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:—

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 manoeuvres 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 manoeuvre 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.

[1] "Nulla magna civitas diu quiescere potest si foris hostem non habet, domi invenit—ut prÆvalida corpora ab extremis causis tuta videntur, sed suis ipsa viribas onerantur. Tantum, nimirum, ex publicis malis sentimus, quantum ad res privatas pertmet; nec in eis quicquam aerius, quam pecuniÆ damnun, stimulat."—Livy, xxx. 44.