CHAPTER VII.

SACK OF HOLYROOD.

'Twas a dream of the ages of darkness and blood, When the ministers' home was the mountain and wood; The musquets were flashing, the blue swords were gleaming, The helmets were cleft, and the red blood was streaming; The heavens grew dark, and the thunder was rolling, When on Welwood's dark muirland the mighty were falling. ANONYMOUS.

"Welcome, gentlemen," exclaimed Wallace; "I never stood in such need of advice and comradeship."

He was a handsome man, above six feet in height; his gold-coloured cuirass and buff coat, laced with silver, announced him a captain; the slouch of his broad Spanish hat, with its drooping plumes, and the tie of his voluminous white silk scarf, gave him inimitable grace.

"Welcome, Finland, to share the poor cheer and hard fighting of Holyrood. By Mahoun! but times are changed with the King's soldiers. I have endured a three days' siege here, and matters are not likely to mend."

"No; a rabble, many thousands strong, by all the devils! the very riddlings of St. Ninian's and the Beggars' Row, are at this moment approaching, and if one of your guard are left alive by daylight it will be a miracle."

"Dost think so?" rejoined Wallace, as he led them to a table in the outer court of the palace, where a lantern placed on a table revealed a few drinking horns, a keg of eau de vie, and some objects of a more unpleasant nature, the dead bodies of several soldiers, shot by the rioters during the day. "You hold out a dark future to us, Finland, and, nevertheless, like the true soldier I have ever known thee, come to take a turn of service with us."

"As you see," replied Finland, laughing, as he filled a horn from the keg unbidden.

"Drink with me, gentlemen," said Wallace.

"With all my soul!" hiccupped Dr. Joram.

"This keg of brandy was lately in the cellars of the Jesuits, and some friendly rogue trundled it our way. God bless the good old cause! my service to ye, sirs. Hark, comrades--drums!" he added, as he drained and threw down the cup.

"'Tis the march of the trained bands," said Walter.

"Indeed!" rejoined Wallace, sternly. "Let all the whigamore scum of Scotland come, they are welcome. I am one of the good old race of Elderslie, and I thank heaven that in an hour like this, it hath been the hap of one of my name to have entrusted to his care the defence of the palace of our princes, and yonder holy fane, the sepulchre of their bones--one of the fairest piles that ancient piety ever founded, or modern fanaticism destroyed." His swart countenance lighted up, and signing the cross (for this noble cavalier was a true catholic), he drew his sword.

"Hark, a chamade!" said Walter Fenton; "now let us hear what these rascals have the impudence to say;" and the three cavaliers repaired to the porch, leaving the divine to continue his devoirs to the brandy keg. They beheld a very extraordinary scene.

Wallace's company was an Independent one. It was something less than a hundred strong, and had the great porch of the palace and the two lesser gates of the boundary wall to defend. In the former there were sixty musqueteers drawn up, as it was the point of the greatest danger; the remainder were posted at the small gates, which were well secured by internal barricades. The great façade of the magnificent palace, with its deep quadrangle and six round towers, loomed through the starless gloom of the winter night; lights flickered in the gallery of the Kings of Scotland, and through the lofty casements of its long corridors and echoing chambers, for there many proscribed catholic and cavalier families, terrified women, and helpless children, hud fled for refuge. And from the great western windows of the chapel royal shone "the dim religious light" of the distant altar, where many a devout worshipper, in the ancient faith of our fathers, sent up, with catholic fervour, the most solemn prayers to God for conquest and for succour.

How different was the scene without those sacred walls, with their shadowy aisles, their glimmering shrines and marble tombs--their dark, deep, solemn arches, and mysterious echoes.

Through the strong gate of vertical iron bars that closed the dark round archway of the porch, the cavaliers beheld the long vista of the Canon-gate, extending to the westward. Its long perspective of ancient and picturesque edifices, turrets, outshots, and gables, was vividly lit up by the crimson glare of the blazing houses on the Abbey-hill, to the northward of the palace.

A dense mob that had gathered in the Cow-gate, provided with weapons and torches, mingled with Trained Bandsmen, and having drums beating, and the Earl of Perth's effigy, borne aloft before them, after traversing the West Bow and High-street, maltreating all they met, were now descending the Canon-gate; and the light of their brandished flambeaux streamed through the groined portal of the palace, glittering on the helmets and arms of the soldiers drawn up within it in close array, and beyond on the tall outline of the tower of James V.

As the drums of the Trained Bands continued to beat the point of war, the rabble poured forth from all the diverging wynds and alleys, until, like a river swollen by a hundred tributary streams, the dense mass that debouched upon the open space around the ancient Girth-cross of the once holy sanctuary, covered the whole arena. The united roar of ten thousand angry voices swelled along the lofty street, and the red torchlight revealed many an uncouth visage, distorted by drunkenness, fanaticism, and ferocity. Several musquets and pistols were incessantly discharged, while stones, sticks, fragments of furniture, dead cats, and every available and imaginable missile were hurled in showers over the battlements of the porch, and strewed the pavement of the court within.

In front were Grahame and Macgill, two captains in the trained band, armed with their buff coats, steel caps, and half pikes; several baillies, in their scarlet gowns and gold chains; Lord Mersington, reeling about and brandishing a partisan, his senatorial wig and robes in a woeful plight; the Rev. Ichabod Bummel, bare-headed and spurring like a madman a short, plump, and active Galloway cob of which he had possessed himself, and over the flanks of which, his long spindle shanks and scabbard trailed upon the ground. On each side were the Marchmont and Islay heralds, the Unicorn and Ormond pursuivants, in their tabards blazing with embroidery, and their tall plumed bonnets; behind was a confused forest of uplifted hands, and weapons, swords, pikes, staves, and halberts which flashed incessantly in the wavering glare of the brandished torches, and chief above all were the effigy of the Chancellor, and a great orange and blue standard; the first the colour of the Revolutionists, the second of the Covenanters.

The houses of the Earl of Perth, the Lairds of Niddry, Blairdrummond, and others, were blazing close by, and the sky was sheeted with fire. The contents of their cellars were rolled into the streets and staved, and the rich and luscious wines of France, the nut-brown ale, and crystal usquebaugh streamed along the swollen gutters, where hundreds of rioters were wallowing like pigs in the kennel, and were trod to death beneath the feet of the mighty host that swept over them. After a flourish of trumpets, the senior herald cried with a loud voice,--

"In the name of the Lords of His Majesty's Privy Council, I, the Islay Herald-at-Arms, summon, warn, and charge you, Captain William Wallace, under pain and penalty of loss of life and escheat of goods----"

"Yea, and the loss of salvation," screamed Ichabod, with a voice of a Stentor, as he brandished his bible and bloody sword. "Woe unto ye who march against God with banners displayed! Woe unto ye who would build up the walls of Jericho, which the Lord hath casten down! Take heed, ye vipers and soldiers of Jeroboam, lest the curse that fell on Kiel, the Bethelite, fall upon ye also! Woe unto ye, worshippers of the Babylonian harlot, the mother of sin, for the hour is come when it is written that ye shall perish!"

"----And escheat of goods and gear," continued the herald, "forfeiture of name and fame."

"Surrender, ye d--d loons!" cried Mersington, "or hee hee, we'll gie ye cauld kail through the reek, conform to the Acts of Estate."

"Sound trumpets for silence!" exclaimed the herald indignantly; but now the voice of Mr. Bummel was again heard.

"Oh for one moment of the hand that smote the foes of Zion!" he exclaimed, raising to heaven his sunken eyes that in the torchlight seemed to fill with a yellow glare. "Oh for God's malediction on the brats of Babel! Lo! I see a sign in the lift--they are delivered unto us, that we may dash them against the stones. On, on, and spare not! smite and slay! death to the false prophets! death to the soldiers of the idolatrous James!"

"I, the Islay Herald-at-Arms----"

"Haud your d--d yammering!" cried Captain Graham, of the trained bands, interrupting in turn; "close up, my trained men! come on, my buirdly Baxters, and couthie craftsmen--advance pikes--musqueteers, blow matches--give fire!"

"Give fire!" re-echoed the deep voice of Wallace within the groined portal. A loud discharge of musquetry took place, and the bullets of the mob rattled like a hailstorm against the walls, or whistled through the archway of the porch.

Three soldiers fell dead, but nearly forty of the rabble were shot, for every bullet fired by the "Brats of Babel" killed at second hand. Still they pressed forward with undiminished courage, and assailed the three gates of the palace at once, and pressing close to the bars of the portal, fired their musquets and pistols through with deadly precision on the little band within. Here Wallace commanded in person, with a bravery worthy of his immortal name, and encouraged by his animated exhortations, his gallant few, though falling fast on every hand, stood firm, with a resolution to die, but never surrender.

Walter Fenton and Finland commanded each about twenty musqueteers at the lesser gates, which the insurrectionists assailed pell-mell with hammers and pickaxes, and as nothing but a cruel death could be expected if this mob of infuriated madmen obtained entrance, the poor soldiers fought as much for their lives as for honour and protection of the palace and chapel royal. From a platform of planks and furniture, overlooking the south back of the Canon-gate, Walter's party poured a fire upon the mob with deadly effect; the palace wall was high, the gate strong and well secured, so they hurled ponderous stones and swung hammers against its solid front in vain.

So it fared with Finland, who defended the northern doorway of the royal gardens near a little turretted edifice called Queen Mary's Bath. This experienced soldier had speedily made four loop-holes through the strong wall, and the rioters, as they approached the gate, were shot down in such rapid succession that an appalling pile of dead and dying lay before it, forming a barrier so hideous, that their companions began to recoil in dismay, and poured a storm of bullets and abuse from a distance.

The blaze from the Abbey hill illuminated the whole garden, and the dark buttresses, the square tower, the deep-ribbed doorway, and tall lancet windows of the beautiful church of the Sancta Crucis were all bathed in a blood-red hue by the flaring sheets of flame that ascended from the burning houses.

"St. Bride speed you, my gallant Douglas!" cried Wallace, who, anxious for the maintenance of his post, made a hurried round of the walls. "Art keeping the knaves in check?"

"Let the deed show," replied Finland. "By my faith! their dead are lying chin deep without the barrier. 'Twas a brave stroke in tactics this enfilade of the approach; and the flames of yonder great mansion enable my bold hearts to aim with notable precision."

"'Tis the noble lodging of the Great Chancellor," rejoined Wallace, turning his flushed face towards the ruddy glow; "and I grieve deeply that many noble dames of the first quality are likely perishing amid yonder flames; however, death is preferable to dishonour at the hands of fanatical clowns. This day they dragged my sister through the streets ..... and in open day--my God!" He ground his teeth and smote his breast.

"Malediction!" exclaimed Finland; "can we not succour them?"

"Impossible," replied the other, resuming his military nonchalance. "I cannot spare a man. Bonnie blackeyed Maud, of Madertie, and Merry Annie, of Maxwelton, are both yonder; this morning they fled to the house of Perth. God sain them both--now I must see how fares young Fenton." He hurried away, leaving Finland transfixed by what he had revealed.

"Follow me, some of ye," he exclaimed; "let six maintain the post. Come on, gallants--we will save these noble dames or die."

His party had now been reduced to twelve, but forgetful of everything save the probable danger of Annie, he rushed through the garden followed by six soldiers armed with pikes, and leaving the precincts of the palace by a secret doorway near the old royal vault, hurried through the narrow suburb of Croft-an-Righ, and felt his heart leap as the hot glow of the burning houses was blown upon his cheek, and the sparks fell like red hail around him. The roar of voices and of musquetry still continued around the palace with unabated vigour; but here the mob lay generally wallowing in the liquor that flowed along the street, or were busy in revelling around piles of wine flasks, runlets of wine, and barrels of ale, or hurrying away with whatever plunder they had saved from the fast-spreading conflagration.

The house of the chancellor, a lofty edifice, with turrets at the angles, steep roofs, and great stacks of chimneys, stood a little way back from the street, with a row of tall Dutch poplars before it; but these were now blackened and scorched by the forky flames that rolled in volumes from the windows, and clambered over the sinking roofs. The smoke ascended into the clear air in one vast shadowy pillar, and showers of sparks were thrown as from the crater of a volcano. Not one of the inmates was visible, for every window was full of flame, and Finland felt distraction in his mind as he gazed upon the blazing house; but suddenly several females appeared upon the stone gutters and upper bartizan, waving their handkerchiefs and crying in piteous accents for mercy and for succour; but they were unheeded by the mob, or, if heard, only treated with derision.

"A ladder, a ladder!" exclaimed Finland, whose arms and attire were so much disfigured by smoke and dust, that he seemed in no way different from the other armed citizens that thronged the streets. "Death and confusion! a hundred bonnet pieces for a ladder; my brave friends, my good comrades, your pikes--truss them into a ladder. Ere now I've led an escalade of such a turnpike. Bravo, my bold hearts!" and with the silent precision of practised campaigners, the soldiers with their scarfs trussed or tied their six pikes into the form of a scaling ladder. In a moment it was placed against the wall. "Guard the passage," cried Finland, as he disappeared through one of the upper windows.

The heat and smoke were so great that he could scarcely breathe; for the old mansion being all wainscotted, burned like a ship, and ancient paintings, costly hangings, carpets, furniture, books, and all the magnificent household of the great chancellor was crumbling to ashes beneath the relentless flame.

The hot conflagration often drove Finland back, and made his very brains whirl; but he found other passages, across the yielding floors, and ascending from story to story, at last felt gratefully the cooler air upon his flushed and scorched face as he stepped upon the flame-lighted bartizan, and Annie, with a wild hysterical laugh, threw herself into his arms and immediately swooned.

"Your hand, Lady Madertie--away, away!" cried he; "we have not a moment to lose;" and bearing his burden like a child, he attempted to descend the staircase; but lo! the forked flames shot up the spiral descent and drove him back upon the platform, which was thirty feet in height.

All retreat was cut off.

Annie was insensible, and Finland, as he leant against the parapet and pressed her to his breast and felt the masses of her soft hair blown against his face, became giddy with despair. At a little distance Matilda of Madertie, a beautiful blonde, was kneeling before her crucifix, and praying with all the happy fervour of a true Catholic; her long dark hair was streaming over her shoulders. Near her were several female servants, crouching against the parapet, and who, exhausted by the energy of their shrieks, and the near approach of death, lay in a kind of stupor, without motion, and seeming scarcely to breathe. Finland thought only of Annie; but a glance sufficed to show that their fate was sealed.

The whole of the lofty house beneath the turret where they stood was an abyss of flames, and the glare, as they flashed upward and around him, compelled him to close his eyes; and thus a prey to grief and horror, he moved to and fro upon the toppling wall until the slate roofs sank crashing into the flaming pit with a roar, and now one vast sheet of broad red fire ascended into the air, making the calcined walls that confined it rend and tremble; a shout came up from the street below; the whole city, the hills and the sky seemed to be on fire. The flames came closer to Finland; he felt their scorching heat; the next seemed to sweep his cheek, and Annie's waving locks and his own, that mingled with them, were burned away together.

"Laird of Finland," cried a soldier from below, "the tree---the tree!"

"'Tis death at all events," replied the Cavalier, and quick as light, with his long scarf, he bound the slender waist of Annie to his own, and stretching from the wall, got into the lofty and strong poplar tree, and began to descend slowly and laboriously. A shout burst from the soldiers in the garden below.

"God receive us!" cried Maud of Madertie, holding up her crucifix to heaven. At that moment the wall gave way beneath her, and she disappeared for ever.....

Finland's desertion of his post proved ultimately fatal to the defence of Holyrood, which by the efforts of Wallace, Walter Fenton, and the church-militant, Dr. Joram, was protracted until eleven at night. Then the soldiers of Finland, having been all shot down, a party of the Trained Bands, led by Captain Grahame, broke down the gate with sledge-hammers, and then the armed mob, roused to an indescribable pitch of frenzy and ferocity by the liquors they had imbibed, the resistance and slaughter, and the exhortations of the religious maniacs who led them, crowded like a hell disgorged into the outer court and inner quadrangle of the palace.

Taken thus in flank, the soldiers of Wallace were almost immediately destroyed. That brave cavalier was hewn down, his body was hacked to pieces, his entrails torn out and cast into the air. Many of his soldiers who surrendered were shot in cold blood, and all the wounded perished. Walter Fenton, gathering a few of the survivors upon his platform, still continued to fire upon the sea of madmen that swarmed around them.

Conspicuous among his followers, upon his prancing Galloway cob, towered the tall and ghastly figure of Mr. Ichabod Bummel; and, urging the work of death, he sent his powerful voice before him wherever he went.

"No quarter to the birds of Belial!--smite them both hip and thigh. On, ye chosen of Israel, who now, in the good fight of faith, shall extirpate the heathen, sent forth even as the Jews were of old."

"Pick me down yonder villain!" cried Fenton to his soldiers; and bullet after bullet whistled past the head of the preacher, but he seemed to bear a charmed life, and escaped them all.

"On, on to the good work, and prosper!" he cried. "Smite and slay! smite and slay! lest the curses that befel Saul for sparing the Amalekites fall upon ye."

Thus urged, the people hewed the soldiers limb from limb, and the bodies of the dead shared the same fate. Seeing all lost, Walter and Dr. Joram had torn the cavalier plumes from their hats, and leaped upon their horses, hoping to cut their way through the press, or escape unknown. But, alas! Joram was recognised by the terrible Ichabod, who, urging his Galloway towards him, brandished his sword, and exclaimed with stentorian lungs--

"'Tis a priest of Baal, and this night will I send him howling to his false gods! Come on, Jonadab Joram, thou wolf in sheep's clothing."

"Approach, thou d--ned, round-headed, prick-eared, covenanting, and rebellious rapscallion!" cried the Doctor in great wrath, urging his horse towards his clerical antagonist; but the crowd was great between them, and they were enabled to glare at and menace and bespatter each other with scriptural abuse and very hard names for some time before they came within sword's point; for they were both intoxicated, the one with brandy, and the other with an enthusiasm that bordered on insanity. "Come on, thou villanous whigamore," cried Joram, flourishing his long rapier; "thy glory and thee shall depart to the devil together!"

"Out upon thee, and the bloody papistical Duke whom thou servest, and hast blasphemously prayed for; but the curse that fell upon Jeroboam hath already fallen upon him--he shall die without a son, and be the last of his persecuting race, despite the brat in the warming pan."

"On thy carcase, foul kite, will I avenge this treason against the Lord's anointed!" replied Joram, spurring his horse.

"Thou fool!" shrieked Ichabod, with a hollow laugh; "was that accursed tyrant who fiddled while Rome blazed beneath him the anointed of the Lord?"

"Have at thee, trumpeter of treason!"

"Caitiff and firebrand of hell, at last I have thee!" and their swords flashed as they fell upon each other like two mad bulls. The superior strength and skill of the cavalier chaplain quite failed him before the ferocious enthusiasm of the Presbyterian, whose long broadsword, swayed by both hands, was twice driven through his body at the first onset.

"King and High Kirk for ever!" cried poor Joram, as he fell forward with the blood gushing from his mouth; but, still unsatisfied, Ichabod seized him as he sank down, writhing one hand in his hair, and throwing the body across his saddle-bow, he slashed off the head, and held it aloft, a grinning and dripping trophy.

"Behold," he exclaimed in an unearthly voice, "behold the head of Holofernes!"

All was over now. Walter gave a hurried glance around him. The palace was being sacked by the rabble, who carried off all they could lay their hands upon; but it was upon the beautiful chapel, that venerable monument of ancient art and David's pious zeal, that the whole tide of popular fury was poured. In five minutes it was completely devastated. The tall windows, with their rich tracery and stained glass, were destroyed; the magnificent tombs of marble and brass, the grand organ, the altar with its burning candles and great silver crucifix, the rich oak stalls of the Thistle, with the swords, helmets, and banners of the twelve knights,--were all torn down, and the beautifully variegated pavement was stripped from the floor.

All the wood and ornamental work, the pictures, reliques, furniture, vestments, &c., were piled in front of the palace, and committed to the flames amid the yells of the populace, whose cries seemed to rend the very welkin. Dashing spurs into his horse, Walter gave him the reins, and sweeping his sword around him, right, left, front and rear, he broke through the crowd, and, followed by a score of bullets, galloped up the Canongate and escaped,--the sole survivor of that night's slaughter at Holyrood.