THE KING AND THE CARDINAL.
"Ne'er should be a vassal banished,
Without time to plead his cause;
Ne'er should king his people's rights
Trample on, or break the laws:
Ne'er should he his liegemen punish,
More than to their crimes is due;
Lest they rise into rebellion--
That day sorely would he rue."
_Rodrigo of Bivar._
"His eminence the cardinal, may it please your majesty," said the
little Lord Claud, announcing the visitor. Setting down the lap-dog,
King James started from his seat, and, without any further preamble,
the tall and stately figure of Beaton approached him. James knelt
for a moment to receive his blessing, and then pressed his hand in
silence.
The poor king looked paler, thinner, and sadder than when the
cardinal had seen him last in Holyrood, beside that grave over which
a nation mourned; but this did not prevent the perfect courtier from
saying--
"I rejoice to see your majesty looking so well."
"It is not merely to flatter you have disturbed my sad retirement,"
said James, with one of his old smiles; "but welcome heartily, Lord
Cardinal; I have longed to converse with you anent many things."
The little dog whined, and the king took it again in his hands to
caress it, while the page withdrew, and the cardinal seated himself.
"Here are splendour and magnificence," thought he, "saloons full of
guards, and chambers full of courtiers, pages, lacqueys, wealth, and
rank--but where is happiness?"
"My lord," said James, "I have many questions to ask you concerning
my poor Vipont, the trial of the Lady Seton, and her mad brother's
invasion of Inchkeith single-handed. Faith! he is quite a devil of a
fellow! But first tell me what rumour is this, of cannonading in the
river Forth, which reached me this morning."
"Oh, it was merely Monseigneur Claude d'Annebault, admiral of France,
who has brought the new ambassador, escorted by eight frigates, which
have anchored off the Beacon rock at Leith, where they saluted the
Scottish flag, and the ships of Sir Robert Barton replied by their
culverins."
"France," said James, sadly; "and this ambassador?"
"Will pay his respects to your majesty to-morrow."
"By my soul, I thought it was the Lord Howard with the fleet of my
uncle Henry; and that he had come to blows with stout Sir Robert."
"A new ambassador from England is also coming hither."
"Ah!--and concerning what?"
"A league with Henry. Need I implore your majesty," said the
cardinal, in the most impressive tones of his persuasive voice, "need
I implore you to beware! He comes to crave an interview, that Henry
may instil into your heart his own hatred of France and heresy to
God."
"Hatred to the France of my Magdalene--the France of Scotland's old
alliance! Nay, my Lord Cardinal, I need no warnings. There is a
grasping and aggressive spirit in England, of which Scotland should
beware; but can my heretic uncle imagine that he will induce me to
bring about here the same change of religion that he, by a single
word, has wrought in England?"
"He cannot; but he thinks that England will never be thoroughly
Protestant, or at least opposed to Rome, while Scotland remains
Catholic and true; thus his whole soul is bent on breaking that
continental alliance which aggravates, as he thinks, our old and just
hostility to his people."
"Is not the alliance broken? My poor little Magdalene!"
"Thou hast most unwisely and unjustly permitted Sir David Lindesay of
the Mount, George Buchanan, and others, to satirize the bishops and
orders of clergy: yet, in the name of the latter, I have this day
approached your majesty, to offer an annual subsidy of fifty thousand
crowns from the rents of the kirk, to enable you to defend yourself
more ably against England and her allies the Portuguese."
"This is well! the crowns are right welcome."
"An ambassador----"
"What--another?"
"Is coming from Rome, with a consecrated sword, which with his own
sacred hands his Holiness has whetted on the altar-stone of St.
Peter--yea, whetted against the English people and their king, whose
fleet is now out on the high seas to intercept the envoy and his
gift."
"Indeed!"
"Thou seest how far these English will dare."
"If the ambassador is taken before Barton can reach the Downs, then,
d--n England--we'll go to war with her! and here into your hands I
commit the books written by Henry, and brought hither by the Welsh
bishop of St. David's, wherein he defends so boldly the principles of
Luther."
"Good; I shall burn them on the first occasion, before my gate at St.
Andrew's," replied the cardinal, as he threw them outside the chamber
door to his page who waited in the gallery.
"With thy advice I broke off the meeting which Henry proposed at
York; so we may now prepare for war in earnest--a war that will pour
forth our Scottish blood like water; but on the plains of our
hereditary foe. The Scottish people should be ever like a drawn
sword--the king being the hilt, his subjects the blade."
"Gladly will I head the army," said the cardinal, whose eyes sparkled.
"Nay," replied James, dryly, and with a smile; "should war be
resolved on, I shall lead the army in person, as my predecessors have
always done. What say the laws of the church on prelates leading
armies?"
"It is forbidden by the canons of John VIII."
"Sir Oliver Sinclair of Ravensheugh is a brave serviteur of the
crown, and he may be my lieutenant-general."
"Sire, Sir Oliver of Ravensheugh is a mere laird, and no lord will
follow him to the field. But we are well prepared for any emergency.
The Earl of Buchan commands on the eastern marches, the Lord Sanquhar
on the west; and the Lord Tester commands the middle. Their paid
bands of horse and foot are ever on the alert. Our ships of war are
not so numerous as they soon shall be; but they fully equal those of
England in every respect, for the _Unicorn_, the _Salamander_,* the
_Morischer_, and the _Great Lion_, are each as large, if not larger,
than the boasted _Harry_. Then we have the little frigate taken by
Sir Robert Barton from the Admiral Howard, in Yarmouth Roads."
* These two were burnt by the English, in 1544.
"The _Mary Willoughbie_?"
"Mounting twenty culverins, besides arquebuses and crossbows; and we
have six others on the stocks at the New Haven. Including those
which came from France," continued the cardinal, consulting his
note-book, "we have one hundred and fifty pieces of cannon in our
arsenal; and Scotland was never better prepared for war than at the
present hour--nay, not even in the days of James IV."
"For which I thank the ability of your eminence," replied James, who
cordially disliked his uncle Henry. "My father, James IV., entered
England, whenever he chose, at the head of an army; but I,
unfortunate! have a stiff-necked people, who, much as they love me,
will not fight unless their parliament tells them to do so; and,
worse than all, cardinal, the people--hate thee!"
"Faith, sire, they are ready to hate any one--the rabble."
"Impatient of thy power and princely offices, they think the royal
authority will soon sink to nothing beneath the shadow of so great a
minister. But what matters it? I long for war, because I am weary
of life; while thou longest for it, simply because thou hatest the
English. Lord cardinal, I am come of a doomed race," said James,
with a shudder, as the vague terror that his house was fated to fall
with himself came upon him, and a gloom spread over his manly brow.
"I remember me of a prophecy that was made by a weird woman of
Strathgryffe to Allan the great steward, 'that never one of his race
should comb a grey head;' and fearfully hath that prophecy been
verified!"
The eyes of the good king filled.
"Come my time when it may," he continued, "I know that my dear
Scottish subjects will remember me long. Cardinal, my people call me
_king of the puir_, and I am prouder of that title than the thorny
crown the Alexanders, the Constantines, and the Braces have left me.
The blessings of the poor and the lowly attend me when I walk abroad,
without guards, without retinue, without arms. _I hate the nobles_,
for they are ever ready to barter their country and their God for
foreign gold: and Scotland's nobles will one day be Scotland's
destruction. Pardon this honest vanity; but I feel that to reign in
the hearts of my people is a great and glorious thing. There are
many kings in Europe, but not one is called the father of his poor
but James Stuart of Scotland. I am ever among them. I visit the
highways and the byways, the gloomy streets, the miserable garrets,
and the famished cottages where pestilence, or poverty, or tyranny
have been. I know where misery is, or wrongs are endured. Disguised
as a beggar, I discover them; as a king and a gentleman I alleviate
or avenge them. The hard hands I have shaken, and the humble hearts
I have gladdened, will serve me to the last gasp; and the ingleside
where a king has sat and supped his kail with the gudeman, or toyed
with his bairns, will long be remembered in tradition when the king
and the clown are blended in one common dust. Thus I feel with joy
that I shall go down to my grave at Holyrood with the blessings of my
people, and shall be remembered long in the land, which my father
bequeathed me from the Field of Flodden."
The king paused; and the cardinal, remembering his pledge to Father
St. Bernard, deemed this the best opportunity for opening the
trenches.
"Sire, this is a good and holy frame of mind," said he, "and I
sometimes see the truth of what Buchanan teaches (heretic and
republican though he is) that impulses to good or evil are common to
all ranks of men, and in these respects all men are equal."
"Cardinal, all men are equal, too, in the grave. Were a beggar laid
beside me at Holyrood, he would be as great as me, and I no greater
than he."
The cardinal could scarcely repress a gesture of impatience.
"I fear me," said he, "that the solitude of Falkland oppresses your
majesty's mind?"
"It is in solitude that God speaks most to man; and I, oh cardinal,
have been in solitude since my poor Magdalene was lost," replied
James, kindly caressing the little dog.
"She is not lost, but gone before."
"Cardinal," said James, looking up with his hazel eyes full of tears,
"I pray for her daily."
"One act of mercy performed in her name and memory, will do more for
the soul of Magdalene than a thousand prayers."
The king looked earnestly, perhaps suspiciously, in the dark and
majestic face of Beaton, and said,--
"Your eminence actually means this?"
"Most solemnly!"
"Then what is this act of mercy?"
"A pardon for the Lady Jane Seton."
James's bright eyes flashed with fire, and he twisted his brown
moustache with anger.
"Now, by the Holy Communion, this is too much; a pardon for the
destroyer of Magdalene of France--for this daughter of a Douglas, and
sought in this tower of Falkland, the very chamber where her sire the
Lord John of Ashkirk, and her grandsire Sir Archibald of Kilspindie,
detained me once a prisoner, with a guard of some five hundred
Douglases, from whose surveillance I had to fly like a thief in the
night! Lord cardinal, it is impossible."
It was seldom that James refused him a favour, and his eminence was
piqued.
"There is but one day now, and I beseech your majesty to consider
well."
"I have considered well. The Countess of Arran and I talked over the
matter for three hours yesterday."
"The Countess of Arran!" muttered the cardinal; "women--women! there
is ever mischief where they are concerned. It would have been well
had they been altogether omitted in the great plan of human society."
"And to lessen this evil to the public thou keepest a dozen of them
shut up in the tower at Creich, all fair and jolly damosels," said
the king, with something of his old raillery; "truly, lord cardinal,
my subjects of Fife are much indebted to thee."
"I assure your majesty," said the cardinal, with increasing pique,
"that to the best of my knowledge the whole trial and accusation hath
been the prompting of revenge in Sir Adam Otterburn of Redhall."
"Of my lord advocate? Impossible! why, the man is virtuous as
Scipio, and upright as Brutus."
"But in their excessive zeal, the judges have wrongly construed the
depositions. I implore you to reflect; her death will make an
irreparable breach between the races of Stuart and Douglas. War
alone will not make a monarch illustrious. The splendour of valour
and chivalry dazzles for a time; but a noble action lives in the
memory of the people for ever."
"True; but beware, lest I deem thee a follower of Angus."
"I follow a Master who is greater than all the princes of the earth,"
replied the stately prelate, warming; "and the opinions of the poor
worms that crawl on its surface are nothing to me."
"Is this the fag-end of some old sermon?"
"Sire, thou mockest me, and I have not deserved it of thee," said the
cardinal, rising with dignity; "but let not the ambassadors of
foreign princes see thy weakness, and how thou carriest thy vengeance
even against a helpless woman. Was it for such an act as this, that
Francis the Magnanimous sent thee the collar of St. Michael; that the
great Emperor Charles, the victor of sixty battles, sent thee the
Golden Fleece; and English Henry, his noble Order of the Garter? I
trow not. Glory and virtue cannot exist without mercy--the first is
but the shadow of the other two. In this case, close thy heart
against hatred, and thou wilt soon become merciful, even to these
hated Setons and Douglases. Sire, sire, to thy many good actions add
but this one more."
"Cardinal, thou pleadest well; but sayest nothing of my gallant
Vipont, my comrade in many a hairbrained French adventure. I would
have given my best horse and hound--even Bawtie, to have seen him
confronting Abbot Mylne and his fourteen black caps! But the
sorceries, the vile sorceries of his lady----"
"Are about as true as the miracles of Mahomet."
"How! Did she not confess them to the whole bench?"
"True," replied the cardinal, with a smile; "when her tender limbs
were being rent asunder by the rack."
"The rack! the rack! Oh, was it only on the rack she confessed these
things?"
"As thou, sire, or I would have done, under similar circumstances."
The king seemed thunderstruck.
"A pen! a pen! though a Seton, and a Douglas's daughter, too, I
forgive her--she is saved."
A few hours after this, when the sun was setting on the East Lomond,
Lewis Leslie of Balquhan, mounted on a fleet horse, with the pardon,
signed, sealed, and secured in a pouch that hung at his waist-belt,
was galloping through the parks of Falkland, on his way to the
capital.