Jane Seton; or, The King's Advocate: A Scottish Historical Romance
substituted by the Reformers; but the doe still remains as a
supporter.
He then blessed the people, and descending into one of the side
aisles, disappeared.
The vast multitudes who thronged the church now poured from all its
doorways like a flood upon the streets, and down the steep old
burial-ground that descended on the south towards the Cowgate (a
place of interment coeval with the _first huts_ of the city), and
where a little doorway in the wall, at the bottom, gave egress to
that thoroughfare, then so fashionable. It stood just beside the
little chapel of the Holyrood, which survived till the end of the
sixteenth century.
As closely as they dared, Nichol Birrel and his friend Dobbie, with
their poniards in their belts and wooden rosaries dangling at their
better wrists, followed the countess and her party home to her
residence, near the court end of the town; and thereafter stationed
themselves at the _Cross and Gillstoup_, a small change-house, the
low grated windows of which commanded a view of the archway, whereon
were carved the coronet and arms of the Setons of Ashkirk; and there
the two worthy followers of Redhall sat down to drink and watch for
the remainder of the afternoon.
At six o'clock, Sir Roland Vipont, with his bonnet on one side, his
feather erect, and his rapier tilting up a corner of his mantle, like
a true dandy of the sixteenth century, came forth alone, and
descended the street towards Holyrood.
"Brawly!" muttered Dobbie, rubbing his large misshapen paws with
exultation; "the dare-devil's awa, but the valet is yet there."
"Yea; and the visit to the sister of the Sheens yet holdeth gude.
But have ye any money?" asked the pricker.
"Nocht but a Flemish rydar, and three of old King James's gowden
pennies."
"Ho there, gudewife!" cried Birrel, with a grin of delight on his
mastiff mouth, while he clattered on the hard table with his rosary;
"fetch us twa mair mutchkins of your wine--that red wine, which I ken
right well ye get smuggled contrary to the act, straight frae the
Flemmings o' the Dam--quick!"
And while their slipshod attendant was bringing the fresh supply,
these worthies proceeded to examine their poniards, in case they
should be required, and tried whether the guards were true, the
points sharp, the hilts fitting well to the blades, and the blades to
the hilts; for to them deeds of outrage and cruelty were the business
of life; and we may add that, by the loose lives of the clergy prior
to the Reformation--a measure which that very laxity of discipline
brought about--religion and morality were fast sinking to a low ebb
in Scotland.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CHANCELLOR OF SCOTLAND.
"I made such service to our Sovereign King,
He did promote me still to high estate;
A prince above all priestis for to reign,
Archbishop of St. Andrew's consecrate.
To that honour when I was elevate,
My prideful heart was not content withal,
Till that I was created cardinal."
Sir D. LINDESAY'S _Tragedie of the Cardinal_.
With his long rapier under his arm, and his bonnet drawn well over
his face, the lord advocate, with all the air of a man who has found
a clue to something, or is mentally pursuing a distant object,
hurried, as we have said, from the church, and threaded his way
between the fleshers' stalls, which encumbered both sides of the
street about the Nether-bow and arch of the Blackfriars Wynd.
Descending the latter, he reached the residence of Cardinal Beaton,
where, through the medium of several pages, esquires, and pikemen, he
sent up his name, requesting an audience, and was immediately
admitted.
David Beaton was then in the prime of life; his stature was
commanding, his air was dignified, his bearing noble. As we may see
by the portraits of him, still preserved at Edinburgh, his face was
grave, dark, and eminently handsome; his eyes were bright and
piercing, and he wore his beard and moustaches pointed _à la
cavalier_, rather than shaven off like a priest. He was seated in an
easy-chair, and wore his red baretta, black cassock, and gold cross.
His large scarlet hat lay upon a side table, near the two-handed
sword of his grandfather, old Sir David of Pitmilly.
Our Scottish Wolsey was seated near a table covered with books and
papers; there were several portfolios marked with the fleur-de-lys,
the rose, the eagle, &c., containing the memorandums of
correspondence with France, England, the Empire, and so forth. The
apartment, which was little and elegant, was hung with green damask
flowered with leaves of red and gold; his patrimonial arms, the
blazon of "Bethune's line of Picardie," appeared above the
mantelpiece. There was no fire, for the season was summer, and the
andirons were burnished bright as silver. A book was half open in
his hand, but his eyes were thoughtfully fixed on a window, through
which he saw the antique buildings of the opposite street, a steep
wynd, that led towards the Dominican monastery, the square tower and
slated spire of which shone in the light of the western sun, and
terminated the view. His daughter, the Lady Margaret Beaton, a
charming young girl with blue eyes and dark brown hair--the same who,
five years after, became the bride of the young Lord Lindesay--was
sitting on a little tabourette by his side, decorating a little
kitten with ribbons.
As she had been born prior to his taking vows of celibacy, the
cardinal had no reason to conceal her; but as soon as Sir Adam
Otterburn entered, at a sign from her father, she kissed his hand,
snatched the kitten, which she considered her peculiar property,
placed a chair for the visitor, and withdrew.
"God be with your eminence!" said Redhall, half kneeling, as he
saluted the cardinal.
"And peace with you," replied Beaton, with a gracious wave of the
hand, which, while it pointed to a seat, passed also for a priestly
benediction. He closed his book "La Legende de Monseigneur Saint
Dominique," &c., an old black-letter quarto, "_Imprimé à Paris_,
1495," and continued--"Have I the pleasure of seeing Sir Adam as a
friend, or in his official capacity?"
"I trust your eminence will never consider my visits the less
friendly because I come so frequently on the service of the state;
but now mine errand closely concerns the latter."
"I think that thou, as lord advocate, and I, as lord chancellor,
ought to be collared together, like a couple of questing dogs. Well,
what in God's name is astir now?"
"Treason!"
"That is nothing new."
"Trafficking with the English--and it may be sorcery!"
"My God! dost thou say so? Those accursed Douglases, I warrant me?"
Redhall gave an emphatic nod, and put one leg over the other. The
cardinal let fall his book, grasped the knobs of his chair, and
reclined his head back as if he expected to hear something momentous.
"Well, my lord, and what now of this turbulent tribe?"
"I seek a _carte blanche_ warrant of arrest and committal to ward--or
rather, concurrence with it--does your eminence understand?"
"Agnus Dei!" said the cardinal, crossing, and speaking with great
bitterness and energy; "how sad it is that, from being the bulwark
and buckler of Scotland, the house of Angus and its allies have
become her sworn foes! Too blindly the enemies of Arran, they never
rest while a Hamilton lives, and are too much in Henry's interest
ever again to be true to Scotland. How was it when James assumed the
government, and, by the intercession of Wolsey and myself, so
unwisely permitted the ambitious Earls of Ashkirk and of Angus to
return home? No sooner were their feet on Scottish ground, than,
ever restless, they raised a faction to expel the queen-mother and
the minister Arran, and came at once to blows about where the
Parliament should meet. 'I will hold it here,' said the determined
Arran. 'Thou shalt hold it _there_,' said the imperious Angus. Then
were banners displayed and lances lifted; and Angus and Ashkirk
feared not to bend their cannon against the royal castle of
Edinburgh, where the young king, the queen-mother, and their prime
minister were residing. Then came trooping and hosting, and castles
were stormed, and garrisoned, and stormed again; towns were burned
and tenants plundered. The high-sheriff of Ayr slew the Earl of
Cassilis; the islesmen of Orkney expelled and slew the Lord
Caithness; the knight of Tulliallan slew the Abbot of Culrosse; and
some ruffian of hell murdered my steadfast friend and true, Sir
Thomas Maclellan of Bombie, at the door of St. Giles. (Redhall felt
himself grow pale.) The Douglases pillaged the castle of St. Andrews
and the abbey of Dunfermline; they fought the battles of Melrose and
Linlithgow, where the good Earl of Lennox was so cruelly run through
the body after he had surrendered. The whole country seemed to be
hastening to destruction, for the swords of the Douglases bore all
before them, and every post, place, and perquisite under the crown,
every royal castle and office of state, was held by a Douglas. The
royal guards were all Douglases; and the young king was their
prisoner, while his people were reduced to slavery. Well! I then
thought the time had come to bestir me," continued the cardinal, with
a smile of satisfaction. "I did so; and the king escaped from the
tower of Falkland. He summoned the nobles in arms at Stirling; the
wheel of fate revolved again, and, deprived of place and power, the
Douglases were proscribed, forfeited, and driven into
England--England, whose kings have ever rejoiced in fanning the flame
of Scottish civil war--the policy of hell, which none have adopted
more than the present atrocious tyrant, their eighth Henry."
"All this I know well," said Redhall, endeavouring to repress his
impatience at this retrospective reverie.
"There, fostered by this heretic prince, they have become the enemies
of their fatherland, the believers of a false doctrine, the rebels of
their king and the accursed of their God. None has done more than
the Lord Ashkirk to further a marriage between King James and a
daughter of the mansworn Tudor; but happily, I have ever been
victorious; for the honour and policy of Scotland and France require
that they must league together against the grasping ambition and
centralizing greed of England. Thou knowest that I have ever been
for France, and bear about as much love for England as a tiger doth
to a panther. When Henry offered his daughter to James, with the
office of lieutenant-general of all England and Ireland, happily, I
warned him of the gilded snare, and dismissed the ambassador, Howard,
with a remembrance of how England had treated the shipwrecked James
I. When Godscallo came from the Emperor Charles to offer his sister
Mary of Austria as a queen for Scotland, who defeated him, and turned
his dangerous eloquence against himself?"
"Your eminence," said Redhall, putting the left leg over the right.
"When he offered Donna Maria of Portugal, the daughter of Eleonora of
Austria," resumed Beaton, with a smile of gratified vanity, "and
boasted of her beauty and the sixty battles of her victorious uncle,
who waived all his sophistry by a word?"
"Your eminence of course," sighed Redhall.
"When Christian II. of Denmark offered his daughter, the Princess
Dorothea, though she was already contracted to the beggarly Elector
Frederick, I dismissed him, and briefly too; for my whole soul was
bent on preserving the ancient league of amity, that together the
banners of Scotland and France might be turned against their common
enemy; and by my own energy, assisted by God and our Blessed Lady, I
had the young Queen Magdalene espoused to James; and NOW let the
Douglases do their worst, for, ratified before the holy altar of