Royal Edinburgh: Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets

CHAPTER V

JAMES V: THE LAST OF THE HEROIC AGE

The course of Scottish history during the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century is like that of a ship on a long voyage, full of vicissitudes and adventures. The little barque amid all the wild commotions of the sea, sometimes driven before the wind, sometimes stripped of every rag of canvas, sometimes beating helpless in the trough of the waves, rights herself when the storm is over, repairs her masts, re-strings her cordage, puts forth again sail after sail; and with a sure hand at the helm and a moderate breeze in her canvas, rises white and strong against the blueness of sea and sky, triumphant over all the assaults of external nature, animated by human will and courage, the most indomitable of all created things, and affording perhaps the best example of the survival and unconquerable power of these masters of the world: till again there arises in the heavens another hurricane, furious, ungovernable, rousing the sea to madness, striking once more the canvas from the yards, the masts from the deck, and leaving a mere hulk at the mercy of the waves which rush on her and over her with the wild rage of beasts of prey. Again and again these storms overtook the vessel of the State in Scotland, returning after every period of calm, after every recovery of authority, as wild, as tumultuous, as destructive as ever. Again and again they were overcome, the power of resistance restored, the equilibrium regained, only to fall once more into the raging of the elements. Each successive king, with perhaps one exception, had seized the helm as soon as his hand was fit for the strain, or even before it was strong enough for that office, and had gallantly brought the ship round and re-established the reign of a rational will and a certain unity of command over all the forces of the storms; but when he fell, left the helpless vessel again to be balloted about by all the winds of Fate.

SALISBURY CRAGS

This was the case almost more wildly than ever when the fourth James Stewart died at Flodden. The heir, the helpless infant prince, was not two years old, and the flower of Scotland had been slain with their king. The mature warriors and statesmen, the wise counsellors, the men to whom the country might have looked in such an interregnum, were all gone. There remained only Churchmen and boys in the devastated country, a passionate English queen of Tudor blood, and no settled centre of government or reorganised power. Such lords as were left assembled hastily for that pathetic oft-repeated ceremony, the crowning of the child, taken out of his cradle to have the fatal circlet put upon his head—and committed some sort of regency, such as it was, to the Queen. And after a moment in which the country was paralysed with woe and every house full of mourning, Scotland plunged once more into the angry waves, among the lions of ever-recurring anarchy and strife.

Nothing in all this turbulent and terrible history has ever been so tragic as Flodden. The nation which had lost the very flower and strength of its fighting men, its defenders and champions, the families which had lost their chiefs, their breadwinners—often father and son together, the master and his heir—were struck dumb with dismay and anguish. It was only a long time after, when despair had sunk into a softened recollection, that it was possible even to breathe forth that wail over the Flowers of the Forest which all Scotland knows. In the first shock of such an appalling event there is no place for elegy. There was a broken cry of anguish throughout the country, echoed from castle and cottage, where the poor women clung together, mistress and maid equal in the flood of common loss: and there was at the same time a strained and terrible rallying of all the poor defenders left, the old men and rusty arms, those of every house upon the Border and every town upon the road who had been left behind, to meet as well as they could the no doubt inevitable march of the conquering English army, which everybody felt sure must follow. When the news reached Edinburgh the magistrates of the town put forth a proclamation calling upon the inhabitants to prepare for the defence of the capital, and forbidding the women—a most significant and heartrending order, perhaps unique in public documents—to spread dismay through the streets by their crying and lamentations. The condition into which the community must have fallen when this became a public danger it is unnecessary to remark upon. The wail that sounded through all the country must have risen to a passionate pitch in those crowded streets, where the gates were closed and all the defences set, and nothing looked for but the approach of the victorious English with swords still dripping with Scottish blood. While Edinburgh waited breathless for this possible attack an extension of the existing wall was begun to defend the southern suburb, then semi-rural, containing the country-houses of the wealthy burghers and lawyers, the great convent of the Greyfriars, that of St. Mary in the Field, and many other monastic houses. This additional wall greatly increased the breadth of the enceinte, which now included a considerable space of embowered and luxuriant fields on the south side. It was called the Flodden Wall, and kept the memory of that great catastrophe and disaster before the minds of the citizens for many a day.

But for some reason or other the English army which had cut Scotland to pieces at Flodden went no farther. The victory was no doubt a very costly one, and perhaps Henry VIII did not wish to drive the kingdom of which his sister would now be Regent to extremity, or do anything more to increase the desperate hostility of a country which was capable of giving him so much trouble. At all events Surrey's army was disbanded, and Scotland was left to resume her struggle within herself: which proved the wildest and most miserable turmoil and anarchy which her troubled records had yet known.

It would be at once hopeless and unnecessary to enter into any sketch of the endless tumults of this time of distress. There was a momentary lull in which, though all the old personal feuds arose again, the poor little King and his mother were left undisturbed—she in possession of a regency more or less nominal, and in a state of health which must have subdued her activities, for her second son was not born till several months after her husband's death. But this child was only a few months old when Margaret, young, beautiful, impassioned, and impetuous, compromised her position by a sudden marriage with the young Earl of Angus—still almost a boy, and with nothing but his good looks to recommend him—an event which at once aroused all sleeping enmities and precipitated the usual struggle for the possession of the infant king. I will attempt nothing but an indication of one or two scenes in Edinburgh which took place during this struggle. Undeterred by the evil associations which surrounded that name, the Scottish lords bethought themselves of the French Duke of Albany, the nearest member of the royal family, the son of that duke who had been the terror of James III, who had conspired with England, and who finally had established himself in France and died there. His son was a French subject, the son of a French mother, inheriting through her great estates in France and a position which was little inferior in dignity, and much superior in comfort, to that of the harassed monarch of a most turbulent kingdom. But he was James Stewart, the nearest in blood to the crown, and his name seems, temporarily at least, to have united all parties, even the Queen, though his presence was fatal to her claims of regency, receiving him with courtesy and an apparent welcome. He had not been many months, however, in Scotland before, with the sanction of his council, he claimed from Margaret the possession of the King and his brother—sending four peers, appointed guardians, to the castle, to receive the children. It was in July 1515, two years after Flodden, when no doubt Edinburgh had regained that common cheerfulness and bustle of a great town which is so little interrupted even by the gravest public events. The deputation with their attendants proceeded from the Canongate, where they had been sitting in assembly, through the Netherbow Port and the bustling crowded High Street, to the castle, no doubt gathering with them on their way all the eager crowd which could free itself from shop or booth, all the passers-by in the streets, a continually-increasing throng. Who the four lords were we are not told. The whole incident is recorded in a letter of Lord Dacre to the English Council. No doubt he had his information either from the Queen herself or from members of her household. Of the four men chosen by Albany the Queen was at liberty to reject one, and no doubt they were men of weight and gravity, probably not unworthy of the trust.

It is not difficult to realise the flying rumour which would go like the wind before them announcing their errand, and how windows and doorways and stairheads would fill with eager spectators, and all the moving population would press up the hill after them to see what was to be seen. The high houses full on every story of eager heads thrust forth, relieving with unintentional yet lively decoration the many-windowed fronts, the shopkeepers crowding at their doors or seizing cap and halberd to follow, the hum and excitement of the roused town, surround the envoys like the background of a picture. Most probably they went on foot, the distance being so short, preceded by a glittering herald and pursuivant—perhaps David Lindsay, who can tell? still too young to wear the Lion of Scotland on his tabard, but keen and curious to see this scene—he who had seen the envoy of heaven in Linlithgow Church and so many other wonderful things. The crowd surged upwards, keeping a respectful space in the midst for the lords with their train, and filled with colour and movement and the murmuring of numbers that great square before the castle gates which had held the same excited throng so often. And before the heralds could summon the wardens or demand entrance in the name of the Regent, the great gates rolled back, and all who were near enough to see gazed in amazement at such a group in the gateway as must have filled many eyes with tears, and which gave at once the most astonishing climax to that wonderful picture. There Margaret stood, a young woman of twenty-five, not a noble type of beauty, perhaps, but with the fresh and florid Tudor good looks, and no doubt the imperious Tudor port imposing to the crowd, with her child in his little cloak and plumed bonnet, four years old, holding her hand. Among her little troop of attendants, the ladies of her subdued Court, and the cluster of cavaliers who surrounded her young husband, there might well be another name of gentler fame—the then Provost of St. Giles, Gawin Douglas, poet and statesman, who was her counsellor and the negotiator of her many troubled affairs. But in this emergency it was the Queen herself who bade the startled lords stand and deliver their message. They stepped forward in some confusion, one would guess, not having calculated upon this sudden encounter with such an unexpected champion, difficult to silence—not only a queen with all the prestige both real and sentimental which surrounds such a position, but also a mother whose children were threatened. When they had finished their explanation, the crowd looking on, no doubt impatient of the pause and of the voices that could not reach their ears, Margaret stepped back and bade her attendants quickly to let down the portcullis. They must have been stationed ready with the intention, and no doubt the lords had no attendants with them who could have hindered any such step or forced an entrance. While the people looked on wondering, the iron bars came crashing down, and in a moment the Queen and her child were safe though visible within. Then Margaret addressed through that iron trellis the astonished deputation. She told them that she was the guardian of the castle, enfeoffed in it by her royal husband, and not minded to yield it to any man, but that she respected the Parliament and country, and would take six days to consider the demand made to her. The lords left outside had no alternative but to turn and go back, not we may be sure without a chorus of commentaries from the lively crowd, ever quick to note the discomfiture of its masters, and delighted with such a novel sensation: though the grave burghers would shake their heads at the boldness of the Englishwoman who had so confronted the Scots lords in their own city.

The Queen transferred herself and her children to Stirling before the six days had expired, but, as might be supposed, her little triumph was short-lived. Her boyish husband had already shown signs of deserting her, and probably enough her fancy for him was as short-lived as those other ephemeral and still more tragical passions which her brother had scarcely yet begun to indulge. The excuse which the Regent and his council put forth for taking the infant King from his mother was partly her second marriage, and partly a supposed plan for carrying off the two children to England, which did actually exist, King Henry being, as a matter of fact, their nearest of kin and most powerful possible guardian, though one who would have been vehemently rejected by all Scotland: while on the other hand the little James was as yet the most likely heir to the English crown. But this scheme had been opposed both by the Queen herself—whose statement that had she been a woman of humble condition she might have taken her children in her arms and gone unknown to her brother, but that, being a queen, she could not move anywhere without observation, is full of homely and natural dignity—and by Gawin Douglas, who repeats the same objection. Margaret, however, did not long continue to identify herself with the Douglases. The conduct of Angus gave her full reason for offence, if, perhaps, she was not altogether guiltless on her side; and they were in a state of absolute estrangement when the calling of a Parliament early in the year 1520 brought Angus to Edinburgh, where with his party he had been sometimes master and sometimes proscribed man in the innumerable variations of politics or rather of personal quarrels and intrigues. Albany had by this time returned to France without however resigning his regency, and authority was more or less represented by the Earl of Arran, who was at the head of the opposite faction. The party of Arran were in possession of Edinburgh and of the little King, now eight years old, who was in the castle under charge of the peers who had been appointed his guardians, when Angus reappeared. Queen Margaret amid all these tumults, finding little encouragement from her brother, who was much more intent on securing a party in Scotland than on consulting her wishes, had also chosen to reside near her boy in the comparative safety of that stronghold. Accordingly when Earl Angus came to attend the Parliament he was confronted by his adversaries in possession of the town and of the castle, with his wife, the most violent adversary of all, in the fortress shut up from his access or approach. He was accompanied, Pitscottie tells us, "with all his kin and friends to the number of five hundred spears, weill accompanied and arrayed." But the city was hostile, and perhaps something in the sombre air of all about awakened the suspicions of the Douglases, especially as the gates were hastily shut behind them and more than usual precautions taken. Awakened thus to a sense of alarm, the threatened party sent scouts out into the streets during the night, to find out what mischief was brewing. While the humbler spies pursued their inquiries by wynd and changehouse, Maister Gawin Douglas, the bishop, went out to see what he could discover of the real state of affairs—if it was true that the westland lords had held a secret meeting and resolved that Angus should not leave Edinburgh now that he had put himself in their power—and "if he could find any gude way betwixt the two parties." In pursuance of this anxious quest he went in search of Archbishop James Beatoun, his brother of St. Andrews, whom he found in the church of the Black Friars, assisting, it is to be presumed, at some evening service.

"The said Mr. Gawin desired him to take some pains to labour betwixt this two parties which was at ane sharp point, and meaning little less than that the bishop had most part the wyte (blame) thereof. But the bishop assured him again with ane oath, chopping on his breast, saying, 'By my conscience, my lord, I know not the matter.' But when Mr. Gawin heard the bishop's purgation, and chopping on his breast, and perceived the plates of his jack clattering, he thought the bishop deceaved him, so Mr. Gawin said to him, 'My lord, your conscience is not good, for I hear it clattering.'"

REID'S CLOSE, CANONGATE

After all these advertisements—the bishop's secret coat of mail, the angry discussion between two Hamiltons in the very presence of Arran the head of the house, when he was himself willing to grant licence to Angus "to speak with the Queen's Grace and thereafter depart out of the town"—and all the lesser evidences of danger and conspiracy, the Earl and his band prepared themselves for the worst. "This young lord haisted him to his armour, and caused his friends and servants to do the same, and went right peartlie to the gate, and stood above the Nether Bow in arrayed battle." The other party, when they were made aware that the Douglases were standing on their defence, came rushing together from kirk and market, hastily assembling without discipline or order, to find the little mail-clad line arranged in the strongest way against the background of the houses, where, no doubt, every shopkeeper had rushed to his bolts and bars, and every door clanged to in view of the sudden tumult. Sir Walter has given us in The Abbot a glimpse more picturesque and graphic than any we can attempt, of the sudden scuffle in the street between two passing groups, the armed attendants more dangerous and less prudent than their masters, whose strife as to which was to hold the centre of the street was enough to produce at once an encounter of arms ending in blood, and death for some of the band. The struggle known by the name of "Clear the Causeway" was more important, yet of a similar kind. Angus and his five hundred spears—in reality a much greater number since each spear was accompanied by certain men-at-arms—had much the advantage of the other party, hurriedly roused from their occupations, who had expected to make an easy end of the Douglases, thus betrayed into a sort of ambush in a hostile city, where no man would lift a hand to help them. But the tables were completely turned upon the Hamiltons and their supporters, when rushing "out of their lodging rudlie to the gait in ane furious rage," the peaceable driven forward by the taunts of the others, they found Angus and his spears in full array of battle. "When the Earl of Angus saw them coming, and perceaved Sir Patrick Hamilton foremost, and with him the Maister of Montgomerie, and saw them in sic ane furie, he knew well there was nothing but fighting, and cryed to his men to save Sir Patrick Hamilton if they might; but he came so far before the rest that he was slain hastilie, and with him the Maister of Montgomerie, with sundry other gentlemen, to the number of twelve score and twelve persons." The end of the fray, which was "foughten very hardilie on both sides ane long space," was that Arran's men were driven down the side of the hill through the narrow wynds that led from the High Street towards the wall, and thence made their way out through some postern, or perhaps at the gate near the Well-house Tower, where the little well of St. Margaret now bubbles up unconsidered, and so across the Nor' Loch, by boat or ford. Bishop Beatoun, he whose conscience clattered beneath his robes, fled again to the Blackfriars Church, where Mr. Gawin had found him on the previous evening prepared for mischief, and took refuge there behind the altar, where he was pursued and "his rockit rivin aff him, and had been slain," but that Gawin Douglas, following the pursuers, perhaps with a sarcastic satisfaction in setting forth the virtues of a peaceful robe over the warlike covering that invited as well as preserved from danger, interposed, saying, "It was shame to put hand on ane consecreat bishop." The encounter of these two priests by evening and morning, the supercilious refusal of the mail-clad bishop to interfere, and pretence of ignorance—and, as one may imagine, the watch over him from afar of his brother of Dunkeld with the full intention of peaceful yet effective reprisals, throw a light of grim humour upon the warlike scene. Maister Gawin had no mail-coat, and would not fight; but he must have kept an eye upon his natural foe through the fray, and it would be strange if he had not some pleasure in perceiving the rochet, which Beatoun must have donned hastily to save himself, pulled over his head by rude hands in scorn of the priestly pretence—and some satisfaction in interposing to preserve the "consecreat bishop," whose behaviour was so little saintly.