THE CROSS OF FIRE.
Fast as the fatal symbol flies,
In arms the huts and hamlets rise;
From winding glen, from upland brown,
They pour'd, each hardy tenant, down.
Nor slack'd the messenger his pace;
He show'd the sign, he named the place,
And pressing forward like the wind,
Left clamour and surprise behind.
_Lady of the Lake._
On this night the beacons blazed on continent and isle, athwart the
whole kingdom,--from the shores of the Atlantic to those of the
German Sea. In every city, burgh, hamlet, and castle, cottage,
convent, and monastery, the tidings were known within an hour, that
the invasion had begun; and by day-dawn THE CROSS OF FIRE had spread
from hand to hand, with the summons to the muster-place, and it went
from glen to glen with incredible speed, each bearer naming the
gathering or rendezvous of his clan, burgh, or sheriffdom, with the
place where the array of the kingdom was to meet the Regent Arran.
The Crian Tarigh--the cross of fire, or of shame, for it bore both
names; first, from the circumstance of its arms being scathed with
fire, and then dipped in the blood of an animal; and second, from the
everlasting infamy attending all who disobeyed the bearer--was a
terrible Celtic symbol never before used in the lowlands of Scotland;
but on this occasion it proved most effectual.
It was usually borne by a messenger on foot. On reaching a hamlet he
gave it to the first person he met, and the latter, on hazard of his
life, was bound to leave his occupation, be it at home or afield,--a
bridal or a burial,--a birth or a deathbed,--a scene of sorrow or a
scene of joy,--and to convey it till he met another, to whom he
simply mentioned the muster-place. On beholding this terrible cross,
every man between the ages of sixteen and sixty, capable of bearing
arms, was compelled to appear at the rendezvous in his best harness;
and woe to the wretch who failed. The utmost vengeance of fire and
sword, as indicated by the three burned and bloody arms of this
ancient symbol of our Celtic fathers, fell upon the false and
disobedient, the timid and untrue.
Thus by dawn next day the whole of Scotland was in arms! The barons
and chiefs were all on the march, from every point, for Edmondstone
Edge, the royal muster-place; while in every walled city and town
throughout the realm the armed burghers kept watch and ward, or
filled the great castles in the neighbourhood with men, cannon, and
all the munitions of war. The military measures of the Regent Arran,
at this important crisis, reflected the greatest credit upon his
personal activity, and upon his government, which had hitherto been
as weak and vacillating as his religious opinions, which wavered
alternately between the new and stern, bare creed of Calvin, and the
pictorial splendours of the Church of Rome.
On learning the tragic event which occurred in the church of Tranent,
Claude Hamilton of Preston became reanimated by what he had striven
to forget, or commit to oblivion, his feud with the Fawsides; and a
longing for the direst vengeance on Dame Alison and on her son
inspired him and all his followers. He would have attacked, sacked,
and rased her little fortalice to its foundations, had not the Albany
herald arrived, bearing a special message from his lord and chief,
the Regent Arran, commanding him to forget his feud for the time, and
to bring his vassals to the muster-place to aid the general cause;
after the triumph of which, he should have all the satisfaction the
power of the Justician of Scotland could award.
His summons to attend the array of the kingdom ran thus, as we render
it in English.
"REGINA. Well-beloved friend, we greet you well. For so much as our
dearest cousin the regent, and the lords of our council, are surely
informed that our old enemies of England tend to invade our realm; he
resolves, with the support of all true barons and faithful lieges, to
resist them in our just defence. It is our will, and we pray you, to
address you incontinent with your honourable household, all _bodin_
in array of war, to attend our royal standard, in all haste, at
Edmondstone Edge, as ye love the defence and common weal of our
realm, and under the pain and _tynsale_ of life, lands, and goods;
and as regards your outstanding feud with the Fawsides of that ilk,
and the cruel and bloody deed of the widow of the umquhile Sir John
Fawside, we promise you all manner of vengeance at the hands of the
Earl of Argyle, our lord justice general, and gage the honour of our
crown therein. Written under our signet at Edinburgh, the 3rd day of
September, 1547.[*]
JAMES REGENT."
"To our well-beloved friend, the Laird of Preston--_These_."
[*] Father John's MSS.
Sternly Claude Hamilton read this missive, and gulping down his anger
and grief--for he dearly loved his beautiful kinswoman,--he stifled
his furious passion for a time; and, meanwhile, the grim Dame Alison,
with Roger of Westmains acting as her lieutenant-governor, watched
well in her moated tower, with gates barred, and every falcon and
arquebuse loaded; and though she secluded herself in her
bower-chamber, it is to be doubted whether, even in her quietest
hours of reflection, amid the still calm sleepless hours of the long
night-watch, she felt any remorse for the terrible deed she had done.
If she did feel it, she carefully veiled it under an exterior that to
ordinary eyes was unreadable and impenetrable.
Animated by a horror of his mother--an emotion too strange and
terrible for analysis or description,--sick at heart, and crushed in
spirit, poor Florence returned to Fawside tower no more; but resided
with Dick Hackerston, the hospitable and sturdy burgher, who occupied
a mansion in a broad-wynd on the north side of the city, nearly
opposite the hospital and chapel of La Maison Dieu, and the Black
Turnpike, so famous in the annals of 1567, all of which have now been
removed. There he was provided with suitable arms and armour for man
and horse, and, until the army took the field, there he remained,
tended as a brother would have been, by the worthy merchant's wife,
who saw there was something noble and poignant in his sad and silent
sorrow, which held communion with none; and being young, handsome,
and gallant in bearing, it impressed her all the more.
But to return to the Regent Arran: by the grey dawn of that day, on
which the alarm of the coming foe first crossed the land with giant
strides of fire from mountain-top to mountain-top, the lords of the
royal privy council assembled in the tower of James V. at Holyrood.
There came the earls of Huntly, Mar, Argyle, Cassilis, and Glencairn;
the lords of Lyle, Fleming, and Kilmaurs (with his sinister visage,
his glistening eyes and teeth), and many other peers--those who were
loyal and true, and those who were base and venial--to reconsider and
debate upon the measures to be taken at the present emergency.
Despite their bonds and promises, when the hour of danger came, and
all the land was armed or arming, Glencairn, Cassilis, and others of
their infamous and corrupt faction, found themselves swept away by
the loyalty of the commons, as by a sea, the waves of which there was
no resisting; and they were compelled to lead their vassals to the
field, and to unsheath their swords, against those with whom they
were in secret league, and whose gold they had hoped to pocket; but
to that foul political leprosy--that inborn spirit of treason and
anti-nationality, which was characteristic of too many of the
Scottish nobles, and which they inherited with their titles and their
blood--were the future disasters of Pinkey, like too many other
national woes and degradations, distinctly traceable.
Even Claude Hamilton, for the time, forgot his proffered titles of
Lord Preston and Earl of Gladsmuir, and found himself marching at the
head of a goodly band of mounted spearmen, including Symon Brodie in
his suit of beaked armour, for the muster-place, the green sloping
braes of Edmondstone Edge; and now Ned Shelly's chance of obtaining a
young Scottish countess seemed as distant as the realization of his
leader's political hopes, or the chance of an English bride for
Bothwell, who heard the din of preparation in the castle of
Edinburgh, where he chafed like a caged lion at the external
commotion, in which he could bear no part, for good, for evil, or for
aggrandisement.
At the council board on this eventful morning, the peer whose advice
had the most weight was George Gordon, Earl of Huntly, a loyal and
noble lord, whose manners and education had been improved by study
and by foreign travel. He had been made lieutenant of the north by
James V., and captain-general of those forces which defeated the
English at the battle of Haidonrig and baffled their next army under
the Duke of Norfolk. When speaking of the matrimonial alliance with
England, a marriage which Somerset seemed determined to form by the
edge of the sword, he recommended that some accommodation might be
made by a temporary truce or treaty.
On this, Mary of Lorraine, who had come to the council, gave him a
glance of sorrowful reproach.
"My lords," said she, with a flush on her usually pale cheek, "when
my dear husband was dying in Falkland Palace, as Monseigneur le
Cardinal Beaton (who is now in heaven) told me, the setting sun shed
a stream of light into the room where he lay, and with brilliance lit
up the royal arms above the mantelpiece, the arms of Scotland, or,
the lion _gules_ within a double tressure, all were brightened as
with a transient glory; but as the life of my beloved lord and king
ebbed, and he sank lower on his pillow, dying--dying of a broken
heart,--and breathed his last, the sun went down beyond the hills of
Fife, and the arms of the kingdom became dark, so dark, in that
chamber of death and gloom, as to be invisible; and this the
cardinal, and all who were present, declared to be ominous of evil to
come; and the evil _has_ come upon the realm of my fatherless child
when my lord of Huntly hath eyes of favour to the alliance of those
who, for centuries, have striven, by the soldier's sword and the
scrivener's guile, to dishonour the name and subvert the liberties of
Scotland!"
As the beautiful Frenchwoman spoke, her fine hazel eyes became filled
with a sparkling light; her bosom heaved, and her cheek was crimsoned
by the excitement, that made her Valois blood course like lightning
through her veins.
"You wrong me, royal lady," said the Highland earl; "be assured,
madam, that the loyal spirit of my forefathers yet lives within me;
and I trust that all who hear me will remember the words of the
faithful and brave who, from the Abbey of Arbroath, addressed that
ignoble Pope, John XXII., who leagued himself with England against
them; and in the same spirit by which those Scottish barons adhered
to Robert Bruce will we adhere to his descendant, your royal
daughter. 'To _him_,' said they, 'we will adhere as our rightful
king, the preserver of our people and the guardian of our liberties;
but should he ever dream of subjecting us to England, then we will do
our utmost to expel him from the throne as a traitor and an enemy; we
will choose another king to rule over us, _for never, so long as one
hundred Scotsmen are alive, will we be subject to the yoke of
England_! We fight not for glory, we strive not for riches or
honour, but for that liberty which no good man will consent to lose
but with his life. We are willing to do anything for peace which may
not compromise our freedom. If your Holiness disbelieve us, and
continue to favour England, giving undue credit to her false
assertions, then be sure that Heaven will impute to you all the
calamities which our resistance must inevitably produce; and we
commit the defence of our cause to God.' So spoke the faithful men
of other days," continued the earl, "and, with the hand of that
blessed God above their banner, may such to the latest posterity ever
be the spirit of freedom which shall animate the Scottish people!"
These words filled the council with enthusiasm, and all separated to
prepare for the mortal strife.