Kirkcaldy of Grange

IV. IN FRANCE

To Arran and his Council, the terms obtained from Strozzi by the rebel garrison seemed to be far too lenient; and they accordingly sent John Hamilton of Milburne to the King of France, who was now Henry II., and to the powerful Cardinal of Lorraine, urging them to repudiate the Captain-General’s action, and, in spite of the promises by which they had finally been induced to surrender, to handle the prisoners sharply.

Owing to circumstances which the chroniclers do not explain, the journey to France appears to have been unusually protracted; for, although Strozzi is said to have sailed from St Andrews about the middle of August, it was not till November that the galleys are reported to have reached Rouen. On his arrival, the six score Scotsmen whom he brought with him, learned that they were not to be given the option of entering into the service of France, or of passing, at the King’s expense, into any other country they might choose; and that the murder of Cardinal Beaton, and the subsequent rebellious defiance of the royal authority were not to be allowed to go unpunished. John Knox and Balfour, together with the prisoners of lower degree, were kept on the galleys as slaves, and sent to work on the Loire. Their fate was commemorated in the doggerel couplet given by Calderwood as the ‘song of triumph’ of the Papists: —

In reality, however, Norman Lesley, with the Laird of Pitmillie, and the Laird of Grange for his companions, was conveyed to Cherbourg. Henry Balneaves was imprisoned in Rouen itself, where he spent his enforced leisure in writing a ‘comfortable treatise’ on Justification by Faith without Works. James Melville was relegated to the Castle of Brest, but very shortly after ‘departed from the miseries of this life.’

To William Kirkcaldy, Peter Carmichael, Robert and William Lesley, what was then one of the most formidable fortresses in the kingdom, was assigned as a place of confinement.

Built on a huge rock of granite, in the blue, savage Norman Bay, there stood the imposing structure upon which the admiration of the Middle-Ages bestowed the name of the Wonder of the West. Situated some four miles from the nearest point of the mainland, it was guarded by the sea at high water, but became more inaccessible still when, for a couple of hours each day, the ebbing tide left nothing but a wide expanse of treacherous quicksands between it and the coast. This was the abbey-fortress of Mont Saint-Michel, that ‘wonderfully strong place upon the sea-shore,’ which had proved the bulwark of Normandy during the long struggle between England and France, and in which insignificant garrisons of determined men had, time and again, successfully held out against the assaults of beleaguering thousands. Here it was that the four Scottish prisoners were destined to spend many months of captivity. But the very fastness of their isolated prison was not without advantage for them. It inspired the Governor with such confidence that he deemed it unnecessary to deprive them of the restricted liberty that the rock afforded. The only annoyance to which they were submitted, was one which affected them through their religious opinions, and which they shared in common with the Scottish prisoners in other parts of the country. Knox relates that those who were in the galleys were threatened with torments if they would not give reverence to the Mass, and that they would have been compelled to kiss a statue of the Virgin, if one of them had not seized it and cast it into the Loire. At Cherbourg, too, the governor of the castle did his utmost to induce Sir James Kirkcaldy and his companions to attend Mass with him. When they refused to do so, he threatened to compel them; but they warned him that, if he chose to adopt such a course, they would, by their irreverent behaviour, let all present know their contempt for the ceremony. William Kirkcaldy, with his three fellow-captives, was subjected to the same importunities by the captain to whose keeping he had been entrusted at Mont Saint-Michel. With equal firmness, though in a more bantering tone, he replied for himself and for them, that ‘they would not only hear Mass every day but also help to say it, providing they might stick the priests; otherwise not.’

Being allowed free intercourse with the soldiers of the garrison and with the other inmates of the fortress, Kirkcaldy and his friends succeeded in buying the services of a messenger, by whose help they were able to hold communication with the other prisoners, from whom they had been separated at Rouen. Availing himself of the means thus afforded, Kirkcaldy wrote to John Knox, to ask his advice with regard to a matter about which it seems difficult to understand that he should have entertained any doubt or felt any scruple. He wished to know whether he and those with him might, with a safe conscience, break their prison. Knox replied that they would incur no moral guilt by embracing any opportunity which God should offer them to regain their liberty, providing they used no unlawful means, and, above all, refrained from shedding blood in the attempt.

Sir James Kirkcaldy was also informed of his son’s intention; but he appears to have given the bold scheme but scant encouragement. He feared that, even if it proved successful, those who still remained in captivity would be more harshly treated; and it was out of deference to him that Knox so earnestly deprecated any recourse to violent measures.

To venture across the quicksands alone would have been courting death; and as a first step towards the execution of their daring project, the prisoners had to secure the assistance of a guide. In that, they do not appear to have encountered any serious difficulty. One of the young men engaged in an inferior position about the Castle, in all probability the same who had enabled them to communicate with their friends, undertook to show them a safe way to the mainland if they should succeed in eluding the vigilance of their keepers. For many months circumstances prevented the carrying out of a plan which the restrictions imposed by Knox, and accepted by the four captives, rendered particularly hazardous and difficult; and the second winter since their departure from Scotland still found them fretting for liberty on the isolated rock. At length, however, their knowledge of the customs of those amongst whom they were living told them that the time for action was approaching. In those days, even more than at present, and particularly in Normandy, where it is still widely celebrated, the festival of the Three Kings – le Jour des Rois – as the Epiphany is called, was kept as a popular holiday, with much merry-making and carousing. The nature of the quaint ceremonial which formed a part of the feast, led to even more than the customary indulgence on the part of the revellers. Every time that the mock monarch of the evening, elected by favour of the bean hidden in the Twelfth-Night cake, put his goblet to his lips, the cry was raised, ‘le Roi boit! le Roi boit!’ and all his faithful subjects showed their loyalty, and their appreciation of his liberality, by draining their own cups. Even with no stronger beverage than the cider of the country, such repeated potations could not be indulged in with impunity. From their experience of the preceding year, Kirkcaldy and his friends knew that, when the feast closed, the garrison and the household were in no condition to give much attention to their prisoners. They laid their plan accordingly. To abstain from joining in festivities which, though purely social, were intimately connected with a religious feast, they could put forward the same reason that had stood them in good stead before – their utter contempt for popish mummeries; and could, therefore, retain the full possession of their mental and physical energies whilst their keepers were sinking into helpless intoxication. Although the account given by Knox is regrettably bare of details, it suggests that the garrison of Mont Saint-Michel was reduced to its lowest strength; and this circumstance very materially increased the Scotsmen’s chances of success.

When the carousing was over in the common hall, and when the revellers had retired to their several quarters, Kirkcaldy and his three friends sallied forth on their perilous expedition. Silently and stealthily making their way to the rooms where the soldiers were sunk in a heavy sleep they first gagged and bound them securely, and then locked the doors on them to prevent pursuit, even if the alarm were given. But the only means of exit from the fortress was closed by three gates, of which the keys were with the Governor; and if these could not be got, the whole enterprise was doomed to failure, in spite of the success with which the daring of the four Scotsmen had so far been favoured. To respect the conditions which Knox had imposed upon them, and impressed with such earnestness as to lead them to look upon them as absolutely essential to the accomplishment of their design, it was necessary for them to deal with the captain as they had done with the guards, not to dispatch him with the weapons that now lay at their disposal, but to overpower him by a sudden attack, and to bind him before he could offer any resistance. In this, too, their desperate determination secured them against failure. Favoured by the darkness, they reached the Logis du Roi, which formed a part of the machicolated inner gate, and contained the apartments assigned to the military guardian of the stronghold. When they left it, the Governor was as helpless as his men; and the keys were in their power. After raising the portcullis, they opened and relocked the second gate, passed into the Cour du Lion, and came to the outer barrier of the barbacan. The massive bolts and bars of the Bavole were hastily pushed back, and the fugitives were outside the walls of the grim prison, secure for a while from pursuit, but with the dangerous journey across the sands still before them. That, too, was performed without untoward accident. So far their guide proved faithful, for their safety was his; and before the rising tide had spread over the vast stretch of sand, and again isolated the Mount, they had reached the mainland, at a point sufficiently distant from Pontorson to insure their being unnoticed by the sentries. Here the guide left them, but not without turning against them the treachery and the unscrupulous greed which had made him their tool. By some means, which the chroniclers unfortunately leave unexplained, but which was doubtless supplied by their need of rest and sleep, as well as by the necessity for concealment, when they got to the shore in the early morning, he succeeded in getting possession of the little stock of money with which they had provided themselves. When the time came for them to resume their flight, they found themselves reduced to the necessity of depending on the charity of the country folk. That alone, even apart from considerations of prudence, made it advisable for the friends to part. The two Lesleys started together in one direction, and ultimately reached a place which Calderwood calls ‘Roan,’ but which can scarcely have been the inland town of Rohan, as some later writers have thought. It is more natural to suppose that, in their ignorance of the country, they made for Rouen, the port at which they had landed.

William Kirkcaldy and Carmichael proceeded westwards. As soon as the news of their escape became known, diligent search was made for them throughout the district. Disguised as poor mariners, they were, however, able to elude their pursuers; and they slowly and cautiously trudged from one seaport to another, in the hope of finding a friendly ship that would give them passage to England or to Scotland. But all along the coast persistent ill-luck followed them. Saint-Malo, Saint-Brieuc, Morlaix, Roscoff, Brest, were vainly tried in the course of their weary search, which lasted through thirteen weeks; and the fugitives came to the little town of Le Conquet, at the furthest extremity of the peninsula of Finistère, without finding a favourable opportunity to leave the country where, if their identity were revealed, any of the fortresses which they passed might become their prison. There, at length, their wanderings came to a close. In the diminutive harbour, to which, in spite of the dangerous rocks and reefs that stretch between the coast and the wind-swept island of Ushant, Scottish mariners sometimes steered their course, they found a ship and a skipper willing to take them back to their own country.

Kirkcaldy and his companion landed on the west coast of Scotland in the spring of 1549. But they were not in safety yet. It was only across the Border that they could consider themselves beyond the reach of their enemies. The short journey southwards, however, presented but slight difficulties as compared with what they had already gone through; and before long they found a refuge in Berwick. There they saw John Knox, who had been released that winter; and within a few months they were able to meet others of their friends in England; for the Scottish captives were being gradually liberated, and by the month of July 1550 a general amnesty had opened the gates of the French prisons for the last of the St Andrews rebels.

Nothing is known as to the length of Kirkcaldy’s stay in England; but there is evidence of his again being in France before the close of 1550. In that year Sir John Mason, writing from Blois to the English Council, informed it that the secret agent had arrived two days before, but being afraid for his personal safety, had resolved to return at once. He had found a substitute in Kirkcaldy who had promised to communicate to Mason all that he could learn. In future correspondence he was to be referred to as Coraxe. His services were accepted, and he received in payment for them a yearly pension, which he continued to draw during the whole of Edward VI.’s reign.

Kirkcaldy’s questionable loyalty to the country which afforded him hospitality did not prevent him from performing his duty with conspicuous bravery as a soldier in her army. Henry II. was at that time waging war against the Emperor of Germany, and was glad to avail himself of the services of the Scots. Two of these in particular distinguished themselves by their impetuous courage no less than by their military skill. They were Norman Lesley and William Kirkcaldy. To the former of these the campaign was destined to prove fatal; and the brief but graphic description of the skirmish in which he was mortally wounded, cannot, even at this distance of time, be read without sympathy and admiration. He had gone with the cavalry under the command of the Connétable to harass and impede the progress of the army which the Emperor was bringing to the relief of Renti, besieged by the French. The relative positions of the forces were not equal; for whilst those of Charles were advancing along a commanding height, Henry’s horsemen were in the plain below, and were consequently at the disadvantage of having to ride up hill to attack the enemy. Regardless of the odds the Scottish captain, mounted upon ‘a fair gray gelding,’ fearlessly headed a charge of thirty of his own countrymen. The incident is best given in the words of another Scot – Sir James Melville – who writes with the authority of an eye-witness. ‘He had above his coat of black velvet his coat of armour with two broad white crosses, the one before, and the other behind, with sleeves of mail, and a red bonnet upon his head, whereby he was known and seen afar off by the Constable, the Duke of Enghien, and the Prince of Condé: where, with his thirty, he charged upon sixty of their horsemen with culverines, followed but with seven of his number. He, in our sight, struck five of them from their horses with his spear before it brake: then he drew his sword, and ran in among them, not valuing their continual shooting, to the admiration of the beholders. He slew divers of them, and at length when he saw a company of spearmen coming down against him, he gave his horse the spurs, who carried him to the Constable, and there fell down dead; for he had many shots: and worthy Norman was also shot in divers parts, whereof he died fifteen days after. He was first carried to the King’s own tent, where the Duke of Enghien and Prince of Condé told his Majesty, that Hector of Troy was not more valiant than the said Norman: whom the said King would see dressed by his own chirurgeons, and made great moan for him. So did the Constable, and all the rest of the Princes.’

By none was the valiant Master of Rothes more deeply and more sincerely regretted than by his companion in many a perilous adventure – William Kirkcaldy. He had been given the command of a hundred light horsemen; and with these he had been sent out on a secret expedition, from which he did not return till the day after the fatal skirmish. Within a few hours, the battle of Renti afforded him and his Scots an opportunity of avenging their countryman. That he who was ‘like a lion in the field’ did not spare the enemy may well be assumed. Unfortunately, however, there is no record of his exploits either on that day, or, indeed, on any of the occasions when he did ‘such notable service in France.’ We only know that his conduct won the warmest praise from such men as Vendôme, Condé, and Aumale; that the famous Connétable would never allow him to stand bare-headed in his presence, and that, in the hearing of Melville, who records the flattering incident, King Henry II., pointing to him said, ‘Yonder is one of the most valiant men of our age.’