluting the king, made him a low bow.
"Ah, you two have met before, I suppose," said the king. "But come,
open your chest, man, and let us see what you've brought."
The goods were soon produced, consisting principally of ribbons and
laces, which might have better suited the examination of a lady than
of a king; and James selected several articles for purchase with not
the very best taste in the world. He asked Gowrie's opinion upon them
before he concluded his bargain; and the earl, though not a very
excellent courtier, was sufficiently learned in that craft not to
speak disparagingly of the king's taste. At length an exceedingly
beautiful ribbon was produced, wrought with figures of blue and gold,
so thick and massive, that it seemed better fitted for a sword-belt
than anything else; but James fixed eagerly upon it, declaring he
would present it to the queen. He soon after suffered the earl to
depart, keeping the Italian merchant with him; and as soon as the door
was closed, he said, in a familiar tone, "You knew that lad in Italy,
I suppose, my man?"
The Italian replied in the affirmative; and James, whose curiosity was
inexhaustible, proceeded to question him upon all he knew regarding
Gowrie's history. The good man had no idea whatsoever of doing harm;
but we all know how one tale leads on another, especially under the
hands of one skilful in extracting anecdotes; and although almost all
the Italian had to say was favourable to the earl, though he told how
he had been elected unanimously Lord Rector, at a very early period,
and how his conduct had given such satisfaction, that the university
had placed his portrait in the great hall, yet he went on to add that
he believed the earl had conceived some disgust in the end from the
treatment of one to whom he was much attached.
James proceeded to question him eagerly on this hint, and soon drew
forth the Italian's version of the history of poor Manucci. Truth and
fiction were mingled in the usual proportion of a tale so told; but
magic and witchcraft were favourite topics with the king; and from the
gossiping style in which it first began, his conversation gradually
deviated into disquisition, and afterwards almost took the form of a
judicial examination, as he questioned and cross-questioned the poor
merchant in regard to Manucci's skill in diabolical arts, and Gowrie's
connexion with him. The good man, anxious to curry favour with the
monarch, and restrained by no very great scruples of conscience, would
probably have said anything that the king liked, and certainly, in the
matter of suggestion, James did not fail to supply him with
indications of his own opinions.
The belief in such arts as sorcery and witchcraft seems in our eyes at
the present day so ludicrous, that we can hardly bring our minds to
believe that in former times the great mass of all classes, high and
low, were fully persuaded that power could be obtained by mortals over
certain classes of evil spirits. But such was undoubtedly the case at
the time I speak of; and the effect was often most disastrous. In the
present instance, James took care not to inform the Italian of the
conclusions to which he came in regard to Gowrie; and it may be
sufficient in this case to state that when he dismissed the merchant,
he remained with an impression very unfavourable to the young earl,
which, combined with other causes, did not fail to produce bitter
fruit at an after period.