It was the 24th of May, 1425, when in the vaulted hall of the Castle of
Stirling the nobles of Scotland were convened to try, as the peers of the
realm, men of rank--no less than Murdoch, Duke of Albany, his sons Walter
and Alexander, the Earl of Lennox, and twenty-two other nobles, most of
whom had been arraigned in the Parliament of Perth two months previously,
and had been shut up in different castles. Robert Stewart had escaped to
the Highlands; and Walter--who had neither been at the Coronation of
Scone, nor at the Parliament of Perth, nor indeed had ever bowed his
pride so as to present himself to the King at all--had been separately
arrested, and shut up for two months in the strong castle on the Bass
Rock.
The charge was termed treason and violence; and assuredly there had been
perpetual acts of spoil and barbarous infractions of the law by men who
deemed themselves above all law. The only curiosity was, for which of
these acts they were to be tried, and this affected many of their judges
likewise; for there was hardly a man in that court who was not conscious
of some deed that would not exactly bear to be set beside the code of
Scotland, and who had not been in the habit of regarding those laws as
all very well for burghers, but not meant for gentlemen.
There, on seats behind the throne, sat the twenty-one jurors, Earl
Douglas among them--a new earl, for the grim old Archibald had died in
the battle of Verneuil some months before. Angus, March, and Mar, and
all the most powerful names in Scotland, were there; and upon his throne,
in regal robes of crimson and ermine, the crown upon his brow, the
sceptre in his hand, the sword of state held before him, sat King James,
the most magnificent-looking king then reigning in Europe, but with the
sternest, saddest, most resolute of countenances, as one unalterably
fixed upon the terrible duty of not bearing the sword in vain. Something
of Henry's avenging-angel look seemed to have passed into his face, but
with far more of melancholy weight.
Walter Stewart was led into the court. He too was a man of lofty stature
and princely bearing, and his grand Stewart features were set in an
expression of easy nonchalance and scorn; aware as he was that of
whatever he might be accused, there were few of his judges that did not
share the guilt, and moreover persuaded that this was a mere ceremony,
and that the King would never dare to go beyond this futile attempt to
overawe him. He stood alone--his father and the others were reserved for
another trial; and as, richly arrayed, he stood opposite to the jury,
gazing fixedly first at one, then at the other, as though challenging
their right to sit in judgment on him, one eye after another fell beneath
his gaze.
'Walter Stewart of Albany, Earl of Fife,' proclaimed the crier's voice.
'You stand here arraigned of murder and of robbery.'
'At whose suit?' demanded Walter, undaunted.
'At the suit of Malcolm and Lilias Stewart of Glenuskie; and of Patrick
Drummond of the Braes,' returned the crier, an ecclesiastic, as were all
lawyers; and at the same moment three figures came forward, namely, a
tall knightly gentleman with gold chain and spurs, a lady whose veil
disclosed a blushing dark-eyed face, and a slender youth of deep and
earnest countenance. 'At the suit of these here present you stand
arraigned, Sir Walter Stewart of Albany, for having feloniously, and of
malice aforethought, on the Eve of the Annunciation of our Lady, of the
year of grace 1421, set upon the said Malcolm and Lilias Stewart, Sir
David Drummond of the Braes, Tutor of Glenuskie, and divers other
persons, on the muir of Hetherfield; and having there cruelly and
maliciously wounded the said David of the Braes to the death; and of
having forcibly stolen and abducted the person of the said Lilias
Stewart--'
The crier was not permitted to proceed, for Walter Stewart broke forth,
passionately addressing the jurors. 'So this is all that can be found to
be laid against me. This is the way that matters of five years back are
raked up to vex the princes and nobles of Scotland. I am sorry for you,
lords and gentlemen, if this is the way that vexatious are to be stirred
up against those who have defended their country so long.'
'This is no answer to the accusation, Sir Walter,' said the Earl of Mar.
'Accusation, forsooth!' said Walter Stewart scornfully. 'Who dares to
bear witness, if I _did_ maintain my father's lawful authority over
peevish runaway wards of the Crown?'
'Sir Walter,' said the King, 'you would have done better to have waited
and heard the whole indictment ere answering one charge. But since you
demand who will dare to bear witness in this matter of the murder of Sir
David Drummond of the Braes, and of the seizure of the Lady Lilias, here
is one.'
So saying, and rising as he spoke, he held forth the reliquary that hung
from a chain round his neck, keeping his gleaming tawny eyes fixed
steadily straight upon Walter Stewart's face.
That face, as he first had stood up, expressed the utmost amazement, and
this gradually, under the lion glance, became more and more of dismay,
quailing, collapsing visibly under the passionless gravity of that look.
Even the tall form seemed to shrink, the eyes dilated, the brows drew
closer together, and the chest seemed to pant, as the relic was held
forth. There was a dead silence throughout the court as the King ceased
to speak; only he continued to bend that searching gaze upon his
prisoner.
'Was it you?--was it your own self, my lord?' he stammered forth at last,
in the tone of one stricken.
'Yea, Walter Stewart. To me it was, and on this holy relic, that you
made oath to abstain from all further spoil and violence until the King
should come again in peace. How that oath has been kept the further
indictments will show.'
'I deemed it was St. Andrew,' faltered the prisoner.
'And therefore that the oath to a heavenly saint would better bear
breaking than one to an earthly sinner,' replied James gravely. 'Read
on, Clerk of the Court.'
The roll continued--a long and terrible record of violence and cruelty;
the private warfare of the lawless young prince, the crimes of reckless
barbarity and of savage passion--a deadly roll, in which indeed even the
second abduction of Lilias was one of the least acts laid to his charge.
No lack of witnesses were there to prove deeds that had been done in the
open face of day, in utter fearlessness of earthly justice, and defiance
of Heaven. The defence that the prisoner seemed to have been prepared to
us?--that those who sat to judge him had shared in his offences, and his
daring power of brow-beating them, as he had so often done before, as son
of the man who sat in the King's seat--had utterly failed him now. He
was mute; and the forms of the trial were gone through as of one whose
doom was already sealed, but who must receive his sentence according to
the strictest form of law, lest the just reward of his deeds should
partake of their own violence. By the end of the day the jurors had
found Walter Stewart guilty; and the doomster, a black-robed clerk,
rising up, pronounced the sentence that condemned Walter Stewart of
Albany to suffer death by beheading.
Even then no one believed that the doom would be inflicted. Royal blood
had never flowed beneath the headsman's axe; and it would have been
infinitely more congenial to Scottish feelings if the King had sent a
party of men-at-arms to fall on the Master in the high road, and cut him
off, or had burnt him alive in his castle. The verdict 'served him
right' would have been universally returned, and rejoiced in; but a
regular trial of a man of such birth was unheard of, and shocking to the
feelings even of those whom that irresistible force of the King's had
compelled to sit in judgment upon him. No one could avow it face to face
with the King; but every one felt it an outrage to find that no rank was
exempt from law.
Duke Murdoch, his son Alexander, and his father-in-law Lennox, were tried
the next day, and many a deed of dark treason was laid to their charge.
The Earl of Lennox had been the scourge of Scotland for more than half
the eighty years of his life, but his extreme age might have excited some
pity; Murdoch had erred rather negatively than positively; and Alexander,
ruffian as he was, had been bred to nothing better. Each had deserved
the utmost penalty of the law again and again, and yet there did seem
more scope for mercy in their case than in that of Walter.
But the King was inexorable. He set Malcolm aside as he had set others.
'I know what you would say, lad. Lennox is old, and Alexander is young,
and Albany is a fool; and Walter has injured you, so you are bound to
speak for him. Take it all as said. But these are the men who have been
foremost in making our country a desert! Did I pardon them, with what
face could I ever make any man suffer for crime? And, in the state of
this land, ruth to the guilty high would be treason to the sackless low.'
So Stirling saw the unprecedented sight of three generations suffering
for their crimes upon the same scaffold--the white-haired Lennox, the
Duke of Albany in the prime of life, Walter in the flush and strength of
early manhood, Alexander in the bloom of youth. They all met their fate
undauntedly; for if Murdoch's heart in any measure failed him, he was
afraid to give way in presence of the proud bold Walter, who maintained
an iron rigidity of demeanour with the wild fortitude of a Red Indian at
the stake, and in like manner could by no means comprehend that King
James acted from any motive save malice, for having been so long kept out
of his kingdom. 'It was his turn now,' said poor Murdoch, even when most
desirous of bringing himself to die in a state of Christian forgiveness;
nor could any power on earth show any of the criminals that the King
acted in the eternal interests of right and justice.
Thus it was with the whole country; and when the four majestic-looking
men stood bare-headed on the scaffold, in view even of their own fair
towers of Doune, and one by one bowed their heads on the block, perverse
Scottish nature broke out into pity for their fate, and wrath against the
King, who could thus turn against his own blood, and disgrace the royal
lineage.
On that same day Malcolm received Esclairmonde's token, there being at
present full peace with England, and set forth on her summons. He met
her at Pontefract, where she was residing with the Dowager Queen Joan of
Navarre, Alice of Salisbury having been summoned to return to her husband
in France.
There then it was that Malcolm and Esclairmonde, in presence of the
chaplain, gave each other back the rings, and therewith their troth to
wed none other, and were once more declared free.
Esclairmonde held out her hand to Malcolm, saying, 'The thanks I owe you,
Sir, are beyond what tongue can tell. May He to Whom my first vows were
due requite it to you.'
And Malcolm, with his knee to the ground, pressing for the last time that
fair hand, said, 'The thanks, lady, are mine. Had you been one whit
lower in aims or in constancy, what had I been? You were my light of the
world, but to light me to seek that higher Light that shone forth in you,
and which may I show truly to the darkened spirits of my countrymen!
Lady, you will permit me to take to myself the ring you have worn so
long. It will be my token of my betrothal to that true Light.'
Such was their parting, when the one went forth to her tasks of charity
among the poor in London, the other to divest himself of land and
lordship on behalf of his sister and her husband, and then to begin his
task in the priesthood, of trying to hold up the true Light to hearts
darkened by many an age of crime and ignorance.
Lived very happy ever after! Yes, we would fain always leave the
creatures with whom our thoughts have been busy in such felicity; but
when we have linked them with real events, the sense of the veritable
course of history reminds us that we cannot even suppose beings possible
in real life without endowing them with the common lot of humanity; and
the personages of our tale lived in a time of more than ordinary reverse
and trouble.
Yet Sir Patrick Drummond and Lilias his wife, the Lord and Lady of
Glenuskie, nearly did fulfil these conditions. They had not feelings
beyond their age, but they were good specimens of that age, and they did
their duty in it; he as a trustworthy noble, ready to aid in council or
war, and she as the beneficent dame, bringing piety and charity to heal
the sufferings of her vassals and serfs. His hand was strong enough to
repel the attacks of his foes; her intelligence, backed by Malcolm's
counsel, introduced improvements; and the little ravine of Glenuskie was
a happy valley of peace and prosperity for many years among the
convulsions of Scotland.
Nor was Esclairmonde de Luxemburg's life in the Hospital of St. Katharine
otherwise than the holy and beneficent career that she had always longed
for--worshipping in the fair church, and going forth from thence 'into
the streets and lanes of the city,' to fulfil Queen Philippa's pious
behest, to seek out the suffering and the ignorant, and to tend and
instruct them. The tall form and beautiful countenance of Sister Clare
were loved and reverenced as those of an angel messenger among the high
houses and courts that closed in on the banks of the Thames; and while
Luxemburgs in France and Flanders intrigued and fought, plotted and fell,
their kinswoman's days passed by in busy alms-deeds and ever loftier
devotion, till those who watched her steps felt that she was verily a
light of the world, manifesting forth the true Light in many a dark
place.
And her light of sympathy shone upon many an old friend both in joy and
in grief. When the dissensions of Gloucester and Beaufort had summoned
Bedford to England to endeavour to appease their strife, his Burgundian
Duchess sought out her early friend, and Esclairmonde saw her gentle
companion, the Lady Anne, fulfilling her daily task of mediation, and
living a life, not indeed very sunshiny, but full of all that esteem and
respect could give her, and of calm gratitude and affection, although
Anne, like all others, believed that John of Bedford's heart had been
buried in his brother's grave, and that of youthful love he had none to
give. His whole soul was absorbed in his care for the welfare of the
pale, gentle, dreamy, inanimate boy, who, from his very meekness and
docility, gave so little promise of representing the father whose name he
bore.
The loving Alice of Montagu, though the mother of many a bold boy and
girl, and busy with all the cares of the great Nevil household, regarded
as the chief delight in a journey to court the sight of her dear Sister
Clare. It was to Sister Clare that Alice turned for comfort when her
brave old father died at the siege of Orleans; and it was while daily
soothing and ministering to her sorrow that Esclairmonde heard the
strange wild tales of the terrible witch maiden who had appeared on
behalf of the French, and turned whole English armies to flight, by power
that the French declared to come from the saints, but which the English
never doubted to be infernal. Maimed and wounded soldiers, whom
Esclairmonde relieved and tended as they returned from lost battles, gave
her fearful accounts of the panic that La Pucelle inspired. Even the
hardy veteran, Sir John Fastolfe, had not been able to withstand her
spells, but had fled from the field of Jergeau, where gallant Sir Ralf
Percy had died, in a vain attempt to gather the men to resist the
irresistible maiden. His groom, who had succumbed for a time to wounds
and weakness on his way home to Alnwick, was touched by the warmth and
emotion with which the kind bedeswoman listened to his lamentation over
the good and loyal knight, whom she pictured to herself resisting the
enchantress's dread power as dauntlessly as he had defied the phantoms of
the Dance of Death.
No whisper ever reached Esclairmonde that the terrible Pucelle was a
maiden as pure and high-souled as herself. All that she heard more was
that this terror of the English and Burgundians was taken, imprisoned for
a time by her own Luxemburg kindred, and then carried to Rouen, where the
kind Duchess Anne of Bedford did her best to persuade her to overcome the
superstition that kept her in male garments, thus greatly tending to
increase the belief in her connection with the powers of evil. French
and Burgundian bishops, and even the University of Paris, were the judges
of the maiden; and the dastard prince she had crowned never stirred a
finger nor uttered a protest in her behalf. Bedford, always disposed to
belief in witchcraft, acquiesced in the decision of Churchmen, which was
therefore called the judgment of the Church; but when he removed himself
and his duchess from Rouen, and left the conduct of the matter to the
sterner and harder Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, it was with little thought
that after-generations would load his memory with the fate of Jeanne
d'Arc, as though her sufferings had proceeded from his individual malice.
Esclairmonde never saw Bedford again, and only heard through Alice, now
Countess of Salisbury, how when good Duchess Anne was dead, and her
gentle influence removed, Burgundy's disinclination to the English cause
was no longer balanced; and how Bedford, perplexed, disheartened, broken
in health, but still earnest to propitiate friends for his helpless
nephew, had listened to the wily whisper of the Bishop of Therouenne,
that his niece, Jaquette, would secure the devotion of the Count de St.
Pol, and that she was moreover like unto another Demoiselle de Luxemburg.
How like, Esclairmonde could judge, when her kinswoman, widowed in her
eighteenth year, at six months' end, came to London to claim her dower.
Never, since her days of wandering and anxiety, had Esclairmonde felt
such pain as when she perceived how little store the thoughtless girl had
set by the great and noble spirit that had been quenched under the load
of toil and care with which it had battled for thirteen long years.
Faithful, great-hearted Bedford, striving to uphold a losing cause, to
reconcile selfish contentions, to retain conquests that, though unjustly
made, he had no power to relinquish; and all without one trustworthy
relation, with friends and fellow-warriors dying, disputing, betraying,
or deserting, his was as self-devoted and as mournful a career as ever
was run by any prince at any age of the world; and while he slept in his
grave at Rouen, that grave which even Louis XI. respected, Esclairmonde,
as, like a true bedeswoman of St. Katharine, she joined in the orisons
for the repose of the souls of the royal kindred, never heard the name of
the Lord John without a throb of prayer, and a throb too that warmed her
heart with tenderness.
It was some four years later, and the even tenor of Sister Clare's course
had only been interrupted by her kinswoman, Jaquette, making her way to
her to confess her marriage with Richard Wydville, and to entreat her
intercession with the Luxemburg family; when one summer night she was
called on to attend a pilgrim priest from the Holy Land, who had been
landed from a Flemish vessel, and lay dangerously sick at the 'God's
house,' or hospital, by the river side. He was thought by his accent to
be foreign, and Sister Clare was always called on to wait upon the
stranger.
As she stood by his bedside, she beheld a man of middle age, but wasted
with sickness, and with a certain strange look of horror so imprinted on
his brow, that even as he lay asleep, though his mouth was grave and
peaceful, the lines were still there, and the locks that hung from around
his tonsure were of a whiteness that scarce accorded with the features.
It was a face that Esclairmonde could not look at without waking strange
memories; but it was not till the sleeper awakened, opened two dark eyes,
gazed on her with dreamy doubtful wonder, and then clasped his hands with
the murmured thanksgiving, 'My God, hast Thou granted me this? Light of
my life!' that she was assured to whom she was speaking.
Malcolm Stewart it verily was. Canon Malcolm Stewart of Dunkeld was his
proper title, for he had, as she knew, long ceased to be Lord of
Glenuskie. It was not at first that she knew how he had been brought
where she now saw him; but after some few days of her tender care and
skilful leechcraft, he somewhat rallied, and she gathered his history
from his conversation when he was able to speak.
He had had a time of happy labour in Scotland, fully carrying out the
designs with which he and his cousin James Kennedy had taken upon them
the ministry. Their own birth, and the appointments their King gave
them, so soon as their age permitted, made them able to exert an
influence that told upon the rude and unenlightened clergy around. It
had been almost a mission of conversion, to awaken a spirit of
Christianity in the country, that had so long been a prey to anarchy. The
King's declaration, 'I will make the key keep the castle, and the bracken-
bush keep the cow, though I live the life of a dog to bring it about,'
had been the moving spring of their lives. James had fought hour by hour
with the foul habits of lawlessness, savagery, and violence, that had
hitherto been absolutely unchecked; and while he strove with the sword of
justice, the two young priests worked within the Word of truth, to
implant some sense of conscience in the neglected people.
It had been a life of constant exertion, but full of hope and
cheerfulness. Amid that rude country, James's own home was always a
bright spot of peace, sunshine, and refinement. With his beloved queen,
and their fair little brood of children, the King cast aside his cares,
and was all, and more than all, he had been as the ornament of Henry's
Court. There all that was sweet, innocent, and beautiful was to be
found; and there Malcolm, his royal kinsman's confidant, counsellor, and
chaplain, was always welcome as one of the home circle and family, till
he broke away from such delights to labour in his task of reviving
religion in the land. A little band of men were gathering round, clergy
awakening from their sloth or worldliness, young nobles who began to see
what chivalry meant, burghers who rejoiced in order; and hope and
encouragement strengthened the hands of the three kinsmen.
But, alas! there were those who deemed James's justice on the savage
prince and noble mere sacrilege on high blood, and who absolutely hated
and loathed peace and order. Those thirteen years of cheerful progress
ended in that murder so unspeakably horrible in all its circumstances,
which almost merits the name of a martyrdom to right and justice. Malcolm
so shuddered when he did but touch on it, and was so rent with agitation,
that Esclairmonde perceived that when his beloved King had perished, he
had indeed received the death-wound to his own fragile nature.
He had been actually in the Abbey of Perth; and had been one of those who
lifted the mangled corpse from the vault, and sought in vain for a
remnant of life, if but to grant the absolution, for which the victim had
so piteously besought his murderers. No wonder that Fastern's E'en had
whitened Malcolm's hair!
But when the assassins were captured, and Joan of Beaufort was resolved
that their death should be as atrocious as their crime, it was Malcolm
who strove to bend her to forgiveness. He bade her recollect King Henry,
and how, when dealing with that cruel monster, the Castellane of Meaux,
he had merely required death, without enhancing the agony; but Joan, in
her rage and misery, had left the Englishwoman behind her, and was
implacable. All that human cruelty could invent was to be the lot of
Robert Graham and his associates; and whereas they had granted no priest
to their victim, none should be granted to them.
And then it was that all Malcolm had learnt of the true spirit of the
Christian triumphed--not only over the dark Keltic spirit of revenge, but
over the shuddering of a tender and pitiful nature. Where no other
priest durst venture, he went. Through all the frightful and protracted
sufferings of Athol, Graham, Hall, and the rest, it was Malcolm Stewart
who, never flinching, prayed with and for them; gathered their agonized
sobs of confession, or strove to soften their hardness; spoke the words
of absolution, and commended their departing souls.
When he awoke from the long unconsciousness and delirium that ensued upon
the force he had put on himself, he found himself tended by his sister at
Glenuskie. Patrick Drummond had transported him thither; finding that
the angry Queen, in the madness of her vindictiveness, was well-nigh
disposed to connect him with the treasonable designs of Athol and Graham.
He slowly and partially recovered, but his influence was gone; the Queen
would not brook the sound of his name, the little king was beyond his
reach, James Kennedy was biding his time, and the country was returned to
its state of misrule and violence, wherein an individual priest could do
little: yet Malcolm would have held by his post, had not his health been
so utterly shattered that he was incapable of the work he had hitherto
done, as a confessor and a preacher. And therefore, as the state of his
beloved King, 'sent to his account unhouselled, disappointed,
unannealed,' hung heavy on his mind, he determined, so soon as he was in
any degree convalescent, to set forth on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the
object of so many dreams of King Henry; there to offer masses and prayers
for the welfare of his departed prince, as well as of the unhappy
murderers, and for the country in its distracted condition.
And there, at the Holy Sepulchre, had Malcolm, in the fervour of his
heart, offered the greatest treasure he possessed--nay, the only one that
he still really cared for--namely his betrothal ring, which Esclairmonde
had worn for so long and had returned to him. As a priest, he had deemed
that it was not unlawful for him to retain the memorial of the link that
had bound him to her who had been the light that led him to the true
Light beyond; but as youth passed away, as devotion burned brighter, as
the experiences of those years became more dream-like, and the horror,
grief, and misery of his King's death had been assuaged only by the
steadier contemplation of the Light of Eternity, he had felt that this
last pledge of his once lower aims and hopes ought to be resigned; and
that if it cost him a pang, it was well that it should be so, to render
the offering a sacrifice. So the ring that had once been Esclairmonde's
protection was laid on the altar of the Holy Tomb.
There Malcolm had well-nigh died, under the influences of agitation,
fatigue, and climate; but he had revived enough to set out on his return
from his pilgrimage, and had made his way tardily and wearily, losing his
attendants through death and desertion on the road; and passing from one
religious house to another, as his strength and nearly exhausted means
served him. Unable to find any vessel bound for Leith, he had taken ship
for London; concealing his quality, lest, in the always probable
contingency of a war, it might lead to his being made prisoner; and thus
he had arrived, sick indeed unto death, but peaceful, rejoicing, and
hopeful.
'Sister,' he said, 'the morn that I had offered my ring, I was feeble and
faint; and when I knelt on before the altar in continued prayer--I know
not whether I slept or whether it were a vision, but it was to me as
though I were again on the river, and again the hymn of Bernard of
Morlaix was sung around and above me, by the voice I never thought to
hear again. I looked up, and behold it was I that was in the boat--my
King was there no more. Nay, he stood on the shore, and his eyes beamed
on me; while the ghastly wounds that I once strove in anguish to staunch
shone out like a ruby cross on his breast--the hands, that were so sorely
gashed, were to me as though marked by the impress of the Sacred Wounds.
He spake not; but by his side stood King Henry, beautiful and
spirit-like, and smiled on me, and seemed as though he pointed to the
wounds, as he said, "Blessed is the king who died by his people's hand,
for withstanding his people's sin! Blessed is every faint image of the
true King!"
'Then methought they held out their arms to me; and I would have come to
them on their shore of rest, but the river bore me away--and I looked up,
to find I was as yet only in the earthly Jerusalem; but I watch for them
every hour, to call me once and for ever.'
FOOTNOTES
{1} 'Hail, reverend brother. I come from Paris.'
{2} Student of the first year.
{3} Manners are lacking to the Northerners.
{4} Wretches.
{5} For supper.
{6} Telephus and Peleus, when both are poor and exiled, dismiss boasting
and six-foot words.
{7} It is dispersed in a cloud.