Kitabı oku: «Kirkcaldy of Grange», sayfa 9
XII. THE MERCAT CROSS
The Earl of Mar’s Regency lasted a little over a year, – from the beginning of September 1571 to the 29th of October 1572. The secret history of the period is contained in a long series of communications between Elizabeth and her Ministers on the one hand, and the heads of the two contending parties on the other. The subject was still the pacification of the Kingdom; but the discovery of the Duke of Norfolk’s plot, in favour of Mary Stuart, had modified the English Queen’s policy with respect to the Castilians, as the holders of the Castle were termed. It supplied her with a plausible excuse for casting aside even the semblance of a desire to reinstate her captive; and the spirit in which the negotiations with Grange and Lethington were conducted is illustrated by the following summons delivered to them in her name: – ‘Her Majesty’s pleasure is, that ye leave off the maintenance of civil discord, and give your obedience to the King, whom she will maintain to the uttermost of her power. And if ye will so do, she will deal with the Regent and the King’s party to receive you in favour, upon reasonable conditions, for security of life and livings. In respect the Queen of Scots hath practised with the Pope, other Princes, and her own subjects, great and dangerous treasons against the state of the country, and destruction of her own person, she will never suffer her to be in authority, so far as in her lieth; nor to have liberty while she liveth. If ye refuse these offers, her Majesty will presently aid the King’s party with men, munition, and other things against you. Whereupon her Majesty desireth your answer with speed.’
In the meantime, hostilities were being carried on with the greatest ferocity by both factions. As Bannatyne reports, there was ‘nothing but hanging on either side.’ The chronicles and the correspondence of the time record, as common occurrences, the most cold-blooded atrocities. It is related in the Historie of King James the Sext, that a band of Queen’s soldiers from Edinburgh were attacked by a body of the King’s partisans, to whom they were obliged to surrender and give up their weapons. ‘But the horsemen of Leith, after they had received them as prisoners, slew fifteen of the most able and strong men of them; the remainder they drove to Leith like sheep, stabbing and dunting them with spears, where they were all hanged without further process.’ Randolph reported to Lord Hunsdon that nothing was left undone on either side that might annoy the other, that the Regent, to keep the Castilians from victuals, had placed men in Craigmillar, Redshawe, and Corstorphine, and had broken down all the mills to the number of thirty or more within four miles of Edinburgh, and that he had sent three hundred Highland men to the villages and cottages about the town to intercept and spoil all that attempted to repair to the Castle. Those of the other side made reprisals by hanging not only the prisoners whom they had received to mercy, but those who afterwards fell into their hands. Lord Hunsdon informed Elizabeth that four horsemen of the Castle having been taken in a skirmish, were immediately hanged; and that those of the Castle, for revenge, after dinner, hanged five of their opponents. When fuel was scarce in the town, the garrison of the Castle threw down several houses of the adverse faction, and sold the timber at an exorbitant price. They further appointed a functionary, nick-named by the populace the Captain of the Chimneys, to take account of such houses as had been abandoned by King’s men, and sell them by public auction. These stern proceedings so terrified the neutral citizens, that they fled to Leith; but instead of finding protection there they were driven back to the Capital, and threatened with the gibbet as spies. So strictly were supplies to the city prohibited that the country people who attempted to smuggle in provisions were barbarously put to death. Two men and one woman, from Wester Edmonstoune, were hanged for bringing leeks and salt to Edinburgh. Lethington, writing to Queen Mary, told her that when poor women hazarded, during the night, to bring in some victuals for themselves and their poor bairns, they were hanged without mercy.
‘By that way,’ he said, ‘they have hangit a great number of women, and some of them with bairn, and parted with bairn upon the gallows, a cruelty not heard of in any country.’ If both parties displayed the same vindictive spirit in the commission of these outrages, the voice of the people by whom ‘this form of dealing was called the Douglas wars,’ proclaimed the guilt of Morton as the originator of them.
That Grange and his friends were not responsible for continuing the disastrous struggle, even the English agents admitted. Lord Hunsdon, writing to Burghley, about the end of April, confessed that it passed his capacity any more to deal with the parties in Scotland. ‘The Castle side,’ he said, ‘require surety of their lives, lands, goods, and honours, where they have reason; and the keeping of the Castle, because they would be loath to put themselves into their new reconciled friends’ hands until they see some proof how they and their friends will be dealt with. On the King’s side, their malice is so deadly against some of the Castle as they have more respect to be revenged than regard to the Commonwealth; others are so resolved to keep such offices, spoils, and authority as they possess by these troubles, that they will never agree to any composition by treaty; the meaner sort who live upon entertainment and such spoils as now and then they can get, and live uncontrolled of any whatsoever they do, cannot abide to hear of peace.’
For the next three months negotiations still dragged on. Neither threats nor persuasions could induce Kirkcaldy to consent to the one condition without which his opponents were determined that there should be no peace – the surrender of the Castle. In an evil hour for themselves however, he and Lethington so far yielded to the representations and solicitations of the English Court as to agree to a truce. The conditions were that it should last for two months from the 30th of July; that, during that time there should be a meeting of the noblemen of the Kingdom to treat for peace; and that, if they should not agree, they should refer the difference between them to the arbitration of the King of France and Queen of England, promising upon their honour to accept all the conditions their Majesties should propose to them. During the truce all the subjects of the realm should be at liberty freely to traffic, haunt, or converse together unmolested. The town of Edinburgh was to be set at liberty the same as it was when the late Regent quitted it on the 27th of January 1570; and the Castle to be kept with no greater garrison than it had at that date.
On the 11th of the following month Grange and Lethington had already ground for complaint that, contrary to promise, ‘the town was still guarded and garrisoned as a town of war.’ A few days later they drew up a formal protest in which they stated that the Capital was occupied by companies of soldiers and townsmen, who kept watch and ward day and night, and continually used the Kirk and Tolbooth as guard-houses. Leith also, they said, was guarded as in time of war, in contravention of the abstinence. Men-at-arms were lodged upon the poor, to be fed at their expense; and in many cases the inhabitants were forbidden to enter their own houses, which had been taken possession of by the soldiery.
In the beginning of September, a new agent, Killegrew, was dispatched to Scotland for the ostensible purpose of effecting a compromise between the two parties, but in reality with a view to arranging with Morton for the secret execution of Queen Mary. All that his intervention achieved was the prolongation of the truce till the 1st of January. The result of his secret mission, however, was to secure the complicity of Mar and Morton in Elizabeth’s scheme for the destruction of her rival, on condition that they should receive help from England for the subjugation of the Castilians, at the expiration of the truce.
When Killegrew arrived in Scotland, the Earl of Mar was lying ill at Tantallon Castle, and it was there the English ambassador had his first interview with him. He recovered sufficiently to be removed to Stirling. On the 27th of October, it was reported to Burghley that he had been bled, and was ‘somewhat amended.’ The very next day, however, he died, with a suddenness that gave rise to a suspicion of poison. Rather less than a month later, Morton was chosen to succeed him.
The day that the new Regent was elected, there occurred another important event, which was destined to exercise great influence on Kirkcaldy’s fate. On that same 24th of November, John Knox died in Edinburgh, to which he had returned shortly before in a sinking condition. As he lay on his death-bed he desired his friend, David Lindsay, the minister of Leith, to take a message from him to the Laird of Grange. “‘Go, I pray you,’ he said, ‘and tell him that I have sent you to him yet once to warn him; and bid him, in the name of God, leave that evil cause, and give over that Castle. If not, he shall be brought down over the walls of it with shame, and hang against the sun. So God hath assured me.’ Mr David thought the message hard, yet went to the Castle, and meeteth first with Sir Robert Melville walking on the wall, and told him what was his errand; who, as he thought, was much moved with the matter. Thereafter he communed with the Captain, whom he thought also somewhat moved. But he went from him in to Secretary Lethington, with whom, when he had conferred a little, he came out to Mr David again, and said, ‘Go, tell Mr Knox he is but a drytting prophet.’ Mr David returned to Mr Knox and reported how he had discharged his commission; but that it was not well accepted of the Captain after he had conferred with the Secretary. ‘Well,’ said Mr Knox, ‘I have been earnest with my God anent the two men. For the one, I am sorry that so shall befall him, yet God assureth me that there is mercy for his soul. For the other, I have no warrant that ever he shall be well.’ Mr David thought the speech hard, yet laid it up in his mind till Mr Knox was at rest with God, and found the truth which he had spoken within a few days after.”
When the last day of the truce arrived, no step towards the pacification of the Kingdom had been taken. The King’s party continued to make demands which the Castilians, hopeful of help from the King of France, absolutely refused to entertain, and the resumption of hostilities was inevitable. On the 1st of January, at six o’clock in the morning, Kirkcaldy ‘warned all men to take heed to themselves, by a shot of a piece out of the Castle.’ A little later in the morning, ‘the war began by shot of arquebuss, but did no harm.’ Next day the Castilians fired eight rounds at the steeple of St Giles’s. No one was hurt in the church itself, but some shot that missed it, having broken down the neighbouring chimneys, one poor man was killed and two were wounded by their fall. If Killegrew’s reports to Burghley are to be believed, either the Castle gunners must have been poor marksmen, or Grange must at first have instructed them to discharge their artillery rather in the hope of frightening the citizens than for the purpose of causing them serious loss or injury. One despatch states that on the 16th of January they fired eighty-seven cannon and culverin shot at the town, ‘but did no more harm but killed one dog going to the Regent’s house.’ Men, women, and children, the writer asserts, walked quietly in the streets, as though there were no shot; and even went to the church, which had been fenced in with a rampart of turf, faggots, and other stuff. One of the chroniclers, on the other hand, presents a wholly different picture. ‘None,’ he says, ‘might walk safely on the streets of Edinburgh for shooting out of the Castle.’ The truth may not improbably be that the gunners could fire effectively enough when it was thought there was occasion for it.
Before the end of the first month the besieged were already beginning to suffer from want of water. On the 25th, Killegrew informed Burghley that they had found it necessary to get their supply by sallying out of a postern beside St Cuthbert’s Church and drawing it from St Margaret’s well, hard by. The besiegers, noticing this, poisoned the well with white arsenic and new lime stones, and filled it up with dead carrion. The garrison then devised a plan for drawing water out of a ditch near the Castle; but before it could be put into execution, the Regent was informed of it by a deserter, and drained the ditch. In the same communication, Killegrew stated that the surveyor of Berwick and Mr Fleming, the master-gunner, had been with the besiegers for the last week, and were helping Morton to lay out the trenches, of which the works were progressing apace.
It was not to open warfare alone that Kirkcaldy’s enemies trusted to force him into subjection. Even before the resumption of hostilities, Morton had begun negotiations with the Queen’s Lords in other parts of the country. One after another, the Captain’s former associates fell away from him. Sir James Balfour was the first, Argyle, Huntly, Chastelherault, and the Hamiltons followed; and their submission made it hopeless and useless for the lesser men to stand out alone. By the beginning of April, the Privy Council was able to announce that ‘good peace was restored over all the country, the Castle of Edinburgh excepted.’
From another quarter too, there fell an unexpected blow. Through the treachery of his own wife, James Kirkcaldy, who had hitherto successfully acted as his brother’s agent with the Court of France, was captured, together with a considerable sum of money, which Mary had supplied from her dowry, and on which the Castilians were depending. Within the Castle, Maitland was as firm and uncompromising as the Governor himself; indeed, his enemies attributed the obstinate resistance of the soldier to the ‘enchantment’ cast over him by the statesman. But though the Secretary’s mental vigour was undiminished, his bodily health was so shattered that, when it was intended to discharge the heavy ordnance, he had to be carried down into the low vault of ‘David’s Tower,’ as he could not ‘abide the shot.’
For all this, there was no wavering on the part of Kirkcaldy. He felt the fullest confidence as to his ability to hold out, so long as he had Morton alone to deal with; and he believed that fear of irritating the French Court, and unwillingness to incur the heavy expenses of sending a siege train to Scotland might yet deter Elizabeth from lending active assistance to the Regent. In spite of the besiegers’ utmost efforts to prevent him, he continued the work of fortifying the Castle with earth, stone, and timber; and indeed, in his determination to ‘give the Earl of Morton and all his men of war enough to do to wait upon him,’ he omitted nothing that experience could suggest or courage carry out, to add to the natural strength of the fortress.
Unfortunately for the Captain, the six or seven score fighting men that made up his garrison were not all animated with the same spirit. Not one of them had ever stood a siege before, and the hardships which they had to undergo were beginning to tell on them both morally and physically. Obliged, with but little intermission, to fight their guns by day, and by night to repair the damage done to their outworks, and having to subsist on the one pint of water and the scant rations of salt-beef that Lady Kirkcaldy distributed to them daily, ‘they were all ill-like in the face with over-working or watching.’ They were beginning to feel too that there was no remedy or recompense to be looked for at Grange’s hands; and some of them, indeed, were already anxious to make terms for themselves. As the Captain’s increasing watchfulness left them no opportunity of communicating directly with the enemy, they cast a letter enclosed in a glove over the walls, trusting to the finder to take it to those for whom it was intended. It contained a request that, if there were any hope of mercy for the garrison, a certain sign should be made in a certain place, and they would come forth. On the part of Morton, nothing was left undone to foster this spirit of mutiny; and his secret agents were not only authorised to promise a free pardon in his name, to such as were already planning to desert from the Castle, but also to bribe the others, by distributing two thousand crowns amongst them.
The discontent that was spreading amongst his men did not escape the Captain’s vigilance. Calling them together, he asked if any amongst them wished to abandon the cause. Lord Home’s resolute reply, that he would serve as a private soldier, both by day and night, ‘stopped the mouths of the meaner sort,’ though, according to Killegrew, they meant to make a very different answer, and though many were anxious to come away, if only they might well get forth.
In the meantime, the negotiations which had been dragging on between the Regent and the English Court, had effected a definite result. On the 13th of April, a proclamation issued in the name of King James, announced that the assistance of England had been secured, with a view to putting an end to the Civil War, and that a body of English troops would soon arrive to reinforce the besieging army. Twelve days later, an English contingent, under Sir William Drury, arrived in Edinburgh, and a final summons was sent to Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange, and the other holders and retainers of the Castle of Edinburgh, to surrender it, with the artillery, munitions, and household stuff; and to remove, devoid, and rid themselves, their wives and servants forth of it, within six hours. Being intended for the wavering soldiers, and not for their resolute leader, this summons was not delivered to the Governor in writing, but was publicly proclaimed by a herald. To drown his voice Kirkcaldy ordered his drums to beat; and the only reply he vouchsafed to make was, that he wist not what the messenger had declared.
The ordnance sent from England was disembarked at Leith, on the 26th of April. Next day, besides running up the Scottish Queen’s standard, the Governor of the Castle hoisted ‘a banner of red colour, denouncing war and defiance, upon the chief tower of the Castle called King David’s Tower.’ Including ‘both tag and rag,’ there were at that moment one hundred and ninety-two persons within the Castle. Forty-two of them were women, and thirteen were boys. That left a hundred and thirty men, not all soldiers, besides the Governor himself; and of these according to Killegrew’s information, eighteen of the best would fain have been out.
It took much longer than had been anticipated to get the ordnance into position. By the 5th of May, of twenty-four pieces of battery and four mortars, there were but six planted; and the month was half through before ‘the artillery of England was placed about the Castle of Edinburgh in this manner. On the north side of Mr John Thornton’s lodging on the Castle Hill lay the cannon royal, and two other cannons; on the crofts of the Grey Friars, lay three great culverin; at the Scots crofts lay six great culverin; above the west side of St Cuthbert’s Kirk lay two Scottish iron pieces; at the north side two Scots great culverins, and my Lord Argyle’s cannon, with four pott pieces; at the lang gait on the east side of the said pott pieces lay three small pieces, with strong and deep trenches in all parts.’ At length, on Sunday, the 17th of May, at one in the afternoon, ‘some of the pieces began to speak such language that it made them in the Castle think more of God than they did before.’ When the first ‘tier’ of ordnance was discharged, the women within the walls uttered a great and lamentable cry, ‘terming the day and hour black.’ ‘The soldiers, however,’ says Drury, ‘showed themselves in no small companies here and there, but especially they showed many on the top of St David’s Tower, with great pride displaying two ensigns, and shooting at every advantage they saw.’ To what good effect the Castilians plied their guns may be learnt from Birrell’s Diary. ‘Ther wes,’ he says, ‘a very grate slaughter amongst the English canoniers, sundries of them having ther legges and armes torne from their bodies in the aire by the viholence of the grape shot.’
On the 21st of May the English gunners began battering St David’s Tower; and two days later a large portion of it came crushing down. The 26th saw the capture of an important position called the ‘Spur.’ This disaster, combined with the growing dissatisfaction of his men, who complained that Lady Grange scanted their victuals, that were scant enough already, at length obliged the Governor to beat a parley. A two days’ truce was granted, and negotiations were opened with a view to the surrender of the Castle. The three thousand great shot, which, according to Drury’s computation, had been fired at the fortress, had wrought such havoc that no practicable means of exit was left. In order to meet Drury, Grange, Pitarrow, and Robert Melville had to be let down by a rope over the wall.
The conditions demanded by the besieged were that they should have surety for the lives and livings of all that were within the Castle, that Lethington and Lord Home, because of particular quarrels might go into England, and that Grange should remain in Scotland, with a licence to depart the realm if he found himself ill-used. Morton was quite willing to spare the soldiers, and he took special care that they should be informed of it; but he insisted that the surrender should be unconditional as regarded Grange, Lethington, and nine others, including the two goldsmiths who had coined money for the use of the Castilians. On hearing this, Kirkcaldy went back to the Castle determined to hold out to the last. But the men were now in open mutiny. They declared their determination of hanging Maitland from the battlements if he did not urge Grange to surrender, and of handing the Governor himself to Morton, if he still refused to yield. There was no alternative. On the 29th of May Sir William gave himself up to Drury who, in recognition of the courage which he had displayed, allowed him to leave the Castle with his arms. The citizens had suffered too much at his hands to entertain any generous feeling towards him, and as he and his companions were led through the crowd to the lodgings of Drury, jeers and insults were heaped upon him. The balladist Semple has described the scene: —
‘Thair wes compleit the prophecie of Knox:
Doun fra that Crag Kirkcaldy sall reteir,
With schame and sclander lyke ane hundit fox.’
With gild6 of pepile sa thay brocht thame doun,
As birdis but plumis, spulizeit of the nest:
Part cryde: ‘quhair is he? lat vs se the loun;
Go to and staen him; lat him tak na rest.’
Quhen thay yt buir him saw thame selfis opprest,
Thay cryit for succour for to saue thair lyuis:
The Generallis lugeing, thair thay thocht it best,
Thay led him in, thay war sa red7 for wyuis.’
For three days Grange was allowed to go about freely, rather as a guest than a captive, but at the end of that time he was treated as a prisoner.
One of Morton’s first cares, after the surrender of Edinburgh Castle, was to demand that the jewels which Queen Mary was known to have left there when she fled from her capital, should be delivered up to him. His greed, however, was doomed to disappointment. The greater part of the treasure upon which he was so characteristically anxious to lay hands, had already been disposed of. Indeed, the Queen’s diamonds had been the chief source of the garrison’s credit during the three years that the Castle was held for her. In 1570 several objects of value had been sent by Kirkcaldy to be sold in London. Elizabeth, however, had got information, and not only stopped the sale, but ordered the articles to be detained. The Governor met with better success in France; and when, in the following spring, his brother arrived in Leith with munitions and stores, it was commonly reported that they had been purchased with the price of some of Mary’s diamonds.
The next year, another parcel of jewels was said to have been sold to a secret agent of Queen Elizabeth’s for two thousand five hundred pounds. At various other times, objects of value had been given in pledge to merchants and others for moneys advanced to supply the needs of the beleaguered garrison. There was consequently but little left at the time of the surrender; but to prevent even that from falling into Morton’s hands, some of it had been hidden in a crevice of the Castle rock. A confession having been extracted from Morsman to the effect that at the last moment he had made over certain valuables to Kirkcaldy, the Governor was called upon to restore them. He replied that he had, indeed, got some gear in an evil favoured clout, but did not see what it was, and had thrown it into an open coffer in his room. He protested that he had taken nothing out of the Castle but the clothes on his back and four crowns in his purse.
From the moment that Grange and Lethington surrendered as prisoners to the English, Morton resolved that their lives should pay the penalty of their open defiance of his authority, and he did not hesitate to declare that he thought them ‘fitter for God than for this world, for sundry considerations.’ He accordingly demanded that they should be given over to him; and after some hesitation real or pretended, Elizabeth granted his request. Whilst she still seemed to be wavering the two prisoners wrote the following appeal to Burghley: —
‘My Lord, – The malice of our enemies is the more increased against us, that they have seen us rendered in the Queen’s Majesty’s will, and now to seek refuge at her highness’s hands. And, therefore, we doubt not but they will go about by all means possible to procure mischief; yea, that their cruel minds shall lead them to that impudency to crave our bloods at her Majesty’s hands. But whatsoever their malice be, we cannot fear that it shall take success; knowing with how gracious a Princess we have to do, which hath given so many good proofs to the world of her clemency and mild nature, that we cannot mistrust that the first example of the contrary shall be shewn upon us. We take this to be her very natural, Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos.
‘We have rendered ourselves to her Majesty, which to our own countrymen we would never have done, for no extremity that might have come. We trust her Majesty will not put us out of her hands to make any others, especially our mortal enemy, our masters. If it will please her Majesty to extend her most gracious clemency towards us, she may be as assured to have us as perpetually at her devotion as any of this nation, yea, as any subject of her own; for now with honour we may oblige ourselves to her Majesty farther than before we might, and her Majesty’s benefit will bind us perpetually. In the case we are in, we must confess we are of small value; yet may her Majesty put us in ease, that perhaps hereafter we will be able to serve her Majesty’s turn, which occasion being offered, assuredly there shall be no inlack of good-will. Your Lordship knoweth already what our request is; we pray your Lordship to further it. There was never time wherein your Lordship’s friendship might stand us in such stead. As we have oftentimes heretofore tasted thereof, so we humbly pray you let it not inlack us now, in time of this our great misery, when we have more need than ever we had. Whatsoever our deservings have been, forget not your own good natural. If, by your Lordship’s mediation, her Majesty conserve us, your Lordship shall have us perpetually bound to do you service.
‘Let not the misreports of our enemies prevail against us. When we are in her Majesty’s hands she may make us what pleaseth her.
‘From Edinburgh, the 1st June 1573.’
The petition was unheeded. A few days later Drury was instructed to hand over his prisoners to the Regent. In the meantime Maitland had died, – it is difficult to determine whether it was from natural causes or ‘after the old Roman fashion, to prevent his coming to the shambles’ – and Grange was left to bear the brunt of Morton’s revenge.
On the 3rd of August, Sir William Kirkcaldy and his brother James, together with Morsman and Cockie, the two goldsmiths who had coined money in the Queen’s name, were brought to trial and condemned to death. Between the passing of the sentence and its execution in the afternoon of the same day, a final and frantic effort was made to save the Laird of Grange. Five score gentlemen, – kinsmen, friends, and well-wishers, – the least of them having heritage worth five hundred marks Scots a year, offered to become servants, themselves and their offspring, perpetually, to the houses of Angus and Morton, by giving their bond of man-rent; and, in addition to that, to pay twenty pounds annually, for more thraldom. They further promised to hand over twenty thousand pounds to the Regent, before the following Michaelmas, and to restore twenty thousand pounds of the Queen’s jewels that were in sundry hands. But Morton was under the influence of a power greater than even his own avarice. The offers, he admitted to Burghley, were as large as could possibly have been made; yet, he added, ‘considering what has been, and is, daily spoken by the preachers, that God’s plague will not cease till the land be purged of blood, and having regard that such as are interested by the death of their friends, the destruction of their houses, and the away-taking of their goods, could not be satisfied by any offer made to me in particular, I deliberated to let justice proceed.’
It was through David Lindsay, the minister of Leith, who visited Kirkcaldy after the trial, that this last appeal for mercy was made. When he returned with a stern refusal the condemned man said to him: ‘Mr David, for our old friendship and for Christ’s sake leave me not.’ A little later, when he saw the scaffold prepared at the Cross, the day fair and the sun shining brightly, so marked a change came over him that Lindsay, noticing it, inquired what affected him. ‘Faith, Mr David,’ replied he, ‘I perceive well now that Mr Knox was the true servant of God, and that his threatenings are accomplished.’ He then desired Lindsay to repeat Knox’s words. The minister did so, adding that Knox had told him that he had been earnest with God for Grange; that he was sorry for what should befall his body for the love he bore him; but that he was assured there was mercy for his soul. Kirkcaldy seemed much comforted and encouraged by this. As the fatal hour drew near he begged Lindsay to accompany him to the scaffold: ‘I hope in God, that after men shall think I am passed and gone, I shall give you a token of the assurance of that mercy to my soul according to the speech of that man of God.’
