Rothsay, whose heart swelled with his genuine sentiments, long
concealed, "and especially from the lips of nobility! Yet, pleasant as
it is to contemplate goodness in mortals born of sin, it is difficult to
estimate the extent of the influence of generous sympathy when it is
found in the bosom of beauty. Do not pain me by saying I flatter thee.
At present I am not the gay son of King Robert; but by the wand of
enchantment changed for a season--would it were for ever!--into a sober
reasoner on the rights and claims of suffering humanity."
"Report hath not belied thee, good prince, though it hath me; for I have
ever heard that thy sentiments were generous--though, excuse my
boldness, they were not allowed to be called forth into action by the
scenes of common life. Believe a simple maiden, when she taketh the
liberty humbly to suggest, that royalty itself may be more ennobled by
one act of charity than by a glorious victory."
"Sweet maiden," cried the prince, seizing rapturously her hands, "thou
shalt be my counsellor. Thy sentiments shall be enforced by thy beauty,
and my heart and my exchequer be equally under the power of thy generous
feelings."
By such conversations, Rothsay gained an insight into the heart of his
mistress. He recurred frequently to the report of Ramorgny, and hinted
to the earl that he had found his daughter the very reverse of what she
had been represented to him. The earl paid particular attention to the
hint, and seemed inclined to insinuate that Ramorgny might have had some
cause to misrepresent Elizabeth. The duke, having proceeded so far, felt
his curiosity excited to get an explanation of the earl's remark; and,
upon further question, ascertained that, according to the earl's
opinion, which had been corroborated by his daughter, Ramorgny had been
inspired with a strong passion for Elizabeth, which showed itself in
various forms, and was the cause of his protracted stay at the castle.
This discovery changed, in a great measure, all the prince's feelings
towards his old friend. He had thus convicted him of deception,
practised with a view to his injury, and for the purpose of gratifying a
passion cherished for the intended wife of his friend and his prince.
Amidst all their departures from the rules of sober life, the prince had
never himself been guilty, or patronised in his friend, any breach of
truth and good faith; and this was the first occasion on which this
great cementing principle of mankind had been sacrificed to private
interest. Seriously, however, as he felt it, he resolved upon stating it
to Ramorgny in such a way as might not produce his enmity; for he had
seen enough of him, to be satisfied that he was more capable of forming
a worse enemy than he was of becoming a true friend.
While the prince had thus been engaged in the south, Ramorgny had been
in the north, enjoying his favourite pastime of hunting the red deer
among the hills surrounding the water of Islay. The friends arrived in
Edinburgh about the same time, ignorant of each other's
motions--Ramorgny still labouring under the effect of the passion with
which Elizabeth Douglas had inspired him, and for a partial relief from
whose engrossing influence he had gone to the hills; and the duke
smarting under the pain of a breach of confidence and friendship in one
on whom he had so long placed his affections, and bestowed many favours.
"The hills of Scotland," said Ramorgny, "are exquisite renovators of a
town-worn constitution. The roes of the Highlands supply the strength
which has been wasted on the town hinds. Thou hadst better have been
with me, exerting the powers of a master over the inhabitants of the
forest, than stooping to the counsel of that grave batch of seniors
appointed to advise with thee--that is, to dictate to thee--on the
affairs of the state. Believe me, prince, thou shouldst cashier these
greybeards. Thy own judgment, aided by mine, is quite sufficient to
enable thee to govern this small barbarous kingdom."
"Thy advice," replied the prince, smiling, with some indication of
satire, "if followed, by rejecting the counsel of my constituted
advisers, would be an advice to reject advice contrary to thy advice;
for my council recommend me to marry Elizabeth Douglas, and to reject
the March. Dost thou think that any of the greybeards--Albany is too
ambitious to marry again--have any private intentions on Bess of Dunbar.
If I thought that, I would reject the Douglas, and betake myself to the
March."
"And thou wouldst act sagely in so doing," replied Ramorgny, who did not
yet see the prince's satire. "If any one of these counsellors act from
such a motive--and I am not sure of Arran--he ought to lose his mistress
and his head at the same time."
"Sayest thou so, Ramorgny?" replied the prince. "Is it thy heart that so
speaketh, or thy judgment? Thou hast recommended me to the March, whom I
have seen and conversed with, and well know, and hast endeavoured to
terrify me from the Douglas, whom I have also seen, and can well
appreciate. Art thou quite sure thy advice is purer, sounder, truer, and
wiser, than that of my council?"
This question produced an evident effect upon Ramorgny. He endeavoured
to escape the prince's eye; but he found that no easy matter. Rothsay
kept looking at him intensely, and plainly showed that he was master of
the secret purpose for which he had endeavoured to precipitate him into
a connection that would have made him miserable for life. It was now,
however, too late for Ramorgny to retreat; and, boldly facing his
danger, he replied--
"Thy question carries with it more than meets the ear. If I depreciated
Elizabeth Douglas, and overrated Elizabeth Dunbar, a spirit of liberal
construction would give me credit for having been myself deceived."
"Stop!" said the prince, interrupting him. "I did not say that thou
didst depreciate the one and overrate the other. Why take guilt to
thyself?"
"By St Duthos," cried Ramorgny, who now saw he was caught, and resolved
upon another tack, "it is time now to be grave! Will that cursed spirit
of devilish frolic which I learned from thee cling to me, even after the
dreadful apparition of the first grey hair, which this morning appeared
to me in my glass? But thou art thyself to blame. A master of mirth
thyself--the prime minister of Momus, as well as of King Robert, and my
professor in the science of fun--wert thou unable to discover, in my
outrageous and elaborate description of the two damsels, the traces of
the pencil--for Momus could paint--of the laughing god? If thou wert
not, didst thou not deserve the harmless deception? Say, now, good
prince, condemn, if thou darest, thy scholar of a proficiency which thou
hast taught. Struck by thy own sword of lath, wilt thou amputate the
offending hand? Say, and if thou wilt, strike. A philosopher would
laugh--what shall the merry-making Rothsay do?"
The bold, dashing, laughing manner in which Ramorgny delivered this
speech, joined to a recollection of the high-flown and not serious
account he had given of the two damsels, drove out of the duke's mind
the suspicions roused by the communications of Earl Douglas, and with it
his anger. The boisterous good-humour of his friend carried him along
with him; and, answering the knight in his own way, he cried--
"Why, laugh too, perhaps, good Ramorgny. Thou hast certainly defeated me
in the first instance, but I have conquered thee in the second. I found
in the women what thou hast described them; only I was obliged to
substitute the name of Elizabeth Douglas for Bess of Dunbar. That
descendant of old Agnes is most certainly the devil, or at least his
viceregent. What dost thou think she recommended to me, to increase the
powers of my manhood? Why, milk and panado! The only woman, she thought,
I would be safe in the keeping of was my mother Arabella; the age, of
which she considered me a fair example, had retrograded from the days of
the sacking of Roxburgh by her father, into a state of mature infancy;
and as for our talents for war, she would scarcely allow us the mighty
power of infanticide. In short, thy description of Elizabeth Douglas
applied to her; and, when I say that thy description of her applied to
the other, why should I say that I was charmed with the fair Douglas?
Thou hast painted better than I can. She must be my wife; and I am glad
that my council, my mother, and myself, thus agree on a point which they
believe concerns the nation, but which I opine concerns only myself."
Ramorgny was at the moment well pleased to perceive that he had thus got
out of the scrape; but to have his snare twisted round his own limbs--to
have his description of his own lover adopted by a rival, in describing
her perfections, and thus to have, in a manner, precipitated his own
ruin--for he could not survive the marriage of Elizabeth Douglas with
another--touched him, as an accomplished intriguer, on the tenderest
parts of his nature. A second time deprived of the object of his
affections by his own disciple in the art of love, he determined that,
at least, there should never be a third opportunity for inflicting upon
him such degradation. His revenge deepened, but his smiles and apparent
good-humour quadrated with the increased necessity of concealing his
designs. These and their fatal issue are unfortunately but too well
known.
Untold to Rothsay, certain schemes had, in the meantime, been in
agitation between the Earl of March and a party at court, the object of
which was to get a match brought about between Rothsay and Elizabeth of
Dunbar. These, for a time, wrought so favourably, that March, who never
knew what had taken place between Rothsay and his daughter, entertained
the strongest hopes of success. He had offered an immense dowry, which
the great extent of his estates near the Borders enabled him to pay, as
the price of the connection with royalty; and it would seem that he had
received from head-quarters strong pledges that his wishes would be
gratified. Ramorgny secretly joined the March party; but all their
endeavours could not prevent the final triumph of the Douglas, who had
also offered a large sum with his daughter, and who was, besides, backed
by the queen, and by the secret wishes of Rothsay himself.
The nuptials of the prince with Elizabeth Douglas were celebrated with
great rejoicings at Edinburgh. They were graced by the presence of the
king and the queen, and all the principal nobility of the land. Among
the rest were to be seen two persons destined to supply afterwards the
materials of an extraordinary chapter in the history of Scotland; the
shadows of which, if presentiment had thrown them before, would have
wrapped the gay scene of the marriage in the gloomy mantle of the dismal
Atropos. The first of these was Rothsay's uncle Albany, who, ever since
he was displaced from his governorship by the faction who awarded to the
young prince the lieutenantcy of the kingdom, had prayed fervently for
the death of the royal stripling, that had, with precocious audacity,
dared to compete with disciplined age in the management of the affairs
of the kingdom. The other was Ramorgny, who appeared at the celebration
of the nuptials, dressed in the gayest style, and wearing on his lips
the fallacious smile of the treacherous courtier, while his heart was
filled with rage and jealousy, and his fancy teemed with schemes of
deadly revenge. The picture, to one who could have seen into futurity,
would have presented the extraordinary foreground of an apparent
universal joy, filling all hearts and making all glad; and, close
behind, the grinning furies of revenge writhing in their agonies of a
wild desire to break in upon the unconscious victims, and spread death
and desolation where pleasure was alone to be found.
Ramorgny, who knew the volatile nature of the prince, waited patiently
until the pleasures of the first moon were experienced and exhausted. He
cultivated more than formerly the good opinion of one who retained no
longer any suspicion of the treachery of his friend. Ramorgny knew the
prince's sentiments of his uncle--that there existed between the two
relatives an inimical feeling, amounting, on the side of the uncle, to a
hatred which, derived from thwarted political ambition, would not
hesitate at short and ready measures of removing the object to which it
was directed, and, on that of the nephew, to a youthful impatience of
the surveillance and restraint which his late governor had exercised
over him, and was still ready to employ, when his selfish purposes
required their application. That Rothsay, who, in reality, possessed a
noble and generous spirit, would stoop to any base purpose to get quit
of the authority and interference of his uncle, Ramorgny did not
suppose; but he hoped so far to implicate the thoughtless prince in a
scheme of his devising, as to make his act appear, by misconstruction,
of such a nature to Albany, as would give his revenge the specious
appearance of self-defence, and accelerate the fate of his victim.
In accordance with this scheme, Ramorgny continued, as he had done
formerly, to fill the prince's mind with details of his uncle's inimical
feelings towards him; which was of the more easy accomplishment, that
the prince was already aware of his uncle's disposition. The choleric
youth listened to these tales with impatience, and often allowed himself
to be hurried into extravagant expressions of indignation, which a
servant of Ramorgny's, a servile creature, ready to commit any crime for
money, was instructed, when occasion offered, to note and remember. For
a time, Ramorgny limited his details to such acts as occasionally
occurred, and which the unrestrainable hatred of Albany furnished in
such abundance, that he found no great necessity to have recourse to
invention, unless it were, indeed, to add the colouring, which was
generally of the most extravagant kind, and best suited to reach the
heart of the prince, and influence his anger and indignation.
Farther Ramorgny could not venture for a long time to go. The generous
youth sometimes got wearied with the recital of his uncle's indignities;
and, willing to leave him to his own heart, kept on in the tenor of his
own path; which, however, was none of the straightest--his aberrations
after his marriage being, as before, the result of every new fancy which
such men as Ramorgny, acting on an excited and irregular imagination,
chose, by their consummate arts, to introduce into his mind. This did
not suit Ramorgny. He required stronger materials to work with, and did
not hesitate to use them. It is easy to work for evil in a heart
originally corrupt; but to corrupt, and then to seduce, is a work of
time; and it is to the credit of human nature that virtue is often
strong enough to maintain its place against the attacks of the most
insidious schemers.
It was now Ramorgny's effort to rouse the suspicions of the prince as to
his personal safety from the designs of his uncle. He invented a story
of a conversation which had been overheard between Albany and a ruffian
often employed by him to execute his purposes of revenge. The import of
this conversation was, that Albany, having been superseded in his office
of governor, had resolved upon acquiring it again, and that he could not
succeed in that resolution so long as the prince was alive--that he
accordingly hinted to the ruffian that it would be pleasant to him if he
heard that the duke no longer lived--and that, for such information, a
reward would be given sufficient to stimulate the most scrupulous
executioner that ever aided an unhappy man across the Stygian stream.
All this was communicated to Rothsay by Ramorgny in a whisper, and with
an appearance, tone, and manner suited to the awful nature of the
intelligence. The duke believed the story, and, bursting forth into an
extravagant sally of indignation, cried--
"It is time that princes of the blood-royal should exert the power in
defence of themselves, which is intrusted to them for the defence of
others, when villains, in broad day, lay schemes for their lives. I can
plainly see, and have long seen, that this man and I cannot live in the
same age. Scotland is too narrow for us; and the viceroyal chair must be
polluted with blood! Yet shall age supplant youth? Is it meet that time
should go backwards, and that, by force and through blood, the order of
nature should be changed? It shall not be so! If one is to fall, nature
herself points out the victim--and that victim is Albany!"
These words, uttered in anger, and intended merely to indicate the
injustice of Albany's scheme, and the necessity of self-defence, in the
event of its being attempted to be carried into execution, were
carefully noted by Ramorgny's creature, who was in hearing. They were
plainly capable, however, of another construction by a person who did
not hear the rest of the conversation, and understand their application.
They might mean that Rothsay intended to get his uncle out of the way--a
construction which did not ill accord with the feelings which existed in
the prince's mind against the disturber of his peace, if these had been
formed in another bosom, but unjustified by the prince's noble
disposition, which would have despised any underhand scheme to rid
himself of his bitterest enemy. The words were, however, uttered, and
noted, and remembered; and they were not uttered in vain.
Ramorgny having thus procured evidence of the prince's designs against
the life of his uncle, repaired to Albany, and narrated to him the
statements made by the duke, and referred him, for corroboration, to his
servant. Albany wished nothing more ardently than this communication;
and, even without it, he would have been glad to have joined Ramorgny in
any scheme for the removal of his rival. Other enemies were brought into
action. Sir William Lindsay of Rossie, whose sister the duke had loved
and deserted; and Archibald Douglas, the brother of Elizabeth, piqued by
some private feeling, were willing to aid in the death of one who had
courted the relative of one of them to desert her, and married that of
the other to treat her with neglect. That the prince was unkind or
unfaithful to his wife, who bore a reputation of being so fair and
amiable, has been treated by some historians as a mere fable, resorted
to by the unnatural earl, her brother, as a palliative of conduct which
it was not suited to render in the slightest degree less revolting.
There is reason, however, to suppose that Lindsay had some cause for his
resentment in the desertion of his sister, who loved the duke, and never
recovered from the effects of his unfaithful conduct.
The first project of these conspirators was worthy of the talents of the
individuals who had determined to prostitute the best of the gifts of
God to destroy one of his creatures. It was resolved to work upon the
king in such a way as to procure from him some token of his
disapprobation of the conduct of his son. It is difficult now to
ascertain how this was effected, as there is no doubt that Rothsay still
held a strong claim on the affections of his father. The result,
however, shows that the means must have been of an extraordinary nature;
for King Robert was got to sign a writ for the confinement of the
prince. It is very probable that nothing more was intended by this than
to show the king's displeasure, which would gradually relax as the
slight punishment wrought the expected amendment. It has been doubted
whether such writ was ever truly signed by the king; and surely it is
not difficult to suppose that the men who, holding the gates of the
palace in their hands, could admit or deny whom they chose to the royal
presence, would not stop at forgery which they could conceal, if they
had made up their minds to murder, which has seldom or ever been
successfully concealed. But it matters not, in so far as regards the
fate of the prince, whether the writ was genuine or not. It was acted
upon, and the unfortunate son of a king was seized by his enemies,
Douglas and Ramorgny, lashed in his royal robes to the back of a sorry
horse, and hurried through Fife, to a prison adjoining to the palace of
Falkland.
The unhappy prince now saw that his death was determined; but he little
suspected what was to be its cruel nature. The work of his enemies was
done, but they had delegated what even their hard hearts could not
accomplish to ruffians, from whose bosoms every humane feeling had been
long eradicated. He was put under the charge of two men, brought, it is
supposed, from Aberdeen--a locality as far from the scene of the tragedy
they were to perform as possible--called John Wright and John Selkirk,
names that remained infamous in Scotland for many a day. The faces of
these men, filled with the expression of a determination to resist every
feeling of humanity, contrasted strangely with the countenance of the
royal youth, formed by nature, and moulded by his sympathies, to speak
eloquently the language of affection, and reflect the fair lineaments of
the most beautiful of the graces. It required only one glance of the
prince's inquiring eye, to see that, if his fate depended upon the
feelings of these men, he had no chance of salvation in this world.
The ruffians, having thrown the unfortunate youth into one of the low
dungeons of the prison, without speaking a word, were preparing to leave
him, when, urged by feelings of despair, he fell on his knees, and
besought them to tell him what commission they had got from his enemies
for the fulfilment of his fate.
"Tell me, good friends," he cried, "in what shape death is to come to
the son of a king, that he may prepare his mind to meet his end as
becometh a man. Grant me, at least, the privilege of dying by my own
hand, that the descendant of Bruce may escape the fate of malefactors,
or the mangled termination of the devoted victim of revenge. You are
not, you cannot be, so bad as the sternness of office makes you appear.
Shall the Prince of Scotland sue in vain to the subjects of his father
for the boon of a dagger? Merciful Heaven! am I refused this
request? Then is cruelty to be added to injustice; and perhaps
starvation--dreadful thought--awaits me, with its attendant agonies."
As the unfortunate prince uttered these words, he fell on the damp floor
of the dungeon. His appeal produced nothing but a hollow growl, more
like the sound of a mastiff's anger than the voice of a human being.
Turning abruptly from him, they left him extended on the ground, and in
an instant seemed to be entirely occupied about the manner in which they
should secure, with double certainty, the door of the dungeon. On
lifting his head, the victim heard nothing but the harsh expostulations
of the two men, as they differed about the expediency of riveting the
iron bars by which the door was fastened.
The wretched youth had truly anticipated his fate. Starvation was the
mode of death fixed upon by his cowardly murderers. What might have been
accomplished in an instant, was prolonged for many days. Cruelty was,
indeed, as he had said, added to injustice; and the merciful death of
the malefactor on the gallows was denied to the heartrending entreaties
of a prince. For fifteen days, according to a historian, he was suffered
to remain without food, under the charge of Wright and Selkirk, whose
task it was to watch the agony of their victim till it ended in death.
It is said that, for awhile, the wretched prisoner was preserved in a
remarkable manner, by the kindness of a poor woman, who, in passing
through the garden of Falkland, was attracted by his groans to the
grated window of his dungeon, which was level with the ground, and
became acquainted with his story. It was her custom to steal thither at
night, and bring him food, by dropping small cakes through the grating,
whilst milk, conducted through a pipe to his mouth, was the only way he
could be supplied with drink. But Wright and Selkirk, suspecting from
his appearance that he had some secret supply, watched, and detected the
charitable visitant, and the prince was abandoned to his fate.
Such was the death assigned to the son of a king, the most favoured by
nature, the most engaging, the most generous--what pity is it to add,
the most volatile and irregular--that ever was born to a kingdom, amidst
the acclamations of a loving people!
RETRIBUTION.