During the troubled days that intervened between the death of Murray and the regency of Lennox, Sir William Kirkcaldy, whilst continuing to assert his allegiance to the youthful King, maintained his intercourse with Maitland and the other leading men of the party which openly favoured the captive Queen. The correspondence of the time bears evident testimony to the importance which his possession of the Castle gave him, and to the doubts and fears with which his conduct inspired Elizabeth’s ministers. On the 7th of April 1570, Randolph, who had returned to Scotland, wrote to Cecil that he had found in Grange great honesty and dutifulness to his sovereign. Less than a week later he repeated the statement, but with a suggestive limitation, and with the expression of his fears that the Laird of Grange might be ‘enchanted’ by Lethington, whose efforts to bring back his mistress to Scotland were attributed rather to a desire ‘to spite others than to profit himself.’ Writing to Cecil on the 21st of the same month, Sussex, the leader of the English forces that had recently spread devastation through Teviotdale, informed him that ‘Grange was vehemently suspected of his fellows;’ and ‘the defection of Grange’ was one of the indications which, about the same time, he gave Elizabeth of the gradual falling off of the King’s adherents. In a communication bearing the date of the 25th, Morton forwarded a scarcely less unfavourable account. The furthest they could get from the Captain of the Castle, he told Randolph, was that he should remain neutral. In explanation of this luke-warmness, the writer repeated a rumour current at the time, that Kirkcaldy had been bribed by Mary with the gift of the Priory of St Andrews. That, he added, was the Secretary’s device, for Judas non dormit.

A similar report had reached the Governor’s ears, and he gave it a direct and emphatic denial, in a letter which he addressed to Randolph on the 26th of April, and which deserves notice as containing his own apology for the line of conduct he was following:—

Following closely upon this, Grange dispatched to the Earl of Sussex a further and fuller explanation of his conduct. It was in reply to a letter which the Lord-Lieutenant had written a few days earlier, and of which the substance may easily be inferred from Kirkcaldy’s reply.

Grange’s letters were not agreeable to the English agents. To accept his explanation would have been to admit that, as he very clearly hinted, the defection was not on his side, but on that of the English Government, which, now that it had Mary in its power, was working as persistently and as unscrupulously as ever the Guises had done, to reduce Scotland to political dependence and subjection, and was consequently losing the confidence and alienating the sympathy of many of those who had been staunch supporters of the English alliance so long as they recognised in it a guarantee of their own liberty. Randolph’s reply, written on the first of May, ignored the important point, and confined itself to the secondary matters mentioned by Grange. The writer expressed his satisfaction at learning the Governor’s determination to maintain the King’s authority, but professed his inability to understand the meaning of the proviso ‘until the same be taken away by order of law.’ He justified the severe treatment of Maxwell on the ground that he had received and maintained the Queen of England’s rebels; and, as to the liberation of the Castle prisoners, he oracularly pronounced that Kirkcaldy would some day repent it. He avoided expressing either belief or incredulity in respect of the bestowal and acceptance of the Priory of St Andrews, which the Laird had directly and emphatically denied, by bantering his ‘brother William’ about his unfitness to figure as an ecclesiastic. ‘It was indeed most wonderful unto me,’ he said, ‘when I heard that you should become a Prior. That vocation agreeth not with anything that ever I knew in you, saving for your religious life, led under the Cardinal’s hat, when we were both students in Paris.’ He concluded with a sarcastic allusion to Kirkcaldy’s letter to the Lord-Lieutenant. ‘The Earl of Sussex has made me privy to a very eloquent, fine-written letter of yours, which passes my wit to understand. Either you have lately altered your hand, your style, your manner, and your meaning, or used the pen of some fine secretary.’

Sussex’s reply was even less conciliatory. He considered the principal points raised by him to be utterly unanswered. He was quite aware that it was lawful for Kirkcaldy to use conference with the French or any other nation, but he remembered the time when he would not have dealt with them without the Queen of England’s knowledge and consent. As to the earnest desire that the Queen should take in hand the union of the nobility of Scotland, those words were very honourable but general, and yielded no ground to conceive the writer’s meaning in particulars. Referring to himself, he said that the course he had hitherto held consisted of two points: the one, to be revenged on such as had maintained the rebels of England; and the other, to continue by all means the good affection borne towards the Queen of England by many of the nobility of Scotland, of which number he had always accepted Grange to be a special person to be accounted of.

Perceiving from this that Sussex was not ‘fully satisfied with his last writing,’ Kirkcaldy informed him that he meant to send a special friend to let him know ‘his full intentions in all things.’ If this messenger was ever sent, the result of his mission was not satisfactory; for, on the 4th of May, the Lord-Lieutenant addressed what he himself called ‘a plain letter’ to the Lairds of Grange and Lethington. After reproaching them with the ingratitude of their conduct towards the Queen of England, he warned them that, if they continued in their course, he would take the field with all the forces at his disposal, and not fail to take that revenge which should be honourable for his Mistress.

Neither threats nor blandishments could avail to turn Kirkcaldy from the purpose which he had set himself. That which, to those who were anxious and impatient to have the weight of his influence and the support of his authority on their side, seemed the result of a halting policy, was due to his earnest and sincere desire to avert, if possible, an outbreak of hostilities. He still cherished a lingering hope that Elizabeth might adopt a course of action which would not oblige him wholly to cast aside his old sympathy with England. As late as the 5th of July, Randolph was able to say of him that ‘he doubted not of his honesty.’ If proof were required that the whole responsibility for the apparently vacillating conduct of those who, like Grange, put the welfare of their country above mere party considerations, lay with the English Queen, it could be adduced in the very words of her own agent. Writing to Sussex, Randolph did not hesitate to inform him that the public feeling was one of distrust in Elizabeth, ‘who so often changed her course.’ That, he said, was in almost every man’s speech, and preached in pulpit plainer than he listed to write.

About the middle of July, the King’s Lords, as the opponents of the exiled Queen were now called, took a step which did not augur well for the pacification of the country. They held a convention in Edinburgh, for the purpose of conferring the Regency on Lennox, who had practically been chosen by Elizabeth. He had been for years a pensioner on her bounty, and he was known to be wholly devoted to her interests.

If Grange had been actuated by the sentiments of hostility which some chose to attribute to him, he could have struck a decisive blow by bringing down the Tolbooth about the ears of those who were assembled within it with the intention of sanctioning and adopting a policy which he believed to be fraught with danger to Scotland. He contented himself, however, with absenting himself from the convention, to which he had been summoned, as a member of the Privy Council,—a dignity which he held in virtue of his office, as Provost of Edinburgh, and with refusing ‘to shoot off any piece of ordnance upon request, after the proclamation.’

Instead of giving Grange credit for his attitude of neutrality, Sussex chose to take umbrage at it. In another of those letters which he prided himself on writing ‘somewhat plainly,’ he reproached the Governor with inconsistency in professing to be ‘at the Queen of England’s devotion in all matters that might continue the amity between both realms,’ and yet refusing to join the Lords convened in Edinburgh. On the very same day, the Earl showed the sincerity of his own desire for amity by writing to Cecil, to suggest a pretext on which the West Borders of Scotland might be invaded, and the Scots weakened—a pretext which Elizabeth admitted that she ‘liked very well,’ and which, before long, was duly seized upon.

Throughout all this plotting and intriguing, the party which had Knox and the Presbyterian clergy at its head, still continued, in its hostility to Mary, to put faith in Elizabeth and her ministers. To the members of it, Grange’s policy caused the greatest anxiety, and the remonstrances which they deemed it their duty to address to their former champion were frequent and vigorous. Verse as well as prose was brought to bear upon him, and a ‘Hailsome Admonition,’ published by the balladist, Robert Semple, presumably about the beginning of September, when the interference of both France and Spain was feared, may serve to show the spirit of these exhortations. It opens with an ungrudging recognition of Grange’s services in the past:—

O Lamp of licht and peirless Peirll of pryse!
O worthy Knicht, in martiall deidis most ding![3]
O worthy wicht, most vailzeant, war, and wyse!
O Captaine, ay constant to the King!
O Lustie Lord, that will na wayis maling!
O Barroun bauld, of Cheualry the floure!
O perfyte Prouest, but maik into this Ring![4]
O gudely Grange, but spot vnto this houre!

After recapitulating Kirkcaldy’s exploits, the poet touches on a delicate subject—the disinterested policy of England—and indicates by his doubtless sincere belief in it, the real and essential cause of disagreement between Grange and his former associates.

Quhat neids ye skar, thocht Ingland do support vs,
To puneis sic as proudly dois Rebell?
That tyme at Leith thou knawis they did comfort vs,
And maid vs fre quhen strangers did vs quell,
And never socht na profitte to thame sell:
Thou neids not feir, that hous thay never craifit:
The Regent sayis, sa far as I heir tell,
Wald thow be trew thair can na better haif it.

A threat more sorrowful than angry, of Divine vengeance, if the Captain abandoned the cause which Semple and his friends still believed to be that of religion, closes the spirited poem:—

Thocht at this tyme thow haif that warlyke craig,
And is in hart curagious and bald,
God will nocht mys to scurge the with a plaig
Gif in his caus thow lat thy curage cald.
As thow may se, thick scurgis monyfald
Lich vpon thame that proudly dois disdane.
Except the Lord be watche man of the hald,
Quha walkis the same, thair laubour is in vane.

Before the close of the year 1570, an incident which was not directly connected with the politics of either party, and to which but little importance would probably have been attached, but for the intense excitement of the times, brought Kirkcaldy into direct conflict with John Knox himself. In the beginning of December, Sir William’s first cousin, John Kirkcaldy, the same in whose quarrel he had fought with Ralph Evers, was called to attend a justice-court in Dunfermline, as a juryman on a murder trial. During his stay in the town, he was attacked, whilst peacefully going to church, by George and Laurence Durie, brothers to the Commendator of the Abbey, and by several friends of theirs, amongst whom was a young man named Henry Seton. The immediate cause of the quarrel is not stated. But the two families stood on such bad terms that a very slight circumstance may have sufficed to give rise to it. According to Grange’s statement, the house of Durie had done many injuries to him and his; and he attributed the death of his father-in-law, the Laird of Raith, who had been executed on a charge of treason, to the animosity of the head of that family. ‘Since that time,’ he asserted further, ‘the Duries had continuallie troubled Raith’s posteritie and friends, in their righteous titles, native estates and possessions.’ On the present occasion, the actual aggressor was George Durie, who ‘ignominiously buffeted John Kirkcaldy with his fist.’ When the latter attempted to defend himself, he was set upon by Laurence Durie, and Henry Seton, and would, in all probability, have been killed, if the Provost had not opportunely interfered. A few days later, Seton, being in Edinburgh, chanced to meet some of the Laird of Grange’s servants in the streets, and insulted them, not with words, but ‘with jesting and mocking countenance.’ This having been reported to the Laird, he resolved to punish the young man for the double offence of abetting the Duries and affronting the Kirkcaldys. For this purpose he sent six of his men to Leith, where Seton was to embark on his return journey to the Fifeshire shore, and gave them instructions to administer a sound castigation with cudgels, but, on no account to use their arms. Finding himself suddenly attacked, the young man drew his sword, and used it to such good purpose that one of his assailants fell seriously wounded to the ground. At the sight of his blood, his companions forgot the restriction that had been put upon them, and continued the fray with sharper weapons. Out-numbered as he was, Seton might have succeeded in reaching the boat that was waiting for him, if he had not unfortunately tripped and fallen over a cable. As he lay helpless, some of the aggressors thrust their swords into him, and left him dead on the shore. After perpetrating this outrage, they retreated at full speed towards the Castle, closely followed by a number of the citizens. One of them was captured before reaching the North Loch, which was frozen at the time, and over which the other four succeeded in crossing. Here the pursuers were held in check by the Captain, who having noticed the chase, had come out with a body of soldiers, and threatened to fire if any further attempt were made to molest the fugitives.

Fleming, the one man who had been captured, and in whose defence it was subsequently urged that he was not actually concerned in the murder, was lodged in the Tolbooth; and his release having been refused, Kirkcaldy determined to take the law into his own hands, and to set him free. The Governor must still have had many sympathisers in the city, for it is stated that ‘the deacons of the crafts were easily persuaded to assist him in his wicked enterprise.’ Having ordered a battering-ram to be made ready for use against the prison gate, if force should be necessary, and got the guns of the Castle loaded and prepared for action, Kirkcaldy, at the head of a strong body of men, set out, without noise or clamour, between six and seven o’clock, on a dark evening, a few days before Christmas, for the purpose of liberating James Fleming. Men armed with culverins and pikes were posted so as to prevent access, by any side approach, to the street leading from the Castle to the prison. Grange and Lord Home stationed themselves above the Upper Tron, with the object of securing a safe retreat; and the Laird of Drylaw was sent forward to demand the surrender of the prisoner. That having been refused by the jailor, the battering-ram was brought forward, and the gates were forced open. According to reports circulated at the time, the soldiers not only carried off their comrade Fleming, but also set free another prisoner—a woman—probably Bothwellhaugh’s wife, who had been apprehended on a charge of complicity in the murder of the Regent. After Kirkcaldy and his men had returned from their nocturnal expedition, ‘nine great cannons were discharged’ from the ramparts, ‘to give the Regent who was then in the town, a defiance in his face.’ Fortunately, however, for the guns were shotted, ‘no harm was done, but that John Wallace’s house was shot through, and a barn in the Cannongate.’

John Knox was in Edinburgh at the time; and raised his powerful voice in condemnation of ‘so slanderous, so malapert, so fearful, and so tyrannous a deed. For,’ said he, ‘if the committer had been a man without God, a throat-cutter, one that had never known the works of God, it would have moved me no more than other riots and enormities which my eyes have seen the Prince of this world, Satan, to raise by his instruments. But to see the stars fall from heaven, and a man of knowledge commit so manifest treason, what godly heart cannot lament, tremble, and fear? God be merciful! for the example is terrible, and we have all need earnestly to call to God, that we be not led into temptation; but specially to deliver us from the company of the wicked; for, within these few years, men would have looked for other fruits than have budded out of that man.’

As soon as the Reformer’s rebuke was communicated to him, Kirkcaldy replied to it in a letter which he addressed to Craig, the minister of the church, to whom it was delivered as he was in his pulpit. It ran as follows: ‘This day John Knox, in his sermon, called me, openly, a murderer and a throat-cutter, wherein he hath spoken farther than he is able to justify. For I take God to witness, if it was my mind that the man’s blood should have been shed, of whom he calleth me the murderer. And the same God I desire, from the bottom of my heart, to pour out his vengeance suddenly upon him or me, which of us two hath been most desirous of innocent blood. This I desire you, in God’s name, to declare openly to the public. At Edinburgh Castle, the 24th of December 1570.’

Craig, however, refused to comply with the request contained in the latter part of the letter, stating that he would read nothing from the pulpit without the knowledge and consent of the Kirk. In another letter, which he wrote to the Kirk Session of Edinburgh, Kirkcaldy gave his version of what had happened, throwing all the blame on the Duries, and protesting his innocence of any intention to cause the death of Seton.

To the first of these letters, Knox publicly made reply on his next appearance in the pulpit, denying that he had ever made use of the words imputed to him. ‘Is there any of you,’ he asked, ‘that heard me, in this public place, call the Laird of Grange, now Captain of the Castle of Edinburgh, a cruel murderer, an open throat-cutter, and one whose nature I had long known to be bloodthirsty? I accused indeed, that unjust and cruel murder; I affirmed the violating of the house of justice to be treason; and finally I complained, that the like enormity and pernicious example I never saw in Scotland. Not but I had seen murder and rebellion before; yea, I have seen magistrates gainstood, and the supreme magistrates of the Crown besieged in their own tolbooth; and I have seen condemned persons violently reft from the gallows and gibbet. But none of all these forenamed can be compared to this last outrage. For, if the masters and authors of this last riot had been known before to have been open throat-cutters, bloodthirsty men, and such as had been void of the true fear of God, I would have been no more moved at this time, than I have been at other times before. But, to see stars fallen from Heaven; to see men who have felt as well God’s judgments as mercies, in a past; and to see men of whom all godly hearts have had a good opinion—to see, I say, such men so far carried away, that both God and man are not only forgot, but also publicly despised, is both dolorous and fearful to be remembered.’ Then, referring to Kirkcaldy’s escape from Mont Saint-Michel, the preacher continued: ‘For I have known that man in his greatest extremity, when he might have set himself at freedom by shedding of blood, at the counsel of sober men, he utterly refused all such cruelty, and took a hazard to the flesh most fearful; which God notwithstanding blessed, having a respect to the simplicity of his heart. And, therefore, then I said, and yet I say, that this example in him is the most terrible example that ever I saw in Scotland. I know that some have made other report. But, in their face I say, that of their father the Devil they have learnt to lie, wherein if they continue without repentance, they shall burn in Hell.’

In a letter to the Kirk-Session, Knox again denied having called Kirkcaldy a murderer and a cut-throat; but maintained that he had only done his duty in publicly denouncing a public outrage. Unwilling to prolong the controversy, Kirkcaldy declared himself satisfied that the words at which he had taken offence were uttered in lament, and for amendment of his fault, and not to his hurt, injury, or defamation, and formally withdrew his complaint. But Knox was not content with a view that implied a recantation on his part; and on the following Sunday, when the Captain, after nearly a year’s absence from Divine Service, again appeared in St Giles’s, the Reformer, construing his presence into an open defiance, denounced ‘proud contemners,’ and warned them that God’s mercy appertained not to such as, with knowledge, proudly transgressed, and thereafter most proudly maintained their transgression.

The excitement produced by an open quarrel between two such men as Knox and Kirkcaldy was not confined to the Capital. Exaggerated rumours were circulated from town to town, and in several places there arose a belief that Grange had sworn the death of the Reformer. Acting on this, a number of noblemen and gentlemen wrote from Ayr to the Laird of Grange, to signify their strong condemnation of his conduct. They could hardly believe, their protest ran, that he who had been, not a simple professor, but a defender of religion, could be moved to do any harm to him on whose safety the prosperity and increase of religion depended; and they deprecated any hostile design against the man whom God had made both the first planter, and also the chief waterer of his Kirk amongst them, and whose welfare was as dear and precious to them as their own.

Kirkcaldy had thought the incident of sufficient importance, under the existing circumstances, to justify his reporting it directly to the English Government himself. In replying to his letter, it suited Cecil to adopt the lofty moral tone which he knew would meet with the approval of the Clerical party. After condemning the ‘heinous fact,’ and expatiating on its guilt in one ‘having a place of government committed to him, and having for so many years made the world think that he professed the Evangel,’ he closed his letter in these sharp terms:—‘how you will allow my plainness I know not; but surely I should think myself guilty of blood if I should not thoroughly mislike you; and to this I must add, that I hear, but yet am loath to believe it, that your soldiers that broke the prison have not only taken out the murderer your man, but a woman that was there detained as guilty of the lamentable death of the late good Regent. Alas! my Lord, may this be true? And, with your help, may it be conceived in thought that you—you, I mean, that were so dear to the Regent, should favour his murderers in this sort. Surely, my Lord, if this be true, there is provided by God some notable work of His justice to be shewed upon you; and yet I trust you are not so void of God’s grace: and so for mine old friendship with you, and for the avoiding the notable slander of God’s word, I heartily wish it to be untrue.’

Cecil had no reason to congratulate himself on having given credence to details for which he had not the authority of Kirkcaldy himself. In reply to his epistle, the Captain of the Castle was able to inform him that the woman, whose supposed escape had aroused his indignation, was still in the Tolbooth.