In the summer of 1570, the treacherous advice of Sussex had been followed, and, under pretence of punishing those who had given shelter to the rebellious Dacres, he had been sent, with an army of four thousand men, into Annandale, which he ravaged with such remorseless ferocity that, in his own words, not a stone house was left to an ill neighbour within twenty miles of Carlisle. This unjustifiable act of aggression may be looked upon as one of the immediate causes that led Grange decisively and irrevocably to throw in his lot with the party which refused to recognise the authority of Lennox. A two months’ truce delayed what had now become an inevitable step on his part. And even then, when the crisis came, it had been hurried on by Lennox’s action. On the 19th of March, before the actual expiration of the armistice, he caused proclamation to be made in Edinburgh, forbidding, upon pain of treason, that any should serve Grange, and commanding those who were already with him to leave him within three days. On the same afternoon, Kirkcaldy retaliated by causing Captain Melville to go through the town, with beat of drum, offering pay to all such as would repair to the Castle. Next day he took possession of the Abbey and of St Giles’s, and put men and munitions into them. He further levied provisions from the Leith merchants, and took every measure of prudence and precaution that a long military experience suggested, with a view to enabling the Castle to stand a long siege. He was so satisfied with the result of his efforts that he indulged in a ‘rowstie ryme’ in which, besides reviling his enemies and casting upon them the entire responsibility for the calamities under which the country was groaning, he proudly set forth all that he had done to resist any attempt on their part to drive him from his stronghold.

For I haue men and meit aneugh,
They know I am ane tuilyeour teoch,

And wilbe rycht sone greved:

When thei haue tint als mony teith,
As thei did at the seige of Leith,

They wilbe faine to leive it.

Then quha, I pray you, salbe boun

Thair tinsall to advance?

Or gif sic compositione

As thei got then of France?

This sylit, begylit,

They will bot get the glaikis;

Cum thai heir, thir tuo yeir,

They sall not misse thair paikis.[5]

On the 13th of April, when, in answer to his call, a considerable number not only of soldiers, but of powerful noblemen and gentlemen also, had gathered about him, he issued a proclamation in which he charged the Earl of Lennox with having unlawfully usurped the government of the kingdom, and with having unjustifiably circulated calumnies, injuries, and untrue reports about him, and which, after declaring with pardonable pride and damaging truth, that he had risked his life for Scotland when the new Regent was against it, he closed with a characteristic challenge:—

Hostilities between the garrison of the Castle and the Regent’s forces, which were encamped at Leith, began on the 29th of April, with a skirmish at Lowsilea. Next day, Kirkcaldy issued a proclamation, commanding all who sympathised with Lennox, to leave the city within six hours, and requiring the citizens to be within doors, after nine o’clock every night. Two days later, he followed this up by demanding the keys of the city from the bailies, and setting his own men to guard the gates; and his next step was to plant artillery on the roof and steeple of St Giles’s.

About the beginning of May, the Regent made an attempt to hold a Parliament, but was driven off by the Castle guns. On learning this, Queen Elizabeth made a great show of indignation. It was ‘necessary for her that the Regent and his party should not be ruined.’ Nor, indeed, did it suit her that either faction should obtain the upper hand independently of her. She consequently directed Sir William Drury to tell Grange and the noblemen joined with him, that she strongly disapproved of their conduct in preventing the Regent and his friends from holding a Parliament to appoint commissioners to treat with those of the Queen of Scots. In energetic language she desired him to ‘condemn Kirkcaldy of falsehood and untruth’ if it were actually the case that he had said, as had been reported to her, that Lennox was ‘sworn English against his country,’ and meant to deliver all the castles and strongholds to her; and to require him to give her full satisfaction on this point. She further instructed him to inform the Captain that, if he continued to increase the troubles of the realm, she would ‘judge that to be true which, by some had been long doubted, that he and his companions were partially disposed, for their own lucre and to maintain their disordered authorities, to continue these inward troubles, by pretending to favour the Queen, with whom it was known that, before time, they could not be content.’ If this should not be enough, Drury was to add “some sharper speech” of his own.

In his reply to this communication, Kirkcaldy assured the Queen of England that his enemies had misreported him. Had it really been the intention of Lennox and his party to choose persons authorised to carry on the negotiations referred to by her Highness, he would have given them free access to Edinburgh. But he had been told by Morton himself, that ‘the treaty was dissolved in England, and clean cut off without any promise of abstinence, or hope of recontinuation.’ He pointed out that, if the Lords did not get entrance into the town, they, nevertheless, did hold a Parliament outside the walls; and, as they did not then appoint commissioners, he concluded that it had never been their object to do so. He denied ever having told the people, in his proclamations, that Lennox was ‘sworn English against his country;’ but he admitted that, in private conversation, he had said that the Earl was the Queen of England’s subject by oath. Again protesting his pacific intentions, his unselfish aims, and his respect for Elizabeth, he offered to do battle against any gentleman undefamed, of England or Scotland, who dared charge him with having written or uttered any word against her honour.

Elizabeth admitted that Grange’s reply was not unreasonable, and that she did not mislike it. In truth, she found it admirably suited to her purpose. On the strength of its conciliatory tone, she could approach Lennox, and bring pressure to bear on him, by declaring that his opponents were ready to accept her mediation, and by making him responsible for the continuance of hostilities, unless he, too, consented to submit the whole quarrel to her arbitration. It was in this sense that, on the 7th of June, she addressed another long letter of instructions to Sir William Drury.

Apart from a series of sorties and raids, which contemporary chroniclers faithfully record, with scrupulous minuteness, even, at times, to the names of the wounded, and the nature of their hurts, no incident of special interest marked the civil war till the 11th of June. On that day Kirkcaldy, to whose knowledge it had come that he had publicly been accused of being a traitor and a murderer, issued a public challenge, offering to fight, in single combat, and to the death, any man, of whatsoever estate he might be, who took it on himself to support such a charge. It was taken up by Alexander Stuart of Garlies. He ridiculed the style assumed by Grange—a style more befitting the chief nobility or even the Royal Blood, than one whose father had but eight ox-gangs, and whose progenitors were, for the most part, saltmakers. ‘Nevertheless,’ he continued, ‘although thou art so notorious a traitor, that this action should be decided by other judges than by the adventure of arms, I, Alexander Stuart of Garlies, will offer myself to prove thy vile and filthy treason with my person against thine, as the law and custom of arms requireth: with protestation, that it shall not be prejudicial to my honour, nor to my blood, to compare myself with so late a printed gentleman, manifestly known to have committed, at sundry times, divers treasons; and taken out of the galleys to be kept for the gallows.’

There ensued a long correspondence between Grange and Garlies. Stripped of the accusations, recriminations, and contemptuous allusions to birth and rank, it resolved itself into a wrangle as to the choice of a fitting place for the encounter. Neither party would accept the views of the other as to a sufficiently neutral ground; and after dragging through many weeks, the quarrel was left undecided.

In the meantime, Grange had figured in a less personal and more important incident. Under his auspices, the Queen’s Lords, to whom he delivered the regalia for the occasion, held a Parliament in Edinburgh. Their first act was to invalidate Mary’s abdication, and, as a consequence, to repudiate the transfer of the royal authority to her son and the Regent acting on his behalf. The next was to decree that no change should be made in the form of religion or administration of the sacraments. At a subsequent sitting, they pronounced a decree of forfeiture against the Earl of Morton and some two hundred of the King’s party. In retaliation, the King’s Lords, in a Parliament of their own, held at Stirling, dealt in the same manner with their opponents. But their meeting was to be marked by an event of far greater moment. Grange, who had been informed of their imprudent negligence in not even appointing guards to insure their safety, planned a daring expedition, of which the object was nothing less than the capture of all the leading men of the faction, including the Regent himself.

It was at first Kirkcaldy’s intention to conduct the raid in person. But the Lords and Council would not allow him, alleging that ‘their only comfort under God consisted in his preservation.’ They undertook scrupulously to follow his instructions, and at his earnest request, promised to respect the lives of the captives. He yielded to their urgent entreaties, but not till the Laird of Wormeston, one of the most honourable gentlemen of the party, had pledged his word to save the Regent’s life at every risk.

Between five and six o’clock on the evening of the 3rd of September, Huntly, accompanied with three hundred and forty horse, set out from Edinburgh, and reached Stirling before day-break. Dismounting about a mile from the town, lest the clattering of the horses’ feet should betray them, the party entered it by a secret passage, between four and five in the morning. Lennox and his friends were surprised in their houses and captured. They would have been brought safely to Edinburgh if the soldiers and Borderers had not fallen to spoiling. The disorder which followed enabled the enemy to rally. There was a sharp skirmish, in the course of which the Regent was shot. Wormeston had proved so faithful to his trust that the fatal bullet passed through his body before striking Lennox.

The assailants were ultimately obliged to retire, but not till they had held possession of the town for more than three hours. On their return to Edinburgh, they were very unwelcome guests to the Laird of Grange. He was convinced that if, by bringing the Regent to Edinburgh, he had been able to withdraw him from the influence of Morton and of the English agent Randolph, an end might have been put to the disastrous struggle. With the death of Murray a peaceful settlement became well nigh hopeless.

Captain George Bell and James Calder, who had been taken prisoners on the retreat from Stirling, were by torture, compelled to confess that they had special instructions from the Hamiltons to slay the Regent. Calder’s confession is significantly signed ‘James Calder with my hand laid on the pen because I cannot write.’ In a very remarkable letter addressed by Grange and Lethington to Drury, the blame of Lennox’s death is imputed to his own associates, who are accused of using the opportunity given by the tumult for obtaining that which they had long sought after. The writers not only point out that the Hamiltons, whom the Regent had the greatest cause to fear, were those who surprised him in his house, and that they might have taken his life then and there; but they also assert that they themselves had previously been urged to concur in Murray’s destruction.

Within twenty-four hours a new Regent was appointed. Randolph was anxious that the choice of the Lords should fall on Morton, but they preferred to elect the Earl of Mar.