Kitabı oku: «Kirkcaldy of Grange», sayfa 8

John Knox was in Edinburgh at the time; and raised his powerful voice in condemnation of ‘so slanderous, so malapert, so fearful, and so tyrannous a deed. For,’ said he, ‘if the committer had been a man without God, a throat-cutter, one that had never known the works of God, it would have moved me no more than other riots and enormities which my eyes have seen the Prince of this world, Satan, to raise by his instruments. But to see the stars fall from heaven, and a man of knowledge commit so manifest treason, what godly heart cannot lament, tremble, and fear? God be merciful! for the example is terrible, and we have all need earnestly to call to God, that we be not led into temptation; but specially to deliver us from the company of the wicked; for, within these few years, men would have looked for other fruits than have budded out of that man.’

As soon as the Reformer’s rebuke was communicated to him, Kirkcaldy replied to it in a letter which he addressed to Craig, the minister of the church, to whom it was delivered as he was in his pulpit. It ran as follows: ‘This day John Knox, in his sermon, called me, openly, a murderer and a throat-cutter, wherein he hath spoken farther than he is able to justify. For I take God to witness, if it was my mind that the man’s blood should have been shed, of whom he calleth me the murderer. And the same God I desire, from the bottom of my heart, to pour out his vengeance suddenly upon him or me, which of us two hath been most desirous of innocent blood. This I desire you, in God’s name, to declare openly to the public. At Edinburgh Castle, the 24th of December 1570.’

Craig, however, refused to comply with the request contained in the latter part of the letter, stating that he would read nothing from the pulpit without the knowledge and consent of the Kirk. In another letter, which he wrote to the Kirk Session of Edinburgh, Kirkcaldy gave his version of what had happened, throwing all the blame on the Duries, and protesting his innocence of any intention to cause the death of Seton.

To the first of these letters, Knox publicly made reply on his next appearance in the pulpit, denying that he had ever made use of the words imputed to him. ‘Is there any of you,’ he asked, ‘that heard me, in this public place, call the Laird of Grange, now Captain of the Castle of Edinburgh, a cruel murderer, an open throat-cutter, and one whose nature I had long known to be bloodthirsty? I accused indeed, that unjust and cruel murder; I affirmed the violating of the house of justice to be treason; and finally I complained, that the like enormity and pernicious example I never saw in Scotland. Not but I had seen murder and rebellion before; yea, I have seen magistrates gainstood, and the supreme magistrates of the Crown besieged in their own tolbooth; and I have seen condemned persons violently reft from the gallows and gibbet. But none of all these forenamed can be compared to this last outrage. For, if the masters and authors of this last riot had been known before to have been open throat-cutters, bloodthirsty men, and such as had been void of the true fear of God, I would have been no more moved at this time, than I have been at other times before. But, to see stars fallen from Heaven; to see men who have felt as well God’s judgments as mercies, in a past; and to see men of whom all godly hearts have had a good opinion – to see, I say, such men so far carried away, that both God and man are not only forgot, but also publicly despised, is both dolorous and fearful to be remembered.’ Then, referring to Kirkcaldy’s escape from Mont Saint-Michel, the preacher continued: ‘For I have known that man in his greatest extremity, when he might have set himself at freedom by shedding of blood, at the counsel of sober men, he utterly refused all such cruelty, and took a hazard to the flesh most fearful; which God notwithstanding blessed, having a respect to the simplicity of his heart. And, therefore, then I said, and yet I say, that this example in him is the most terrible example that ever I saw in Scotland. I know that some have made other report. But, in their face I say, that of their father the Devil they have learnt to lie, wherein if they continue without repentance, they shall burn in Hell.’

In a letter to the Kirk-Session, Knox again denied having called Kirkcaldy a murderer and a cut-throat; but maintained that he had only done his duty in publicly denouncing a public outrage. Unwilling to prolong the controversy, Kirkcaldy declared himself satisfied that the words at which he had taken offence were uttered in lament, and for amendment of his fault, and not to his hurt, injury, or defamation, and formally withdrew his complaint. But Knox was not content with a view that implied a recantation on his part; and on the following Sunday, when the Captain, after nearly a year’s absence from Divine Service, again appeared in St Giles’s, the Reformer, construing his presence into an open defiance, denounced ‘proud contemners,’ and warned them that God’s mercy appertained not to such as, with knowledge, proudly transgressed, and thereafter most proudly maintained their transgression.

The excitement produced by an open quarrel between two such men as Knox and Kirkcaldy was not confined to the Capital. Exaggerated rumours were circulated from town to town, and in several places there arose a belief that Grange had sworn the death of the Reformer. Acting on this, a number of noblemen and gentlemen wrote from Ayr to the Laird of Grange, to signify their strong condemnation of his conduct. They could hardly believe, their protest ran, that he who had been, not a simple professor, but a defender of religion, could be moved to do any harm to him on whose safety the prosperity and increase of religion depended; and they deprecated any hostile design against the man whom God had made both the first planter, and also the chief waterer of his Kirk amongst them, and whose welfare was as dear and precious to them as their own.

Kirkcaldy had thought the incident of sufficient importance, under the existing circumstances, to justify his reporting it directly to the English Government himself. In replying to his letter, it suited Cecil to adopt the lofty moral tone which he knew would meet with the approval of the Clerical party. After condemning the ‘heinous fact,’ and expatiating on its guilt in one ‘having a place of government committed to him, and having for so many years made the world think that he professed the Evangel,’ he closed his letter in these sharp terms: – ‘how you will allow my plainness I know not; but surely I should think myself guilty of blood if I should not thoroughly mislike you; and to this I must add, that I hear, but yet am loath to believe it, that your soldiers that broke the prison have not only taken out the murderer your man, but a woman that was there detained as guilty of the lamentable death of the late good Regent. Alas! my Lord, may this be true? And, with your help, may it be conceived in thought that you – you, I mean, that were so dear to the Regent, should favour his murderers in this sort. Surely, my Lord, if this be true, there is provided by God some notable work of His justice to be shewed upon you; and yet I trust you are not so void of God’s grace: and so for mine old friendship with you, and for the avoiding the notable slander of God’s word, I heartily wish it to be untrue.’

Cecil had no reason to congratulate himself on having given credence to details for which he had not the authority of Kirkcaldy himself. In reply to his epistle, the Captain of the Castle was able to inform him that the woman, whose supposed escape had aroused his indignation, was still in the Tolbooth.

XI. THE HOLDING OF THE CASTLE

In the summer of 1570, the treacherous advice of Sussex had been followed, and, under pretence of punishing those who had given shelter to the rebellious Dacres, he had been sent, with an army of four thousand men, into Annandale, which he ravaged with such remorseless ferocity that, in his own words, not a stone house was left to an ill neighbour within twenty miles of Carlisle. This unjustifiable act of aggression may be looked upon as one of the immediate causes that led Grange decisively and irrevocably to throw in his lot with the party which refused to recognise the authority of Lennox. A two months’ truce delayed what had now become an inevitable step on his part. And even then, when the crisis came, it had been hurried on by Lennox’s action. On the 19th of March, before the actual expiration of the armistice, he caused proclamation to be made in Edinburgh, forbidding, upon pain of treason, that any should serve Grange, and commanding those who were already with him to leave him within three days. On the same afternoon, Kirkcaldy retaliated by causing Captain Melville to go through the town, with beat of drum, offering pay to all such as would repair to the Castle. Next day he took possession of the Abbey and of St Giles’s, and put men and munitions into them. He further levied provisions from the Leith merchants, and took every measure of prudence and precaution that a long military experience suggested, with a view to enabling the Castle to stand a long siege. He was so satisfied with the result of his efforts that he indulged in a ‘rowstie ryme’ in which, besides reviling his enemies and casting upon them the entire responsibility for the calamities under which the country was groaning, he proudly set forth all that he had done to resist any attempt on their part to drive him from his stronghold.

 
For I haue men and meit aneugh,
They know I am ane tuilyeour teoch,
And wilbe rycht sone greved:
When thei haue tint als mony teith,
As thei did at the seige of Leith,
They wilbe faine to leive it.
Then quha, I pray you, salbe boun
Thair tinsall to advance?
Or gif sic compositione
As thei got then of France?
This sylit, begylit,
They will bot get the glaikis;
Cum thai heir, thir tuo yeir,
They sall not misse thair paikis.⁵
 

On the 13th of April, when, in answer to his call, a considerable number not only of soldiers, but of powerful noblemen and gentlemen also, had gathered about him, he issued a proclamation in which he charged the Earl of Lennox with having unlawfully usurped the government of the kingdom, and with having unjustifiably circulated calumnies, injuries, and untrue reports about him, and which, after declaring with pardonable pride and damaging truth, that he had risked his life for Scotland when the new Regent was against it, he closed with a characteristic challenge: —

‘If anie gentleman undefamed, of my qualitie and degree, of his factioun and perteaning to him, will say the contrare heerof but I am a true Scotish man, I will say he speeketh untruelie, and leeth falslie in his throat; and denounce by thir presents to whatsomever persons will take the said querrell in hand, I sall be readie to fight with him on horsebacke or on foote, at time and place to be appointed, according to the lawes of armes.’

When the Captain’s preparations were complete, he set himself to the task of training the garrison. For that purpose he devised a sham assault, which the chronicler who records it, ignorant of military matters, sets down as a foolish skirmish, and as mere boastful display. His graphic description of it, however, is interesting as a quaint picture of mediæval warfare. ‘The one part of the Captan’s souldiours tooke upon them to skirmishe, in manner of an assault to the Castell; the other part of the Captan’s gentlemen took upon them the defence and keeping of the Castell. The skirmishe continued from eight houres at night till nyne. It was demanded from the Castell, who these were that troubled the Captan, under silence of night? It was answered by the other partie below, that they were the Queen of England’s armie. These beganne brawling and flytting; and these in the Castell answered, “Away, lubbard! Away, blew-coat! I defy thee, white-coat!” “Dirt in your teeth!” “Hence, knaves, and goe tell that whoore, your mastresse, yee sall not come heere. We lett you know, we have men, meat, and ordinance for seven yeeres.” About the end of the skirmishe, three cannons were discharged, and the counterfoot assaulters tooke the flight.’

That no misrepresentation of the course which he had been driven into adopting should supply the English Government with a pretext for laying the resumption of hostilities to his charge, Kirkcaldy wrote a full justification of his conduct to Sussex, Leicester, and Burghley. It ran as follows: ‘I have received your letter, dated at Westminster the 7th of this instant, and thereby understand that your Lordships have, upon the sight of my letters and the Marshal of Berwick’s report, rightly conceived my meaning touching the pacification of these inward troubles and continuation of the amity between these two realms, which course I intend still to follow further, so far as I may conveniently. I greatly mislike that a part of this nobility should go about by all means to destroy the other; and would wish that on both parts they should moderate their passions, being content every one of his own rank and degree, and not seek by extraordinary means one to overthrow the other. As to the amity between the realms, if any occasion has fallen out of late time, or shall fall out hereafter, which may disturb, change, or diminish the intelligence happily begun, I protest that I have detested, and shall detest such as are the occasioners thereof; and wish that your Lordships hold hand to remove all such incidents as may breed a misliking on your part; the best whereunto is to procure that the Queen’s Majesty, your sovereign, hold the balance equal to both the sides, showing like favour and good countenance to both, so that neither party may think themselves prejudged till the difference for the title for the Crown may by her means be compounded, or brought to an end. For my own part, the Earl of Lennox (whom I never thought a fit person to bear any rule, for the great imperfections which are known to be in him) has so ungently, unreasonably and unlawfully used me, that he has compelled me to provide for my own security, and of the place which I have in charge, and to stand upon my guard with him. Besides many injuries and wrongs which he before had done, against all good order, to me and my friends, whereat I partly winked, and lightly overlooked them, he has of late charged by open proclamations, that all the soldiers which I keep for the preservation of this place, do depart from me and leave my service, by which doing he has uttered his ill-will and intention he had to denude me of my forces, whereby the place, for lack of men to defend it, might fall as a prey in his hands. And when he saw that his commands in that behalf were not obeyed, his malice has burst out further, to set further false and calumnious proclamations against me, full of injurious language, such as neither he nor any of his faction dare maintain, thinking thereby to have made me odious to the people. But my behaviour in times past, and hazarding of my person and goods, for the liberty of my country and duty to my friends is so well known in Scotland, that I am not afraid that anything the Earl of Lennox or his faction can speak or do, who has not as yet given the like proof, may make men that know me to doubt of my honesty. Since he has made open demonstration to be my enemy, I could do no less than let him know the like of me, and so have been forced to join myself with such of the nobility as would concur with me, and provide every way for my own surety, wherein I doubt not but your Lordships will not only bear with me, but also allow of my doings.

‘For nature teaches both men and beasts to procure means for their own preservation, and to avoid all things tending to the contrary. And yet I dare undertake, if it shall please the Queen’s Majesty your mistress, to prosecute the course she has begun, for according the difference for the title of the Crown, and to show her favour in the mean season indifferently to both parties, that number of noblemen, with whom I have joined myself, shall be as far at her Majesty’s devotion, and as able every way, and as willing, to entertain the good intelligence between the realms as any others; and, indeed, they are no less able to serve her Majesty’s turn. As to the abstinence mentioned in your Lordships’ letter, I shall willingly accommodate myself to everything accorded between the Commissioners for both parties, not only in the order of the Castle of Edinburgh, but all other things lying in my power; and shall attempt nothing farther than the surety of myself and place I have in charge shall force me, unless the others attempt to do injury to me or my friends, in which case the Earl of Lennox shall have no cause to look for quietness, if he make occasion to me and my friends to stand in doubt of our own surety; for I am resolved to use him as he shall do me and my friends. I have seen heretofore how the former abstinences have been kept on his part, and I know what harm my friends have sustained under the colour thereof; so that I would look for little better at his hand now, were not the trust I repose in her Majesty, who I doubt not will overrule him and bridle him from disordered doings; upon the confidence whereof, her Majesty shall have experience what reverence I bear to her Highness, and how far I respect your Lordships’ advice. As to the common quietness in the town of Edinburgh, and people therein, I assure myself none of them will complain; for of truth, there is no man within the compass of the same has received injury or violence, by word or deed, of me or any of mine; whereof I desire your Lordships to assure her Majesty. So, not willing to trouble your Lordships farther, I commit your Lordships to the protection of the Almighty God. From Edinburgh Castle, the 21st of April 1571.

Your Lordships’ to command,

W. Kirkcaldy.’

Hostilities between the garrison of the Castle and the Regent’s forces, which were encamped at Leith, began on the 29th of April, with a skirmish at Lowsilea. Next day, Kirkcaldy issued a proclamation, commanding all who sympathised with Lennox, to leave the city within six hours, and requiring the citizens to be within doors, after nine o’clock every night. Two days later, he followed this up by demanding the keys of the city from the bailies, and setting his own men to guard the gates; and his next step was to plant artillery on the roof and steeple of St Giles’s.

About the beginning of May, the Regent made an attempt to hold a Parliament, but was driven off by the Castle guns. On learning this, Queen Elizabeth made a great show of indignation. It was ‘necessary for her that the Regent and his party should not be ruined.’ Nor, indeed, did it suit her that either faction should obtain the upper hand independently of her. She consequently directed Sir William Drury to tell Grange and the noblemen joined with him, that she strongly disapproved of their conduct in preventing the Regent and his friends from holding a Parliament to appoint commissioners to treat with those of the Queen of Scots. In energetic language she desired him to ‘condemn Kirkcaldy of falsehood and untruth’ if it were actually the case that he had said, as had been reported to her, that Lennox was ‘sworn English against his country,’ and meant to deliver all the castles and strongholds to her; and to require him to give her full satisfaction on this point. She further instructed him to inform the Captain that, if he continued to increase the troubles of the realm, she would ‘judge that to be true which, by some had been long doubted, that he and his companions were partially disposed, for their own lucre and to maintain their disordered authorities, to continue these inward troubles, by pretending to favour the Queen, with whom it was known that, before time, they could not be content.’ If this should not be enough, Drury was to add “some sharper speech” of his own.

In his reply to this communication, Kirkcaldy assured the Queen of England that his enemies had misreported him. Had it really been the intention of Lennox and his party to choose persons authorised to carry on the negotiations referred to by her Highness, he would have given them free access to Edinburgh. But he had been told by Morton himself, that ‘the treaty was dissolved in England, and clean cut off without any promise of abstinence, or hope of recontinuation.’ He pointed out that, if the Lords did not get entrance into the town, they, nevertheless, did hold a Parliament outside the walls; and, as they did not then appoint commissioners, he concluded that it had never been their object to do so. He denied ever having told the people, in his proclamations, that Lennox was ‘sworn English against his country;’ but he admitted that, in private conversation, he had said that the Earl was the Queen of England’s subject by oath. Again protesting his pacific intentions, his unselfish aims, and his respect for Elizabeth, he offered to do battle against any gentleman undefamed, of England or Scotland, who dared charge him with having written or uttered any word against her honour.

Elizabeth admitted that Grange’s reply was not unreasonable, and that she did not mislike it. In truth, she found it admirably suited to her purpose. On the strength of its conciliatory tone, she could approach Lennox, and bring pressure to bear on him, by declaring that his opponents were ready to accept her mediation, and by making him responsible for the continuance of hostilities, unless he, too, consented to submit the whole quarrel to her arbitration. It was in this sense that, on the 7th of June, she addressed another long letter of instructions to Sir William Drury.

Apart from a series of sorties and raids, which contemporary chroniclers faithfully record, with scrupulous minuteness, even, at times, to the names of the wounded, and the nature of their hurts, no incident of special interest marked the civil war till the 11th of June. On that day Kirkcaldy, to whose knowledge it had come that he had publicly been accused of being a traitor and a murderer, issued a public challenge, offering to fight, in single combat, and to the death, any man, of whatsoever estate he might be, who took it on himself to support such a charge. It was taken up by Alexander Stuart of Garlies. He ridiculed the style assumed by Grange – a style more befitting the chief nobility or even the Royal Blood, than one whose father had but eight ox-gangs, and whose progenitors were, for the most part, saltmakers. ‘Nevertheless,’ he continued, ‘although thou art so notorious a traitor, that this action should be decided by other judges than by the adventure of arms, I, Alexander Stuart of Garlies, will offer myself to prove thy vile and filthy treason with my person against thine, as the law and custom of arms requireth: with protestation, that it shall not be prejudicial to my honour, nor to my blood, to compare myself with so late a printed gentleman, manifestly known to have committed, at sundry times, divers treasons; and taken out of the galleys to be kept for the gallows.’

There ensued a long correspondence between Grange and Garlies. Stripped of the accusations, recriminations, and contemptuous allusions to birth and rank, it resolved itself into a wrangle as to the choice of a fitting place for the encounter. Neither party would accept the views of the other as to a sufficiently neutral ground; and after dragging through many weeks, the quarrel was left undecided.

In the meantime, Grange had figured in a less personal and more important incident. Under his auspices, the Queen’s Lords, to whom he delivered the regalia for the occasion, held a Parliament in Edinburgh. Their first act was to invalidate Mary’s abdication, and, as a consequence, to repudiate the transfer of the royal authority to her son and the Regent acting on his behalf. The next was to decree that no change should be made in the form of religion or administration of the sacraments. At a subsequent sitting, they pronounced a decree of forfeiture against the Earl of Morton and some two hundred of the King’s party. In retaliation, the King’s Lords, in a Parliament of their own, held at Stirling, dealt in the same manner with their opponents. But their meeting was to be marked by an event of far greater moment. Grange, who had been informed of their imprudent negligence in not even appointing guards to insure their safety, planned a daring expedition, of which the object was nothing less than the capture of all the leading men of the faction, including the Regent himself.

It was at first Kirkcaldy’s intention to conduct the raid in person. But the Lords and Council would not allow him, alleging that ‘their only comfort under God consisted in his preservation.’ They undertook scrupulously to follow his instructions, and at his earnest request, promised to respect the lives of the captives. He yielded to their urgent entreaties, but not till the Laird of Wormeston, one of the most honourable gentlemen of the party, had pledged his word to save the Regent’s life at every risk.

Between five and six o’clock on the evening of the 3rd of September, Huntly, accompanied with three hundred and forty horse, set out from Edinburgh, and reached Stirling before day-break. Dismounting about a mile from the town, lest the clattering of the horses’ feet should betray them, the party entered it by a secret passage, between four and five in the morning. Lennox and his friends were surprised in their houses and captured. They would have been brought safely to Edinburgh if the soldiers and Borderers had not fallen to spoiling. The disorder which followed enabled the enemy to rally. There was a sharp skirmish, in the course of which the Regent was shot. Wormeston had proved so faithful to his trust that the fatal bullet passed through his body before striking Lennox.

The assailants were ultimately obliged to retire, but not till they had held possession of the town for more than three hours. On their return to Edinburgh, they were very unwelcome guests to the Laird of Grange. He was convinced that if, by bringing the Regent to Edinburgh, he had been able to withdraw him from the influence of Morton and of the English agent Randolph, an end might have been put to the disastrous struggle. With the death of Murray a peaceful settlement became well nigh hopeless.

Captain George Bell and James Calder, who had been taken prisoners on the retreat from Stirling, were by torture, compelled to confess that they had special instructions from the Hamiltons to slay the Regent. Calder’s confession is significantly signed ‘James Calder with my hand laid on the pen because I cannot write.’ In a very remarkable letter addressed by Grange and Lethington to Drury, the blame of Lennox’s death is imputed to his own associates, who are accused of using the opportunity given by the tumult for obtaining that which they had long sought after. The writers not only point out that the Hamiltons, whom the Regent had the greatest cause to fear, were those who surprised him in his house, and that they might have taken his life then and there; but they also assert that they themselves had previously been urged to concur in Murray’s destruction.

Within twenty-four hours a new Regent was appointed. Randolph was anxious that the choice of the Lords should fall on Morton, but they preferred to elect the Earl of Mar.