Chapter IV (5)

"And thou, Bolton, why wentest thou with thy fifty lances?"

"Because I claim kindred with Ormiston."

"So may ye all _hang_ together in the end!" said the Earl, angrily; "while I, your lord and feudal superior, want you, ye are fighting under other banners. Now, Paris, my sword and salade. Summon my grooms, and let us to horse--the fellow cannot be far off yet."

Hob of Ormiston was sheathed in a favourite suit of black armour, which he usually wore to render his sobriquet more complete; but Bothwell's particular friend and ally, Hepburn of Bolton, who was captain of his castle of Hermitage, and lieutenant of Queen Mary's Archer Guard, wore a magnificent suit of polished steel, the gorget and shoulder-plates of which were riveted with rows of golded-headed nails. He was a young and handsome man, and his bright blue eyes sparkled with merriment and good humour under the uplifted visor of his helmet.

Both these gentlemen helped themselves, unasked, to wine, from a red vase of gilded crystal that stood on a buffet, and both laughed somewhat unceremoniously at the unseemly conjugal feud that had evidently taken place, and each made his remarks thereon with a blunt carelessness peculiar rather to the men than to the age.

"The Lady Bothwell seemeth ill at ease," said Ormiston, winking to Hepburn over his wine horn.

"Fore heaven! he must have been a marvellous sorcerer, this Konrad," laughed the young knight, showing all his teeth under a brown mustache; "and if I come within a lance length of him, he will have reason to remember Jock of Bolton for the short remainder of his days."

"Adieu, my bonnibel!" said the Earl, in a low voice, as he laid his hand caressingly on the shoulder of the countess, who never raised her drooping head.

"Adieu!" she sobbed; "and may it be for ever."

"Ah! my jo, Jean--these are severe words," said the Earl, with a faint attempt to laugh; for at times he really felt a sincere tenderness for his little wife.

"Would to God, thou false lord, that I had never met--never married thee!"

"Well, ladybird," said he, with a sudden hauteur that was almost cruel, "thou mayest thank thy kinsman, the politic Earl of Huntly, whose intrigues to procure a rich husband for his tocherless sister brought that bridal about. By our lady! I never sought thee, save in the mere spirit of pastime and gallantry, and in that spirit, Lady Jane, I own that I loved thee well enough for a time."

"A time!" reiterated the Countess.

"Yes--what more wouldest thou have, thou exacting little fairy?"

"A time!" she repeated, and bent her bright but humid eyes upon him, while pressing her white hands tightly together, "Oh, 'twas a pity that love so tender should ever have been spoiled by marriage!"

"Thou growest sarcastic," said the Earl, as he nodded to her jocosely, adjusted his helmet, and began to whistle "_My Jollie Lemane_"--then after a time, he added, "we were never quite suited for each other, my bonnibel. Thou wert too exacting--I too gay."

The poor young Countess wrung her hands, and uttered that low laugh which thrilled through Bothwell's heart. His countenance changed; he drew back, and regarded her anxiously through his closed visor.

"Thou makest a devil of a fuss about this escapade, Lady Bothwell!" said Hob of Ormiston, in his deep bass voice; he had been intently polishing his cuirass with the lining of his gauntlet, and endeavouring to repress his disdain for the Earl's quietness, this fierce baron being in his own household despotic and terrible as a Tartar king or a Bedouin chief, "Why should not thy husband, the Earl, have a gay lemane as well as the godly Arran, the pious Morton, and other nobles, who hold natheless a fair repute in kirk and state?"

"True," said Hepburn, laughing heartily at this coarse remark, "even Master Knox, too! Is there not a story abroad in the Luckenbooths, of his having been found gamboling with a wight-wapping lass in a covered killogie?"[*]

[*] See Life of Knox.

"Mother Mary!" exclaimed the Countess wildly, as she rose to her full height, and turned her eyes of fire upon the speaker; "have I fallen so low, that I have become the sport of ruffians such as you? Begone from my bower ere I die! Is this a place, Lord Earl, for thy cut-throats and swashbucklers to bully and swagger in?"

Black Ormiston uttered a loud laugh.

"Sweet Madam," began Hepburn--

"And thou, too, John of Bolton; begone, for an officious fool!"

"By St. Paul!" said the Earl angrily, "when thou insultest my friends thus, the atmosphere of the house must be too hot to suit me. Paris--ho! attend to thy mistress; and now, sirs, to horse and away, for by the honour of Hepburn, the rascally Norseman who hath brought all this mischief about, shall dree his reward ere the sun goes down."

As they descended to the castle-yard, a wild hyena-like cry came from the Countess's bower, but instead of pausing they hastened their steps.

Horribly it rang in the hollow of Bothwell's helmet, and by it he knew that what he had dreaded was now come to pass--

That his Countess was mad!

*CHAPTER XXIII.*

*THE PURSUIT.*

The drawbridge falls, they hurry out--
Clatters each plank and swinging chain,
At, dashing o'er, the jovial route
Urge the shy steed, and slack rein.
_Scott._

The morning sun rose brightly upon the windings of the azure Clyde, and on the green woodlands whose foliage was reflected on its surface, as Bothwell and his two friends, at the head of about fifty jackmen, mounted on strong and fleet horses, of border training, and armed with steel caps, shirts of mail, two-handed swords and long lances, dashed at full gallop from the archway of the castle, rumbled over the sounding drawbridge, and descending from the height through the barbican gate, plunged into the bosky coppice below, where their bright armour and weapons were seen flashing and glinting among the green foliage, as they spurred towards the bridge and village of Bothwell.

"We must have this Norwegian either killed or captured," said Bothwell emphatically to Ormiston, as they galloped at the head of their train. "To have him at large with such a story on his tongue, would be submitting to my own destruction."

"True, my lord!" replied the unscrupulous retainer; "suppose he fell in the way of Moray or of Morton--what a notable discovery! Thou sayest aright; to leave him at liberty on Scottish ground, with this secret in his fool's noddle, would but serve to ruin thee at Holyrood, and injure all who follow thy banner."

"He has, as we know, wrongs to avenge; and men, in these brisk days of ours, are not wont to follow those precepts of scripture, which Knox and Wishart have dinned into our ears--by turning one cheek to the foe who smites us on the other--and these wrongs may lead him straight to the ears of Huntly. Fool that I was, when he stood on my own hall floor"----

"Where was then thy dagger?" asked black Hob, with a ferocious look.

"May God forbid--and forefend its use in such a place!" replied the Earl. "Such a trick were worse than that old Douglas played the Knight of Bombie at the Castle of Threave, and a deed deserving such meed as I pray Heaven may mete to me, in that hour when I fall so far in guilt. Nay--nay! under my own roof to take the life of a trusting guest! Go to, Ormiston! thou art stark mad, or stark bad!"

"Cock and pie! what a fuss thou makest! Then thou hadst the dungeon, and it might have spared us this ride, which to say truth, after our last night's hard work in plate and mail, with lance and maul, I could very well have spared. I have been cheated of breakfast, too! But mayhap the warder at the bridge hath a bowie of porridge, or a slice of beef and a can of ale, to spare."

"Hob, do thou take the bridle-path that leads to the tower of Clelland; after the drubbing thou gavest him overnight, the laird will not likely molest thy pennon. Scatter twenty lances to prick among the woodlands. Bolton, thou wilt ride with ten men by Calderside, and do likewise; while I cross the Clyde, and search by Blantyre Priory. _Keep tryste_ on Bothwell-muir! So now adieu, sirs!--Forward, my stout prickers, and remember, my merry men all--twenty unicorns of gold to the finder of this knave! He is a tall fellow, with a fair curly head, a corselet, and black hosen."

Dividing into three, at a wave of his hand the horsemen separated, and galloped off on their different routes.

Leaving the Knight of Ormiston and the Lieutenant of the Archers to pursue their various roads, which happily they did without success, we will accompany the Earl, who, with twenty prickers, or light-armed horsemen, rode towards the bridge of Bothwell, pursuing the ancient Roman way.

It was a glorious summer morning; the air was balmy, and all nature wore its brightest hue; the green fields and the waving foliage were rich and verdant, and glittered in the silver dew, which the sun was exhaling in gauzy mist. Bothwell, full of anxiety to recapture Konrad, and thereafter to find some means necessary for stifling the dangerous secret he possessed, rode furiously on, despatching his riders by couples along the various narrow paths that led from the ancient way, to the different baronial towers and hamlets whose smoke was seen curling from the woods on each side.

With their mossy roofs and clay-built lums, the latter were generally nestling in the wooded dingles which were overlooked by the battlemented peels, that stood in bold outline against the sky, with their red walls glancing, and dark smoke ascending in the sunshine. From their summits many a watchman looked sharply and keenly at the distant horsemen as they rode through the thickets below, appearing at times on the dusty highway, or spurring along the steep Hill-sides, with their lance-heads flashing like silver stars among the bright green leaves.

With all the impetuosity of his nature, Bothwell rode fast and furiously on, and till he reached the muir never drew bridle, save once, to cross himself and mutter an _ave_ on passing one of those little chapels or roadside shrines, which are still so common in Spain and Italy, and which the pious spirit of the olden time erected by the wayside to remind the passers of their religious duties. It was rudely formed, and had been erected by his pious ancestress, Agnes Stewart of Buchan, that the wayfarer might say one prayer for the soul of her husband, Adam Earl of Bothwell, who had fallen fighting for Scotland on Flodden field.

And here the Earl, even in his path of vengeance, paused to offer up a prayer.

The little chapel was formed by a single gothic arch, containing an altar, a niche, and pedestal graven with the words, _Saint Mary, pray for me!_ but the hands of the Reformers had been there; the shrine was empty, the altar mutilated, the weeds and wallflower were growing in luxuriance about it, and the fountain, that once had flowed from a carved face into a stone basin below, in consequence of the wanton and fanatical destruction of the latter, was running across the roadway, where it had long since made for itself a little channel.

The extensive muir of Bothwell, which is now so beautiful in its modern state of cultivation and fertility, was then a wide sequestered waste of purple heather, dotted by grey rocks, tufts of golden broom, and masses of dark green whin.

Traces of that recent feudal conflict, in which Ormiston and Bolton had been handling their swords, were met at every rood of the way, by the Earl and six horsemen who now accompanied him. Broken swords and splintered lances were lying by the roadside, and parties of peasantry were passed, bearing away the dead and wounded in grey plaids, on biers of pikes or branches of trees; the women tearing their hair and lamenting aloud; the men, with their bonnets drawn over their knitted brows, brooding on that future vengeance which, in those days of feudalism, and of bold hearts and ready hands, was never far distant.

A ride of a mile and a half from his castle gate brought the Earl to the village of Bothwell, which bordered the ancient way known as the Watling street. Then it was but a little thatched hamlet, clustered with gable ends and clay lums, near the venerable church founded by Archibald the Grim, Lord of Galloway. Beyond, lay the mains and groves of Bothwellhaugh, possessed by a lesser baron of the house of Hamilton.

Here the vassal villagers came crowding, bonnet in hand, around the Earl, and in courtesy he was compelled to touch his helmet and rein up; while the parish beadle, after tinkling the skelloche bell, issued, according to an ancient custom now obsolete in Scotland, the following burial proclamation:--

"All brethren and sisters! I let you to wit, there is a brother, Ninian Liddal of the Nettlestanebrae, hath been slain by the Laird of Lauchope's riders, in a raid yestreen, on Bothwell-muir, as was the will and pleasure of Almighty God (lifting his bonnet). The burying will be at twelve o'clock the morn, and the corpse is streekit and kistit at the change-house, up by the townhead!"

And he departed, ringing his bell in the same slow fashion with which he usually preceded funerals, to the collegiate kirk of Bothwell.

On the purple muirland many unclaimed bodies were lying stark and rigid--

"With the dew on their brow, and the rust on their mail;"

while the black corbies and ravenous gleds were wheeling in circles above them, in that blue sky on which the eyes of the dead had closed for ever.

"Gramercy!" said Hay of Tallo, a follower of the Earl, as a man, whose beard was white as snow, and whose loose grey gown was torn in many places, hurried out of their path; "is not yonder fellow some mass-monging priest?"

"Gif I thought so," growled a jackman, lifting his lance, "I would cleave his croon! He hath been searching the scrips and pouches of the dead."

"Shriving the dying, more likely, thou knave!" said the Earl; "'tis Father Tarbet, a poor monk of a Reformed monastery, and I dare thee to offer him insult under peril of pit and gyves."

A powerful horse, bearing its steel-bowed military saddle, accoutred with caliver and jedwood axe, lay rolling in the last agonies of death, with a broken lance thrust far into its broad bosom.

Such sights and incidents were rather too common in that age to attract much attention; so the Earl and his followers, without even remarking them, rode on to the end of the extensive muir, and there wound their horns to call together such of their companions as might be within hearing.

One by one the wearied riders came in, but brought no tidings of the fugitive.

Every sheeptrack and pathway through all the extensive barony had been searched--by Woodhall and Sweethope; by the old tower of Lauchope on its steep rock; by the banks of the Calder that flowed beneath it, and in that great cavern where Wight Wallace found a refuge in the days of old; by Bothwell brig, and muir, and haugh; by the old gothic kirk and the Prebend's Yards; but without finding a trace of Konrad.

Hob of Ormiston, and Hepburn, the captain of Hermitage, came in last, with the same tidings; and, with uplifted hand, the wrathful Earl made a vow of vengeance upon the fugitive.

The armour of the whole troop was covered with summer dust, and their horses were jaded by hard and devious riding.

"And now, my lord," said Hepburn of Bolton, "whither wend we?"

"To court--to court! As warden of the three marches, I have received a summons to attend the queen, who holds her court at Linlithgow; and I will return to Bothwell no more--not to night at least," added the Earl; "are all our knaves come up?"

"Every lance, my lord," replied young Hepburn, counting the files with his spear.

"Then set forward, sirs--and, John of Bolton, do thou lead the van," and at the head of his numerous train the Earl departed from Clydesdale.

A band of so many armed retainers, attending a great baron to court, excited no surprise in that age. A feudal landholder's influence being exactly measured, not by the number of merks Scots he drew per annum, but by the number of men he could lead to battle on behalf of the King or himself. Godscroft informs us that the great Earl of Douglas, who was slain at Edinburgh about a hundred years before the days of Bothwell, never rode abroad with less than two thousand mailed horsemen under his banner.

*CHAPTER XXIV.*

*MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.*

O king! in an evil day was I beloved by you,
Since that, love has cost me dear!
_Amadis de Gaul._

It was in the month of June, and in the meridian of one of June's most beautiful days. The sun shone joyously on old Linlithgow's wooded loch and magnificent palace; on its carved towers, the clustered gables of its grand facade; and on the belfry of St. Michael, the friend of strangers; on the venerable oaks and graceful ashes that fringed its azure lake, where the snow-white swans were floating in crystal and light; on the steep and narrow streets of the town, with their high-peaked roofs and crow-stepped gables, encrusted with coats-of-arms and quaint devices--on all its varied scenery, fell the bright radiance of a cloudless noon.

The sky was of the purest blue, and the lake gleamed like a vast mirror of polished crystal, reflecting in its depths the banks of emerald green, the beautiful palace, with all its mullioned windows and long perspective of crenelated battlements, the summer woodlands, and the floating swans.

Though the poverty and gloom that spread over Scotland with the Reformation, had dimmed the splendour of her court, and depressed the spirit of her people, turning their gaiety into stolid gravity and moroseness, the palace then bore an aspect very different from that it bears to-day.

In many a hall and chamber, where now the long reedy grass, the tenacious ivy, the scented wallflower, and the wild docken, flourish in luxuriance, the well-brushed tapestries of silk and cloth of gold hung on tenterhooks of polished steel; and casements of stained glass, rich with the armorial bearings of Bourbon, Lorraine, Guise, England, and other alliances of the house of Stuart, filled up those mullioned windows, where now the owl and the ravenous gled build their nests; for now the velvet moss and the long grass, are growing green on the floors of Queen Margaret's crumbling bower, and Mary's roofless birthplace--in the stately hall where Scotland's peers, in parliament assembled, gave laws to her lawless clans; and the beautiful chapel, where, for many an age, the most solemn sacraments of the first church were dispensed to her gallant rulers.

In the June of the year of God 1567, its aspect was the same as when King James, of gallant memory, had left it for Flodden field.

The leaves were as green and the grass as verdant, the lake was as blue and the sun as bright, as they are to-day, and may be a thousand years after the last stone of Linlithgow shall have fallen from its place.

Its casements were glittering in the sunshine; the royal standard of Scotland, the yellow banner with the lion gules, was waving from one of the great towers; steel was flashing on parapet and tourelle, as the polished basinets and pikeheads of the soldiers of the guard appeared at intervals on the stone bartisans, from which a number of those little brass cannon known as drakes and moyennes peeped between the massive embrasures. And in that deep archway, which is guarded by two strong octagon towers, perforated with numerous arrow-holes, and surmounted by a gorgeous battlement, representing in four carved compartments the orders of knighthood borne by James V.--the Saint Andrew, Saint George, Saint Michael, and the Golden Fleece--were crowding a group of liverymen and swashbucklers in half-armour, with sword, target, and dagger, their arrogance and pride of clanship being displayed by their bearing and ferocity of aspect, their cocked bonnets, and embroidered sleeve-badges. Mingling with them were gaily attired pages, grooms, falconers, and archers of the queen's body guard, clad in green gaberdines with gorgets and caps of steel, each bearing his unstrung bow, and having a sheaf of arrows bristling in the same belt that sustained his short cross-hilted sword and long double-edged dagger.

The bustle about the palace gates was unusual, for the Lords of the Privy Council were assembled in the Parliament hall, and Mary was seated on the throne.

Into that magnificent apartment, which measures a hundred feet in length by thirty in breadth, and which had a roof nearly forty feet in height, light was admitted by two rows of arched windows, between each of which projected a double tier of beautiful corbels, the lower upholding a line of statues--the upper sustaining the ceiling of elaborate oak, which sprung away aloft into intricacy and brown obscurity. A vast fireplace yawned at one end; it was supported by four gothic columns, clustered and capitalled with the richest embossage.

The young King Henry, a tall and handsome, but pale and beardless youth, whose effeminate aspect contrasted strongly with those of the mustached and sunburned lords of the council, sat on the Queen's left hand. His face was a perfect oval, and his eyes were dark like his hair, which was short and curly. His attire was fashioned in the extreme of gorgeous extravagance; the sleeves and breast of his blue satin doublet being loaded with lace and precious stones. He had nothing military about him save a small walking-sword, for arms were not King Henry's forte, which was quite enough to make the Scots heartily despise him.

A long career of debauchery, drinking, and excess, had ruined his constitution, and now a pallor like unto that of death was visible in his hollow cheek and lustreless eye; and as he lounged back in his cushioned seat, much more interested in flirting with the maids of honour than listening to affairs debated by the council, he had all the aspect of the prematurely worn out man of pleasure--the satiated _roue_--the _ennuyee_, whom the slightest exertion of mind or body was sufficient to bore to death. Mary, disgusted by his daily excesses, which shocked her delicacy and wounded her pride, had long since ceased to love him, and had learned to deplore that alliance which youthful inclination, and the ardour of her impulsive nature, rather than the dictates of prudence, had led her to form; when from among all her suitors, many of whom were the sons of kings--the Archduke of Austria, Don Carlos of Spain, and others--she, the most beautiful woman in Europe, she, whose genius equalled her beauty, and whose piety equalled her genius, preferred the worthless heir of the exiled house of Lennox! This ill-fated marriage began the long series of those disastrous events which ended in the towers of Fotheringay; but who then, when Mary was seated on the throne of a hundred kings, in the palace of her fathers, with the crown of Bruce, the sceptre of James V., and the consecrated sword of Pope Julius before her, could have foreseen that dark hour of humiliation and of death?

The beauty of Darnley's person was his only merit. He was alike destitute of honour, religion, and morality--in all, the reverse of Mary. Vain and imperious, fierce, jealous, and capricious, his temper soon excited disgust in her sensitive mind; and the ruthless murder of her poor Italian secretary, had converted her rash and youthful love into contempt and hatred--for such at times is the transition; such is the fickleness of the human heart; and "the vivacity of Mary's spirit," says an historian, "not being sufficiently tempered with sound judgment, and the warmth of her heart, which was not at all times under the restraint of discretion, betrayed her into errors."

At this very time, when the council were most intent upon some knotty points of state policy, the king, oblivious of all, or affecting to be so, was alternately playing with the gold tassels of his embroidered mantle, and coquetting with Mariette Hubert, a young French lady, by conversing in the symbolical language of flowers; for each had taken a bouquet from a row of Venetian vases that decorated the hall windows, and filled its vast space with delightful perfume. When addressed by the Queen, he replied with a hauteur and brevity that she could ill brook; for, although he had acquired the title of King, and been admitted to share her councils, he was dissatisfied that she did not invest him with greater power, and content herself with the rank of mere queen-consort. To this measure, Mary, aware of his utter incapacity for governing, and the aversion of the fierce noblesse, wisely declined an assent; and Darnley's haughty spirit never forgave the affront, which he attributed to the influence of Rizzio; hence his leaguing with Moray and Morton; and hence the murder in the queen's chamber at Holyrood, fifteen months before.

A succession of strong flakes of light fell through the lozenged casements of the stained windows on one side of the hall, and threw their prismatic hues on the long table which was covered with green cloth, and on the bearded peers who sat around it. All were richly attired in satin and velvet, slashed and furred with miniver; all were well armed, some having corselets and plate sleeves, others pyne doublets, calculated to resist the points and edges of the best-tempered weapons.

There were present the Earl of Morton, lord high chancellor, whose fine countenance compensated in some degree for the shortness of his stature. His face was dark and swarthy; his beard long and sweeping, but its blackness was now beginning to be touched with grey; his eyes, quick and cunning, keen and penetrating, watched every visage, but chiefly that of his colleague and compatriot--his partner in many a deep intrigue and desperate counter-plot, James Stuart, the still more famous Earl of Moray, who seemed the living image of his handsome father, James V. He had the same dark oval face, so melancholy and dignified in its contour, the same short beard and close shorn chin, the same thick brown mustache, and deep dark hazel-eye. But under that calm exterior were a heart and mind unequalled in ambition, and unsurpassed in state-craft--a wisdom that bordered on cunning--a caution that (at times) bordered on cowardice--a bravery that bordered on rashness; yet never for an instant did he lose sight of that object which every secret energy had for years been bent to attain, and for which his life was staked--POWER!

And there were Cassilis, Lindesay, and Olencairn, dark-browed, savage, brutal, and illiterate as any barons that ever figured in the pages of romance--each the beau-ideal of a feudal tyrant; morose by fanaticism, and inflated by power; for a few short years had seen them and their compatriots gorged to their full with the plundered temporalities of the fallen hierarchy. And there, too, were the venerable Le Crocq, the good and wise ambassador of Charles IX., wearing the silver shells of St. Michael glittering on his plain doublet of black taffeta; and Monsieur le Marquis d'Elboeuff, brother of the late Queen Regent, Mary of Lorraine.

This gay and thoughtless, but handsome noble, was dressed in the extremity of Parisian foppery. His doublet was cloth of gold; his breeches, of crimson velvet, reached to within six inches of his knees, from whence he had long hose of white silk. He wore a very high ruff, with the Golden Fleece of Burgundy, and the Thistle of the order of Bourbon under it. A yellow satin mantle dangled from his left shoulder; his gloves were perfumed to excess; his hat was conical and broad-brimmed, but he carried it tinder his left arm. His short Parmese poniard and long Toledo sword were covered with precious stones, and in imitation of the great English beau, the effeminate Earl of Pembroke, in addition to ear-rings, he had dangling at his right ear a flower--presumed to be the gift of some enamoured belle--while from the left depended a long love-lock.

Contrasting strongly with all this frippery, in the dignity of his aspect and bearing, and the plainness of his dress, Sir William Maitland of Lethington, secretary of the kingdom--the Scottish Machiavel, the greatest and most vacillating statesman Scotland ever produced--stood at the foot of the green table.

Attired in simple black velvet, but having a long stomacher dotted with seed pearls, an enormous fardingale, and a little ruff round her delicate neck, Mary, having little other adornment than those which nature had given her, sat under the purple canopy of her grandsire, James IV. From a brow that bore the impress of intelligence and candour, her auburn hair that gleamed like gold (when, from a lofty casement above, the sunlight fell upon it), was drawn back from her snowy temples, and, by being puffed out on each side, while her little velvet cap was depressed in the centre by a gold drop, increased the dignified contour of a face that was never beheld without exciting admiration and love. The steady brilliance of her splendid dark eyes, the form of her nostrils, together with the exquisite curve of her short upper lip, and dimpled chin, all expressed in an eminent degree the various emotions of her acute and sensitive mind; while they were ever full of a sweetness and beauty that were no less singular in their character than remarkable in their degree.

Every turn of her beautiful head, every motion of her rounded arms and dimpled hands, were full of grace; so that even "dark Morton," the ferocious Lindesay, and subtle Moray, while at that moment plotting her downfall and destruction, could not but in their secret souls acknowledge how noble and bewitching was that being whom they were seeking to hurl from the Scottish throne.

She carried at her waist a little amber rosary, or Saviour's chaplet, of thirty-three beads, being one for each year that Christ dwelt among us on earth; and, true to that religion which formed her last and best consolation in that terrible hour which none could then foresee, she wore on her bosom a little crucifix of gold.

Behind her state chair were several ladies of the court, wearing enormous fardingales and high ruffs, and some of them--particularly the Countesses of Argyle and Huntly--having their heads loaded with ornaments.

The captain of the archer guard, Arthur Erskine, a handsome young cadet of the house of Mar, clad in half armour of the richest steel, and having his helmet borne by a page, stood near the doorway of the hall, about thirty yards from the green table, and quite beyond earshot. Close by the door stood his lieutenant, the knight of Bolton, leaning on his drawn sword, and dividing his time between watching the ladies of the court, tracing diagrams on the oak floor with the point of his weapon, and complacently viewing his own handsome person in a large mirror that hung opposite.

Mary's pleading eyes were full of tears; for the rudeness and rebellious spirit of her council stung her pride and wounded her delicacy.

The principal matter in debate had been the muster of troops and commissioning of a noble to lead them to the borders, where a court of justice was to be held for the repression of turbulence among the moss-trooping lairds of Teviotdale; but the proceedings had been constantly interrupted by the boisterous Patrick Lord Lindesay, and William Earl of Glencairn, who in harsh and scandalous terms urged upon their compeers the necessity of enforcing stringent laws against the church of Rome, as a just meed for its tyranny in the noon of pride and power.

"Yea, my lords," continued the latter, pursuing with kindling eyes and furious gesture the train of his address; "methinks I need not inform you, that there have been divers and sundry acts of estate passed in the days of the James's, her majesty's royal predecessors, yea, and in our sovereign lady's time, quhilk aggreith not with the holy word of God--acts tending to the maintenance and upholding of idolatory and the mass, the superstition and the mummery of the Church of Rome"----

"_Ma chere, Madame!_" began the Marquis d'Elboeuff, rising with his hand on his sword, and his kindling eyes fixed on Mary.

"My lord--my lord!" exclaimed Lethington and the politic Moray together, on seeing that the queen's eyes were flashing through their tears.

"He speaketh like a stout man and true," said old Lord Lindesay, starting up on the opposite side of the table, and leaning on his long and well-rusted Flemish sword. "He sayeth the truth, quhilk I will maintain against all gainsayers with this gude whinger, body for body, on foot or on horseback. For what, my lords, was the mumming of the mass but ane superstition devisit of auld by the devil, and his godson, the Bishop of Rome--callit the Paip; and I swear, and avow, and aver, that no man should, or shall, be permitted to uphold him or them, in thought, or word, or deed, from this time forward, within the realm and isles of Scotland, under pain of proscription, banishment, barratrie--yea, and death!"

"Stout Lindesay, thou sayest well!" responded Glencairn; "and a bright day was it for Scotland, when the bellygods and shavelings of Rome lay grovelling in the dust of their gilded altars and painted blasphemies."

"Gramercy! my lords," said Mary, sarcastically. "I think that few men should be more merciful to our fallen church than you. Fie! Lord Lindsay: is not thy daughter Margaret wedded to David Beatoun of Creich, a son of the great cardinal who was the very emperor of those Roman bellygods; while thou, my Lord Glencairn, brookest all the broad lands and rich livings, chapelries and altarages, of the noble Abbey of Kilwinning?"

Lindesay's swarthy cheek glowed brick-red, and Glencairn's brow was darkened by a deeper frown.

"_Ah, ma bonne!_" said Mary, turning to her sister, the Countess of Argyle, and whispering something in French, at which they both laughed; while the two pillars of the Reformation, who knew as much of French as they did of Choctaw or Cherokee, exchanged mutual glances expressive of unutterable ferocity. Moray and Morton also exchanged two of those deep smiles which their faces always assumed when any thing like a storm was brewing at the council board.

"My lords," said the poor Queen, in her most persuasive voice, "let us again return to the matter in debate, which is of more importance than framing acts for the further oppression of a fallen church, the prosecution of sorcerers, or enforcing sombre attire and scanty fere upon our poor lieges."

"Matter, madam!" growled Lindesay.

"I mean the bearing of the royal banner to the borders. Lord Lindesay, what sayest thou to assume the baton?"

"I thank your Majesty, but may the devil break my bones gif I will."

"Wherefore, thou silly carle?" asked Morton in a low voice.

"Because the papists of the house of Lennox are ranked under the Queen's banner," replied the rough baron, bluntly.

"By the holy Paul!" said Darnley yawning; "but I deem thee Lindesay the most obdurate, as well as insolent heretic in all broad Scotland."

Lindesay was almost choking with passion at what he deemed the petulance of a pampered boy; but the storm that might have broken forth was allayed for a time, by the Queen saying hastily to the secretary of state--

"Sir William Maitland, will it please you to read the last letter of _ma bonne soeur_ Elizabeth, concerning the broken men of Tarras moss and Teviotdale?"

That most subtle of secretaries bowed very low, and while the lords of the council courteously arose to hear the Queen of England's letter read, he carefully unfastened the white ribbon and red seal bearing three lions, and unfolded the missive of the cold and crafty Tudor.

He read as follows:--

"Right high, right excellent, and mighty Princess, our dearest good-sister and cousin, to you be our most hearty commendations.

"It is well known unto you, that the inobedience of certain of your subjects, and their turbulent inroads and forays with displayed banners and uplifted lances among our baronies and beeves of Northumberland, have bred great misery to our people, who desire to live in all tender love with the Scots on the north side of the debatable land. We may mention particularly the prickers of John Elliot of Park, Kerr of Cessford, Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch, and other notorious thieves and outlaws; and we lament that, for the wrongs sustained by our lieges at their hands, this our loving message may be followed by the garter king with our glove, if peace be not kept, and restitution made; and so, right high, right excellent, and mighty Princess, our dearest good-sister and cousin, we pray God to send you a long and prosperous reign.

"ELIZABETH R.

"Done at our castle of Greenwich, the 1st May, 1567."

"God send that glove comes soon!" said Glencairn with stern joy; "my father fell at Pinkie, and my grandsire fell at Flodden, so I have a debt of blood as yet unsettled with those Englishmen."

"Our dearest sister's letter contains a most unsisterly threat," said the Queen with one of her arch smiles; "but this, her reiterated remonstrance, deserves attention. Sir Walter Scott of Branxholme and Buccleuch"----

"I will be his surety, please your grace," said Morton, whose niece Buccleuch had married; "I will be warranty to the amount of ten thousand merks."

"And I for my kinsman Cessford in the same," added Lord Crichton of Sanquhar, a tall and fair-haired peer, wearing a shirt of mail and velvet mantle.

"Ten thousand merks--um--um--that the lairds of Cessford and Buccleuch will underly the law," muttered the secretary, making a minute in his books.

"Poor John of Park! and will no one become surety for thee?" said the Queen.

"Nay, your grace," replied Sir William Maitland; "no one would be so foolhardy with his merks. He is the strongest thief between the Lammermuir and the Rere cross of Stanmore; he never rides abroad with less than four hundred lances in his train, all broken men, and masterful thieves."

"All daredevils!" said the Earl of Moray; "troopers with scarred visages, and hearts as tough and impenetrable as their armour. Ah! Park loves the bright moonlight well."

"So do I," added the Queen, artlessly; "how droll!"

"But not in John o' Park's fashion, sweet sister," replied the swarthy Earl. "He loves it as a lamp to light him into Northumberland, when he thinks little of riding some forty miles between midnight and cockcrow--laying a dozen of villages in ashes, sacking as many peelhouses, overthrowing a score of homesteads, and so returning on the spur with all the cattle of a countryside, goaded by the lances of his troopers, who usually have them all safe in Ettrick wood or Tarras moss, long ere the old bandsmen of Berwick, or the riders of the English wardenrie, are in their stirrups."

"We will bridle his vivacity," said Mary. "Earl Marischal, how many of our vassals have repaired to the royal standard, in conformity to the proclamation?"

"Three thousand, please your majesty," replied the veteran head of the house of Keith.

"Then who will lead them to the field?"

There was a half simultaneous motion among the peers--but the Reformed lords drew back, because the Catholic vassals of Lennox were said to be under the royal standard; and the Catholic lords exhibited a similar coldness from a dislike to lead the Protestant vassals of the crown. There was a pause, and all turned towards King Henry as the most fitting person to uphold the authority of his royal consort; but he was still engaged coquetting with Mariette Hubert, and a blush of shame and anger crossed the cheek of Mary.

At that moment the great chamberlain, John Lord Fleming, raised his wand, and cried with a loud voice--

"Place for the noble lord, James Earl of Bothwell, Lord of Hailes, Crichton, and Dirleton!" and the lieutenant of the Royal Archers hastily drew aside the tapestry concealing the doorway of the hall.

END OF VOLUME FIRST.

M'CORQUODALE & CO., 24, CARDINGTON STREET, LONDON.
WORKS--NEWTON.