If I know how to manage these affairs,
Thus thrust disorderly upon my hands,
Never believe me--
Richard II.
It was early in the afternoon of St. Valentine’s Day that the prior of
the Dominicans was engaged in discharge of his duties as confessor to
a penitent of no small importance. This was an elderly man, of a goodly
presence, a florid and healthful cheek, the under part of which was
shaded by a venerable white beard, which descended over his bosom. The
large and clear blue eyes, with the broad expanse of brow, expressed
dignity; but it was of a character which seemed more accustomed to
receive honours voluntarily paid than to enforce them when they were
refused. The good nature of the expression was so great as to approach
to defenceless simplicity or weakness of character, unfit, it might
be inferred, to repel intrusion or subdue resistance. Amongst the grey
locks of this personage was placed a small circlet or coronet of gold,
upon a blue fillet. His beads, which were large and conspicuous, were of
native gold, rudely enough wrought, but ornamented with Scottish pearls
of rare size and beauty. These were his only ornaments; and a long
crimson robe of silk, tied by a sash of the same colour, formed his
attire. His shrift being finished, he arose heavily from the embroidered
cushion upon which he kneeled during his confession, and, by the
assistance of a crutch headed staff of ebony, moved, lame and
ungracefully, and with apparent pain, to a chair of state, which,
surmounted by a canopy, was placed for his accommodation by the chimney
of the lofty and large apartment.
This was Robert, third of that name, and the second of the ill fated
family of Stuart who filled the throne of Scotland. He had many virtues,
and was not without talent; but it was his great misfortune that, like
others of his devoted line, his merits were not of a kind suited to the
part which he was called upon to perform in life. The king of so fierce
a people as the Scots then were ought to have been warlike, prompt, and
active, liberal in rewarding services, strict in punishing crimes, one
whose conduct should make him feared as well as beloved. The qualities
of Robert the Third were the reverse of all these. In youth he had
indeed seen battles; but, without incurring disgrace, he had never
manifested the chivalrous love of war and peril, or the eager desire to
distinguish himself by dangerous achievements, which that age expected
from all who were of noble birth and had claims to authority.
Besides, his military career was very short. Amidst the tumult of a
tournament, the young Earl of Carrick, such was then his title, received
a kick from the horse of Sir James Douglas of Dalkeith, in consequence
of which he was lame for the rest of his life, and absolutely disabled
from taking share either in warfare or in the military sports and
tournaments which were its image. As Robert had never testified much
predilection for violent exertion, he did not probably much regret
the incapacities which exempted him from these active scenes. But his
misfortune, or rather its consequences, lowered him in the eyes of
a fierce nobility and warlike people. He was obliged to repose the
principal charge of his affairs now in one member, now in another, of
his family, sometimes with the actual rank, and always with the power,
of lieutenant general of the kingdom. His paternal affection would have
induced him to use the assistance of his eldest son, a young man of
spirit and talent, whom in fondness he had created Duke of Rothsay, in
order to give him the present possession of a dignity next to that of
the throne. But the young prince’s head was too giddy, and his hand
too feeble to wield with dignity the delegated sceptre. However fond of
power, pleasure was the Prince’s favourite pursuit; and the court was
disturbed, and the country scandalised, by the number of fugitive amours
and extravagant revels practised by him who should have set an example
of order and regularity to the youth of the kingdom.
The license and impropriety of the Duke of Rothsay’s conduct was the
more reprehensible in the public view, that he was a married person;
although some, over whom his youth, gaiety, grace, and good temper had
obtained influence, were of opinion that an excuse for his libertinism
might be found in the circumstances of the marriage itself. They
reminded each other that his nuptials were entirely conducted by his
uncle, the Duke of Albany, by whose counsels the infirm and timid King
was much governed at the time, and who had the character of managing the
temper of his brother and sovereign, so as might be most injurious to
the interests and prospects of the young heir. By Albany’s machinations
the hand of the heir apparent was in a manner put up to sale, as it was
understood publicly that the nobleman in Scotland who should give the
largest dower to his daughter might aspire to raise her to the bed of
the Duke of Rothsay.
In the contest for preference which ensued, George Earl of Dunbar and
March, who possessed, by himself or his vassals, a great part of the
eastern frontier, was preferred to other competitors; and his daughter
was, with the mutual goodwill of the young couple, actually contracted
to the Duke of Rothsay.
But there remained a third party to be consulted, and that was no other
than the tremendous Archibald Earl of Douglas, terrible alike from the
extent of his lands, from the numerous offices and jurisdictions with
which he was invested, and from his personal qualities of wisdom and
valour, mingled with indomitable pride, and more than the feudal love
of vengeance. The Earl was also nearly related to the throne, having
married the eldest daughter of the reigning monarch.
After the espousals of the Duke of Rothsay with the Earl of March’s
daughter, Douglas, as if he had postponed his share in the negotiation
to show that it could not be concluded with any one but himself, entered
the lists to break off the contract. He tendered a larger dower with his
daughter Marjory than the Earl of March had proffered; and, secured by
his own cupidity and fear of the Douglas, Albany exerted his influence
with the timid monarch till he was prevailed upon to break the contract
with the Earl of March, and wed his son to Marjory Douglas, a woman whom
Rothsay could not love. No apology was offered to the Earl of March,
excepting that the espousals betwixt the Prince and Elizabeth of Dunbar
had not been approved by the States of Parliament, and that till such
ratification the contract was liable to be broken off. The Earl deeply
resented the wrong done to himself and his daughter, and was generally
understood to study revenge, which his great influence on the English
frontier was likely to place within his power.
In the mean time, the Duke of Rothsay, incensed at the sacrifice of his
hand and his inclinations to this state intrigue, took his own mode
of venting his displeasure, by neglecting his wife, contemning his
formidable and dangerous father in law, and showing little respect
to the authority of the King himself, and none whatever to the
remonstrances of Albany, his uncle, whom he looked upon as his confirmed
enemy.
Amid these internal dissensions of his family, which extended themselves
through his councils and administration, introducing everywhere the
baneful effects of uncertainty and disunion, the feeble monarch had
for some time been supported by the counsels of his queen, Annabella, a
daughter of the noble house of Drummond, gifted with a depth of sagacity
and firmness of mind which exercised some restraint over the levities
of a son who respected her, and sustained on many occasions the wavering
resolution of her royal husband. But after her death the imbecile
sovereign resembled nothing so much as a vessel drifted from her
anchors, and tossed about amidst contending currents. Abstractedly
considered, Robert might be said to doat upon his son, to entertain
respect and awe for the character of his brother Albany, so much more
decisive than his own, to fear the Douglas with a terror which was
almost instinctive; and to suspect the constancy of the bold but fickle
Earl of March. But his feelings towards these various characters were
so mixed and complicated, that from time to time they showed entirely
different from what they really were; and according to the interest
which had been last exerted over his flexible mind, the King would
change from an indulgent to a strict and even cruel father, from a
confiding to a jealous brother, or from a benignant and bountiful to a
grasping and encroaching sovereign. Like the chameleon, his feeble mind
reflected the colour of that firmer character upon which at the time he
reposed for counsel and assistance. And when he disused the advice
of one of his family, and employed the counsel of another, it was no
unwonted thing to see a total change of measures, equally disrespectable
to the character of the King and dangerous to the safety of the state.
It followed as a matter of course that the clergy of the Catholic Church
acquired influence over a man whose intentions were so excellent, but
whose resolutions were so infirm. Robert was haunted, not only with a
due sense of the errors he had really committed, but with the tormenting
apprehensions of those peccadilloes which beset a superstitious
and timid mind. It is scarce necessary, therefore, to add, that the
churchmen of various descriptions had no small influence over this
easy tempered prince, though, indeed, theirs was, at that period, an
influence from which few or none escaped, however resolute and firm of
purpose in affairs of a temporal character. We now return from this long
digression, without which what we have to relate could not perhaps have
been well understood.
The King had moved with ungraceful difficulty to the cushioned chair
which, under a state or canopy, stood prepared for his accommodation,
and upon which he sank down with enjoyment, like an indolent man, who
had been for some time confined to a constrained position. When seated,
the gentle and venerable looks of the good old man showed benevolence.
The prior, who now remained standing opposite to the royal seat, with
an air of deep deference which cloaked the natural haughtiness of his
carriage, was a man betwixt forty and fifty years of age, but every one
of whose hairs still retained their natural dark colour. Acute features
and a penetrating look attested the talents by which the venerable
father had acquired his high station in the community over which he
presided; and, we may add, in the councils of the kingdom, in whose
service they were often exercised. The chief objects which his education
and habits taught him to keep in view were the extension of the dominion
and the wealth of the church, and the suppression of heresy, both of
which he endeavoured to accomplish by all the means which his situation
afforded him. But he honoured his religion by the sincerity of his own
belief, and by the morality which guided his conduct in all ordinary
situations. The faults of the Prior Anselm, though they led him into
grievous error, and even cruelty, were perhaps rather those of his age
and profession; his virtues were his own.
“These things done,” said the King, “and the lands I have mentioned
secured by my gift to this monastery, you are of opinion, father, that
I stand as much in the good graces of our Holy Mother Church as to term
myself her dutiful son?”
“Surely, my liege,” said the prior; “would to God that all her children
brought to the efficacious sacrament of confession as deep a sense of
their errors, and as much will to make amends for them. But I speak
these comforting words, my liege, not to Robert King of Scotland, but
only to my humble and devout penitent, Robert Stuart of Carrick.”
“You surprise me, father,” answered the King: “I have little check on my
conscience for aught that I have done in my kingly office, seeing that
I use therein less mine own opinion than the advice of the most wise
counsellors.”
“Even therein lieth the danger, my liege,” replied the prior. “The Holy
Father recognises in your Grace, in every thought, word, and action, an
obedient vassal of the Holy Church. But there are perverse counsellors,
who obey the instinct of their wicked hearts, while they abuse the good
nature and ductility of their monarch, and, under colour of serving his
temporal interests, take steps which are prejudicial to those that last
to eternity.”
King Robert raised himself upright in his chair, and assumed an air of
authority, which, though it well became him, he did not usually display.
“Prior Anselm,” he said, “if you have discovered anything in my conduct,
whether as a king or a private individual, which may call down such
censures as your words intimate, it is your duty to speak plainly, and I
command you to do so.”
“My liege, you shall be obeyed,” answered the prior, with an inclination
of the body. Then raising himself up, and assuming the dignity of his
rank in the church, he said, “Hear from me the words of our Holy Father
the Pope, the successor of St. Peter, to whom have descended the keys,
both to bind and to unloose. ‘Wherefore, O Robert of Scotland, hast
thou not received into the see of St. Andrews Henry of Wardlaw, whom the
Pontiff hath recommended to fill that see? Why dost thou make profession
with thy lips of dutiful service to the Church, when thy actions
proclaim the depravity and disobedience of thy inward soul? Obedience is
better than sacrifice.”
“Sir prior,” said the monarch, bearing himself in a manner not
unbecoming his lofty rank, “we may well dispense with answering you upon
this subject, being a matter which concerns us and the estates of our
kingdom, but does not affect our private conscience.”
“Alas,” said the prior, “and whose conscience will it concern at the
last day? Which of your belted lords or wealthy burgesses will then step
between their king and the penalty which he has incurred by following of
their secular policy in matters ecclesiastical? Know, mighty king, that,
were all the chivalry of thy realm drawn up to shield thee from the red
levin bolt, they would be consumed like scorched parchment before the
blaze of a furnace.”
“Good father prior,” said the King, on whose timorous conscience this
kind of language seldom failed to make an impression, “you surely argue
over rigidly in this matter. It was during my last indisposition, while
the Earl of Douglas held, as lieutenant general, the regal authority in
Scotland, that the obstruction to the reception of the Primate unhappily
arose. Do not, therefore, tax me with what happened when I was unable to
conduct the affairs of the kingdom, and compelled to delegate my power
to another.”
“To your subject, sire, you have said enough,” replied the prior. “But,
if the impediment arose during the lieutenancy of the Earl of Douglas,
the legate of his Holiness will demand wherefore it has not been
instantly removed, when the King resumed in his royal hands the reins
of authority? The Black Douglas can do much--more perhaps than a subject
should have power to do in the kingdom of his sovereign; but he cannot
stand betwixt your Grace and your own conscience, or release you from
the duties to the Holy Church which your situation as a king imposes
upon you.”
“Father,” said Robert, somewhat impatiently, “you are over peremptory
in this matter, and ought at least to wait a reasonable season, until
we have time to consider of some remedy. Such disputes have happened
repeatedly in the reigns of our predecessors; and our royal and blessed
ancestor, St. David, did not resign his privileges as a monarch
without making a stand in their defence, even though he was involved in
arguments with the Holy Father himself.”
“And therein was that great and good king neither holy nor saintly,”
said the prior “and therefore was he given to be a rout and a spoil to
his enemies, when he raised his sword against the banners of St. Peter,
and St. Paul, and St. John of Beverley, in the war, as it is still
called, of the Standard. Well was it for him that, like his namesake,
the son of Jesse, his sin was punished upon earth, and not entered
against him at the long and dire day of accounting.”
“Well, good prior--well--enough of this for the present. The Holy See
shall, God willing, have no reason to complain of me. I take Our Lady
to witness, I would not for the crown I wear take the burden of wronging
our Mother Church. We have ever feared that the Earl of Douglas kept his
eyes too much fixed on the fame and the temporalities of this frail and
passing life to feel altogether as he ought the claims that refer to a
future world.”
“It is but lately,” said the prior, “that he hath taken up forcible
quarters in the monastery of Aberbrothock, with his retinue of a
thousand followers; and the abbot is compelled to furnish him with
all he needs for horse and man, which the Earl calls exercising the
hospitality which he hath a right to expect from the foundation to which
his ancestors were contributors. Certain, it were better to return
to the Douglas his lands than to submit to such exaction, which more
resembles the masterful license of Highland thiggers and sorners [sturdy
beggars], than the demeanour of a Christian baron.”
“The Black Douglasses,” said the King, with a sigh, “are a race which
will not be said nay. But, father prior, I am myself, it may be, an
intruder of this kind; for my sojourning hath been long among you, and
my retinue, though far fewer than the Douglas’s, are nevertheless enough
to cumber you for their daily maintenance; and though our order is to
send out purveyors to lessen your charge as much as may be, yet if there
be inconvenience, it were fitting we should remove in time.”
“Now, Our Lady forbid!” said the prior, who, if desirous of power, had
nothing meanly covetous in his temper, but was even magnificent in his
generous kindness; “certainly the Dominican convent can afford to her
sovereign the hospitality which the house offers to every wanderer of
whatever condition who will receive it at the hands of the poor servants
of our patron. No, my royal liege; come with ten times your present
train, they shall neither want a grain of oats, a pile of straw, a
morsel of bread, nor an ounce of food which our convent can supply them.
It is one thing to employ the revenues of the church, which are so much
larger than monks ought to need or wish for, in the suitable and dutiful
reception of your royal Majesty, and another to have it wrenched from
us by the hands of rude and violent men, whose love of rapine is only
limited by the extent of their power.”
“It is well, good prior,” said the King; “and now to turn our thoughts
for an instant from state affairs, can thy reverence inform us how the
good citizens of Perth have begun their Valentine’s Day? Gallantly, and
merrily, and peacefully; I hope.”
“For gallantly, my liege, I know little of such qualities. For
peacefully, there were three or four men, two cruelly wounded, came this
morning before daylight to ask the privilege of girth and sanctuary,
pursued by a hue and cry of citizens in their shirts, with clubs, bills,
Lochaber axes, and two handed swords, crying ‘Kill and slay,’ each
louder than another. Nay, they were not satisfied when our porter and
watch told them that those they pursued had taken refuge in the galilee
of the church, but continued for some minutes clamouring and striking
upon the postern door, demanding that the men who had offended should
be delivered up to them. I was afraid their rude noise might have broken
your Majesty’s rest, and raised some surprise.”
“My rest might have been broken,” said the monarch; “but that sounds of
violence should have occasioned surprise--Alas! reverend father, there
is in Scotland only one place where the shriek of the victim and threats
of the oppressor are not heard, and that, father, is--the grave.”
The prior stood in respectful silence, sympathising with the feelings of
a monarch whose tenderness of heart suited so ill with the condition and
manners of his people.
“And what became of the fugitives?” asked Robert, after a minute’s
pause.
“Surely, sire,” said the prior, “they were dismissed, as they desired
to be, before daylight; and after we had sent out to be assured that no
ambush of their enemies watched them in the vicinity, they went their
way in peace.”
“You know nothing,” inquired the King, “who the men were, or the cause
of their taking refuge with you?”
“The cause,” said the prior, “was a riot with the townsmen; but how
arising is not known to us. The custom of our house is to afford
twenty-four hours of uninterrupted refuge in the sanctuary of St.
Dominic, without asking any question at the poor unfortunates who have
sought relief there. If they desire to remain for a longer space, the
cause of their resorting to sanctuary must be put upon the register of
the convent; and, praised be our holy saint, many persons escape the
weight of the law by this temporary protection, whom, did we know the
character of their crimes, we might have found ourselves obliged to
render up to their pursuers and persecutors.”
As the prior spoke, a dim idea occurred to the monarch, that the
privilege of sanctuary thus peremptorily executed must prove a severe
interruption to the course of justice through his realm. But he repelled
the feeling, as if it had been a suggestion of Satan, and took care that
not a single word should escape to betray to the churchman that such a
profane thought had ever occupied his bosom; on the contrary, he hasted
to change the subject.
“The sun,” he said, “moves slowly on the index. After the painful
information you have given me, I expected the Lords of my Council ere
now, to take order with the ravelled affairs of this unhappy riot. Evil
was the fortune which gave me rule over a people among whom it seems
to me I am in my own person the only man who desires rest and
tranquillity!”
“The church always desires peace and tranquillity,” added the prior,
not suffering even so general a proposition to escape the poor king’s
oppressed mind without insisting on a saving clause for the church’s
honour.
“We meant nothing else,” said Robert. “But, father prior, you will
allow that the church, in quelling strife, as is doubtless her purpose,
resembles the busy housewife, who puts in motion the dust which she
means to sweep away.”
To this remark the prior would have made some reply, but the door of
the apartment was opened, and a gentleman usher announced the Duke of
Albany.