Jane Seton; or, The King's Advocate: A Scottish Historical Romance
"My faction, lady?"
"Thou servest the Court?"
"Nay, madam, I serve the king, like Sir Roland Vipont, whose fast
friend I am; and as such, I beg permission to be thine."
"I thank you, Sir John Forrester," replied Jane, with another
passionate burst of tears; "but were my father and the Lord Angus
here, as of old, I had needed no other friends; but, alas! the one
lieth now in his grave at St. Giles's, while the other is a poor and
impoverished exile, compelled to eat the bread of Englishmen. Alas!
I am now totally forsaken."
"Nay, lady; for here stand I, John Forrester of Corstorphine, ready
to be your champion; and as such, to maintain your innocence against
all men living, body for body, according to the laws of battle and of
arms."
"A thousand thanks, Sir John; but remember, Sir Roland Vipont claims
priority in that. Meanwhile, let me leave this place."
"And dost thou know for where?"
"Oh, yes," she replied, with a bitter smile; "for the castle of
Edinburgh; be it so; I am not the first of my race who has paid
clearly the penalty of opposing tyranny. There were Sir John de
Seton, and his kinsman Sir Christopher de Seton, captain of Lochdoon,
who were so barbarously murdered after surrender by English Edward,
and my grandsire, William Seton, who fell at Verneuil, fighting
against the English, under Lord Buchan, the Constable of France. Let
us go--let us go! the sooner this frightful drama is ended the
better. Oh, they are good men and gallant soldiers, those courtiers
of King James--those slaves and parasites of Arran. Sir John, I
await you."
"But you cannot go thus--on foot, lady. Excuse me, but for a moment."
He dispatched a messenger to the palace for a horse and a pillion,
and to beg the favour of a riding-cloak from the Lady Barncleugh;
both of which were brought in a few minutes.
In this interval, Jane, with great energy but incoherence, and amid
frequent bursts of tears and indignation, had related the story of
her abduction and retention by Redhall; but, dreading to criminate
her brother, or afford, even to this friendly gentleman, the least
clue to his flight, she blundered the whole episode of her escape,
and became so perplexed and confused, that Sir John Forrester
considered the whole affair as a mere hallucination, and listened
with a face expressive only of pity and sincere sorrow; and thus she
found her tale received by all to whom she afterwards ventured to
relate it; for the reputation for high moral worth and sterling
integrity enjoyed by Redhall, placed him as on a lofty pedestal,
above the reach of ordinary calumny, though some men did at times
shake their heads and look mysteriously at the mention of the gallant
Sir Thomas of Bombie, whose blood stained the steps at the north door
of St. Giles for many a year after the era of James V.
The sun was up and shone joyously on the palace towers and the vanes
of its ancient porch, on the battlements of the traitor's tower
(which Moyse speaks of in his memoirs), and the beautiful façade
designed by Hamilton of Fimart, when Lady Jane was led forth from the
pointed archway.
She was mounted on the pillion behind Sir John Forrester; and
thereafter followed by the Albany herald with the warrant, and a
party of the guard marching with matches cocked and lighted, she
proceeded at a rapid pace towards the castle; for even at that early
hour the High-street was beginning to be busy. The guards and
warders were unclosing the portes and barriers; the merchants were
opening their booths, and displaying their wares under those long
arcades which then were on both sides of the street, and remnants of
which still exist in several places; farm horses laden with barrels,
baskets, and boxes were pouring into the markets, and the
water-carriers were crowding round the fountains at the Cross and the
Mile-end.
A party of the king's guard, with a knight in full armour, and a
female prisoner riding behind him, drew the burgesses from all
quarters to the centre of the street.
"Jean Seton of Ashkirk," flew from mouth to mouth, mingled with
mutterings of commiseration and hatred, as the sympathies or
antipathies of the rabble led them. Many there were who mourned that
one so young and fair should be made another sacrifice to the
animosity avowedly borne by the king and the court against that
humbled faction which had triumphed over both so long, and many there
were who remembered the deadly strife of 1520:--
"When startled burghers fled afar,
The furies of the border war;
When the streets of high Dunedin,
Saw axes gleam, and falchions redden;"
when, sheathed in full mail, her father, at the head of a hundred
barbed horsemen, had thrice hewn a passage through the barricaded
streets, giving to death and defeat the spearmen of Arran. Many
women, whose husbands and fathers, lovers and brothers, had fallen on
that terrible 29th of April, recalled their treasured hatred as
keenly as if the strife of seventeen years had been enacted but
seventeen hours ago, and openly, bitterly, and unpityingly reviled
her.
"A Hamilton! a Hamilton!"
"Doon wi' the Setons! doon wi' the Douglases! doon wi' the star and
the bluidy heart!"
"Set her up, wi' her lace and her pearlings sae braw, when an honest
wife like me wears but a curstsey o' flannel!"
"Holy Virgin!" cried another crone in a grey cloak and a
flanders-mutch; "and to think I hae taen an awmous frae this Seton
sorceress! 'Twas weel I had my relique o' blessed St. Roque aboot
me!"
"Fie upon thee, thou fause Seton! Death to the witch! bones to the
fire, and soul to Satan!"
Full of horror at these frightful and opprobrious cries, this poor
being, whose gentleness had never created her a personal enemy,
surrounded by her guard and a vast mob that every moment grew more
dense as the street narrowed, arrived at the Castle-port, an ancient
and massive archway in the Spur, which then lay between the castle
and the town, covering the whole of what is now called the Esplanade,
and surmounted by a round bastion, displaying a flag and more than
twenty pieces of brass cannon.
There the governor of the fortress--the strong towers of which were
looming redly and grimly in the morning sunshine above the parapets
and glacis of this hornwork--received Lady Jane, as the king's
prisoner, from the herald and captain of the guard, who drew his
soldiers across the Castle-hill-street, to bear back the tumultuous
crowd, whose clamour reverberated with a thousand echoes in that high
and narrow thoroughfare.
Bareheaded and ungloved, the castellan, Sir James Riddel, of
Cranstoun-Riddel, a gallant and courtly soldier, received her with
the utmost respect, and assisted her to alight. As she did so her
riding hood fell back, and her pale and beautiful face was revealed
to the people, who began anew to murmur variously. Then it was (such
is the power of beauty) that many pitied, though more still hated and
upbraided her; for the tide of common clamour in Edinburgh was
against the Angus faction, among whom, in camp and council, her
father and brother had borne a prominent part, having more than once,
at the point of the sword, thrust their vassals as magistrates upon
the people.
Confused and terrified by a scene so unusual, Jane murmured she knew
not what, as her thanks and adieux to Sir John Forrester, and gave
her hand to the governor, who led her within the archway, on the
battlements of which was seen the head of the Master of Forbes, who a
short time before had been beheaded for raising a sedition in the
Scottish camp at Fala, and attempting to shoot King James with an
arquebuse. Though pale and exhausted by the terrors of the night,
with eyes purple and inflamed by weeping, she gave a sad and perhaps
scornful smile at that strong arch, the massive wall, and iron-jagged
gate, whereon her father once had nailed his glove in defiance of
Arran; but her heart sunk when she really found herself within those
lofty walls, where so many had pined in hopeless captivity; nor could
she repress a shudder when the rattling portcullis closed behind her,
sinking slowly down with a jarring sound between its stony grooves.
The Lady of Cranstoun-Riddel, a kind, and (as the Scots term it)
"motherly body," now approached her, and said,--
"Lady Jane Seton, in the name of the blessed Mary, what is the
meaning of all this?"
"Dearest madam, I know as little as thee," said Jane, throwing
herself upon the bosom of this kind matron, rejoicing to find that
one of her own sex, who, though even an entire stranger, could
sympathize with her, and who, in age, appearance, and manner so
nearly resembled her beloved mother. "Indeed, madam," continued
Jane, sobbing, "I swear to you that I am ignorant of the cause; but I
am accused of murder, of sorcery, of treason, and I know not what
more,--I, that have not the heart to kill even the smallest insect.
There must indeed be sorcery in this, but not with me."
"My puir bairn! my pair bairn! thou must thole mickle ere these dark
charges are cleared and refuted."
"Yea, madam; for, as my brother truly said, we are but the victims
and playthings of tyranny and misrule."
"Lady," said Sir James Riddel, gravely, but respectfully, "you are
here by the orders of James V. and his eminence the cardinal, who
fourteen days ago sent me instructions to receive you, but you had
disappeared on the very night his warrant was issued. Remember,
lady, that the king is king; besides, my lord advocate--pardon me if
my words disturb you, for I am a rough old rider of James III.'s
days, and unused to speaking daintily."
Jane shuddered at the name of her persecutor; and hurriedly, but with
more coherence than before, began the story of her recent abduction,
and more recent escape. Again, to her infinite chagrin, she found
that she was utterly disbelieved, for the knight regarded her with a
kind but sad smile of commiseration, as one whom terror had slightly
"demented;" she saw him elevate his eyebrows, and nod perceptibly as
he exchanged a glance with his lady, who kindly smoothed Jane's
glossy hair, kissed her again as a mother would have done, and led
her through the Spur, and up the Castle-rock towards King David's
Tower. Stung to the soul by this provoking disbelief, she became
immediately silent, and resolved to explain no more.
As they proceeded through the vast hornwork, which, as we have said,
covered the whole Castle-hill, between the loopholes and embrasures
she obtained glimpses of the rough bank that shelved abruptly down to
the loch on the north, and of the reedy loch itself, where the wild
ducks and swans were floating, and of the bare ridge of pasture-land
where now the modern city is built.
"So I am now a captive in the castle of Edinburgh, while my poor
mother pines on Inchkeith! Where will the events of this dark drama
end?" thought she; and her heart sank lower still as the gigantic
gates of the Constable's Tower were closed and barred behind her.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE THREE TREES OF DYSART.
"I launched my spear, and with a sudden wound
Transpierced his back, and fix'd him to the ground;
He falls, and mourns his fate with human cries:
Through the wide wound the vital spirit flies."
_Odyssey_, Book X.
At the time when the fugitive earl bent his course towards the county
(or, as it is popularly named, the kingdom) of Fife, the whole length
and breadth of it, from the gates of St. Andrew's in the east neuk to
those of Dunfermline in the west neuk, and from the waters of the
Forth on the south to those of the Tay on the north, was full of
terror by the ravages of an enormous wolf, which had established his
quarters in the old forest of Pittencrief; from whence he extended