Jane Seton; or, The King's Advocate: A Scottish Historical Romance
admiral, knelt gracefully down on the sands of Leith, and lifting a
handful to her lips, kissed it ere she threw it away crosswise, and
raising her large dark eyes to heaven, prayed with deep pathos "to
God, the blessed Virgin, and all the saints, for the happiness of
Scotland, the land of her adoption, and its people."
The bright sunshine of the glorious May morning poured aslant its
flaky radiance between the breaks and openings in those irregular
masses of building, that tower up to such a giddy height on both
sides of the central street of the ancient city; the south was sombre
and grey, but the north was glowing in warmth, as the sunlight played
along its far-stretching vista. Many of these houses were
flat-roofed, flagged with large stones, like ancient towers, or
covered with thatch; but few that overlooked the pageant about to be
described are standing now, as the city was fired by the English in
eight places seven years after, in the war with Henry VIII.
By the skill of a certain cunning craftsman, the High-street, even at
that early period, was well paved; and the monks of Holyrood kept the
Canongate (which is but a further continuation of the same
thoroughfare) well causewayed, for which the reverend Lord Abbot
levied a duty upon every cart, laden or unladen, which entered the
eastern barrier of the burgh. All the open windows of that great
street, the tall edifices of which rise to the height of eight and
ten stories, exciting still the astonishment of every traveller, were
filled with glad faces; every bartizan, outshot, and projection bore
its load of shouting urchins; even the leads and parapets of the
great cathedral, with its hideously grotesque stone-gutters, carved
into devils and dragons, wyverns and other monsters, bore a freight
of spectators, the buzz of whose voices, above and below, imparted a
liveliness to the scene, and relieved the tedium of long expectation
and waiting for the approach of the royal party.
The utmost good-humour pervaded these expectant crowds, though
sometimes a brawl seemed likely to ensue, when a gentleman of pride
and pedigree, with velvet cloak, a long rapier, and tall feather,
despising the authority of the convener and his bands of mechanical
craftsmen, marched down the centre of the street, with a few
well-armed serving-men following doggedly at his heels, with brows
bent, their swords girt up, and that expression on their faces which
seemed so much as to say, "We are Humes, Douglases, or Scotts, or
Setons, and who will dare to meddle with us!"
With these, such was the patent of gentle blood, the burgher archers
dared not interfere; but their unstrung bows and gauntleted hands
pommelled without mercy any luckless countryman or denizen of Leith
or St. Ninian's Row who encroached on the causeway, which by order of
the knightly provost was to be kept clear by all. Such incidental
brawls were generally quelled by the interference of some passing
grey friar or Dominican.
Those cavaliers who assumed the right of perambulating the open
street were, as I have said, almost invariably attended by bands of
followers, armed with swords and round targets, steel caps and
corslets. Several of these were invariably greeted by a yell of
hostility and epithets of opprobrium from those who occupied the
windows, and who found this a more safe experiment than it could have
proved to those who stood in the street below.
These obnoxious personages were generally lesser barons and gentlemen
of the house of Douglas, a clan which, from its numerical force,
pride, power, and turbulence, had long been inimical to the house of
Stuart, and more especially to James V., who after many efforts had
completely broken its strength, reduced its numerous strongholds, and
driven the chief, Archibald sixth Earl of Angus, and Knight of St.
Michael, from his high offices of Lord Chancellor and Lieutenant of
the East and Middle Marches, with all the noblesse of his surname and
faction, to exile in England; where, like all Scottish rebels and
malcontents, according to the ancient line of southern policy, they
were fostered and protected by Henry VIII.
By the knights and gentlemen of the proscribed name those marks of
hostility from the vulgar herd were treated with silent scorn; but
their followers scowled about them with clenched weapons and kindling
eyes, that showed how intensely they longed to react the great
High-street conflict of 1520, and revenge on the rabble of Edinburgh
the insults they now endured. These evidences of hostility and
political disgust were soon lost amid the general spirit of rejoicing
that pervaded the entire body of the people; for loyalty and devotion
to their old hereditary line of princes was then an inborn sentiment
in the Scots, who were devout believers in the divine right of kings,
and had not yet been taught by their preachers to view their old
regal race as tyrants and oppressors.
Among all this mirth and festivity there were two persons whose
sobriety and staidness of demeanour were very remarkable.
One was a young man about six-and-twenty, who had, apparently, just
entered the city, for his boots and leathern gambadoes were covered
with dust. He wore a plain gaberdine, or frock, of white Galloway
frieze, with horn buttons; but beneath it appeared a doublet of
escaupil to protect him from sword thrusts, an unusual garment for
one of his class, for his grey maud, or plaid, blue bonnet,
backsword, and hunting-knife announced him a yeomen or agriculturist.
He carried a great knotty walking-staff, recently cut from some
wayside thicket; but to a close observer it would have seemed
perfectly evident that the profusion of his beard and moustache was
worn rather for disguise than adornment. He was reading a paper
affixed to the cross of St. John of Jerusalem which stood in the
centre of the Canongate, immediately opposite the arch which now
gives admittance to St. John's-street, the ground of which was then
closely built upon.
It was a proclamation, issued by the nobles who governed in the
king's absence, offering a thousand merks of Scottish money for "ye
heid of Archibald Seton, umquhile Earle of Ashkirk," accused of
leaguing with that false traitor, Archibald Douglas, sometime Earl of
Angus, who had recently been on the borders, at the head of some
English moss-troopers, infesting the bounds of the knight, Sir Mark
Kerr, of Cessford.
With a brow that loured, and fierce eye that kindled, the young man
read, from beginning to end, this proclamation (which was obnoxious
to so many), and his hand gradually tightened on the handle of his
poniard as he proceeded. Suddenly remembering that he might be
observed, a smile of scorn, such a lordly smile as never clown could
have given, spread over his dark features; he gave a glance of
peculiar import at a group of ladies who occupied a balcony
immediately opposite St. John's Cross, and, drawing his bonnet well
over his brows, looked round for some obscure nook from whence to
see, in security, the progress of the royal pageant.
"How little can they imagine that I am so near them," said the Earl
of Ashkirk (for the stranger was no other than he), as he dived among
the crowd and disappeared.
The other personage to whom reference has been made, was a tall and
finely-formed man, of a noble presence and commanding stature,
possessing a remarkably handsome face, with a loftiness of bearing
that never failed to strike the beholder with interest. His
complexion was dark, his nose slightly aquiline, his eyes black, and
sparkling beneath two brows that were almost joined together. At
times, a fierce and restless expression lit up these fiery and
penetrating eyes, and knit his smooth expansive forehead, while his
moustached lip curled with pride and severity; and then a languor and
sadness stole over them, as other and softer emotions subdued the
bitter thoughts some passing incidents had roused. He was dressed in
a doublet and trunk hose of black velvet, laced and buttoned with
silver, and trimmed with miniver: a black velvet bonnet, adorned by a
single diamond and one tail white ostrich feather, shaded his dark,
short, curly hair. He wore a short poniard and long rapier in an
embroidered belt, and had spurs, heavily gilded and embossed, on the
heels of his maroquin boots.
This man was Sir Adam Otterburn, of Redhall, the King's Advocate in
the recently-instituted College of Justice, a great favourite with
his royal master, and one who, for his learning, probity, courage,
and office, was loved by some, respected by many, and feared by all.
His features were pale and hollow, for he was recovering from a late
illness, brought on by a wound received in a conflict with the
Douglases, a circumstance which alone, on this auspicious day,
confined him to a cushioned chair at the window of his house, which
overlooked the High-street, where all the beauty and bravery of
Edinburgh had thronged to welcome home King James.
Oblivious of the bustle pervading that long and stately thoroughfare,
the streaming pennons, the waving banners, the gaudy tapestries and
garlands that festooned every balcony and decorated every window, the
Knight of Redhall continued to gaze upon the fair occupants of the
temporary gallery which we have before mentioned as standing near St.
John's Cross.
It was hung and canopied with scarlet cloth and festoons of flowers;
the front was painted with gold and azure, and thereon lay a banner,
bearing under an earl's coronet, and within a widow's lozenge, the
three crescents of Seton, within a double tressure, flowered and
counter-flowered with golden fleurs-de-lis, quartered with "the
bloody heart," the dreaded cognizance of the obnoxious Douglases--a
badge which, though it seldom gained love, never failed to inspire
fear. An old lady and several fair young belles, whose beauty alone
saved them from the insults which popular hatred levelled at all in
alliance with the exiled Earl of Angus, occupied this balcony, and
reclined beneath its shady canopy, chatting gaily, and expectant of
the royal approach.
The elder lady was Margaret Douglas, of the house of Kilspindie,
dowager of John Earl of Ashkirk, and mother of Archibald, the present
earl, who was then under doom of exile with Lord Angus, his kinsman
and ally. The younger ladies were Jane Seton, her daughter, Marion
Logan of Restalrig, Alison Hume of Fastcastle, and Sybil Douglas of
Kilspindie, all noble damsels, who had come to Edinburgh to witness
the splendid entrée of Queen Magdalene.
Tall in stature and dark in complexion, with deep black eyes, and a
hauteur of brow which the sweet expression of her mouth alone
relieved, the Countess Dowager of Ashkirk, though all but unable to
read or write (for letters were then held in low repute), was a woman
of a shrewd and masculine turn of mind; for the inborn dignity of
noble birth, the martial spirit of her race, the stormy life she had
led since childhood among feudal brawls and intestine battles, had
imparted an emphatic decision, if not a fierceness, at times, to her
manner and modes of expression. A stiff suit of the richest Genoese
brocade lent additional stateliness to her figure, while the
diamond-shaped head-dress, then in fashion for noble matrons, added
greatly to her stature, which was far above the middle height. The
inner folds of this angular coif were of white linen, the outer of
purple silk edged with yellow fringe, and it formed a corner at each
ear with an apex at the top, while the folds lay close to her cheeks,
scarcely permitting her hair to be visible, and where it was so its
raven hue seemed turning fast to silver-grey.
A little negro boy, black as Lucifer, but dressed entirely in a rich