CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE GREY HORSE.

"I would the wind that is sweeping now O'er the restless and weary wave; Were swaying the leaves of the cypress bough O'er the calm of my early grave." _Scottish Song._

The morning of the 11th June, 1488, rose brightly over Stirling and its magnificent scenery.

Almost with dawn, tidings reached King James that the insurgent nobles, at the head of a vast force, had left Falkirk some hours before daybreak, and were on their march through the Torwood to attack him. The unfortunate monarch now found himself peculiarly situated.

His Castle of Stirling, the only adjacent place of security in case of reverse, was closed against him; while the nobles as they marched by the old Roman road which ran through the recesses of the Torwood, barred the only route to the capital. Thus, in the event of defeat, James could turn nowhere for succour but to the admiral's boats at the Craigward, as arranged by the faithful Falconer.

He summoned a council of his chiefs--Montrose, Glencairn, Menteith, Ruthven, Semple, the Preceptor of Torphichen, and others; and they were unanimously of opinion that he should commit their cause and fortunes to the hazard of a battle. Immediately on this decision being come to, the steep streets and old fantastic alleys and wynds of Stirling echoed to the brattle of drums, the clang of trumpets, the twang of Border horns, and the yelling of the mountain pipe, as the royal troops, horse and foot, spearmen, archers, and knights--all sheathed in mail, with horses richly trapped; burgesses and yeomen in splinted jacks, steel gloves, and morions; and clansmen with their long linked lurichs, tuaghs, and two-handed swords, marched past its walls and barrier-ports, by the ancient road, which then, as now, led towards the rampart that extended from the Forth to the Clyde, and advanced eastward in three heavy columns, all animated by enthusiasm, for the royal cause, and by the highest spirit and determination.

At that time the insurgents were passing the Carron, so famed of old in our Highland songs and Lowland history as the scene of many a bloody contest with "the kings of the world;" for there the wings of their pride were shorn, and the line of their conquests marked for ever by the swords of the Scottish Gaël.

The vast extent of the Torwood--the Sylvæ Caledonia of antiquity--and all the foliaged hills that rise around the "Bulwark of the North," were clad in the richness of their summer beauty. The air was laden with perfume exhaled from the waving woods and teeming earth; the sky was without a cloud, save where a few specks of gold or fleecy white floated in the distant east. The dew was glittering on everything, from the topmost leaves of the Torwood's giant oaks to the little mary-flower and red-eyed daisy that grew below them. All nature seemed fresh and bright and beautiful. The wild violet and the mountain roses that grew thickly by the wayside scented the air, and its purity was enchanting. It seemed rather a morning for a merry hunting or hawking party, than the stern debate of Scottish civil war; and as pipe and trumpet, with the tramp of barbed horses and the tread of heavily-armed men, rang on the pavement of the Roman Via, and awoke the leafy echoes of the forest, the wild erne screamed in the oaken glade, and the cushat dove fled from the hateful sound.

After hearing mass in the Dominican church, and confessing himself to Henry, Abbot of Cambuskenneth, the king mounted his horse amid a flourish of trumpets. He was a peaceful and amiable prince--one more suited to our own civilized time than that age of blood and cold iron; and thus he felt somewhat unused to the ponderous but gorgeous suit of armour in which he was cased and riveted; and all uncheered by the enthusiasm wound him, the flashing of arms, and the braying of martial music, as the drums and fifes, horns and trumpets, of Lord Bothwell's guard (first embodied by James II.), played merrily,

"Cou thou the rashes greene O,"

or by the historical memories of the ground over which he marched, for the Scottish Marathon lay close at hand; he rode silently and moodily on, with his helmet closed, to conceal the tears that came unbidden to his eyes, as he thought of his dead wife, his son's desertion, the unjust accusations against him, and the coming slaughter which nothing but his own death could perhaps avert.

"Another hour will bring us in sight of the foe," said the old Duke of Montrose, whose armour was richly ornamented, though somewhat old-fashioned; for his head-piece had the oreillets and long spike worn in the days of Murdoch, the Regent Duke of Albany, and his horse was gaily housed in his colours; _gules_, a fess checque _argent_ and _azure_, the bearings of the Lindesays of Crawford; "and in one hour after that, your majesty will find yourself enabled to punish and repay the treason of Sauchie. I would give my best barony to see his head rolling on the Gowling Hill of Stirling!"

"Time will show, duke," said James, with a sigh. "God wot, I have no wish to shed the blood of my people; but I never liked this Laird of Sauchie; his soul was an abyss, and I never could fathom his thoughts."

"His chief friend and follower--a man named Hew Borthwick--was in Stirling last night, disguised in a friar's frock. This man is a spy and traitor; yet he escaped us, and took the eastern road, doubtless to tell what he has seen; and for all the Howe of Angus, I would not have lost that fellow's head."

"Borthwick! have I not heard that name before?"

"Doubtless; he is a well-known bully, pimp, and brawler, who hovers about the discontented lords."

"Is he well-born?"

"Hell-born would be nearer truth, if rumour pedigrees him right," replied Montrose; "but what aileth your majesty?" he asked, perceiving the king to shudder so much that the joints of his armour rattled.

"A _grue_ came over me," said the poor king, and Montrose was silent, for neither were above the superstitions of the time; and in Scotland people still believe that an involuntary shudder is caused either by a spirit passing near or when we tread upon the ground which is to be our grave.

A shout, a clamorous hurrah from the vanguard, announced that the foe was in sight; and as the king, with his forces, debouched from the Torwood, he came in view of the long array of his insurgent lords; and Falconer, who rode with the royal guard, shook his lance aloft in fierce ecstasy, as he thought the moment was now approaching when he might meet Hailes and Home, singly or together, in close and mortal combat.

The insurgents were posted at the bridge over the Carron, and were formed in three strong columns, the whole strength of which has been variously stated, for their exact number has never been ascertained. Some historians have estimated them at one hundred and eighty thousand, which is doubtless a great exaggeration. Their force, however, was sufficiently formidable to appal the mind of the heart-broken king.

The Lords Hailes and Home commanded the first column, which was composed of the men of Berwickshire and East Lothian; and Falconer's quick eye soon distinguished the chevron of the first, and the green banner of the second, with its yellow lion waving above the flower of the Scottish spearmen.

With this body rode the traitor Borthwick, armed like a simple knight, and wearing a close helmet.

The second column was composed of the fierce clans of Galloway and the hardy Bordermen from the Liddel, the Annan, the Tweed, and the Teviot, all clad in jacks of splinted steel, with long lances and two-handed swords, well mounted, and ranged under the terrible Red Heart of Angus--the banner of a thousand battles, a thousand crimes and glories!

In the third column, led by the Lord High Constable, were the men of the central Lowlands (under the nominal command of the Duke of Rothesay), and in this column the insurgents had the hardihood to display the royal standard of the kingdom. Lord Drummond, the Steward of Menteith, Sir Patrick Gray, the Forester of Drum, Sir William Stirling of Keir, Sir James Shaw, who had come from Stirling Castle, with many more malcontent noblesse, were around the prince, as guards and spies upon his conduct.

The aspect of these long triple lines as they stood in order of battle by the banks of the Carron, with their deep masses of long spears that vibrated like the stalks of a ripe cornfield, their many silken standards waving in the wind, and all their bright harness shining in the meridian sun, as knight and noble galloped from troop to troop and band to band, was too formidable to leave the unhappy king the shadow of a hope that he could ever come to an amicable arrangement with them, which he would gladly have done had his forces been the most numerous.

He formed his little army of thirty thousand men into four columns. The first was commanded by the aged Earl of Menteith, under whom were the banners and vassals of the Lords Erskine, Gray, Ruthven, Graham, and Maxwell; the second was led by the Earl of Glencairn, and consisted chiefly of the western clans; the third was led by the Lord Boyd and the young Lord Lindesay, who carried the gauntlet of Angus on his spear.

The main body, in which was the royal guard under Lord Bothwell, was led by the king and Montrose. It consisted principally of men from Fife, Angus, and Stormont. In front were the Great Lion and a few other pieces of cannon. James III. rode at the head, distinguished above all around him by the loftiness of his stature, the brilliancy of his armour, the collar of the Thistle, and his towering _yellow plume_.

On both sides all were well armed according to the fashion of the time and country, for the Scots excelled in the manufacture of weapons; and at that time every gentleman possessing ten pounds' worth of land was compelled to have a complete suit of harness, with sword, spear, and dagger; every yeoman, a basinet, steel gloves, bow, shafts and buckler, sword and dirk. From an early period the nation were good gunners; they first used cannon in the war against the English in the year 1340; and in after years the Parliament ordered that every proprietor whose lands were a hundred pounds of new extent, should provide a hackbut, while every hundred-merk-land should equip two field-pieces; consequently, the nobles had plenty of cannon in this fatal field of Sauchieburn.

As the lines were approaching each other, the faithful Lord Lindesay of the Byres rode up to the king, attended by an esquire who led a grey horse of beautiful proportions--one which was deemed unrivalled in Scotland for beauty, strength, and fleetness. "I beg," said he, "that your majesty will accept of this steed from me; should we lose this eventful field--which God and St. Andrew avert--your majesty may fully trust your sacred life to this animal's agility and sureness of foot; for if you can but keep your saddle, my favourite grey will never fail you."

"He has been carefully bred," said the Duke of Montrose, "and possesses the fifty-four gifts of a good horse."

"Fifty-four, duke?" reiterated the king, stroking the fiery animal as it pressed on the powerful curb, and caracoled from side to side; "on my faith, a goodly number!"

"Examine him, please your majesty," continued the handsome young donor, throwing up his umbriere; "he hath a woman's breast, with a lion's courage; the eye of a bull, with the patience of a sheep; the strength of a Spanish mule, with the fleetness of a Scottish deer; and the ears of a wolf! You will find him no cutter of gowans. Keep his head well up, and, by the faith of Lindesay, he will never fail under you!"

How fatal a gift this fiery horse proved will be shown in the sequel!