Lord Fleming being a conspicuous leader on the queen’s side, and
captain of Dumbarton Castle, his lands in the counties of Lanark and
Dumbarton were amongst those which fell under the vengeance of the
ruling party. As one of the enormities perpetrated by the Earl of
Lennox and his men on Lord Fleming’s estates--‘they have slain and
destroyit the deer of his forest of Cumbernauld, and the white kye and
bulls of the said forest, to the great destruction of policy and hinder
of the commonweal. For that kind of kye and bulls has been keepit thir
mony years in the said forest, and the like was not maintenit in ony
other parts of the Isle of Albion, as is weel knawn.’[69]
[Sidenote: 1570.]
The ‘white kye and bulls’ here spoken of are believed to have been a
remnant of the original wild cattle of the Caledonian forest. Boece
describes them as white, with lion-like manes, fierce, untamable,
and shunning human society--so misanthropical, indeed, that they
would eat nothing which the hand of man had touched. He, like the
writer quoted above, says that none of them were left but only in
Cumbernauld. Leslie, however, tells us that they also existed in the
parks of Stirling and Kincardine. Latterly, there have been herds of
the same oxen (but perhaps imported) in the Duke of Hamilton’s park
of Cadzow, in Lanarkshire; in the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry’s
at Drumlanrig; and in Lord Tankerville’s park at Chillingham, in
Northumberland.
* * * * *
Perhaps the severities of the English army on this occasion were only
what her Scottish allies would themselves have practised against their
opponents. What follows, however, seems to have gone a little beyond
the bounds of partisan vengeance, while it not less illustrates the
sacrifice of national dignity at which the enemies of Mary were content
to purchase the aid of the English queen.
[Sidenote: MAY 29.]
Sir William Drury, returning with the English army from the devastation
of the Duke of Chatelherault’s country in Lanarkshire, resolved to
destroy the town of Linlithgow, in retribution for its having proved a
harbour for the enemies of Elizabeth and of her ally the young Scottish
king. It seemed but right that the scene of the murder of Moray should
thus suffer. He therefore called the provost of the burgh before him,
and announced his intention, saying, however, that he would allow time
for the carrying away of any women in childbed or impotent people, and
also conceding that a place should be appointed, to which the goods
belonging to the citizens should be brought for preservation.
‘The time being come for this execution, the Earl of Morton, that still
accompanied the English general, offered himself as an intercessor to
entreat and sue for a pardon, bringing afore the general a multitude of
wailing people, whose mournful and most piteous cries was lamentable
and very importunate.’
[Sidenote: 1570.