CHAPTER XII.

EMBASSY OF THE SIEUR DE MONIPENNIE,

"A grey-haired knight set up his heid, And crackit richt crousely: 'Of Scotland's king I haud my house, He pays me meat and fee; And I will keep my guid auld house, While my house will keep me.'" AULD MAITLAND.

While these accusations had been made by the lord chamberlain, and proud replies given by the noblesse in question, Rothesay had drawn near Margaret, and smilingly, and in whispers, related to her his conversation with Sir Patrick Gray, and the suit which the knight had requested him to urge. She grew, if possible, paler at the relation, for in her secret heart she feared that even were this new suit not urged for some dark and ulterior object, it might afford her great cause for uneasiness, and perhaps lead to the discovery of that private union, which, as a deadly secret, she treasured in her timid heart; for well she knew that the jealousy of the greater nobles at such an honourable alliance formed a _second time_ with the House of Drummond would fan the flame of "many a feud yet slumbering in its ashes."

In the group near the Duchess of Montrose, Captain Barton was conversing softly with her sister Euphemia; and poor Falconer, from the foot of the hall (where a few of his soldiers supplied the place of Lord Bothwell's guard, who were then at Stirling), glanced anxiously at Sybilla from time to time, and sighed when reflecting that all the gold _he_ possessed was on his spurs and doublet. A flourish of trumpets in the court-yard, and a glittering of pike-heads and heralds' tabards between the festooned curtains which shaded the lower end of the hall, announced the arrival of the new French ambassador and his train, and then all became hushed, save some such scraps of conversation as the following:--

"Sybilla Drummond," said the Duchess of Montrose, "remember ye aught of the splendour in which the Lord Stuart d'Aubigne, Mareschal of France, came here in 1483?"

"As ambassador of Charles VIII?"

"To renew the ancient league."

"Ah yes, madam; how could I forget it? My dear brother, who was killed at Naples by Gonsalvo de Cordova, was captain in one of the eighteen Scottish companies whom he took away with him to the Italian wars."

"My puir nephew--he was indeed a brave gallant!" said the old duchess, with a sigh.

"Yet, madam," resumed Sybilla, glancing through the painted window near her, "I think the train of this Lord of Concressault every way inferior to those of the Mareschal d'Aubigne and of the papal ambassador, who came soon after from His Holiness Innocent VIII."

"In the following year--the Lord Bishop of Imola; I remember me, child."

"He succeeded in procuring a three years' truce between King James and Richard of England," said Barton, "who sent his despatches sewn in the stomacher of Muriella Crawford."

"Ah, that woman became a Lindesay by marrying into our family," said the haughty old duchess, applying her pomander ball to her nose.

* * * * *

"My Lord Drummond," said the swarthy Earl of Angus, glancing grimly at the king, who was sitting with his forehead resting on his hand, and buried in thought, while the Chancellor, Treasurer, Secretary of State, and other richly dressed courtiers, hovered near him; "it would seem as if we peers of Scotland had become mere grooms and pages in the eyes of this king's new pimps and puppets."

"By the fiend, yes! Only conceive again what we have just heard--Hailes, Home, the Steward of Menteith, and the Forester of Drum, being thus arraigned at the instance of a few wretched burgesses!"

"Yea, and before some of those we spared at Lauder Brig--men who are yet unhanged," added Angus, with one of his darkest scowls.

"There now, not a yard from the king's chair, is a balladeer, the son of a sword-slipper in the Shoegaitt of Perth, who hath exchanged the file and hammer for a sword and Parinese poniard--his canvas gaberdine for a dainty doublet of cramosie, because, forsooth, he is master of the king's music, and Margaret of Denmark loves to listen to the twangle of his viols and ghitterns--faugh!"

"Men say he will be made a knight and privy councillor."

"If so," said Sauchie, "by God I shall forswear my spurs for ever!"

"I knew such another clown who was made an earl," said the Steward of Menteith, who had given his tent-cord to hang Cochrane over Lauder Bridge.

"There are Falconer and Barton, too, whose fathers were but merchant-skippers!"

"But the former is a brave gallant, and the latter is my particular friend," said Drummond.

"Well, well," resumed the discontented Angus, impatiently; "but think of him whom I saved at Lauder, when _your_ tent-cord was twisted round his neck--John Ramsay--a mere bonnet laird, who is now, forsooth, _Sir_ John Ramsay, and Lord of Bothwell, Baron of Balmain, Flaskie, and Pitnamore, with the Captainrie of the king's guard. Yet, by St. Bryde, this springald dared but yesterday to pass me in the Baxter's Wynd at Stirling--me, Archibald of Angus--with head erect, and without beck, bow, nod, or recognition!"

"The brose these loons shall sup is thickening fast, lord earl," said Drummond, with a dark smile, as he spread his silvered beard over his steel gorget, "and ere long our lances will be at their throats."

At that moment the Montrose herald, an officer of the Lyon court, who had been recently created in honour of the Crawford dukedom, exclaimed, "Place for the ambassador of his Majesty, the King of France!"

"Sweetheart!" whispered Rothesay, pressing his Margaret's trembling hand, as all eyes were turned towards the entrance, "this is, indeed, a critical day for us! Should my father depart on his long-proposed pilgrimage, I shall be regent, and he must grant us pardon ere he go. If he stays, we shall then be condemned to linger on in secrecy, but only a little longer."

"Until the good Bishop of Dunblane returns," said Margaret, with one of her dearest smiles.

During the reign of James III. there were an unusual number of solemn treaties and splendid embassies passed between the court of Scotland and those of Louis XI. and Charles VIII. of France; Alphonso _Africanus_ of Portugal, Ferdinand V. of Spain, Christian of Denmark, and Charles _the warrior_, Count of Flanders, by means of nobles, prelates, and heralds. Some of these were exceedingly magnificent, for under the care of kings who were far in advance of their times, Scotland was rapidly rising in the scale of European nations. But on the present occasion the special envoy of Charles VIII. was attended only by two esquires and two pages, who bore his helmet and braque-mart, or short French sword.

The Sieur de Monipennie, Lord of Concressault, was a Scotsman, a cadet of the family of Pitmilly, long naturalized by residence in France, in the armies of which he had served lor thirty years. He commanded four thousand archers in the war between the Charolois and the Lords of the League, and at the battle of Montleri had slain, with his own hand, Pierre de Breze, the grand seneschal of Normandy. At the left clasp of his cuirass dangled the gold cross of eight points, worn by the chevaliers of the Order of St. Etienne, and the Cross of the Immaculate Conception. In aspect he was venerable and soldierlike. His armour was black, edged, studded, and engraved with gold; his boots had those long toes or _poleines_, of which we may read in the chronicles of Monstrelet; his beard was white as snow, but his dark grey eyes were bright and keen; his features were severe and somewhat harsh, but a smile of pleasure and loyalty overspread them as he approached his native monarch, and, full of honest enthusiasm, knelt down to kiss the hand of James, who immediately raised him from the dais.

"The last time I had the happiness of seeing your majesty," paid he, in a voice that was strongly tinged by a foreign accent, "was about thirty years ago, and ye were then but a halfling laddie."

"At the funeral of my mother, of royal memory, in the collegiate kirk of Edinburgh," said the king.

"I mind it weel, as if 'twere yesterday. Woe is me! but the cares of manhood have been written deeply on your majesty's brow sincesyne; yet ye _do_ remind me of the king, your father, when I saw him last in '58 at the Castle of Stirling. He was ever a good friend to me and to my house."

The eyes of the veteran suffused with emotion as the recollection of years long passed came gushing back upon his warm and generous heart.

"I rejoice, indeed, to see you, my Lord of Concressault, and am all impatience to hear the message of my cousin of France."

"It is simply concerning the proposition formerly made anent the invasion of Brittany. He has been pleased to desire me to urge your majesty to invade and take possession of that dukedom, promising, at the same time, to make over to the crown of Scotland all right and interest France may have in its five bishoprics of Rennes, Nantes, Saint Malo, Dol, and Saint Brieuc. He would advise your majesty, as more fully set forth in these papers which I shall have the honour of laying before your council, to promise to the Bretons that their states-general and all their ancient privileges shall be retained as inviolate, subject, however, to the modifications of the Scottish Parliament."

"What say you to this, my lords?" asked the king, as a murmur of varying opinions rose among the nobles.

"I say nay," replied Angus; "the poor Bretons have never wronged us, and by St. Bryde! why should we invade and dispossess their duke, to please a King of France or to avenge his petty piques and jealousies?"

"The King of France requires no man to avenge his quarrels, Earl of Angus," retorted the Scoto-French Lord of Concressault, turning abruptly round.

"Drummond," said the king, "what sayst thou?"

"I agree with Angus," replied Lord Drummond. "Why should we imitate England of old, by waging wanton wars, and violating the rights of a free people?"

"There are some fine harbours off the Breton coast," said Sir Andrew Wood; "gadzooks, Robbie Barton, we know Nantes well, with its castle at the mouth of the Sevre."

"King Charles desired me to say," continued Sieur de Monipennie, without heeding the nobles, "that twenty thousand men will be sufficient to reduce the Bretons, with such French forces as he would send against them by the way of Maine and Anjou, together with all the Scottish troops now in the service of France--to wit, Sir Robert Patulloch's gard du corps Ecossaises; my thousand lances of Concressault, and those of John of Darnley, the mareschal Stuart d'Aubigne, who has just been created Comte d'Evereaux; and those would enter by the way of Poitou, as these letters will show."

Whatever James thought of this splendid offer from the wily ministers of his cousin Charles the Affable, who was then in his eighteenth year, he had not time given him to say. In 1473, the proposition had been made before, and he had then intended to annex Brittany, at the head of 6000 Scottish infantry; but the Parliament opposed it; and now nearly with one unanimous voice, the nobles said, and perhaps with some feeling of justice--

"Not a man of us will draw a sword or lift a lance in this cause!"

"The Bretons have never wronged us," added Lord Drummond; "and woe be to those who wage an unjust war!"

"You forget, my lords, that the barons and burgesses are yet to be consulted," replied the king, with rising anger; "and if _their_ voice is for the annexation of Brittany to our realm, by the Black Rood of Scotland, I will march without my recreant nobles, or create _new ones_ on the field!"

The peers on hearing this rash speech smiled at each other contemptuously and incredulously, while the Lord of Concressault gazed at them in astonishment; for though he knew well the stubborn pride of his native chiefs, he had but recently come from France, where he had seen the iron rule of Louis XI., his fortresses of Loches and Montilz-les-Tours, with their trap-doors and gibbets, for the proud and refractory; his atrocious bastille, with its vaulted hall, and those cubes of masonry and iron which stood therein, and were called the king's little daughters, and in the heart of which, some men were pining and had pined for twenty years, like frogs in a marble block! He had seen all France tremble at the nod of the decrepit little tyrant who espoused Margaret of Scotland--and now he gazed with ill-concealed wonder at the effrontery of these Scottish nobles. And James, though his generous nature was ever averse to injustice and oppression, merely to oppose, and if possible to mortify them, seemed not indisposed to undertake the conquest and annexation of this then independent dukedom, which was not united to France until 1532.

"Immediately after the meeting of Parliament, before whom your papers shall be laid, I will send to France my final answer," replied the king; "and now, my Lord of Concressault, you can favour me in a very particular manner. You are, of course, aware, that since 1477, now eleven years ago, I have been bound by a solemn vow to visit the shrine of St. John, in the great Cathedral of Amiens."

The ambassador bowed; Rothesay pressed the hand of Margaret Drummond, who hung upon his arm, and stepped forward a pace to listen. A deep stillness reigned in the crowded hall; even the nobles seemed to hold their breaths for a time.

"On this pilgrimage I was to have gone, accompanied by a thousand gentlemen; but the arrival of a legate from his Holiness Sixtus IV., the siege of Dunbar, the revolt of my brother, the Duke of Albany, and those events which brought on the--the fatal raid at Lauder, with many other events, have totally precluded the fulfilment of this most holy pledge; I therefore entrust to you, my Lord of Concressault, this holy medal, the gift of our Father Innocent VIII.," continued James, taking from his neck a large and heavy gold medallion. "This I beseech you to present in my name to the shrine of St. John, as at present I see no possibility of my leaving Scotland, even for the short period of three months."

The Sieur de Monipennie knell to receive the consecrated medal, which he kissed and suspended by its gold chain at his neck. It bore an image of the Virgin, and was encircled by the legend,--

Hail, Mary, Star of Heaven, and Mother of God!

This medal was afterwards conveyed to the Shrine of St. John at Amiens, and there it hung until the plunder of the churches during the French Revolution.

Rothesay gazed on Margaret tenderly, and in silence, for the king's sudden and unexpected abandonment of his long-projected pilgrimage removed, for the present, all hope of a fortunate or happy revelation of their rash and secret union. Rothesay sighed with disappointment, and Margaret's timid eyes filled with tears; for had James actually departed on this pilgrimage, the rules of the Church would have compelled him to forgive all who had offended against him, or his journey would have been deemed a false and futile pretence.

Distinguishing from among the nobles the stout and portly admiral, whom he knew by the silver whistle which hung at his neck, the venerable ambassador of Charles VIII. entered into an animated conversation with Sir Andrew Wood, which was a fresh source of irritation to some of the jealous peers, who thereby felt themselves slighted. The hum of voices again pervaded the large and stately hall, and James, after exchanging a few words with the Duke of Montrose, reclined his brow upon his hand, and with his face overshadowed by a bitterness which he could not conceal, at the affront so publicly given to him by the nobles, suddenly and abruptly arose to withdraw. Angus, who at times was not ungenerous, perceived his deep emotion, and as the acknowledged leader of the peers, approached and said in a low voice,--

"Your majesty may feel that we have wronged you; but I beseech you to rest assured, that at heart your nobles love you."

"And hate all else who have a claim on my friendship," replied James, bitterly, "or all who deserve my affection; is it not so, lord earl?"

"Yes, if bestowed upon the ignoble and unworthy," replied the earl, haughtily, while his deep, dark, glassy eyes bestowed on his sovereign one of those daring, fixed, and penetrating glances which even he at times found almost insupportable.

"Yet would I hope, Angus, that with our great banquet in Castle of Edinburgh--that friendly feast of which I have spoken so often--all these feuds and bitternesses will cease," said James, as he bowed low to Concressault, the ambassador, lower still to the ladies, and retired, leaning on the arm of his most faithful friend and counsellor, the Duke of Montrose.

"Poor king!" said the admiral to Barton, as they also departed; "between his peers and his people, he is like one between the devil and the deep sea."