But at this moment a violent pull at the bell startled them all.

When the door was opened a voice was heard in the hall which said,

"Pour un instant, Monseigneur;" whereupon Mr Bullion started up,

and replying, "Oui, mon père," hurried out of the room, and left his

party in more blank amazement than before.

The surmises, the exclamations, the whispers and suspicions that

passed from one to the other, it is needless to record; it will

suffice to say that, after an animated conversation with the

mysterious visitor, Mr Bullion once more joined the circle and said,

"You will be ready, all of you, to start for France to-morrow. I

have business of importance that calls for my presence in Tours. Say

not a word, but obey."

CHAPTER III.

So, in a week, they were all comfortably settled in a hotel at Tours.

Mr Bullion was sitting in the parlour, apparently in deep and

pleasant contemplation; for the corners of his mouth were

involuntarily turned up, and he inspected the calf of his leg with

self-satisfied admiration. Mr Cocker was on a chair in the corner,

probably multiplying the squares in the table-cover by the flowers

in the paper.

"How do you like France, Mr Cocker?" said Mr Bullion.

"Not at all, sir; the folks has no sense; and no wonder we always

wallop them by sea or land."

"Hem! Must I remind you, sir, that this is _my_ country; that the

French are my countrymen; and that you by no means wallop them

either by sea or land."

"_You_ French! _you_ Frenchman!" replied Mr Cocker; "that _is_

a joke! Bullion ain't altogether a French name, I think? No,

no; it smells of the bank; _it_ does. You ain't one of the

_parlevous_--_you_ ain't, that's certain."

"How often have I to order you, sir, not to doubt my word?" said Mr

Bullion; and emphacised his speech with a form of expression that is

generally considered a clencher.

"There! there!" cried Cocker, triumphant; "I told you so. Is there

ever a Frenchman could swear like that? They ain't Christians enough

to give such a jolly hearty curse as yourn; so you see, sir, it's no

go to pass yourself off for a _Mounseer_."

"Leave the room, sir, and send Mr Hope to me at once!"

Cocker obeyed, puzzled more and more at the fancy his master was

possessed with to deny his country.

"It would, perhaps, have been wiser," thought Mr Bullion, "to

have left the plebeian fools at home till everything was formally

completed; but still, nothing, I suppose, would have satisfied them

but the evidence of their own eyes."

"Mr Hope," he said, as that young gentleman entered the room, "sit

down beside me; nay, no ceremony, I shall always treat you with

condescension and regard."

"You are very good, sir."

"I am, sir; and I trust your conduct will continue such as to

justify me in remaining so. You may have observed, Mr Hope, a change

in my manner for some time past. You can't have been fool enough,

like Miss Smith and Mr Cocker, to doubt the reality of the fact I

stated, namely, that I am French by birth,--did you doubt it, sir?"

"Why, sir,--in fact--since you insist on an answer--"

"I see you did. Well, sir, I pity and pardon you. I will tell you

the whole tale, and then you will see that some alteration must take

place in our respective positions. In the neighbourhood of this

good city of Tours I was born. My father was chief of the younger

branch of one of the noblest houses in France,--the De Bouillons

of Chateau d'Or. He was wild, gay, thoughtless, and fell into

disgrace at court. He was imprisoned in the Bastille; his estates

confiscated; his name expunged from the book of nobility; and he

died poor, forgotten, and blackened in name and fame. I was fifteen

at the time. I took my father's sword into the Town Hall; I gave

it in solemn charge to the authorities, and vowed that when I had

succeeded in wiping off the blot from my father's name, and getting

it restored to its former rank, I would reclaim it at their hands,

and assume the state and dignity to which my birth entitled me. I

went to England; your father, my good Cecil, took me by the hand:

porter, clerk, partner, friend,--I rose through all the gradations

of the office; and when he died, he left me the highest trust he

could repose in anyone,--the guardianship of his son."

"I know sir,--and if I have never sufficiently thanked you for your

care--"

"Not that--no, no--I'm satisfied, my dear boy--and Louise--the

Lady Louise I must now call her--change of rank--duties of lofty

sphere--former friends--ill arranged engagements--" continued the

new-formed magnate in confusion, blurting out unconnected words,

that showed the train of his thoughts without expressing them

distinctly; while Mr Hope sat in amazement at what he had heard, but

no longer doubting the reality of what was said.

"Well, sir?" he inquired.

"I changed my name with my country, though retaining as much of the

sound of it as I could; and Louis Bullion was a complete disguise

for the expatriated Marquis de Bouillon de Chateau d'Or. I married

Miss Smith, and lost her shortly after Louise's birth. For years

I have been in treaty with the French ambassador through his

almoner, the Abbé, whose visits you thought so mysterious. At last

I succeeded, and to-morrow I claim my father's sword, resume the

hereditary titles of my house, and take my honoured place among the

peers and paladins of France."

"And have you informed Louise?"--inquired Cecil.

"Lady Louise," interrupted Mr Bullion.

"Of this change in her position?"

"Why, my dear Cecil, to tell you truth--it's not an easy matter to

get her to understand my meaning. Yesterday I attempted to explain

the thing, exactly as I have done to you; but instead of taking it

seriously, she began with one of her provoking chuckles, and chucked

me under the chin, and called me Marquy-darky. In fact, I wish the

explanation to come from you."

"I feel myself very unfit for the task," said the young man, who

foresaw that this altered situation might interfere with certain

plans of his own. "I hope you will excuse me; you can tell her the

whole affair yourself, for here she comes."

And the young lady accordingly made her appearance. After looking at

them for some time--

"What are you all so doleful about?" she began. "Has papa bitten

you too, Cecil? Pray don't be a duke--it makes people so very

ridiculous."

"Miss Louise--mademoiselle, I ought to say," said Mr Bullion, "I

have communicated certain facts to Cecil Hope."

"Which he doesn't believe--do you, Cecil?" interposed the daughter.

"He does believe them, and I beg you will believe them too. They are

simply, that I am a nobleman of the highest rank, and you are my

right honourable daughter."

"Oh, indeed! and how was our cousin Spain when you heard from

Madrid?--our uncle Austria, was he quite well?--was George of

England recovered of the gout?--and above all, how was uncle Smith,

the shipowner of Wapping?"

"Girl! you will drive me mad," replied the Marquis, "with your

Smiths and Wappings. I tell you, what I have said is really the

case, and to-morrow you will see the inauguration with your own

eyes. Meantime, I must dress, to receive a deputation of the

nobility of the province, who come to congratulate me on my arrival."

"Oh, what's this I hear," exclaimed Miss Smith, rushing into the

room, "are you a real marquis, Mr Bullion?"

"Yes, madam, I have that honour."

"And does the marriage with my sister stand good?"

"To be sure, madam."

"Then, I'm very glad of it. Oh how delightful!--to be my Lord this,

my Lady that. I am always devoted to the aristockicy; and now, only

to think I am one of them myself."

"How can you be so foolish, aunt?--I'm ashamed of you," said Louise;

"what terrible things you were telling me, an hour ago, of the

wickedness of the nobility?"

"Miss Smith, though she does not express herself in very correct

language, has more sensible ideas on this subject than you," said

the marquis, looking severely at his daughter, who was looking, from

time to time, with a malicious smile at the woe-begone countenance

of Cecil Hope. "Remember, madam, who it is you are," continued the

senior.

"La, papa! don't talk such nonsense," replied the irreverent

daughter. "Do you think I am eighteen years of age, and don't know

perfectly well who and what I am?"

"Three of your ancestors, madam, were Constables of France."

"That's nothing to boast of," returned Louise; "no, not if they had

been inspectors of police."

"You are incorrigible, girl, and have not sense enough to have a

proper feeling of family pride."

"Haven't I? Am I not proud of all the stories uncle David tells

us of his courage, when he was mate of an Indiaman? and aunt

Jenkison--don't you remember, sir, how she dined with us at

Christmas, and had to walk in pattens through the snow, and tumbled

in Cheapside?"

A laugh began to form itself round the eyes of the French magnate,

which made his countenance uncommonly like what it used to be when

it was that of an English merchant. Louise saw her success, and

proceeded.

"And how you said, when the poor old lady was brought home in a

chair, that it was the punch that did it?"

"He, he! and so it was. Didn't I caution her, all the time, that it

was old Jamaica rum?" broke out the father; but checked himself, as

if he were guilty of some indecorum.

"And don't you remember how we all attended the launch of uncle

Peter's ship, the Hope's Return? Ah, they were happy days, father!

weren't they?"

"No, madam; no--vulgar, miserable days: forget them as quick as you

can. I tell you, when you resume your proper sphere, every eye will

be turned to your beauty: nobles will be dying at your feet."

"I trust not, sir," hurriedly burst in Mr Hope. "I don't see what

right any nobles will have to be dying at Louise's feet."

"Don't you, sir?" said Louise. "Indeed! I beg to tell you, that as

many as choose shall die at my feet. I'll trouble you, Mr Hope,

not to interfere with the taste of any nobleman who has a fancy to

so queer a place for his death-bed." But while she said this, she

tapped him so playfully with her little white hand, and looked at

him so kindly with her beautiful blue eyes, that the young gentleman

seemed greatly reassured; and in a few minutes, as if tired of the

conversation, betook himself to the other room.

CHAPTER IV.

Suddenly a great noise was heard in the street, and interrupted the

lectures of father and aunt on the dignity of position and the pride

of birth. Miss Lucretia and Louise ran to the window, and saw a

cavalcade of carriages, with outriders, and footmen on the rumble,

and all the stately accompaniments of the old-fashioned family

coach, which, after a slow progress along the causeway, stopped at

the hotel door.

"My friends! my noble friends!" exclaimed the marquis; "and I in

this miserable dress!"

"The noble men! the salts of the earth!" equally exclaimed Miss

Smith; "and I in my morning gownd!"

Saying this, she hastily fled into her bed-room, which, according to

the fashion of French houses, opened on the sitting-room, and left

the father and Louise alone.

The father certainly was in no fitting costume for the dignity

of his new character. He was dressed according to the fashion of

the respectable London trader of his time--a very fitting figure

for 'Change, but not appropriate to the Marquis de Bouillon de

Chateau d'Or. Nor, in fact, was his disposition much more fitted

for his exalted position than his clothes. To all intents and

purposes, he was a true John Bull: proud of his efforts to attain

wealth--proud of his success--proud of the freedom of his adopted

land--and, in his secret heart, thinking an English merchant

several hundred degrees superior in usefulness and worth to all the

marquises that ever lived on the smiles of the Grand Monarque. The

struggle, therefore, that went on within him was the most ludicrous

possible. To his family and friends he presented that phase of his

individuality that set his nobility in front; to the French nobles,

on the other hand, he was inclined to show only so much of himself

as presented the man of bills and invoices; and in both conditions,

by a wonderful process of reasoning, in which we are all adepts,

considered himself raised above the individuals he addressed.

"Did they see you at the window?" he said, in some trepidation,

while the visitors were descending from their coaches.

"To be sure," replied Louise; "and impudent-looking men they were."

"Ah! that's a pity. Do, for heaven's sake, my dear, just slip in

beside your aunt. They are a very gay polite people, the nobles of

France--"

"Well; and what then?"

"And they might take ways of showing it, we are not used to in

England. Do hide yourself, my dear--there, that's a good girl."

And just as he had succeeded in pushing her into the bedroom, and

begged her to lock herself in, the landlord of the hotel ushered

four or five noblemen into the apartment, as visitors to the

Marquis de Bouillon. The eldest of the strangers--about forty years

old--bespangled with jewels, and ornamented with two or three stars

and ribbons, looked with some surprise on the plainly drest and

citizen-mannered man, who came forward to welcome them.

"We came to pay our compliments to my lord the Marquis de Bouillon

de Chateau d'Or."

"And very glad he is to see you, gentlemen," said their host.

"You?--impossible! He speaks with an English accent."

"An impostor!" replied another of the nobles, to whom the last

sentence had been addressed in a whisper."

"I am, indeed,--and truly glad to make your acquaintance, I assure

you."

"Well," resumed the Frenchman, "let me present to you the Viscount

de Lanoy--the Baron Beauvilliers--the Marquis de Croissy--for

myself, I'm Duc de Vieuxchateau."

"Sit down, gentlemen--I beg," said De Bouillon, after bowing to the

personages named. "A charming place this Tours, and I'm very glad to

see you--fine weather, gentlemen."

"I trust you have come with the intention of residing among us. Your

estates, I conclude, are restored along with your titles."

"No, gentlemen, they're not. But we may manage to buy some of them

back again. How's land here?"

"Land?" inquired the duke, rather bewildered with the question.

"Yes--how is it, as to rent? How much an acre?"

"'Pon my word, I don't know. When I want money I tell the steward,

and the people--the--serfs, I suppose, they are--who hold the plough

and manage the land--give him some, and he brings it to me."

"Oh! but you don't know how many years' purchase it's worth?"

To this there was no answer--statistics, at that time, not being a

favourite study in France.

"But, marquis," inquired another, "hasn't the King restored you your

manorial rights--your _droits de seigneur_?"

"No, sir."

"Then what's the use of land without them?" was the very pertinent

rejoinder.

"What are they, sir?" inquired the marquis.

"Why, if a tenant of yours has a pretty daughter," said one.

"Or a wife," said another.

"Or even a niece," said a third.

"Well, sir, what then? I don't take."

"Oh, you're a wag, marquis!" replied the duke. "Didn't I see, as we

stopt before your window, a countenance radiant with beauty?"

"Eyes like stars," chimed in another.

"Cheeks like roses. Aha! Monsieur le Marquis--who was it?--come!"

"Why, that,--oh, that,--that's a young lady under my protection,

gentlemen; and I must beg you to change the conversation."

"Indeed! you're a lucky fellow! The old fool mustn't be allowed to

keep such beauty to himself."

"Certainly not," returned the vicomte, also in a whisper.

"Lucky!" said De Bouillon--"yes, gentlemen, I am lucky. If you knew

all, you would think so, I'm sure."

"She loves you, then, old simpleton?"

"I think she does--I know she does--"

"May we not ask the honour of being presented?"

"Some other time, gentlemen--not now--she's not here--she's gone out

for a walk."

"Impossible, my dear lord; we must have met her as we came up

stairs."

"She has a headache--she's gone to lie down for a few minutes," said

the marquis, getting more and more anxious to keep Louise from the

intrusion of his visitors.

"I have an excellent cure for headaches of all kinds," exclaimed

the baron, and proceeded towards the bed-room door. The Marquis de

Bouillon, however, put himself between; but the duke and vicomte

pulled him aside, and the baron began to rat-tat on the door.

"Come forth, madam!" he began, "we are dying for a sight of your

angelic charms. De Bouillon begs you to honour us with your

presence. Hark, she's coming!" he added, and drew back as he heard

the bolt withdrawn on the other side.

"Stay where you are! don't come out!" shouted De Bouillon, still in

the hands of his friends. "I charge you, don't move a step!" But his

injunctions were vain; the door opened, and, sailing majestically

into the room, drest out in hoop and furbelow, and waving her fan

affectedly before her face, appeared Miss Lucretia Smith--

"Did you visit to see me, gentlemen? I'm always delighted to see any

one as is civil enough to give us a forenoon call."

The French nobles, however, felt their ardour damped to an

extraordinary degree, and replied by a series of the most respectful

salaams.

"Profound veneration," "deepest reverence," and other expressions

of the same kind, were muttered by each of the visiters; and in a

short time they succeeded, in spite of Miss Lucretia's reiterated

invitations, in bowing themselves out of the room. They were

accompanied by the marquis to their carriages, while Miss Smith was

gazing after them, astonished, more than pleased, at the wonderful

politeness of their manner. Louise slipt out of the bed-room, and

slapt her astonished aunt upon the shoulder--

"You've done it, aunt!--you've done it now! A word from you recalls

these foreigners to their senses."

"It gives me a high opinion," replied Miss Smith, "of them French.

They stand in perfect awe of dignity and virtue."

CHAPTER V.

Great were the discussions, all that day, among the English party in

the hotel--the father concealing his disappointment at the behaviour

of his fellow nobles, under an exaggerated admiration of rank, and

all its attributes; Louise professing to chime in with her father's

ideas, for the pleasant purpose of vexing Cecil Hope; Mr Cocker

still persuading himself the Frenchmanship of his old master was a

little bit of acting that would end as soon as the curtain fell; and

Miss Lucretia devising means of making up for her failures with so

many curates, by catching a veritable duke. With the next morning

new occupations began. The marquis, dressed in the fantastic apparel

of a French courtier, exchanged compliments with his daughter,

who was also magnificently attired, to do honour to the occasion.

Mr Hope tried in vain to get her to sink from the lofty style she

assumed, and had strong thoughts of setting off for Hertfordshire,

and marrying a farmer's daughter out of revenge. The father was so

carried away by family pride, and the daughter enjoyed the change

in her rank so heartily, that there seemed no room in the heart

of either for so prosaic a being as a plain English squire. And

yet, every now and then, there gleamed from the corner of Louise's

eye, or stole out in a merry tone of her voice, the old familiar

feeling, so that he could not altogether give way to despair, but

waited in patience what the chapter of accidents might bring. At

one o'clock the marquis set off for the town-hall, where he was to

go through the ceremony of reclaiming his father's sword, and have

the blot on the scutcheon formally removed; after which he was to

entertain the town authorities, and the neighbouring nobility, at

dinner; the evening to conclude with a ball, in the preparation for

which the ladies were to be left at home. Mr Hope accompanied him

to the door of the town-hall,--but there he professed to find his

feelings overpowered, and declined to witness the ceremony that,

he said, broke the connexion which had existed so long between the

names of Hope and Bullion; but, ere he could return to the hotel,

several things had occurred that had a material influence on his

prospects, and these we must now proceed to relate. Miss Lucretia

Smith continued her oratory in the ears of her devoted niece after

the gentlemen had gone, the burden thereof consisting, principally,

in a comparison between the nobles of France and the shopocracy

of London,--till that young lady betook herself to the bedroom

window already mentioned, to watch for Cecil's return. She had

not been long at her watch-post, when a carriage, with the blinds

drawn up, and escorted by seven or eight armed men, with masks on

their faces, pulled up at the door. Of this she took no particular

notice, but kept looking attentively down the street. But, a minute

or two after the closed carriage drove under the _porte cochère_,

a young gentleman was ushered into the presence of Miss Smith, and

was, by that young lady, received with the highest _empressement_

possible. She had only had time to improve her toilette by putting

on Louise's shawl and bonnet, which happened to be lying on a chair;

and, in spite of the shortness of the view she had had of him the

day before, she immediately recognised him as one of her brother's

visiters, the Baron Beauvilliers.

"Permit me, madam," he said, in very good English, "to apologise for

my intrusion, but I have the authority of my friend De Bouillon to

consider myself here at home."

"Oh, sir, you are certainly the politest nation on the face of the

earth, you French--that I must say; but I may trust, I hope, to

the honour of a gent like you? You won't be rude to an unoffended

female? for there ain't a soul in the 'ouse that could give me the

least assistance."

The baron bowed in a very assuring manner, and, taking a seat beside

her, "May I make bold, madam, to ask who the tawdry silly-looking

young person is who resides under De Bouillon's protection?"

"Sir--under Mr Bull--I mean, under the marquee's protection? I don't

understand you."

"Exactly as I suspected. I guessed, from the dignity of your

appearance, that such an infamous proceeding was entirely unknown

to you. Command my services, madam, in any way you can make them

available. Let me deliver you from the scandal of being in the same

house with a person of that description."

"Oh, sir!" replied Miss Smith, "you are certainly most obliging.

When we are a little better acquainted perhaps--in a few days,

or even in one--I shall be happy to accept your offer; but, la!

what will my brother-in-law say if I accept a gentleman's offer at

minute's notice?"

Miss Smith accompanied this speech with various blushes and pauses,

betokening the extent of her modest reluctance; but the baron either

did not perceive the mistake she had made, or did not think it worth

while to notice it.

"I will convey the destroyer of your peace away from your sight.

Show me only the room she is in. And consider, madam, that you will

make me the proudest of men by allowing me to be your knight and

champion on this occasion."

"Really, sir, I can't say at present where the gipsy can be.

Brother-in-law has been very sly; but if I can possibly ferret her

out, won't I send her on her travels? Wait but a minute, sir: I'll

come to you the moment she can be found."

But the baron determined to accompany her in her search, and

together they left the room, two active members of the Society for

the Suppression of Vice. Louise had heard the noise of voices,

without distinguishing or attending to what was said, but a low and

hurried tap at the door now attracted her notice.

"Miss Louise--ma'am--for heaven's sake, come out!" said the voice of

Mr Cocker through the key-hole; "for here's a whole regiment of them

French, and they wants to run away with YOU."

"With me, Cocker!" exclaimed Louise, coming into the parlour. "What

is it you mean?"

"What I say, miss--and your aunt is as bad as any on 'em. She's

searching the house, at this moment, to give you tip into their

hands. She can't refuse nothing to them noblesse, as she calls 'em.

The gentleman has gone down to the court-yard to see that nobody

escapes, and here we are, like mice in a trap."

"Go for Cecil, Cocker; leave me to myself," said Louise--her

features dilating into tiger-like beauty, with rage and

self-confidence. "Go, I tell you--you'll find him returning from the

town-hall--and bid him lose not a moment in coming to my help." She

waved Mr Cocker impatiently from her, and returned for a moment into

the bed-room.

"Madam, hist! I beg you will be quick!" exclaimed the baron,

entering the parlour; "I can't wait much longer. What a detestable

old fool it is!" he went on, in a lower voice; "she might have

found the girl long ere this. "Well, well, have you found her?" he

continued, addressing Louise, who issued from the bed-room in some

of the apparel of her aunt, and assuming as nearly as she could the

airs and graces of that individual. "Tell me, madam, where she is."

"La! sir, how is one to find out these things in a moment--besides,

they ain't quite proper subjects for a young lady to be concerned

with," replied Louise, keeping her bashful cheek from the sight of

the baron with her enormous fan.

"Then, madam, point with that lovely finger of yours, and I shall

make the discovery myself."

Louise pointed, as required, to the gallery, along which, at that

moment, her quick eye caught the step of Miss Lucretia; and the

baron, going to the door, gave directions to his attendants to seize

the lady, and carry her without loss of time to the Parc d'Amour,

a hotel on the outskirts of Tours. He then closed the door, and

listened--no less than did Louise--to the execution of his commands.

"There, madam," he said, as the scuffle of seizure and a very faint

scream were heard, "they've got her! Your pure presence shall never

more be polluted by her society. A naughty man old De Bouillon, and

unaccustomed to the strict morality of France. Adieu!"

"Adieu, sir!" said Louise; but there was a tone in her voice, or

something in her manner, that called the attention of her visitor.

He went up to her, laid his hand upon the fan, and revealed before

him, beautiful from alarm and indignation, was the face of Louise de

Bouillon! "So, madam! this was an excellent device, but I have more

assistance at hand. Ho! Pierre! François!" he began to call. "I have

another carriage in the yard--you sha'nt escape me so."

"Stop, sir!" exclaimed Louise, and placed herself between him and

the door. "These are not the arts of wooing we are used to in

England. I expected more softness and persuasion."

"Alas, madam, 'tis only the shortness of the opportunity that

prevents me from making a thousand protestations. But, after all,

what is the use of them? Ho! François!"

As he said this, he approached nearer to Louise, and even laid his

hand upon her arm. But with the quickness of lightning, she made

a dart at the diamond-covered hilt of her assailant's sword, and

pulling it from the sheath, stood with the glittering point within

an inch of the Frenchman's eyes.

"Back, back!" she cried, "or you are a dead man--or frog--or

monkey--or whatever you are!"

Each of these names was accompanied with a step in advance; and

there was too savage a lustre in her look to allow the unfortunate

baron to doubt for a moment that his life was in the highest peril.

"Madam," he expostulated, "do be careful--'tis sharp as a needle."

"Back, back!" she continued, advancing with each word upon his

retreating steps--"you thread-paper--you doll-at-a-fair--you stuffed

cockatoo--back, back!" And on arriving at the bed-room door, she

gave a prodigiously powerful lunge in advance, and drove her victim

fairly into the room, and, with an exclamation of pride and triumph,

locked him in. But, exhausted with the excitement, she had only time

to lay the sword on the table, wave the key three times round her

head in sign of victory, and fall fainting into the arms of Cecil

Hope, who at that moment rushed into the room.

CHAPTER VI.

The ceremony in the town-hall passed off with the greatest _éclât_;

and the dinner was probably thought the finest part of the day's

entertainment by all but the newly re-established noble himself.

Flushed with the glories of the proceeding, and also with the wine

he had swallowed to his own health and happiness, he sallied forth

with his friends of the preceding day--except, of course, the

Baron Beauvilliers--and, as he himself expressed it, was awake for

anything, up to any lark.

"A lark, says my lord?" inquired the Duke de Vieuxchateau.

"Ay," replied the marquis, "if it's as big as a turkey, all the

better. That champaign is excellent tipple, and would be cheap at

eighty-four shillings per dozen."

The French nobles did not quite understand their companion's

phraseology, but were quite willing to join him in any extravagance.

"What shall we do?" cried one; "shall we break open the jail?"

"No," said De Bouillon: "hang it! that's a serious matter. But I'll

tell you what, I've no objection to knock down a charley."

"No, no! let's go to _Rouge et Noir_."

"Boys, boys!" at last exclaimed the Vicomte de Lanoy, "I'll tell

you what we shall do,--Beauvilliers told me that, while we were all

engaged at the dinner, he was going to seize a beautiful creature,

and carry her off to the Parc d'Amour."

"Wrong, decidedly wrong!" said De Bouillon at this proposition. "Who

is she?"

"Why, the companion, you understand, of an old twaddling fool, who

has no right to so much beauty. Beauvilliers did not tell me his

name, but 'tis only one of the _bourgeoisie_, and we surely have a

right to do as we like with _them_."

"Ah yes! of course," replied De Bouillon, "I did not think of that.

What then?"

"Why, sir, we shall play as good a trick on Beauvilliers as he

designed for the ancient gentleman. Let's get there before him, and

carry her from him!"

"Agreed, agreed!"

"No, no, I must declare off," said the marquis. "'Tis a bad business

altogether, and this would make it worse."

"But who is to carry the lady?" inquired the duke, without attending

to the scruples of his friend.

"Toss for it," suggested the vicomte. A louis was thrown into the

air. "Heads! heads!" cried the nobleman. "Tails!" said De Bouillon.

"'Tis tails!" exclaimed the vicomte. "Marquis, the chance is

yours--you've won."

"Oh! have I?" replied the unwilling favourite of fortune; "I've won,

have I?"

"You don't seem overpleased with your good luck," said the duke;

"give me your chance, and I shall know how to make better use of it."

"No, gentlemen, I'll manage this affair myself."

"Come on, then!--_vive la joie!_"--and with great joviality they

pursued their way to the Parc d'Amour.

But they had been preceded in their journey to that hostelry by

Louise, attended by Cecil Hope and Mr Cocker. By the administration

of a douceur to the waiter, they obtained an _entrée_ to the

apartment designed for the baron and his prey, and had scarcely time

to ensconce themselves behind the window-curtain, when Miss Lucretia

was escorted into the room. There were no symptoms of any violent

resistance to her captors having been offered, and she took her seat

on the sofa without any perceptible alarm.

"Well, them's curious people, them French!" she soliloquised when

the men had left her. "If that 'ere baron fell in love with a body,

couldn't he say so without all that rigmarole about Mr Bullion's

behaviour, and pulling a body nearly to pieces? I'm sure if he had

axed me in a civil way, I wouldn't have said no. But, lawkins! here

he comes."

So saying, she enveloped herself in Louise's shawl, and pulled

Louise's bonnet farther on her face, and prepared to enact the part

of an offended, yet not altogether unforgiving beauty. But the

door, on being slowly opened, presented, not the countenance of the

baron, but the anxious face of Mr Bullion himself. The three French

nobles pushed him forward. "Go on," they said; "make the best use

of your eloquence. We will watch here, and guard the door against

Beauvilliers himself."

The marquis, now thoroughly sobered, slowly advanced: "If I can save

this poor creature from the insolence of those _roués_, it will be

well worth the suffering it has cost. Trust to me, madam," he said,

in a very gentle voice, to the lady: "I will not suffer you to be

insulted while I live. Come with me, madam, and you shall not be

interrupted by ever a French profligate alive." On looking closely

at the still silent lady on the sofa, he was startled at recognising

a dress with which he was well acquainted.

"In the name of heaven!" he said, "I adjure you to tell me who you

are. Are you--is it possible--can you be my Louise!"

"No, Mr Bullion," replied Miss Lucretia, lifting up the veil,

and turning round to the trembling old man. "And I must say I'm

considerably surprised to find you in a situation like this."

"And you, madam--yourself--how came you here?"

"A young gentleman--nobleman, I should say--ran off with me here,

and I expected him every minute when you came in."

"And Louise?" inquired the father, in an agitated voice--"when did

you leave her? Oh! my folly to let her a moment out of my sight!--to

reject Cecil Hope!--to bedizen myself in this ridiculous fashion!

Where, oh where is Louise?"

"Here, sir," exclaimed that lady, coming forward from behind the

window-curtain.

"And safe? Ah! but I need not ask. I see two honest Englishmen by

your side."

"And one of them, sir, says he'll never leave it," said Louise.

"Stop a moment," replied the marquis. "Ho! gentlemen, come in."

At his request his companions entered the room.

"Gentlemen," said the marquis, "when I determined to reclaim my

father's sword, I expected to find it bright as Bayard's, and

unstained with infamy or dishonour. When I wished to resume my

title, I hoped to find it a sign of the heroic virtues of my

ancestors, but not a cloak for falsehood and vice. I warn you,

sirs, your proceedings will be fatal to your order, and to your

country. For myself, I care not for this sword,"--he threw it on

the ground--"this filagree I despise,"--he took off his star and

ribbon--"and I advise you to leave this chamber as fast as you can

find it convenient."

The French nobles obeyed.

"Here, Cocker! off with all this silk and satin; get me my gaiters

and flaxen wig; and, please Heaven, one week will see us in the

little room above the warehouse."

"Preparing, sir, to move into Hertfordshire?" inquired Louise,

leaning on Cecil's arm.

"Ay, my child; and, in remembrance of this adventure, we shall hang

up among the pictures in the hall,

THE SWORD OF HONOUR."

MEMOIRS OF KIRKALDY OF GRANGE.[24]

[24] _Memoirs and Adventures of Sir Wm. Kirkaldy of Grange, Knight_,

&c. &c. WM. BLACKWOOD & SONS, Edinburgh and London.

It must be allowed that a perusal of Scottish history betrays more

anomalies than are to be found in the character of almost any other

people. It is not without reason that our southern neighbours

complain of the difficulty of thoroughly understanding our national

idiosyncrasy. At one time we appear to be the most peaceable race

upon the surface of the earth--quiet, patient, and enduring;

stubborn, perhaps, if interfered with, but, if let alone, in no way

anxious to pick a quarrel. Take us in another mood, and gunpowder is

not more inflammable. We are ready to go to the death, for a cause

about which an Englishman would not trouble himself; and amongst

ourselves, we divide into factions, debate, squabble, and fight with

an inveteracy far more than commensurate with the importance of the

quarrel. Sometimes we seem to have no romance; at other times we are

perfect Quixotes. The amalgamated blood of the Saxon and the Celt

seems, even in its union, to display the characteristics of either

race. We rush into extremes: one day we appear over-cautious, and on

the next, the _perfervidum ingenium Scotorum_ prevails.

If these remarks be true as applied to the present times, they

become still more conspicuous when we regard the troublous days of

our ancestors. At one era, as in the reign of David I., we find

the Scottish nation engaged, heart and soul, in one peculiar phase

of religious excitement. Cathedrals and abbeys are starting up in

every town. All that infant art can do--and yet, why call it infant,

since, in architecture at least, it has never reached a higher

maturity?--is lavished upon the structure of our fanes. Melrose, and

Jedburgh, and Holyrood, and a hundred more magnificent edifices,

rise up like exhalations throughout a poor and barren country; the

people are proud in their faith, and perhaps even prouder in the

actual splendour of their altars. A few centuries roll by, and we

find the same nation deliberately undoing and demolishing the works

of their forefathers. Hewn stone and carved cornices, tracery,

mullions, and buttresses, have now become abominations in their

sight. Not only must the relics of the saints be scattered to the

winds of heaven, and their images ground into dust, but every church

in which these were deposited or displayed, must be dismantled as

the receptacle of pollution. The hammer swings again, but not with

the same pious purpose as of yore. Once it was used to build; now

it is heaved to destroy. Aisle and archway echo to the thunder of

its strokes, and, amidst a roar of iconoclastic wrath, the venerable

edifice goes down. Another short lapse of time, and we are lamenting

the violence of the past, and striving to prop, patch up, and

rebuild what little remnant has been spared of the older works of

devotion.

The same anomalies will be found if we turn from the ecclesiastical

to the political picture. Sometimes there is a spirit of loyalty

manifested, for which it would be difficult to find a parallel. The

whole nation gathers round the person of James IV.; and earl and

yeoman, lord and peasant, chief and vassal, lay down their lives

at Flodden for their king. His successor James V., in no respect

unworthy of his crown, dies of a broken heart, deserted by his peers

and their retainers. The unfortunate Mary, welcomed to her country

with acclamation, is made the victim of the basest intrigues, and

forced to seek shelter, and find death in the dominions of her

treacherous enemy. The divine right, in its widest meaning and

acceptation, is formally recognised by the Scottish estates as the

attribute of James VII.; three years afterwards, a new convention

is prompt to recognise an alien. Half a century further on, we are

found offering the gage of battle to England in support of the

exiled family.

This singular variety of mood, of which the foregoing are a

few instances, is no doubt partly attributable to the peculiar

relationship which existed between the crown and the principal

nobility. The latter were not cousins by courtesy only--they were

intimately connected with the royal family, and some of them were

near the succession. Hence arose jealousy amongst themselves, a

system of feud and intrigue, which was perpetuated for centuries,

and a constant effort, on the part of one or other of the

conflicting magnates, to gain possession and keep custody of the

royal person, whenever minority or weakness appeared to favour the

attempt. But we cannot help thinking, that the disposition of the

people ought also to be taken into account. Fierce when thwarted,

and with a memory keenly retentive of injury, the Scotsman is in

reality a much more impulsive being than his southern neighbour. His

sense of justice and order is not so strongly developed, but his

passion glows with a fire all the more intense because to outward

appearance it is smothered. His ideas of social duty are different

from those of the Englishman. Kindred is a closer tie--identity of

name and family is a bond of singular union. Clanship, in the broad

acceptation of the word, has died out for all practical purposes;

chieftainship is still a recognised and a living principle. The

feudal times, though gone, have left their traces on the national

character. Little as baronial sway, too often tantamount to sheer

oppression, can have contributed towards the happiness of the

people, we still recur to the history of these troublous days with a

relish and fondness which can hardly be explained, save through some

undefined and subtle sympathy of inheritance. Though the objects for

which they contended are now mere phantoms of speculation we yet

continue to feel and to speak as if we were partisans of the cause

of our ancestors, and to contest old points with as much ardour as

though they were new ones of living interest to ourselves.

We have been led into this strain of thought by the perusal of a

work, strictly authentic as a history, and yet as absorbing in

interest as the most coloured and glowing romance. Sir William

Kirkaldy of Grange, the subject of these Memoirs, played a most

conspicuous part in the long and intricate struggles which convulsed

Scotland, from the death of James V. until the latter part of the

reign of Queen Mary. Foremost in battle and in council, we find his

name prominently connected with every leading event of the period,

and his influence and example held in higher estimation than those

of noblemen who were greatly his superiors in rank, following,

and fortune. In fact, Kirkaldy achieved, by his own talent and

indomitable valour, a higher reputation, and exercised, for a time,

a greater influence over the destinies of the nation, than was ever

before possessed by a private Scottish gentleman, with the glorious

exception of Wallace. In an age when the sword was the sole arbiter

of public contest and of private quarrel, it was a proud distinction

to be reputed, not only at home but abroad--not only by the voice of

Scotland, but by that of England and France--the best and bravest

soldier, and the most accomplished cavalier of his time. Mixed up in

the pages of general history, too often turbidly and incoherently

written, the Knight of Grange may not be estimated, in the scale of

importance, at the level of such personages as the subtle Moray, or

the vindictive and treacherous Morton: viewed as all individual,

through the medium of these truthful and most fascinating memoirs,

he will be found at least their equal as a leader and a politician,

and far their superior as a generous and heroic man.

His father, Sir James Kirkaldy, was a person of no mean family or

reputation. He occupied, for a considerable time, the office of Lord

High Treasurer of Scotland, and, according to our author--

"Enjoyed, in a very high degree, the favour and confidence of

King James V.; and though innumerable efforts were made by his

mortal foe Cardinal Beatoun, and others, to bring him into

disgrace as a promoter of the Reformation, they all proved

ineffectual, and the wary old baron maintained his influence to

the last."

Old Sir James seems to have been one of those individuals with whom

it is neither safe nor pleasant to differ in opinion. According

to his brother-in-law, Sir James Melville of Halhill, he was "a

stoute man, who always offered, by single combate, and at point of

the sword, to maintain whatever he said;" a testimonial which, we

observe, has been most fitly selected as the motto of this book, the

son having been quite as much addicted to the wager of battle as the

father; nor, though a strenuous supporter of the Reformation, does

he appear to have imbibed much of that meekness which is inculcated

by holy writ. He was not the sort of man whom John Bright would have

selected to second a motion at a Peace Congress; indeed, the mere

sight of him would have caused the voice of Elihu Burritt to subside

into a quaver of dismay. Cardinal Beatoun, that proud and licentious

prelate, to whose tragical end we shall presently have occasion to

advert, was the personal and bitter enemy of the Treasurer, as he

was of every other independent Scotsman who would not truckle to his

power. But James V., though at times too facile, would not allow

himself to be persuaded into so dangerous an act as countenancing

prosecutions for heresy against any of his martial subjects; and,

so long as he lived, the over-weening bigotry and arrogance of

the priesthood were held in check. But other troubles brought the

good king to an untimely end. James had mortally offended some of

his turbulent nobles, by causing the authority of the law to be

vindicated without respect to rank or person. He had deservedly won

for himself the title of King of the Commons; and was, in fact, even

in that early age, bent upon a thorough reform of the abuses of

the feudal system. But he had proud, jealous, and stubborn men to

deal with. They saw, not without apprehension for their own fate,

that title and birth were no longer accepted as palliatives of

sedition and crime; that the inroads, disturbances, and harryings

which they and their fathers had practised, were now regarded with

detestation by the crown, and threatened with merited punishment.

Some strong but necessary examples made them quail for their future

supremacy, and discontent soon ripened into something like absolute

treason. Add to this, that for a long time the nobility of Scotland

had fixed a covetous eye upon the great possessions of the church.

In no country of Europe, considering its extent and comparative

wealth, was the church better endowed than in Scotland; and the

endeavours of the monks, who, with all their faults, were not blind

to the advantages derivable from the arts of peace, had greatly

raised their property in point of value. The confiscations which

had taken place in Protestantised England, whereof Woburn Abbey may

be cited as a notable example, had aroused to the fullest extent

the cupidity of the rapacious nobles. They longed to see the day

when, unsupported by the regal power, the church lands in Scotland

could be annexed by each iron-handed baron to his own domain; when,

at the head of their armed and dissolute jackmen, they could oust

the feeble possessors of the soil from the heritages they had so

long enjoyed as a corporation, and enrich themselves by plundering

the consecrated stores of the abbeys. These were the feelings

and desires which led most of them to lend a willing ear to the

preaching of the fathers of the Reformation. They were desirous, not

only of lessening the royal authority, but of transferring the whole

property of the clergy to themselves; and this double object led to

a combination which resulted in the passive defeat of the Scottish

army at Solway Moss.

Poor King James could not bear up against the shock of this shameful

desertion. Mr Tytler thus describes his latter moments:--

"When in this state, intelligence was brought him that his queen

had given birth to a daughter. At another time it would have

been happy news; but now, it seemed to the poor monarch the

last drop of bitterness which was reserved for him. Both his

sons were dead. Had this child been a boy, a ray of hope, he

seemed to feel, might yet have visited his heart; he received

the messenger and was informed of that event without welcome

or almost recognition; but wandering back in his thoughts to

the time when the daughter of Bruce brought to his ancestor

the dowry of the kingdom, observed with melancholy emphasis,

'It came with a lass, and it will pass with a lass.' A few of

his most favoured friends and counsellers stood around his

couch; the monarch stretched out his hand for them to kiss; and

regarding them for some moments with a look of great sweetness

and placidity, turned himself upon the pillow and expired. He

died 13th December 1542, in the thirty-first year of his age,

and the twenty-ninth of his reign; leaving an only daughter,

Mary, an infant of six days old, who succeeded to the crown."

Amongst those who stood around that memorable deathbed were the

Lord High Treasurer, young William Kirkaldy his son, and Cardinal

Beatoun. There was peace for a moment over the body of the anointed

dead!

But even the death of a king makes a light impression on this busy

and intriguing world. The struggle for mastery now commenced in

right earnest--for the only wall which had hitherto separated the

contending factions of the nobility and the clergy had given way.

Beatoun and Arran were both candidates for the regency, which the

latter succeeded in gaining; and, after a temporary alienation,

these two combined against an influence which began to show itself

in a threatening form. Henry VIII. of England considered this an

excellent opportunity for carrying out those designs against the

independence of the northern country, which had been entertained

by several of his predecessors; and for that purpose he proposed

to negotiate a marriage between his son Edward and the Princess

Mary. Such an alliance was of course decidedly opposed to the views

of the Catholic party in Scotland, and, moreover, was calculated

to excite the utmost jealousy of the Scottish people, who well

understood the true but recondite motive of the proposal. So long as

Beatoun, whose interest was identified with that of France, existed,

Henry was fully aware that his scheme never could be carried into

execution; and accordingly, with that entire want of principle which

he exhibited on every occasion, he took advantage of their position

to tamper with the Scottish barons who had been made prisoners at

Solway Moss. In this he so far succeeded, that a regular conspiracy

was entered into for the destruction of the cardinal, and only

defeated by his extreme sagacity and caution. It will be seen

hereafter that the cardinal did not fall a victim to this dastardly

English plot, but to private revenge, no doubt augmented and

inflamed by the consideration of his arrogance and cruelty.

Beatoun, one of the most able and also dissolute men of his day,

was a younger son of the Laird of Balfour--yet had, notwithstanding

every disadvantage, contrived very early to attain his high

position. He was hated, not only by the nobility, but by the

lesser barons, from whose own ranks he had risen, on account of

his intolerable pride, his rapacity, and the unscrupulous manner

in which he chose to exercise his power. Among the barons of Fife,

always a disunited and wrangling county, he had few adherents: and

with the Kirkaldys, and their relatives, the Melvilles, he had an

especial quarrel. Shortly after the death of James, the Treasurer

was dismissed from his office, an affront which the "stoute man"

was not likely to forget; and his son, then a mere youth, seems to

have participated in his feelings. But the cruelty of Beatoun was

at least the nominal cause which led to his destruction. Wishart,

the famous Reforming preacher, had fallen into the hands of the

cardinal, and was confined in his castle of St Andrews, of which our

author gives us the following faithful sketch:--

"On the rocky shore, to the northward of the venerable city of

St Andrews, stand the ruins of the ancient Episcopal palace, in

other years the residence of the primates of Scotland. Those

weatherbeaten remains, now pointed out to visitors by the

ciceroni of the place, present only the fragments of an edifice

erected by Archbishop Hamilton, the successor of Cardinal

Beatoun, and are somewhat in the style of an antique Scottish

manor-house; but very different was the aspect of that vast

bastille which had the proud cardinal for lord, and contained

within its massive walls all the appurtenances requisite for

ecclesiastical tyranny, epicurean luxury, lordly grandeur,

and military defence--at once a fortress, a monastery, an

inquisition, and a palace.

"The sea-mews and cormorants screaming among the wave-beaten

rocks and bare walls now crumbling on that bleak promontory,

and echoing only to drenching surf, as it rolls up the rough

shelving shore, impart a peculiarly desolate effect to the

grassy ruins, worn with the blasts of the German Ocean, gray

with the storms of winter, and the damp mists of March and

April--an effect that is greatly increased by the venerable

aspect of the dark and old ecclesiastical city to the southward,

decaying, deserted, isolated, and forgotten, with its

magnificent cathedral, once one of the finest gothic structures

in the world, but now, shattered by the hands of man and time,

passing rapidly away. Of the grand spire which arose from the

cross, and of its five lofty towers, little more than the

foundations can now be traced, while a wilderness of ruins on

every hand attest the departed splendours of St Andrews."

George Wishart, the unhappy preacher, was burned before the Castle

on the 28th March 1545, under circumstances of peculiar barbarity.

We refer to the book for a proper description of the death-scene of

the Martyr, whose sufferings were calmly witnessed by the ruthless

and implacable Cardinal. But the avenger of blood was at hand, in

the person of Norman Leslie, Master of Rothes. This young man,

who was of a most fiery and intractable spirit, had some personal

dispute with the cardinal, whom he accused of having attempted to

defraud him of an estate. High words followed, and Norman rode off

in wrath to the house of his uncle, John Leslie of Parkhill, a moody

and determined Reformer, who had already vowed bloody vengeance for

the execution of the unfortunate Wishart. Finding him apt for any

enterprise, Norman instantly despatched messengers to the Kirkaldys

of Grange, the Melvilles of Raith and Carnbee, and to Carmichael of

Kilmadie, desiring them to meet for an enterprise of great weight

and importance; and the summons having been responded to, these few

men determined to rid the country of one whom they considered a

murderer and an oppressor.

The manner in which this act of terrible retribution was executed

is too well known to the student of history to require repetition.

Suffice it to say that, by a _coup-de-main_, sixteen armed men made

themselves masters of the castle of St Andrews, overpowered and

dispersed the retainers of the cardinal, and quenched the existence

of that haughty prelate in his blood. William Kirkaldy was not the

slayer, but, as an accomplice, he must bear whatever load of odium

is cast upon the perpetrators of the deed. We cannot help thinking

that our author exhibits an unnecessary degree of horror in this

instance. Far be it from us to palliate bloodshed, in any age or

under any provocation: neither do we agree with John Knox, that the

extermination of Beatoun was a "godly fact." But we doubt whether it

can be called a murder. In the first place, old Kirkaldy knew, on

the authority of James V., that a list of three hundred and sixty

names, including his own and those of his most immediate friends,

had been made out by the cardinal, as a catalogue of victims who

were to be burned for heresy. This contemplated atrocity, far worse

than the massacre of St Bartholomew, might not, indeed, have been

carried into effect, even on account of its magnitude; but the

mere knowledge that it had been planned, was enough to justify the

Kirkaldys, and those marked out for impeachment, in considering

Beatoun as their mortal foe. That the cardinal never departed from

his bloody design, is apparent from the fact, that, after his death,

a paper was found in his repositories, ordaining that "Norman

Leslie, sheriff of Fife, John Leslie, father's brother to Norman,

the Lairds of Grange, _elder and younger_, Sir James Learmonth of

Dairsie, and the Laird of Raith, should either have been slain or

else taken." The law at that period could afford no security against

such a design, so that Beatoun's assassination may have been an act

of necessary self-defence, which it would be extremely difficult to

blame. As to the sacrilege, we cannot regard that as an aggravation.

If a prelate of the Roman Church, like Beatoun, chose to make

himself notorious to the world by the number and scandal of his

profligacies; if, with a carnality and disregard of appearances not

often exhibited by laymen, he turned his palace into a seraglio; and

if his mistress was actually surprised, at the time of the attack,

in the act of escaping from his bedchamber,--great allowance must

be made for the obtuseness of the men who could not understand the

relevancy of the plea of priesthood which he offered, in order that

his holy calling might shield him from secular consequences. But

further, is the fate of Wishart to go for nothing? Setting the

natural influences of bigotry aside, and with every consideration

for the zeal which could hurry even so good a man as Sir Thomas More

to express, in words at least, a desire to see the faggot and the

stake in full operation--what shall we say to the individual who

could calmly issue his infernal orders, and, in the full pomp of

ecclesiastical vanity, become a pleased spectator of the sufferings

of a human being, undergoing the most hideous of all imaginable

deaths? Truly this, that the brute deserved to die in return; and

that we, at all events, shall not stigmatise those who killed him as

guilty of murder. Poor old Sharpe was murdered, if ever man was, in

a hideous and atrocious manner; but as for Beatoun, he deserved to

die, and his death was invested with a sort of judicial sanction,

having been perpetrated in presence of the sheriff of the bounds.

The tidings of this act of vengeance spread, not only through

Scotland, but through Europe, like wildfire. According as men

differed in religious faith, they spoke of it either with horror or

exultation. Even the most moderate of the reforming party were slow

to blame the deed which freed them from a bloody persecutor; and Sir

David Lindesay of the Mount, the witty and satirical scholar, did

not characterise it more severely than as expressed in the following

verses:--

"As for the cardinal, I grant

He was the man we well might want;

God will forgive it soon.

But of a truth, the sooth to say,

Although the loon be well away,

The deed was _foully done_."

Meanwhile the conspirators had conceived the daring scheme of

holding the castle of St Andrews against all comers, and of setting

the authority of the regent at defiance. They calculated upon

receiving support from England, in case France thought fit to

interfere; and perhaps they imagined that a steady resistance on

their part might excite general insurrection in Scotland. Besides

this, they had retained in custody the son and heir of the Regent

Arran, whom they had found in the castle, and who was a valuable

hostage in their hands. The force they could command was not great.

Amongst others, John Knox joined them with his three pupils; several

Fife barons espoused their cause; and altogether they mustered

about one hundred and fifty armed men. This was a small body, but

the defences of the place were more than usually complete, and they

were well munimented with artillery. Accordingly, though formally

summoned, they peremptorily refused to surrender.

John Knox, when he entered the castle, was probably under the

impression that he was joining a company of men, serious in their

deportment, rigid in their conversation, and self-denying in their

habits. If so, he must very soon have discovered his mistake. The

young Reforming gentry were not one whit more scrupulous than

their Catholic coevals: Norman Leslie, though brave as steel, was

a thorough-paced desperado; and, from the account given by our

author of the doings at St Andrews, it may easily be understood how

uncongenial such quarters must have been to the stern and ascetic

Reformer.

Arran had probably no intention of pushing matters to extremity,

though compelled, for appearance' sake, to invest the fortress.

After a siege of three weeks it remained unreduced; and a pestilence

which broke out in the town of St Andrews, afforded the regent a

pretext for agreeing to an armistice. Hitherto the conspirators had

received the countenance and support of Henry VIII., who remitted

them large sums from time to time, and promised even more active

assistance. But this never arrived. Death at last put a stop to

the bereavements of this unconscionable widower; and thereupon the

French court despatched a fleet of one-and-twenty vessels of war,

under the command of Leon Strozzio--a famous Florentine noble,

who had risen in the Order of the Hospital to the rank of Prior

of Capua--for the purpose of reducing the stubborn stronghold of

heresy. Strozzio's name was so well known as that of a most skilful

commander and tactician, and the weight of the ordnance he brought

with him was so great, that the besieged had no hope of escaping

this time; yet, on being summoned, they replied, with the most

undaunted bravery, that they would defend the castle against the

united powers of Scotland, England, and France. With such resolute

characters as these, it was no use to parley further; and the Prior

accordingly set about his task with a dexterity which put to shame

the feeble tactics of Arran.

"By sea and land the siege was pressed with great fury. From the

ramparts of the Abbey Church, from the college, and other places

in the adjoining streets, the French and Scottish cannoneers

maintained a perpetual cannonade upon the castle. Those soldiers

who manned the steeples and St Salvador's tower occupied such

an elevation, that, by depressing their cannon, they shot down

into the inner quadrangle of the castle, the pavement of which

could be seen dabbled with the blood of the garrison; and, to

aggravate the increasing distress of the latter, the pestilence

found its way among them--many died, and all were dismayed.

Walter Melville, one of their bravest leaders, fell deadly sick;

while watching, warding, and scanty fare, were rapidly wearing

out the rest; and John Knox dinned continually in their ears,

that their present perils were the just reward of their former

corrupt lives and licentiousness, and reliance on England rather

than Heaven.

"'For the first twenty days of this siege,' said he, 'ye

prospered bravely: but when ye triumphed at your victory, I

lamented, and ever said that ye saw not what I saw. When ye

boasted of the thickness of your walls, I said they would be

but as egg-shells: when ye vaunted, England will rescue us--I

said, ye shall not see it; but ye shall be delivered into your

enemies' hands, and carried afar off into a strange country.'

"This gloomy prophesying was but cold comfort for those whom his

precepts and exhortations had urged to rebellion, to outlawry,

and to bloodshed; but their affairs were fast approaching a

crisis."

If John Knox showed little judgment in adopting this tone of

vaticination, he is, at all events, entitled to some credit for his

courage--since Norman Leslie possessed a temper which it was rather

dangerous to aggravate, and must sometimes have been sorely tempted

to toss the querulous Reformer into the sea.

The garrison finally surrendered to Leon Strozzio, but not until

battlement and wall had been breached, and an escalade rendered

practicable.

The prisoners, including William Kirkaldy, were conveyed to France,

and there subjected to treatment which varied according to their

station. Those of knightly rank were incarcerated in separate

fortresses; the remainder were chained to oars in the galleys on

the Loire. John Knox was one of those who were forced to undergo

this ignominious punishment; and we quite agree with our author in

holding that, "it is not probable, that the lash of the tax-master

increased his goodwill towards popery."

William Kirkaldy was shut up in the great castle of Mont Saint

Michel, along with Norman Leslie, his uncle of Parkhill, and Peter

Carmichael of Kilmadie. But, however strong the fortress, it

was imprudent in their gaolers to lodge four such fiery spirits

together. They resolved to break prison; and did so, having, by an

ingenious ruse, succeeded in overpowering the garrison, and, after

some vicissitudes and wanderings, made good their escape to England.

After this event there is a blank of some years, during which we

hear little of Kirkaldy. It is, however, an important period in

northern history, for it includes the battle of Pinkie, the removal

of the child, Queen Mary, to France, and her betrothment to the

Dauphin. Kirkaldy seems not to have arrived in England until the

death of Edward VI., when the Romanist party attained a temporary

ascendency. We next find him in the service of Henry II. of France,

engaged in the wars between that monarch and the Emperor Charles V.

In these campaigns, says our author, by his bravery and conduct, he

soon attained that eminent distinction and reputation, as a skilful

and gallant soldier, which ceased only with his life.

Kirkaldy was not the only member of the stout garrison of St Andrews

who found employment in the French service. Singularly enough,

Norman Leslie, the head of the conspirators, had also a command, and

was in high favour with the famous Constable Anne de Montmorencie.

His death, which occurred the day before the battle of Renti, is

thus graphically recounted in the Memoirs, and is a picture worth

preserving:--

"The day before the battle, the constable, perceiving by the

manœuvres of the Spanish troops that Charles meant to take

possession of certain heights, which sloped abruptly down to

the camp or bivouac of the French, sent up Leslie's Scottish

lances and other horsemen to skirmish with these Imperialists,

and drive them back. Melville, his fellow-soldier, thus

describes him:--In view of the whole French army, the Master

of Rothes, 'with thirty Scotsmen, rode up the hill upon a fair

gray gelding. He had, above his coat of black velvet, his coat

of armour, with two broad white crosses, one before and the

other behind, with sleeves of mail, and a red bonnet upon his

head, whereby he was seen and known afar off by the constable,

the Duke d'Enghien, and the Prince of Condé.' His party was

diminished to seven by the time he came within lance-length of

the Imperialists, who were sixty in number; but he burst upon

them with the force of a thunderbolt, escaping the fire of their

hand-culverins, which they discharged incessantly against him.

He struck five from their saddles with his long lance, before it

broke into splinters; then, drawing his sword, he rushed again

and again among them, with the heedless bravery for which he had

ever been distinguished. At the critical moment of this unequal

contest, of seven Scottish knights against sixty Spaniards, a

troop of Imperial spearmen were hastily riding along the hill to

join in the encounter. By this time Leslie had received several

bullets in his person; and, finding himself unable to continue

the conflict longer, he dashed spurs into his horse, galloped

back to the constable, and fell, faint and exhausted, from his

saddle, with the blood pouring through his burnished armour on

the turf.

"By the king's desire he was immediately borne to the royal

tent, where the Duke d'Enghien and Prince Louis of Condé

remarked to Henry, that 'Hector of Troy had not behaved more

valiantly than Norman Leslie.'

"So highly did that brave prince value Norman Leslie, and so

greatly did he deplore his death, that all the survivors of his

Scottish troop of lances were, under Crichton of Brunstane,

sent back to their own country, laden with rewards and honours;

and, by his influence, such as were exiles were restored by the

regent to their estates and possessions, as a recompense for

their valour on the frontiers of Flanders."

Kirkaldy seems to have remained in France until the unfortunate

death of Henry II., who was accidentally killed in a tournament.

The estimation in which he was held, after his achievements in the

wars of Picardy, may be learned from the following contemporary

testimony:--

"I heard Henry II.," Melville states, "point unto him and

say--'Yonder is one of the most valiant men of our age.'" And the

same writer mentions "that the proud old Montmorencie, the great

constable of France, treated the exiled Kirkaldy with such deference

that he never addressed him with his head covered." This was high

tribute, when paid to a soldier then under thirty years of age.

Ten years after he had been conveyed a prisoner from St Andrews on

board the French galley, Kirkaldy returned to Scotland, but not to

repose under the laurels he had already won. Soon after this we find

him married, in possession, through the death of his father, of his

ancestral estates, the intimate friend of Maitland of Lethington and

of Lord James, afterwards the Regent Moray, and a stanch supporter

of the Lords of the Congregation. This period furnishes to us one

of the most melancholy chapters of Scottish history. Mary of Guise,

the queen-regent, on the one hand, was resolute to put down the

growing heresy; on the other, the landed nobility were determined to

overthrow the Catholic church. Knox, who had by this time returned

from France, and other Reformed preachers, did their utmost to fan

the flame; and the result was that melancholy work of incendiarism

and ruin, which men of all parties must bitterly deplore. Then came

the French auxiliaries under D'Oisel, wasting the land, ravaging the

estates of the Protestants, and burning their houses and villages;

a savage mode of warfare, from which Kirkaldy suffered much--Fife

having been pillaged from one end to the other--but for which he

exacted an ample vengeance. The details of this partisan warfare are

given with much minuteness, but great spirit, by the chronicler; and

it did not cease until the death of Mary of Guise.

A new victim was now to be offered to the distempered spirit of the

age: on the 19th August 1561, the young Queen Mary arrived at Leith.

She was then in the nineteenth year of her age, and endowed with

all that surpassing loveliness which was at once her dower and her

misfortune. Her arrival was dreaded by the preachers, who detested

the school in which she had been educated, and the influence she

might be enabled to exercise; but the great mass of the people

hailed her coming with acclamations of unfeigned delight:--

"Despite the efforts of these dark-browed Reformers, agitated

by the memory of her good and gallant father,--the king of

the poor--by that of her thirteen years' absence from them,

and stirred by that inborn spirit of loyalty which the Scots

possessed in so intense a degree, the people received their

beautiful queen with the utmost enthusiasm, and outvied each

other in her praise.

"Her mother's dying advice to secure the support of the

Protestants, and to cultivate the friendship of their leaders,

particularly Maitland of Lethington and 'Kirkaldy of Grange,

whom the Constable de Montmorencie had named the first soldier

in Europe,' had been faithfully conveyed to Mary in France by

the handsome young Count de Martigues, the Sieur de la Brosse,

the Bishop of Amiens, and others, who had witnessed the last

moments of that dearly-loved mother in the castle of Edinburgh;

and Mary treasured that advice in her heart--but it availed her

not."

Hurried on by her evil destiny, and persecuted by intrigues which

had their origin in the fertile brain of Elizabeth, Mary determined

to bestow her hand upon Darnley, a weak, dissolute, and foolish

boy, whose only recommendations were his birth and his personal

beauty. Such a marriage never could, under any circumstances, have

proved a happy one. At that juncture it was peculiarly unfortunate,

as it roused the jealousy of the house of Hamilton against that

of Lennox; and was further bitterly opposed by Moray, a cold,

calculating, selfish man, who concealed, under an appearance of

zeal for the Protestant faith, the most restless, unnatural, and

insatiable ambition. Talents he did possess, and of no ordinary

kind: above all, he was gifted with the faculty of imposing upon men

more open and honourable than himself. Knox was a mere tool in his

hands: Kirkaldy of Grange regarded him as a pattern of wisdom. For

years, this straightforward soldier surrendered his judgment to the

hypocrite, and, unfortunately, did not detect his mistake until the

Queen was involved in a mesh from which extrication was impossible.

Moray's first attempt at rebellion proved an arrant failure: the

people refused to join his standard, and he, with the other leading

insurgents, was compelled to seek refuge in England.

All might have gone well but for the folly of the idiot Darnley.

No long period of domestic intercourse was requisite to convince

the unfortunate Queen that she had thrown away her affections,

and bestowed her hand upon an individual totally incapable of

appreciating the one, and utterly unworthy of the other. Darnley

was a low-minded, fickle, and imperious fool--vicious as a colt,

capricious as a monkey, and stubborn as an Andalusian mule. Instead

of showing the slightest gratitude to his wife and mistress, for

the preference which had raised him from obscurity to a position

for which kings were suitors, he repaid the vast boon by a series

of petty and unmanly persecutions. He aimed to be not only

prince-consort, but master; and because this was denied him, he

threw himself precipitately into the counsels of the enemies of

Mary. It was not difficult to sow the seeds of jealousy in a mind so

well prepared to receive them; and Riccio, the Italian secretary,

was marked out by Ruthven and Morton, the secret adherents of

Moray, as the victim. Even this scheme, though backed by Darnley,

might have miscarried, had not Mary been driven into an act which

roused, while it almost justified, the worst fears of the Protestant

party in Scotland. This was her adhesion to the celebrated Roman

Catholic League, arising from a coalition which had been concluded

between France, Spain, and the Emperor, for the destruction of

the Protestant cause in Europe. "It was," says Tytler, "a design

worthy of the dark and unscrupulous politicians by whom it had been

planned--Catherine of Medicis and the Duke of Alva. In the summer

of the preceding year, the queen-dowager of France and Alva had met

at Bayonne, during a progress in which she conducted her youthful

son and sovereign, Charles IX., through the southern provinces of

his kingdom; and there, whilst the court was dissolved in pleasure,

those secret conferences were held which issued in the resolution

that toleration must be at an end, and that the only safety for

the Roman Catholic faith was the extermination of its enemies." To

this document, Mary, at the instigation of Riccio, who was in the

interest of Rome, and who really possessed considerable influence

with his mistress, affixed her signature. The bond was abortive for

its ostensible purposes, but it was the death-warrant of the Italian

secretary, and ultimately of the Queen.

It is not our province to usurp the functions of the historian, and

therefore we pass willingly over that intricate portion of history

which ends with the murder of Darnley. It was notoriously the

work of Bothwell, but not his alone, for Lethington, Huntly, and

Argyle, were also deeply implicated. Bothwell now stands forward

as a prominent character of the age. He was a bold, reckless,

desperate adventurer, with little to recommend him save personal

daring, and a fidelity to his mistress which hitherto had remained

unshaken. Lethington, in all probability, merely regarded him as an

instrument, but Bothwell had a higher aim. With daring ambition, he

aimed at the possession of the person of Mary, and actually achieved

his purpose.

This unhappy and most unequal union roused the ire of the Scottish

nobles. Even such of them as, intimidated by the reckless character

of Bothwell, had sworn to defend him if impeached for the slaughter,

and had recommended him as a fitting match for Mary, now took

up arms, under the pretext that he had violently abducted their

sovereign. We fear it cannot be asserted with truth that much

violence was used. Poor Queen Mary had found, by bitter experience,

that she could hardly depend upon one of her principal subjects.

Darnley, Moray, Morton, Lethington, and Arran, each had betrayed

her in turn; everywhere her steps were surrounded by a net of the

blackest treachery: not one true heart seemed left to beat with

loyalty for its Queen. Elizabeth, with fiendish malice, was goading

on her subjects to rebellion. The Queen of England had determined to

ruin the power of her sister monarch; the elderly withered spinster

detested the young and blooming mother. Why, then, should it be

matter of great marvel to those who know the acuteness of female

sensibility, if, in the hour of desertion and desolation, Mary

should have allowed the weakness of the woman to overcome the pride

of the sovereign, and should have opposed but feeble resistance to

the advances of the only man who hitherto had remained stanch to her

cause, and whose arm seemed strong enough to insure her personal

protection? It is not the first time that a daring villain has been

taken for a hero by a distressed and persecuted woman.

But Bothwell had no friends. The whole of the nobles were against

him; and the Commons, studiously taught to believe that Mary was a

consenting party to Darnley's death, were hostile to their Queen.

Kirkaldy, at the instance of Moray, came over from his patrimonial

estates to join the confederates, and his first feat in arms was

an attack on Borthwick Castle, from which Bothwell and the Queen

escaped with the utmost difficulty. Then came the action, if such

it can be called, of Carberry Hill, when Bothwell challenged his

accusers to single combat--a defiance which was accepted by Lord

Lindesay of the Byres, but prevented from being brought to the test

of combat by the voluntary submission of the Queen. Seeing that her

forces were utterly inadequate to oppose those of the assembled

nobles, she sent for Sir William Kirkaldy of Grange, as a knight

in whose honour she could thoroughly confide, and, after a long

interview, agreed to pass over to the troops of the confederates,

provided they would again acknowledge and obey her as their

sovereign. This being promised, she took her last leave of Bothwell,

and her first step on the road which ultimately brought her to

Lochleven.

We must refer our readers to the volume for the spirited account

of these events, and of the expedition undertaken by Kirkaldy in

pursuit of Bothwell, his narrow escapes, and sea-fights among the

shores of Shetland, and the capture of the fugitive's vessel on the

coast of Norway. Neither will our space permit us to dwell upon the

particulars of the battle of Langside, that last action hazarded

and lost by the adherents of Queen Mary, just after her escape from

Lochleven, and before she quitted the Scottish soil for ever. But

for the tactics of Kirkaldy, the issue of that fight might have been

different; and deeply is it to be regretted that, before that time,

the eyes of the Knight of Grange had not been opened to the perfidy

of Moray, whom he loved too trustingly, and served far too well. It

was only after Mary was in the power of Elizabeth that he knew how

much she had been betrayed.

Under the regency of Moray, Kirkaldy held the post of governor of

the castle of Edinburgh, and retained it until the fortress went

down before the battery of the English cannon.

He was also elected Lord Provost of Edinburgh--a dignity which,

before that time, had been held by the highest nobles of the

land, but which has since deteriorated under the influence of the

Union, and bungled acts of corporation. He was in this position

when he seems first to have perceived that the queen had been made

the victim of a deep-laid plot of treachery--that Moray was the

arch-conspirator--and that he, along with other men, who wished

well both to their country and their sovereign, had been used as

instruments for his own advancement by the false and unscrupulous

statesman. The arrest of Chatelherault and of Lord Herries, both of

them declared partisans of Mary, and their committal to the castle

of Edinburgh, a measure against which Kirkaldy remonstrated, was the

earliest act which aroused his suspicions:--

"Upon this, Mr John Wood, a pious friend of the regent's,

observed to Kirkaldy, in the true spirit of his party,--

"'I marvel, sir, that you are offended at these two being

committed to ward; for how shall _we_, who are the defenders of

my lord regent, get rewards but by the ruin of such men?'

"'Ha!' rejoined Kirkaldy sternly, 'is that your holiness? I see

naught among ye but envy, greed, and ambition, whereby ye will

wreck a good regent and ruin the realm!'--a retort which made

him many enemies among the train of Moray."

But another event, which occurred soon afterwards, left no doubt in

the mind of Kirkaldy as to the nature of Moray's policy. Maitland of

Lethington, unquestionably the ablest Scottish diplomatist of his

time, but unstable and shifting, as diplomatists often are, had seen

cause to adopt very different views from those which he formerly

professed. Whilst Mary was in power, he had too often thrown the

weight of his influence and council against her: no sooner was

she a fugitive and prisoner, than his loyalty appeared to revive.

It is impossible now to say whether he was touched with remorse;

whether, on reflection, he became convinced that he had not acted

the part of a patriotic Scotsman; or whether he was merely led,

through excitement, to launch himself into a new sea of political

intrigue. This, at least, is certain, that he applied himself, heart

and soul, to baffle the machinations of Elizabeth, and to deliver

the unhappy Mary from the toils in which she was involved. It was

Lethington who conceived the project of restoring Mary to liberty,

by bringing about a marriage between her and the Duke of Norfolk;

and the knowledge of his zeal on that occasion incensed Elizabeth

to the utmost. That vindictive queen, who had always found Moray

most ready to obey her wishes, opened a negotiation with him for

the destruction of his former friend; and the regent, not daring to

thwart her, took measures to have Maitland charged, through a third

party, of direct participation in the death of Darnley, whereupon

his arrest followed.

Kirkaldy, who loved Maitland, would not allow this manœuvre to

pass unnoticed. He remonstrated with the regent for taking such a

step; but Moray coldly informed him, that it was out of his power to

save Lethington from prison. The blunt soldier, on receiving this

reply, sent back a message, demanding that the same charge should

be preferred against the Earl of Morton and Archibald Douglas; and

he did more--for, Maitland having been detained a prisoner in the

town of Edinburgh, under custody of Lord Home, Kirkaldy despatched

at night a party of the garrison, and, by means of a counterfeited

order, got possession of the statesman's person, and brought him to

the castle, where Chatelherault and Herries were already residing

as guests. Next morning, to the consternation of Moray, a trumpeter

appeared at the cross, demanding, in name of Kirkaldy, that process

for regicide should instantly be commenced against Morton and

Douglas; and, says our author,--

"Remembering the precepts of the stout old knight his father,

who always offered 'the single combate' in maintenance of his

assertions, he offered himself, body for body, to fight Douglas

on foot or horseback; while his prisoner, the Lord Herries,

sent, as a peer of the realm, a similar cartel to the Earl of

Morton. The challenges bore, 'that they were in the council, and

consequently art and part in the king's murder.'

In vain did Moray try to wheedle Kirkaldy from his stronghold--in

vain did the revengeful Morton lay plots and bribe assassins. The

castle of Edinburgh had become the rallying point for those who

loved their queen. An attempt was made to oust Kirkaldy from the

provostship; but the stout burghers, proud of their martial head,

turned a deaf ear to the insidious suggestions of the regent. Yet

still the banner of King James floated upon the walls of the castle,

nor was the authority of Mary again proclaimed by sound of trumpet

until after the shot of the injured Bothwellhaugh struck down the

false and dangerous Moray in the street of Linlithgow. Then the

whole faction of Chatelherault, the whole race of Hamilton, rose in

arms, and prepared to place themselves under the guidance of Sir

William Kirkaldy. The following is, we think, a noble trait in the

character of the man:--

"The latter mourned deeply the untimely fate of Moray: they

had been old comrades in the field, stanch friends in many a

rough political broil; and though they had quarrelled of late,

he had too much of the frankness of his profession to maintain

hostility to the dead, and so came to see him laid in his last

resting-place. Eight lords bore the body up St Anthony's lofty

aisle, in the great cathedral of St Giles; Kirkaldy preceded it,

bearing the paternal banner of Moray with the royal arms; the

Laird of Cleish, who bore the coat of armour, walked beside him.

Knox prayed solemnly and earnestly as the body was lowered into

the dust; a splendid tomb was erected over his remains, and long

marked the spot where they lay."

Lennox succeeded Moray as regent of Scotland, but no salute

from the guns of the grim old fortress of Edinburgh greeted his

inauguration. Henceforward Kirkaldy had no common cause with

the confederates. Maitland had revealed to him the whole hidden

machinery of treason, the scandalous complexity of intrigues, by

which he had been made a dupe. He now saw that neither religion nor

patriotism, but simply selfishness and ambition, had actuated the

nobles in rebelling against their lawful sovereign, and that those

very acts which they fixed upon as apologies for their treason,

were in fact the direct consequences of their own deliberate guilt.

If any further corroboration of their baseness had been required

in order to satisfy the mind of Kirkaldy, it was afforded by

Morton, who, notwithstanding the defiance so lately hurled at him

from the castle, solicited, with a meanness and audacity almost

incredible, the assistance of the governor to drive Lennox out of

the kingdom, and procure his own acknowledgement as regent instead.

It is needless to say that his application was refused with scorn.

Kirkaldy now began to doubt the sincerity of Knox, who, although

with no selfish motive, had been deeply implicated in the cruel

plots of the time; some sharp correspondence took place, and the

veteran Reformer was pleased to denounce his former pupil from the

pulpit.

Edinburgh now was made to suffer the inconveniences to which every

city threatened with a siege is exposed. The burghers began to

grumble against their provost, who, on one occasion, sent a party to

rescue a prisoner from the Tolbooth, and who always preferred the

character of military governor to that of civic magistrate. Knox

thundered at him every Sabbath, and doubtless contributed largely

to increase the differences between him and the uneasy citizens.

The later might well be pardoned for their apprehensions. Not only

were they commanded by the castle guns, but Kirkaldy, as if to show

them what they might expect in ease of difference of political

sentiment,--

"Hoisted cannon to the summit of St Giles's lofty spire, which

rises in the middle of the central hill on which the city

stands, and commands a view of it in every direction. He placed

the artillery on the stone bartizan beneath the flying arches

of the imperial crown that surmounts the tower, and thus turned

the cathedral into a garrison, to the great annoyance of Knox

and the citizens. The latter were also compelled, at their own

expense, to maintain the hundred harquebussiers of Captain

Melville, who were billeted in the Castlehill Street, for the

queen's service; and thus, amid preparations for war, closed the

year 1570."

We may fairly suppose, that the cannon of the governor were more

obnoxious than a modern annuity-tax can possibly be; yet no citizen

seemed desirous of coming forward as a candidate for the crown of

martyrdom. The bailies very quietly and very properly succumbed to

the provost.

It must be acknowledged that Edinburgh was, in those days, no

pleasant place of residence.

Next, to the alarm of the citizens, came a mock fight and the roar

of cannon, intended to accustom the garrison to siege and war,

which latter calamity speedily commenced in earnest. No possible

precaution was omitted by Kirkaldy, whose situation was eminently

critical; and he had received a terrible warning. On the last day

of truce, the strong castle of Dumbarton was taken by surprise by

a party under Captain Crawford of Jordanhill. Lord Fleming was

fortunate enough to effect his escape, but Hamilton, archbishop of

St Andrews, was made prisoner, and immediately hanged by Lennox over

Stirling bridge. An archbishopric never was a comfortable tenure in

Scotland.

Lennox and Morton now drew together. The former from Linlithgow, and

the latter from Dalkeith, advanced against the city, then occupied

by the Hamiltons: skirmishes went on under the walls and on the

Boroughmuir, and the unfortunate citizens were nearly driven to

distraction. The following dispositions of Provost Kirkaldy were by

no means calculated to restore a feeling of confidence, or to better

the prospects of trade:--

"He loop-holed the spacious vaults of the great cathedral, for

the purpose of sweeping with musketry its steep church-yard to

the south, the broad Lawnmarket to the west, and High Street to

the eastward; while his cannon from the spire commanded the long

line of street called the Canongate--even to the battlements of

the palace porch. He seized the ports of the city, placed guards

of his soldiers upon them, and retained the keys in his own

hands. He ordered a rampart and ditch to be formed at the Butter

Tron, for the additional defence of the castle; and another

for the same purpose at the head of the West Bow, a steep and

winding street of most picturesque aspect. His soldiers pillaged

the house of the regent, whose movables and valuables they

carried off; he broke into the Tolbooth and council-chamber,

drove forth the scribes and councillors, and finally deposed

the whole bench of magistrates, installing in the civic chair

the daring chief of Fermhirst, (who had now become the husband

of his daughter Janet, a young girl barely sixteen;) while a

council composed of his mosstrooping vassals, clad in their iron

jacks, steel caps, calivers, and two-handed whingers, officiated

as bailies, in lieu of the douce, paunchy, and well-fed

burgesses of the Craims and Luckenbooths."

The Blue Blanket of Edinburgh--that banner which, according to

tradition, waved victoriously on the ramparts of Acre--had fallen

into singular custody! John Knox again fled, for in truth his life

was in danger. Kirkaldy, notwithstanding their differences, exerted

his authority to the utmost to protect him, but the Hamiltons

detested his very name; and one night a bullet fired through his

window, was taken as a significant hint that his absence from the

metropolis would be convenient. Scandal, even in those times, was

rife in Edinburgh; for we are told that--

"John Low, a carrier of letters to St Andrews, being in the

'Castell of Edinburgh, the Ladie Home would neids threip in his

face, that Johne Knox was banist the toune, because in his yard

he had raisit some _sanctis_, amangis whome their came up the

devill with hornes, which when his servant Richart saw he ran

wud, and so deid.'"

It is hardly credible, but it is a fact, that a meeting of the

Estates of Scotland, called by Lennox, was held in Edinburgh at

this very juncture. Kirkaldy occupied the upper part of the town,

whilst the lower was in the hands of the regent, protected, or

rather covered, by a battery which Morton had erected upon the

"Doo Craig," that bluff black precipice to the south of the Calton

Hill. The meeting, however, was a short one. "Mons Meg" and her

marrows belched forth fire and shot upon the town, and the scared

representatives fled, in terror of the falling ruins. A sortie from

the castle was made, and the place of assembly burned.

Kirkaldy now summoned and actually held a parliament, in name of

Queen Mary, in Edinburgh. The possession of the Regalia gave this

assembly a show of legality at least equivalent to that pertaining

to its rival, the _Black Parliament_, which was then sitting at

Stirling.

We must refer to the work itself for the details of the martial

exploits which followed. So very vividly and picturesquely are the

scenes described, that, in reading of them, the images arise to

our mind with that distinctness which constitutes the principal

charm of the splendid romances of Scott. We accompany, with the

deepest personal interest, the gallant Captain Melville and his

harquebussiers, on his expedition to dislodge grim Morton from

his Lion's Den at Dalkeith--we follow fiery Claud Hamilton in his

attack upon the Black Parliament at Stirling, when Lennox met his

death, and Morton, driven by the flames from his burning mansion,

surrendered his sword to Buccleugh--and, amidst the din and uproar

of the Douglas wars, we hear the cannon on the bastion of Edinburgh

castle battering to ruin the gray towers of Merchiston.

The career of Kirkaldy was rapidly drawing towards its close.

During the life of Mar, who succeeded Lennox in the regency, the

brave governor succeeded in maintaining possession not only of the

castle, but of the city of Edinburgh, in spite of all opposition.

But Morton, the next regent, was a still more formidable foe. The

hatred between this man and Kirkaldy was mutual, and it was of the

most deadly kind. And no wonder. Morton, as profligate as cruel, had

seduced the fair and false Helen Leslie, wife of Sir James Kirkaldy,

the gallant brother of the governor, and thereby inflicted the

worst wound on the honour of an ancient family. A more awful story

than the betrayal of her husband, and the seizure of his castle of

Blackness, through the treachery of this wretched woman, is not to

be found in modern history. Tarpeia alone is her rival in infamy,

and the end of both was the same. The virulence of hereditary feud

is a marked feature in our Scottish annals; but no sentiment of the

kind could have kindled such a flame of enmity as burned between

Morton and Kirkaldy. From the hour when the former obtained the

regency, the war became one of extermination.

Morton, it must be owned, showed much diplomatic skill in his

arrangements. His first step was to negotiate separately with the

country party of the loyalists, so as to detach them from Kirkaldy;

and in this he perfectly succeeded. The leading nobles, Huntley

and Argyle, were wearied with the war; Chatelherault, whom we have

already known as Arran, was broken down by age and infirmities; and

even those who had been the keenest partisans of the queen, Herries

and Seton, were not disinclined to transfer their allegiance to

her son. The treaty of Perth left Kirkaldy with no other adherents

save Lord Home, the Melvilles, Maitland, and his garrison. The city

had revolted, and was now under the provostship of fierce old Lord

Lindesay of the Byres, who was determined to humble his predecessor.

Save the castle rock of Edinburgh, and the hardy band that held it,

all Scotland had submitted to Morton.

Killigrew, the English ambassador, advised him to yield. "No!"

replied Kirkaldy. "Though my friends have forsaken me, and the city

of Edinburgh hath done so too, yet I will defend this castle to the

last!" The man whom Moray thought a tool, had expanded to the bulk

of a hero.

Meantime, English engineers were occupied in estimating the

capabilities of the castle as a place of defence. They reported

that, with sufficient artillery, it might be reduced in twenty days;

and, accordingly, Morton determined to besiege it so soon as the

period of truce agreed on by the treaty of Perth should expire.

Kirkaldy was not less resolute to maintain it.

At six o'clock, on the morning of 1st January 1573, a warning gun

from the castle announced that the treaty had expired, and the

standard of the Queen was unfurled on the highest tower, amidst the

acclamations of the garrison. Four-and-twenty hours previously,

Kirkaldy had issued a proclamation, warning all loyal subjects of

the Queen to depart forthwith from the city; and terrible indeed was

the situation of those who neglected that seasonable warning. Morton

began the attack; and it was answered by an incessant discharge from

the batteries upon the town.

Civil war had assumed its worst form. By day the cannon thundered;

at night the garrison made sorties, and fired the city: all was

wrack and ruin. Morton, bursting with fury, found that, unassisted,

he could not conquer Grange.

English aid was asked from, and given by, the unscrupulous

Elizabeth. Drury, who had helped Morton in his dishonourable treason

at Restalrig, marched into Scotland with the English standard

displayed, bringing with him fifteen hundred harquebussiers, one

hundred and fifty pikemen, and a numerous troop of gentlemen

volunteers; while the train of cannon and baggage came round by sea

to Leith, where a fleet of English ships cruised, to cut off all

succour from the Continent.

The English summons to surrender was treated by Kirkaldy with scorn.

Up went a scarlet banner, significant of death and defiance, on

the great tower of King David. Indomitable, as in the days of his

early youth, when the confederates of St Andrews defied the universe

in arms, the Scottish champion looked calmly from his rock on the

preparations for the terrible assault.

Five batteries were erected around the castle, but not with

impunity. The cannon of Kirkaldy mowed down the pioneers when

engaged in their trenching operations; and it was not until Trinity

Sunday, the 17th of May, that the besiegers opened their fire.

"At two o'clock in the afternoon, the five batteries opened a

simultaneous discharge upon the walls of the castle. Bravely

and briskly its cannoneers replied to them, and deep-mouthed

Mons Meg, with her vast bullets of black whin, the thundering

carthouns, basilisks, serpents, and culverins, amid fire

and smoke, belched their missiles from the old gray towers,

showering balls of iron, lead, and stone at the batteries;

while the incessant ringing of several thousand harquebusses,

calivers, and wheel-lock petronels, added to the din of the

double cannonade. From the calibre of the great Mons Meg, which

yet frowns _en barbe_ over the ramparts, one may easily imagine

the dismay her enormous bullets must have caused in the trenches

so far below her.

"For ten days the furious cannonade continued, on both sides,

without a moment's cessation. On the 19th, three towers were

demolished, and enormous gaps appeared in the curtain walls;

many of the castle guns were dismounted, and destroyed by the

falling of the ancient masonry: a shot struck one of the largest

culverins fairly on the muzzle, shattering it to pieces, and

scattering the splinters around those who stood near. A very

heavy battery was discharged against King David's Tower, a great

square bastel-house, the walls of which were dark with the lapse

of four centuries. On the 23d, a great gap had been beaten in

its northern side, revealing the arched hall within; and as the

vast old tower, with its cannon, its steel-clad defenders, and

the red flag of defiance still waving above its machicolated

bartizan, sank with a mighty crash to shapeless ruin, the wild

shriek raised by the females in the castle, and the roar of the

masonry rolling like thunder down the perpendicular rocks, were

distinctly heard at the distant English camp."

One hundred and fifty men constituted the whole force which Kirkaldy

could muster when he commenced his desperate defence. Ten times

that number would scarcely have sufficed to maintain an adequate

resistance; but high heroic valour in the face of death is

insensible to any odds. After a vigorous resistance, the besiegers

succeeded in gaining possession of the Spur or blockhouse--an outer

work which was constructed between the fortress and the town; but an

attempt to scale the rock on the west side utterly failed.

The blockade had for some time been so strict, that the garrison

began to suffer from want of provisions; but their sorest privation

was the loss of water. Although there are large and deep wells in

the Castle of Edinburgh, a remarkable peculiarity renders them

useless in the time of siege. To this day, whenever the cannon are

fired, the water deserts the wells, oozing out of some fissures at

the bottom of the rock. There is, however, a lower spring on the

north side, called St Margaret's Well, and from this the garrison

for a time obtained a scanty supply. Under cloud of night a soldier

was let down by a rope from the fortifications, and in this manner

the wholesome element was drawn. This circumstance became known to

the besiegers; and they, with diabolical cruelty, had recourse to

the expedient of poisoning the well, and permitted the nocturnal

visitor to draw the deadly liquid without molestation. The

consequences, of course, were fearful. Many expired in great agony;

and those whose strength enabled them to throw off the more active

effects of the poison, were so enfeebled that they could hardly work

the heavy cannon, or support the fatigue of watching day and night

upon the battlements.

"Maddened by the miseries they underwent, and rendered desperate

by all hopes of escape from torture and death being utterly cut

off, a frenzy seized the soldiers; they broke into a dangerous

mutiny, and threatened to hang Lethington over the walls, as

being the primary cause of all these dangers, from the great

influence he exercised over Kirkaldy, their governor. But

even now, when amid the sick, the dying, and the dead, and

the mutinous--surrounded by crumbling ramparts and dismounted

cannon, among which the shot of the besiegers were rebounding

every instant--with the lives, honour, and safety of his wife,

his brother, and numerous brave and faithful friends depending

on his efforts and example, the heart of the brave governor

appears never to have quailed even for an instant!"

At length, as further resistance was useless, and as certain

movements on the part of the enemy indicated their intention of

proceeding to storm the castle by the breach which had been effected

on the eastern side, Kirkaldy requested an interview with his old

fellow-soldier Drury, the Marshal of Berwick. This being acceded to,

the governor and his uncle, "Sir Robert Melville of Murdocairnie,

were lowered over the ruins by cords, as there was no other mode

of egress, the flight of forty steps being completely buried in

the same ruin which had choked up the archways, and hidden both

gates and portcullis. The Castlehill, at that time, says Melville

of Kilrenny, in his Diary, was covered with stones, 'rinning like a

sandie bray;' but behind the breaches were the men-at-arms drawn up

in firm array, with their pikes and helmets gleaming in the setting

sun."

Kirkaldy's requests were not unreasonable. He asked to have security

for the lives and property of those in the garrison, to have leave

for Lord Home and Maitland of Lethington to retire to England, and,

for himself, permission to live unmolested at the estate in Fife.

Drury might have consented, but Morton was obdurate. The thought of

having his enemy unconditionally in his hands, and the prospect of

a revenge delicious to his savage and unrelenting nature, made him

deaf to all applications; and the only terms he would grant were

these,--

"That if the soldiers marched forth without their armour, and

submitted to his clemency, he would grant them their lives; but

there were ten persons who must yield _unconditionally_ to him,

and whose fate he would leave to the decision of their umpire,

Elizabeth. The unfortunate exceptions were--the governor, Sir

James Kirkaldy, Lethington, Alexander Lord Home, the Bishop

of Dunkeld, Sir Robert Melville of Murdocairnie, Logan of

Restalrig, Alexander Crichton of Drylaw, Pitarrow the constable,

and Patrick Wishart.

Kirkaldy returned to the castle, resolved to die in the breach, but

by this time the mutiny had begun. The soldiers insisted upon a

surrender even more clamorously than before, and several of them

took the opportunity of clambering over the ruins and deserting. It

would have been madness under such circumstances to hold out; yet

still Kirkaldy, jealous of his country's honour, could not brook the

idea of handing over the citadel of Scotland's metropolis to the

English.

"Therefore, when compelled to adopt the expedient (which is

supposed to have originated in Lethington's fertile brain) of

admitting a party of the besiegers within the outworks, or

at least close to the walls, he sent privately in the night

a message to Hume and Jordanhill, to march their Scottish

companies between the English batteries and the fortress, lest

the old bands of Drury should have the honour of entering first."

Next morning he came forth, and surrendered his sword to Drury, who

gave him the most solemn assurances that he should be restored to

his estates and liberty at the intercession of the Queen of England,

and that all his adherents should be pardoned.

Drury, probably, was in earnest, but he had either overstepped his

commission, or misinterpreted the mind of his mistress. Morton had

most basely handed over to Elizabeth the person of the fugitive Earl

of Northumberland, whom she hurried to the block, nor could she well

refuse to the Scottish regent a similar favour in return. Morton

asked for the disposal of the prisoners, and the gift was readily

granted.

Three of them were to die: for these there was no mercy. One,

William, Maitland of Lethington, disappointed the executioner by

swallowing poison, a draught more potent than that drawn from the

well of St. Margaret. The vengeance of Morton long kept his body

from the decencies of the grave. Of the two Kirkaldys, one was

the rival of the regent, who had foully wronged the other, and,

therefore, their doom was sealed.

One hundred barons and gentlemen of rank and fortune, kinsmen to

the gallant Kirkaldy, offered, in exchange for his life, to bind

themselves by bond of manrent, as vassals to the house of Morton

for ever: money, jewels, lands, were tendered to the regent; but

all in vain. Nothing could induce him to depart from his revenge.

Nor were others wanting to urge on the execution. The Reformed

preachers, remembering the dying message of Knox, were clamorous for

the realisation of the prophecy through his death; the burghers, who

had suffered so much from his obstinate defence, shouted for his

execution; only stout old Lord Lindesay, fierce as he was, had the

magnanimity to plead on behalf of the unfortunate soldier.

Then came the scaffold and the doom. Those who are conversant

with Scottish history cannot but be impressed with the remarkable

resemblance between the last closing scene of Kirkaldy, as related

in this work, and that of Montrose, which was exhibited on the same

spot, in another and a later age.

So died this remarkable man, the last of Queen Mary's adherents. If,

in the course of his career, we can trace out some inconsistencies,

it is but fair to his memory to reflect how early he was thrown upon

the troubled ocean of politics, and how difficult it must have been,

in such an age of conflicting opinions and desperate intrigue, to

maintain a tangible principle. Kirkaldy seems to have selected Moray

as his guide--not penetrating certainly, at the time, the selfish

disposition of the man. But the instant he perceived that his own

aggrandisement, and not the welfare of Scotland, was the object of

the designing Earl, Grange drew off from his side, and valorously

upheld the cause of his injured and exiled sovereign.

We now take leave of a work which, we are convinced, will prove of

deep and thrilling interest to every Scotsman. It is seldom indeed

that we find history so written--in a style at once vigorous,

perspicuous, and picturesque. The author's heart is thoroughly with

his subject; and he exhibits, ever and anon, flashes of the old

Scottish spirit, which we are glad to believe has not decayed from

the land.

_Printed by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh._

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.

Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as

printed.

Mismatched quotes are not fixed if it's not sufficiently clear where

the missing quote should be placed.

The cover for the eBook version of this book was created by the

transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

The transcriber has supplied footnote anchors for the following

footnotes:

Page 20: Footnote 10 _A Campaign in the Kabylie._ By DAWSON BORRER,

F.R.G.S., &c. London, 1848.

Page 47: Footnote 15 _Expedition zur Entdeckung der Quellen des

Weissen Nil_, (1840-1841,) von FERDINAND WERNE. Mit einem Vorwort

von CARL RITTER. Berlin, 1848. _La Kabylie._ Par un Colon. Paris,

1846.

_La Captivité du Trompette Escoffier._ Par ERNEST ALBY. 2 vols.

Brussels, 1848."

Page 63: Footnote 16 _Annals of the Artists of Spain._ By WILLIAM

STIRLING, M. A. 3 vols. London: Ollivier.

Page 81: Footnote 19 _The Dodo and its Kindred; or, the History,

Affinities, and Osteology of the Dodo, Solitaire, and other Extinct

Birds of the Islands Mauritius, Rodriguez, and Bourbon._ By H.

E. STRICKLAND, M.A. F.G.S., F.R.G.S., President of the Ashmolean

Society, &c., and A. G. MELVILLE, M.D., Edinburgh, M.R.C. . One

vol., royal quarto: London, 1848.

Page 112: Footnote 24 _Memoirs and Adventures of Sir Wm. Kirkaldy of

Grange, Knight, &c. &c._ WM. BLACKWOOD & SONS, Edinburgh and London.