opinion upon second thoughts; and I do it upon my recollection of what I
have seen and heard of my father's sorrow for the fate of his
favourites, and resentment against their executioners. He sigheth by
night and by day for his brave and stately draughtsman, Earl Cochrane,
his sweet-toned Rogers, and his erudite Ireland. I do, on my conscience,
believe he sorrows more for these men than for his own imprisonment."
"And doth your highness approve or condemn our conduct, in hanging these
favourites over Lauder Bridge?" said Hume.
"Why, I think a rope was too good for them, and a pardon not enough for
the executioners," replied the prince; "you should have had a bounty on
each head of the varlets. If my exchequer were not so empty, I would
award ye a recompense myself. But I have heard that some of ye played
into the hands of Gloucester, Albany, and Douglas, in that affair of
Lauder. What say ye?"
"Thou hast been deceived," said Gray. "Archibald Bell-the-Cat was,
doubtless, for the English king, but we stood true to our country. It
was the favourites alone we wanted to punish--and we did punish them; an
act which, apparently, thy father is determined not to forgive. What
then are we to do? Wilt thou, the heir-apparent, stand aside and see
those who freed thy father from the shackles of favouritism, and saved
our country from the domination of a court of mechanics, consigned to a
cruel punishment, or what is worse, to the terrors of Damocles?"
"Never!" cried the fiery youth; "I applaud your conduct, and could
recommend to you some more work of the same kind; for my father has got
another court of mechanics. Scarcely a nobleman is allowed to approach
him. The Archbishop of St Andrew's, Schevez, has not forgotten his
rudiments of astrology he learned from Spernicus at Louvaine--for the
teaching of the king keeps up his own knowledge; and Cochrane, Rogers,
Hemmil, Torphichen, Leonard, and Preston, whom you so beautifully
suspended over the old bridge, have been replaced by others, no less
elevated in their birth, and no less learned in the arts. My father is
lost. Scotland is ruled by the stars. The birth of every year hath its
horoscope. Chivalry declineth in the land. The glory of the Bruce is
forgotten. There is much work before me, and I wish it were well begun,
for I cannot doubt that by your services it will be well ended."
"Thou speakest like the wisdom of the oldest of us," said Gray; "and I
am urged, by some of the concluding words of thy speech, to put a
question to your highness--yet I tremble at my own boldness."
"Speak, good Gray," said the prince; "my father will not pardon you and
your associates, after your work of good service is finished--I will
pardon thee before thou beginnest."
"Is it the opinion of your highness," said the wily baron, "that a king
who is ruled by the stars (the _moon_ as a _fixed_ one not excepted) is
fit to govern this kingdom, which has heretofore obeyed the statutes of
parliament and the sword of the knight?"
"Upon the honour of my order of knighthood," cried the prince, "thy
question goeth home into the heart and marrow of the matter, and my
answer shall not be behind it: I opine not."
"And doth not the situation in which we stand," said Hume--"we, the
greater number of the nobles in the land, liable every instant to
forfeit our lives to an aspect of the heavens--to be hanged for hanging
the favourites of the king five years ago--render it imperative on us to
seek, in the spirited and knightly heir-apparent, a substitute for him
who is declared unfit to rule, without danger to the country and ruin to
us?"
"Assuredly," answered the flattered prince. "If the king is not deposed,
you will be deposed, and I shall be scandalised by the sight of a
star-gazing king, and a host of dangling nobles at the end of ropes not
so fine as the silk cords of Cochrane the mason's tent, which he
requested for the special convenience of his noble craig. What will ye?"
"That thou shouldst head our party," said Gray, "and be our king in
place of thy father, who is unfit to govern this kingdom, and unwilling
to pardon his friends."
"I object not," replied the prince. "The king, my father, can be cared
for tenderly. Let him be sent to my palace of Rothsay, where he can gaze
on the heavens from sunset to sunrise, and send me daily an astrological
express, to enable me to govern the kingdom by this heavenly wisdom."
"All hail, our king!" now cried the voices of a hundred knights and
nobles, who, on a signal, had hurried from the table, and surrounded the
prince. "All hail, James the Fourth, King of Scotland, and our lawful
sovereign!"
And the whole assemblage kneeled before the young prince, who received
the homage with every feeling of gratified pride.
While this extraordinary scene was in the course of being enacted, in
the midst of a brilliant assemblage, and the eulogistic flattery of the
interested actors, James felt no compunctions of broken filial duty and
ruptured affection. Swelled with the pride of his new and
suddenly-acquired honour, the thought of the price at which its
confirmation must be bought--the deposition and degradation of an
up-right and humane, though weak, king, and that king his father--never
interfered with the flow of his gratified and excited feelings.
Everything was now grand, hilarious, and hopeful; and a far vista of
wise legislative and noble knightly achievements, claimed the rapt eye
of his mind, when his attention could be taken off the brilliant scene
before him. His experience of the mind of man and the operations of
fate did not inform him that there is a mysterious agreement between the
one and the other, whereby their results are mutually and wonderfully
magnified, and the individual who studies himself is brought to tremble
at the height of joy, as the precursor of a cause ready to plunge him
into the depths of melancholy anticipation and sorrow. We are told that
kings are great examples in the hands of a teaching Providence; and
hence our authority for approaching, with greater confidence than we
could do in relation to ordinary individuals, the cause of the change
that awaited the feelings and aspirations of the young prince on the
night of his anticipated honour.
About twelve o'clock he was attended to his chamber, the royal apartment
of the castle, by Shaw of Sauchie, the governor, and several of the
nobles, who, after conversing with him for some time, left him, locking
the door after them as they departed--a measure, they explained to him,
as being necessary for his own safety, in the midst of so much
dissension and distrust as prevailed at that time among the nobility.
The circumstance did not alarm the royal prisoner, though he could not
but think it strange that, on the first night of his installation, his
palace should be converted into a jail, and the king of his country
should be the jail-bird of the seneschal of one of his own castles. Free
of all sense of personal danger, he contemplated the temporary privation
of his liberty rather with a disposition to being amused than annoyed,
and lay down to court that rest which joy, equally as sorrow, banishes
from the pillow of mortals. His thoughts took now a direction the very
reverse of what they had followed during the day. The image of his
deceased mother, Queen Margaret, forced itself on his mind. Her pious,
reserved, and meek manners, with her devotion to her consort and her
affection to her eldest son, all sanctified and made more lovely and
interesting by her death, softened his heart, and filled his eyes with
the tears of a son's love; while his undutiful conduct that night, in
agreeing to the dethronement of his father, silently censured, as it
appeared to be, by her gentle spirit, called up a feeling of remorse,
which wrung his heart with pain, and added to the tears which he was
already shedding in profusion. If left to his choice, he would now have
undone what he had been so ready to perform at the request of factious
and interested men; and, if the door of his apartment had not been
locked, the strength of his feelings might have urged him to seek for
safety and forgiveness at the feet of his injured parent.
The hour was far advanced, but the restlessness of his fevered fancy
still prevented all rest. The apartment was dark, no attendant was
within call, and he was necessitated, though a king, to yield obedience
to a power which no mortal can resist; the feelings of love, sorrow,
regret, remorse, and repentance--as applicable to the parent who was
lying in a royal sepulchre, and to another who was virtually, in so far
as regarded his intention, deposed and degraded--alternated, became
stronger, decayed, and revived again with a painful and harassing
vacillation. He heard the warder call two o'clock; again all was silent
as before, and his thoughts were about to fall into the same painful
train, when he heard the iron bar of the door of his apartment gently
drawn, and saw enter the figure of an old man, with a long grey beard, a
grey cloak, which reached to his feet, and was bound by a blue belt, and
holding in his hand a taper, which, glimmering with a fitful light,
exposed very imperfectly the strange and fearful-looking object who held
it. James's eyes were fixed upon him intensely, and the lustreless orbs
of his visiter repaid the looks with as intent a gaze, and made a thrill
of superstitious terror run over his body. The figure continued the gaze
as it approached the bed, which, having reached, it stood silent,
holding up the lamp in the face of the trembling youth, and apparently
taking care not to change the set of its features, or the direction or
manner of its look. This attitude enabled James to scan narrowly the
features of the individual: they appeared to be somewhat sinister,
though he could not say where the precise expression lay, or what it
truly was--seriousness seemed to degenerate into sternness, and that
again into malignity, which was again relieved by some traces of
kindness and patronising protection. A deep scar on the right cheek, and
what by doctors is called a staphylomatic eye, in consequence of its
resemblance to a white grape, had a great share in the production of the
uncertain expression which was so difficult to read. Having thus stood
for some time at the side of the bed, looking into the face of the
prince, and holding the glimmering lamp so as to suit its imperfect
vision, the figure lifted solemnly its left hand, and, in a low and
somewhat guttural tone of voice, said--
"What is the duty of a son to a parent, of a subject to a king, of a
creature to the Creator?"
James was silent; the question was threefold, and implied censure,
which, co-operating with his fear, prevented reply.
"What doth he deserve," proceeded the figure, "who disobeyeth his
parent, deposeth his king, and rebelleth against the laws of God?"
The terror of an apparition working on a predisposed mind was every
moment receiving an augmentation of strength; and the young prince, in
place of replying, grasped the bedclothes firmly around him, and eyed
the speaker with nervous looks.
"Thou answerest not," continued the speaker--"and why? Pride and
self-approbation are gifted with the loquacity of the joy which, they
say, chattereth only when the sun shineth; but wisdom is represented by
the owl, whose reign is in the still hours of night. Yesterday thou
couldst speak of being a king--ay, a king over thy father and thy
father's subjects--and a king in the verity of traitors' tongues thou
art; yet where is thy authority, when even the tongue of royalty
cleaveth slavishly to the parched mouth of the conscience-stricken, and
preventeth thee from seizing these dry bones" (holding forth his hands),
"and consigning this head of grey hairs to the Heading Hill of Stirling?
The king or the prince who is enslaved by his conscience oweth the
duties of villeinage to the worst and hardest of masters. The chain is
forging, the forge is in action, the hammer and the anvil hold in their
embrace the connecting link of a king's bondage. The eagle flies over
Schiehallion to-day, and to-morrow the spurning pinions quiver in the
grasp of the hand. The exulting, swelling heart of virtue hath not yet
collapsed. There is time to rouse thyself, and throw off the tyrant
whose power thou feelest even now. Return to thy allegiance. Love and
obey thy father; aid him against his foes. Refuse--and be thrice
miserably damned."
The figure turned, and retreated from the bed. The door was opened, shut
and locked. Nothing was to be seen, and nothing heard. Roused from his
fear, James sprung up, and cried--
"Whether of mortal mould, or a mere borrower on occasion of our rude
forms of earth, return, and say whence thy commission, and of what
import. If a mere messenger of man, I'll heed thee not; but, if thou'lt
give me proof that James of Scotland, my royal father, enjoys the
protection of the King of All, I'll on the instant renounce my new-born
honours, hail him king, thee my good angel, and be once more plain James
of Rothsay."
No answer was returned to the call of the prince; he listened for a time
at the door of the apartment, and, hearing no sound, returned to bed,
where, after tossing about for several hours, he fell into a sound
sleep. Towards morning he dreamed that the figure again visited him, and
communed with him on the crime of filial disobedience--the fancied
apparition and the supposed conversation being in the dream so clearly
developed, that, when he awoke, he felt the greatest difficulty in
endeavouring to segregate the real from the imaginary appearances. He
had even doubts whether he had actually seen the figure, or whether the
first scene was not that of a dream as well as the second; and he knew
of no mode other than that of having recourse to simple conviction, of
satisfying himself on this interesting point. He was not contented with
the proof afforded by his consciousness, the very _ne plus ultra_ of
human probation, and resolved on making an application to the warder,
with the view of getting some confirmation of the evidence of his
senses.
He had scarcely made his resolution, when Governor Shaw unlocked the
door, and entered the apartment. Full of the thoughts he had been
indulging and canvassing with so much anxiety since he arose, the prince
told his visiter what he thought he had seen during the night, but
candidly admitted that he had had also a vision in a dream approaching
so nearly to the reality of the waking sense, that he could not take
upon him to say that the first appearance was _undoubtedly_ a real
natural exhibition of a mortal existence. The governor listened with
great attention, and anxiously inquired what was the subject of the
conversation that passed between him and the old man. The prince
narrated to him, as nearly as possible, the words used by the figure,
and admitted that he himself had no power to reply, till after the
visiter was gone and the door locked. Shaw was evidently much moved by
the recital, and, in a confused and hurried manner, endeavoured to
convince James that he had had a visit of nightmare--an affection with
which he was probably, in consequence of his extreme youth, as yet
unacquainted, but a mysterious operation of nature, quite sufficient to
produce in a young and fervent mind that semi-consciousness of reality
which had apparently perplexed him so much. He recommended to him to
banish the affair from his mind, and, above all, to say nothing of it to
the warlike nobles in the castle, whose very objection to the rule of
his father was founded on the latter's faith in dreams, auguries, and
astrological nostrums--a true sign of a weak intellect.
This latter part of the governor's statement, which was delivered with
much gravity, produced a great effect upon the mind of James, whose
contempt of his father's occult, astrological, and oneirocritical
practices was the cause of his disobedience, as well as its apology. He
trembled at the thought of incurring, on his own part, the censure which
had been heaped on his parent, and felt anxious to escape precipitately
from the subject he had broached, as well as from his own thoughts,
which, mixing up reality and imagination in inextricable confusion,
produced nothing but doubt, irresolution, and anxiety. If he had been
anxious, on the entry of Shaw, to tell him the wonders of the night, he
was now more anxious to undo what he had done, and remove from the mind
of the governor any suspicion that he inherited from his father his
hairbrained propensity to believe in dreams and divinations. Changing
the style of his speech, as well as the expression of his countenance,
he attempted to make light of his nocturnal adventure, and laughed off
the clinging belief with an effort which was not unnoticed by his wily
visiter. The power of early prejudices in overcoming the convictions of
truth, effected a partial triumph; but there still clung to the mind of
the youth a feeling of a struggling conviction, which his forced laugh
and his expressed contempt of all supernatural beliefs had little power
to affect. He felt, however, the necessity of maintaining absolute
silence on a subject so intimately connected with his dispute with his
father, and Shaw undertook to say nothing of the occurrence, which he
affected to think had been properly treated by the noble mind of the
young prince.
The scheme of this unnatural rebellion being persevered in with great
determination and asperity, a court was held next day in the Castle of
Stirling, where all the ceremonies of a royal levee were gone through
with studied state and affected etiquette. The Earl of Argyle was
reinstated in the office of chancellor, which had been conferred by his
father on Elphinston, Bishop of Aberdeen. A negotiation was opened with
the English king, Henry VII., who, having had a dispute with the old
king as to the restoration of Berwick, very readily entered into the
views of the son, and agreed to grant passports to his ambassadors, the
Bishops of Glasgow and Dunkeld, the Earl of Argyle, Lords Lyle and
Hailes, with the Master of Hume, who were, in fact, the heads of the
rebellious party. The boldness of these proceedings, quadrating with the
weakness of the king's actions, spread disaffection among the people of
Scotland far and wide; and it was soon rumoured that the monarch, afraid
of the disposition of his subjects towards the south, had proceeded to
Aberdeen, and issued orders for the array of Strathearn and Angus, and
all his friends in the north who still retained their allegiance. If the
son soon found himself at the head of a large force in the south, the
father was as successful in the north. Athole, Huntly, Crawford, and
Lindsay of Byres, joined his standard; and to these were soon added
Buchan, Errol, Glammis, Forbes, and Kilmaurs--so that the two ends of
the kingdom were completely arrayed against each other, and the
antagonist forces were headed by a father and a son.
The monarch having thus vacated the capital, and betaken himself to the
north, an opportunity was held out to the son to lay siege to the Castle
of Edinburgh; and orders were given to the troops to proceed in that
direction. During all this time the mind of the prince had been kept up
by the insidious counsels of the rebel lords, who represented the
unfilial work in which he was engaged as conducive to the benefit of the
kingdom, which would receive the blessings of his wise legislation. The
youth was flattered by these statements; and the details of an army, by
occupying his thoughts, banished from his recollection the night scene
of the Castle of Stirling, which, as time aided the efforts of his
sceptical wishes, gradually appeared to assume more and more the
character of a false and delusive dream. Meanwhile, Hume and Hailes, and
others who had been sent as ambassadors to England, returned with
intelligence that Henry was favourable to their cause--a circumstance
which still farther flattered the vanity of the youth, and prevented him
from giving way to the feelings of instinctive duty and affection
towards his father. Proceeding gradually forward, the rebel army came to
Blackness, near Linlithgow, where they encamped.
The army of the king, in the meantime, came up, and the unusual sight
was exhibited of two parts of a nation, headed by a father and a son,
contending for a throne, arrayed against each other, with reciprocal
feelings of enmity and views of mortal conflict. The benevolent heart of
the father relented, and terms of accommodation, as prepared by Huntly
and Errol, were sanctioned by his signature, but prevented from being
properly submitted to the son by the rash conduct of Buchan, who thought
he would be able to extinguish the rebellion by one blow. A skirmish was
the consequence, in which the earl gained some advantage; but, though
the triumph was magnified into a victory, the rebel forces were as
strong as ever, while the sight of kindred blood on the swords of the
warriors of either side of the field sickened the hearts of brave men,
who, in other circumstances, would have been fired by the token of an
advantage over an enemy. The wish for an accommodation was increased on
the side of the king and his troops, and the former terms of
accommodation were submitted to the rebel prince, who was still under
the leading-strings of the arch traitors by whom he had been led into
this unseemly and unnatural position.
The terms of accommodation were extremely favourable to the insurgent
forces, as, without exacting any condition but that of laying down their
arms, the king agreed to admit them to favour and grant them pardons for
present and bygone offences; yet great dissension existed amongst the
rebels on the subject of the acceptance of the offer of peace, and the
prince, urged on by Gray, in whom he had the greatest confidence, headed
the party who were inclined to stand out.
"I for one," said the youth, "receive nothing by these terms but the
mighty boon of forgiveness, which will neither add to my honours nor
contribute to my ambition. By being the friend of my royal father, I may
be gratified by getting a view of Venus through his astrolabe; but I
would rather, upon the honour of a knight, be his lieutenant in the
government of this part of the planet Earth called Scotland. It is clear
that my father is as unfit to rule the kingdom as was the father of the
former holder of my title of Duke of Rothsay, Robert III, who made his
son lieutenant-general--and why should I be debarred from what is my
natural and legitimate right? It will be for the good of you all that I
am appointed to that office, insomuch as the friendship of a ruler
invested with all the power is better than the pardon of a king who has
none."
These sentiments were opposed by many of the lords, and in particular by
the Earl of Argyle.
"By these terms of accommodation," said he, "we get all we have been
fighting for, or can expect from a victory gained through the blood of
our countrymen and kinsmen--a free pardon for the execution of the
favourites at the Bridge of Lauder, and a restoration to the favour and
confidence of the king. We cannot force a lieutenantcy in favour of the
prince who is at present our king, otherwise than by committing his
royal father to close confinement--for what self-denying ordinance could
prevent a sane and free king, not deposed by his subjects, from
exercising his authority in opposition to that of a lieutenant forced
upon him against his will, and acting against his wishes? The crown, as
surely as a coffin, will come to one prince by the course of nature, and
better wait for a regular inheritance, than anticipate a right by
rebellion, spoliation, and force."