The Monadh-liath mountains are an elongated group of lofty and rugged
heights, running in a line parallel to Gleann Mor na h-Albainn, in the
centre of the southern division of Inverness-shire.
They rest on a dreary heathy moor, are comparatively flowing in their
outlines, unbroken in their declivities, and free from very rugged and
jagged precipices. They embosom extensive glens, the feeding places
for shaggy cattle; there are great slopes on which flocks of sheep
pasture, and they contain dreary solitudes where only the grouse and
the ptarmigan, the roe and the red deer, are to be found.
Far, far and high upon those mountains, on the side of one of its vast
slopes, in a hollow more green than brown, a little burnie commences
its existence in a spongy bit of brown ground, covered over with plants
bearing white flowers—the Cannach of similar scenes. At first, says
one of the best of word painters of his day, you can see nothing of a
rill—it is only a slyke. But a little way onward the slyke begins to
assume the form and movements of a rill, and you may see it stealing
along under the covering grass, in a thread so slender that the fairies
might step over it at night and never know it was there.
It is indeed a wild solitude, and few signs of living things are to be
seen therein, save perhaps a hoody crow or two that come here now and
then to have a little quiet conversation with their neighbours on the
subject-matter of braxy, dead lambs, and such-like windfalls. A very
infant is the burnie as yet, and very much more like a sleeping than a
waking infant; you might lay your ear down to it without hearing sounds
greater than the murmurings through the roots of the grass, like the
breathings of a baby in the cradle, and, like the baby, also giving an
occasional flashing glance at the sun-ray which steals down to see how
it is getting on.
By-and-bye, however, it begins to grow, and first crows in audible
murmurs, then becomes more noisy and more active, and leaps over the
little pebbles that lie in its way, as if it had acquired a taste for
fun, and was determined to indulge it.
As it increases in strength, it increases its antics, but all this time
it is enjoying itself its ’leefie lane,’ like many other baby born
and brought up in the wee cot house of its shepherd parents, under
the shadow of some great mountain, or on the banks of some lonely
lake—far, far away from human ken. There is not a soul at hand to
witness its pranks; the very rushes that grow by the little stream get
leave to grow as long as they will, nor are they tortured and plaited
into rashen whips, and caps, and buckies—there is not a bairn within
ten miles to pull them.
Our burnie flows on in solitude till it has formed its little stream
path and has reached the base of a knoll on which was once a herd’s
house—a green and sheltered spot. People lived in it for years, and
were well acquainted with our burnie at this stage of its course; but
they have long since left the place, some of them and their descendants
crossed the ocean, and have made a home for themselves in other lands,
and the seniors lie in the green graveyard far down the valley.
Regardless of these changes, the burnie goes on in many windings and
turnings among the hills, quite happy in its companionless journey,
hopping and jumping as it goes, and occasionally breaking out into
a little song, though there is not a single bird to reply by an
answering carrol—for we are yet far above the regions of birds and
bushes—shining bright in the sunshine; there is not a single speck to
dim its purity—the very pebbles are purely clean along its margin.
How well happiness and purity go together. Such is the infancy of our
burnie.
But infancy is but a passing stage with burnies as well as bairns, and
our burnie must leave these Alpine solitudes and come into society,
although at the expense of its purity and innocence. Bushes begin to
appear along its banks, and one of the first is an old thorn, with the
earth worn away from its roots by the sheep rubbing themselves against
its bark. The ferns grow more luxuriantly round the little green
haughs, and where the braes are rather steep for the sheep to feed and
lie upon, the primroses star the spots with bright bunches, and the
little green meadows are spangled with gowans.
Turning the corner, behold a herd’s house. It is the eldest hope of the
family who is laving the waters of the burnie upon the clothes that
are bleaching on the grass, and thus putting a portion of its watery
treasure to their first economic use; two younger children, a little
further down, have cut a side channel through which flows a tiny rill,
on which they are busy erecting a toy mill wheel.
The house—a wee, wee cot house—has one little window in the end
directed to the burn, and therein sits a cat, winking with listless
satisfaction under the glow of the summer scene. There, too, sits a
curched grandame working her stocking, rejoicing in the genial warmth
which seldom comes so far up the glen, thinking, it may be, of the days
when she was full of young life, or of the trials she has undergone
since then, or the sad memories of family years which she has since
then laid in the auld kirk-yard.
Whisking blithely past this outpost of civilisation, the burnie
suddenly falls into a deep ravine, where it gets into a dreadful
passion at finding itself confined between steep banks. It kicks, and
flings, and fumes, and splutters, and gets into a dreadful fury, first
dashing up one side with a splash, and then on the other with a whish,
then hits some big stone with a hiss and then another, jumps madly over
the heads of some, and goes poking under the ribs of others that are
too big to be so dealt with. In fact, it is like many another scene of
youthful violence, while it lasts, which fortunately is not very long;
for, by-and-bye, it steals calmly out in an open rivulet between green
banks, as gently as if nothing had happened, and were rather ashamed
of its pranks. It has now come to the place where farm steadings and
plantations begin looking onward in its course. Thatched roofs are seen
at different points in the surrounding landscape; old-fashioned country
wives begin to put it to use in bleaching their clothes on its banks,
and there are some nice haughs on which, dotting them, are numerous
cocks of meadow hay, and now and then, skipping the stream, a follower
of Isaac Walton, when our burnie is now not merely a burn, but is known
as the ‘Findhorn’ river, with a very bad character for rising in great
floods occasionally, carrying off haycocks, bleachings, and whatever
other trifle it can lay hold of. It has begun to show symptoms
of earning for itself, by capricious changes of its channel, the
character, which it afterwards fully bears out, of being a river not to
be trusted to, and being a great friend to the lawyers, by shifting the
boundaries of litigious lairds—lairds who have more money than brains,
or at least not as many brains as would make them understand to give
and take peacefully.
In its journey to the lower country, it runs to a considerable extent
parallel with the river and strath of Nairn. Struggling on through many
opposing barriers of granite rock, it rushes through narrow gorges with
boiling and tumultuous currents, now reposing its still waters in some
round sweeping dark pool, and anon patiently, but assiduously, wearing
its way through the dark red sandstone cliffs which jut out from its
channel, or range in layer above layer, forming high barriers on its
banks, while plants and shrubs, and lofty trees, crown and encompass
the steep heights, and finely contrast their variegated green with the
deep red of the cliffs on which they grow. Here, in some overshadowed
dells, the sun with difficulty penetrates and finds the solitary eyries
of the eagle, or the falcon, with the dwellings of the congregated
heron, thickly perched among the trees, while the ascending salmon rest
by dozens during the summer’s noon-day heat in the deep dark pools
beneath. As the stream winds towards the sea, its course becomes less
interrupted and boisterous. It now sweeps along fertile meadows and
wooded copses, till at last, all opposition giving way, it flows out
into a broad, still, placid sheet of water, meeting the tides of the
ocean half way up the smooth and sandy bay of ‘Findhorn.’
On its romantic banks are situated a succession of gentlemen’s seats,
among many others, Altyre, Logie, Relugas, Dunphail, Kincorth,
Tannachy, and Darnaway, or Tarnaway, the ancient sylvan retreat and
hunting hall of the famous Randolph, Earl of Moray, and now the
northern seat of his noble descendants. South of the Brodie station
on the Highland Railway, in the lower fringe of the Darnaway oak and
pine forest, which extends for many miles inland, and is the remains
of the old Caledonian forest, concealed from view, though not two
miles distant, is the Castle of Darnaway, famous in the history of the
country and in the traditions of the neighbourhood as the home of a
family, almost the kings of the district of Moray, and occupying at
one time a most important position in the historical records of the
country. Had it fortuned to an Englishman, twenty-five or thirty years
ago, to visit the county of Elgin, he could not have failed to hear of
the Earl of Moray’s forest of Tarnaway, which then stretched for miles
along the banks of this grand Highland stream—the Findhorn—in all
the untrimmed luxuriance which he could have expected in going to wait
on the Duke of Arden. He would have been further surprised to hear of
two brothers entirely realizing the old ballad ideas of gallant young
huntsmen—superb figures attired in the ancient dress of the country,
and full of chivalric feeling—who, giving up the common pursuits of
the world, spent most of their days in following the deer through this
pathless wild. Men of an old time they seemed to be; of frames more
robust than what belongs to men now-a-days, and with a hardihood which
appeared to make them superior to all personal exposure and fatigue. At
the same time they possessed cultivated minds, and no small skill in
many of the most elegant accomplishments. This is their description of
the locality:—
‘Few knew what Tarnaway was in those days—almost untrodden, except by
the deer, the roe, the fox, and the pine-martin. Its green dells filled
with lilies of the valley, its banks covered with wild hyacinths,
primroses, and pyrolas, and its deep thickets clothed with every
species of woodland luxuriance, in blossoms, grass, moss, and timber of
every kind, growing with the magnificence and solitude of an aboriginal
wilderness, a world of unknown beauty and silent loneliness, broken
only by the sough of the pines, the hum of the water, the hoarse bell
of the buck, the long wild cry of the fox, the shriek of the heron,
or the strange, mysterious tap of the northern wood-pecker. For ten
years we knew every dell, and bank, and thicket, and, excepting the
foresters and keepers, during the early part of that time, we can only
remember to have met two or three old wives, who came to crack sticks
or shear grass, and one old man to cut hazels for making baskets. If a
new forester ventured in to the deep bosom of the wood alone, it was
a chance that, like one of King Arthur’s errant-knights, he took a
tree as his host for that night, unless he might hear the roar of the
Findhorn, and, on reaching the banks, could follow its course out of
the woods before the fail of light. One old wife, who had wandered for
a day and night, we discovered at the foot of a tree, where at last she
had sat down in despair, like poor old Jenny Mackintosh, who, venturing
into the forest of Rothiemurchus to gather pine cones, never came out
again. Three years afterwards she was found sitting at the foot of a
great pine, on the skirt of the Braeriach, her wasted hands resting on
her knees, and her head bent down on her withered fingers. The tatters
of her dress still clung to the dry bones, like the lichen upon the old
trees, except some shreds of her plaid, which were in the raven’s nest
on Craigdhubh, and a lock of her grey hair that was under the young
eagles in the eyrie of Loch-an-Eilean.’
The grounds themselves are well worthy of examination, but the castle
hall, 90 feet in length, and 35 feet broad, is inferior to none in
Scotland, and resembles much the Parliament House of Edinburgh; the
walls rise to a height of 35 feet, and a carved roof of solid black
oak, divided by compartments, forms the arched ceiling; a suitable
fire-place, that would roast a stalled ox; an enormous table, and some
carved chairs, still garnish this hall, though the modern apartments
in front of it ill correspond with its Gothic character. Here Mary,
Queen of Scots, held her court in 1564. Among the pictures is one
of the Bonnie Earl of Moray, and also a portrait of Queen Mary,
disguised, by way of a frolic, in boy’s clothes, in long scarlet
stockings, black velvet coat, black kilt, white sleeves, and a high
ruff. The present hall was preceded by a hunting lodge, erected in
the fourteenth century, by Randolph, first Earl of Moray, the nephew,
friend, and companion of Robert the Bruce, and Regent of Scotland
during the minority of David II., but it was not the Earl’s chief
country residence, as in the charter of erection of the earldom, the
Castle of Elgin, ‘Manerium de Elgyn,’ is appointed ‘pro capitali
mansione comitatus Moraviœ.’ It appears from the charter of Robert
III. to Thomas le Graunt, son of Jno. le Graunt, dated 1390 (Regist.
No. 22, p. 473), that there was an older royal Castle of Tarnaway,
which was previously in the keeping of the Cummings, and afterwards
of the Grants, and, in fact, the Cumming family—Earls of March—seem
to have been introduced from Forfarshire as the great instrument for
exterminating, or at least suppressing, the early insurrections of
the Clan Chattan, who were thus in all probability the aboriginal
inhabitants of Moray. The lately published work on the ‘Name of Cawdor’
shows likewise that the present magnificent hall was erected under the
auspices, if not at the cost, of King James II. of Scotland. After the
suppression of the Douglas rebellion, the King turned his attention
to establishing order and authority in the North, especially in the
Earldom of Moray. He took up his residence sometimes at Inverness,
sometimes at Elgin, held Justice Courts, and transacted state business.
He felt also the fascination of the country, and took means to enjoy
it. Mr Innes, the editor of the ‘Cawdor Annual,’ says ‘The Castle of
Lochindorbh, a formidable Norman fortress, in a woodland loch, which
had been fortified against his authority by Douglas, King James doomed
to destruction, and employed the Thane of Cawdor to demolish it. But
he chose Darnaway for his own hunting seat, as old Thomas Randolph had
done a century before, and completed the extensive repairs and new
erections which the Earl had begun. The massive beams of oak and solid
structure of the roof described in those accounts are still in part
recognisable in the great hall of Darnaway, which popular tradition,
ever leaning towards a fabulous antiquity, ascribes to Earl Randolph,
but which is certainly of this period. Here, for two years, the King
enjoyed the sports of the chase; great territories, on both sides of
the river, were thrown out of cultivation for the sport, and tenants
sat free of rent while their lands were waste. What was the manner of
the hunting we are not informed. The sport of hawking, indeed, might
well be enjoyed on the river bank at Darnaway, but hawking could not
require a whole district to be laid waste. The fox was not of old
esteemed a beast of chase in Scotland, nor perhaps, so early, in
England. There is no doubt the King’s chief game was the red-deer, the
natives of those hills, and it is probable that the hart was shot with
arrows, and hunted down with the old rough greyhound, still known among
us as the deerhound, and until lately in Ireland as the wolf dog, with
such help of slower dogs of surer scent, as the country could afford,
for the English hound was hardly known in old Scotland. But riding up
to hounds, or riding at all, must have been very partially used among
the peat mosses and rocks of the upper valley of the Findhorn.’
The Earldom of Moray was conferred by King Robert the Bruce upon Sir
Thomas Randolph, son of Lady Isabel Bruce, the eldest daughter of
Robert, Earl of Carrick, by Thomas Randolph, Lord of Strathnith. This
Earldom, along with many goodly heritages, lands, and baronies, was
the guerdon of the services so gallantly performed by Randolph in the
service of his uncle, King Robert the Bruce, and it remained in the
Randolph family until 1455, when the then Earl of Moray was attainted
‘for fortifying the Castles of Lochindore and Tarnau (Lochindorbh and
Tarnaway) against the King, and for other acts of treason, by which
attainder the Earldom of Moray became vested in the Crown.’
The next possessor of the Earldom was James Stewart, natural son of
King James IV., by Janet, daughter of John, Lord Kennedy. It was
conferred upon him when he was but two years old, by charter dated the
15th June 1501, and his son dying without issue male, 14th June 1544,
the Earldom reverted to the Crown, and was conferred on George, the
fourth Earl of Huntly, 15th February 1549, but the grant was recalled
in 1554. The Earldom was next bestowed in 1562 by Queen Mary upon her
half-brother, Lord James Stuart, natural son of King James V., and
afterwards Regent of Scotland. From real or imaginary contradictions
in his titles, great perplexity was occasioned respecting their
inheritance, and several charters were granted to the Regent more or
less confusing each other. He married Lady Anne Keith, daughter of the
fourth Earl Marshal, afterwards Countess of Argyll, and by her he had
two daughters—Elizabeth, Countess of Moray, and Margaret, afterwards
Countess of Errol. In 1580, the youngest son of Lord Doune James Stuart
(as the name was generally spelt after Queen Mary’s return) received
from James VI. the ward and marriage of the two daughters of the Regent
Moray, and a few days thereafter he married the elder, Lady Elizabeth,
and assumed the title of the Earl of Moray. As this claim to the
Earldom was doubtful, a charter was given to him in 1592, by James VI.,
and the Scottish estates ratifying to him and to his son all that had
been granted to the Regent and the Lady Elizabeth, and since then the
Earldom has remained in the uninterrupted possession of his descendants.
The Earl of Moray, whose personal appearance and high accomplishments
in the learning and manners of the day acquired for him the title of
the ‘Bonnie Earl;’ and as son-in-law of the good Regent Moray, and
the inheritor of his estates, he naturally possessed a high degree of
consideration in the State, particularly with the Presbyterian party,
of which the Regent had been so long one of the chief supporters and
the acknowledged leader. The Earl’s character, independent of his
possessions, was such as to win him universal esteem. To the attractive
beauty of his countenance and form he added a most amiable disposition,
and perfect skill in all the chivalric accomplishments of the age. It
is, therefore, scarcely to be wondered at that he should have been one
of the most popular noblemen of the day, especially as the nation
in general had by that time attached itself to the religious party
of which he was a leading member. To this party also King James VI.
belonged, though he was under the necessity of holding the balance
equally between the Presbyterians and that still numerous party of
Catholics to which many of his most powerful noblemen belonged, and
were active adherents. Among the Catholic peers, the Earl of Huntly
was the chief—a man of determination, and at heart ambitious and
vindictive, and who for years had nursed a feud between his own family
and that of the Earl of Moray. The real grounds of the feud consisted
in the claims of the Gordon family to the possessions and Earldom of
Moray, of which they had been deprived when it was bestowed by Queen
Mary upon her illegitimate brother the Regent. This deep-seated cause
of animosity had been long gathering strength from many and various
disagreements arising out of it, and was particularly aggravated by
an act of the Earl of Moray against the legal power of Huntly. In his
capacity as the King’s Justiciary, the Earl of Huntly endeavoured
to bring to justice persons against whom he had obtained a Royal
Commission, and who having fled to the Earl of Moray, were protected by
him against the Earl of Huntly, on some grounds or for some reason not
known. Huntly, thus defied, was highly displeased against Moray, and
proceeded with a large party, principally of his clansmen, to Darnaway
Castle, for the purpose of getting possession of the felons’ persons.
The expedition unfortunately terminated in widening the breach between
the noblemen, for in the attempt to enter the castle, John Gordon, a
brother of Gordon of Cluny, who was in the expedition in attendance on
the Earl of Huntly, was killed by a shot from the castle. Whether
the shot was fired by the Earl of Moray or not was not known, but
from that hour the hostility between the families became of a more
decided character, was participated in by almost every member of the
Gordon clan, and revenge became a study in Huntly’s mind. This event
took place a short time previous to the year 1591, but it was not
immediately followed by any decided act of retaliation.
In the meantime, Campbell of Cawdor, a friend of Moray, became an
object of hostility to many of the principal men of the Clan Campbell
because he had been appointed tutor to the young Earl of Argyll.
Uniting with these men, Huntly formed a concerted scheme, in which,
strange to say, the Chancellor of the Kingdom, Lord Thirlstan,
concurred, for taking off Moray and Campbell by one act of vengeance.
In order to give a colour to their deeds, they persuaded the King that
Moray had been concerned in the conspiracy of the turbulent Earl of
Bothwell, his cousin, and Huntly obtained a commission to apprehend
Moray, and bring him to Edinburgh for trial.
On the afternoon of the 8th of February 1592, Huntly, attended by
a strong body of horse, set out from the house of the Provost of
Edinburgh where the King then lodged for security. The object of his
journey Huntly gave out to be to attend a horserace at Leith, instead
of which he directed his course across the Queen’s Ferry to Donibristle
House, where the Earl of Moray had taken up his residence for a time
with his mother. About midnight, Huntly reached his destination,
surrounded the house with his men, and summoned Moray to surrender.
Even if this had been complied with immediately, the same consequences,
it is clear, would have ensued, Huntly’s determination being fixed.
Moray’s enemies and that of his house knocking at his gates at the dead
of night, encompassing the walls with vindictive retainers, was not an
event from which the young Earl would expect moderation or justice to
follow. He therefore resolved to defend the house to the death. A gun
fired from within severely wounded one of the Gordons, and excited the
passions of the assailants and their leaders to the highest pitch. To
force an entrance they set fire to the doors, and the house seemed on
the point of being enveloped in flames. In this emergency Moray took
council with his friend Dunbar, Sheriff of the county, who chanced to
be with him that night. ‘Let us not stay,’ said Dunbar, ‘to be buried
in the flaming house. I will go out first, and the Gordons, taking
me for your Lordship, will kill me, while you will escape in the
confusion.’ After giving utterance to this noble offer, the generous
Dunbar did not hesitate an instant, but threw himself among the
assailants, and fell immediately, as he had anticipated, beneath their
swords. At first this act of heroic devotion seemed as if it would have
accomplished its purpose. The young Earl had passed out immediately
after his friend, and had the fortune to escape through the ranks of
the Gordons. He directed his flight to the rocks of the neighbouring
beach, and most probably would have got off in the darkness had not his
path been pointed out to his foes by the silken tassels of his helmet,
which had caught fire as he passed through the flames of the house. A
revengeful cadet of the Huntly family, Gordon of Buckie, was the first
who overtook the flying Earl, and wounded him mortally. While Moray lay
in the throes of death at the feet of his ruthless murderer, Huntly
himself came up to the spot, when Buckie exclaiming, ‘By Heaven, my
Lord, you shall be as deep as I,’ forced his chief to strike the
dying man. Huntly, with a wavering hand, struck the expiring Earl in
the face, who, mindful of his superior beauty even at that moment of
parting life, stammered out the dying words ‘You have spoiled a better
face than your own.’
The perpetrators of this barbarous act hurried from the scene, leaving
the corpse of the Earl lying on the beach, and the house of Donibristle
in flames. Huntly did not choose to go to Edinburgh, and so be the
narrator of what had occurred, but he chose, strange to say, as the
messenger for this purpose the most guilty of the assassins, Gordon of
Buckie. This bold man hesitated not to fulfil his Chief’s commands. He
rode post to the King’s presence, and informed his Majesty of all that
had occurred. Finding, however, that the night work was not likely to
acquire for its doers any great credit, he hurriedly left the city. By
some it is supposed that he never saw the King, for James, apparently
unconscious of what had occurred, followed his sport for several hours
in the early part of the day. On his return to the city, his Majesty
found the streets filled with lamentations for the murder of Moray, and
strong suspicions entertained that he himself had authorised Huntly to
perpetrate the deed. Donibristle House being visible from the grounds
of Inverleith and Wardie, where the King was hunting, it was alleged
he must have seen the smoking ruins; nay, that he had chosen that
quarter on that day for his sport in order to gratify his eye with the
spectacle. The popularity of the late Earl, on account of his personal
qualities and as a leading Presbyterian, rendered the people very
severe against James, although they had but little known cause for
supposing him accessory to the guilt of the Gordons. There is, however,
one circumstance narrated in traditionary ballad lore which says that
‘Moray was the Queen’s luve.’ A traditional anecdote is the only
support which the ballad receives for a circumstance utterly
discredited by history. James, says the story, found the Earl of Moray
sleeping in an arbour one day with a ribbon about his neck which his
Majesty had given to the Queen. On seeking her Majesty’s presence, the
King found the ribbon round her neck, and was convinced he had mistaken
one ribbon for another; but, continues the story, the ribbon worn by
Moray was indeed the Queen’s, and had only been restored to her in time
to blind his Majesty by the agency of a friend of the Queen’s who had
witnessed the King’s jealous observation of Moray asleep.
To return, however, from tradition to history, the ferment caused in
Edinburgh by the news of Moray’s death was aggravated ten-fold when
on the same day Lady Doune, mother of the ill-fated nobleman, arrived
at Leith in a boat, carrying with her the bodies of her son and his
devoted friend Dunbar. The mournful lady took this step in order to
stimulate the vengeance of the laws against the murderers. When the
news reached the King that Lady Doune was about to expose the mangled
bodies to the public gaze, he forbade them to be brought into the city,
conceiving justly that the spectacle was an unseemly one, and that the
populace were excited enough already. Defeated in her first wish, Lady
Doune caused a picture to be drawn of her son’s remains, and enclosing
it in a lawn cloth, brought it to the King, uncovered it before him,
and with vehement lamentations cried for justice on the slayers. She
then took out three bullets, found in Moray’s body while being prepared
for embalming, one of which she gave to the King, another to one of his
nobles, and the third she reserved to herself ‘to be bestowed on him
who should hinder justice’ (Annals, p. 232, vol. 1, Captain John
Gordon, one of the King’s friends). The Earl himself had fled to the
north, where he was much more powerful than James, King of Scotland
though he was. After some time, however, to recover the royal favour,
which James withheld until some atonement was made, Huntly surrendered
himself, and was confined for a time in Blackness Castle. He was never
brought to trial, and was liberated on bail. Gordon of Buckie, the true
murderer, lived for nearly fifty years after Moray’s death, and in his
latter days expressed great contrition for the act of which he had been
guilty. From punishment at the hands of man, the power of his family,
the unsettled state of society, and the laws succeeded in screening
him. The melancholy fate of the Earl of Moray, which we have just been
relating, has been embalmed in his country’s verse in a ballad deeply
affecting in its pathos:—
Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where have ye been?
They hae slain the Earl of Moray,
And laid him on the green.
Now wae be to you, Huntly,
And wherefore did ye say,
I bad you bring him wi’ you,
But forbade you him to slay.
He was a braw gallant,
And he rode at the ring,
And the bonnie Earl of Moray,
Oh, he micht hae been a king.
He was a braw gallant,
And he rode at the gluve,
And the bonnie Earl of Moray,
Oh! he was the Queen’s luve.
Oh, lang will his lady
Look o’er the Castle Doune,
E’er she see the Earl of Moray
Come sounding through the toun.