CHAPTER LVII.

CAMBUSKENNETH.

"Oh, wide is the sorrow in landwart and borough, And dark is the symbol on proud Falkland's wall! For James the true-hearted, our prince hath departed, The king of broad Scotland lies dead in his hall!" _Ballads and Lays_.

Preparations for the young king's coronation were suspended until after the interment of his father, whose body had been conveyed to Cambuskenneth Abbey; and also until after the general pacification of the kingdom. All the realm south of the Tay acknowledged him as king; the Castles of Edinburgh and Stirling were surrendered to him; and now he began the task of rewarding his father's friends, and punishing his own pretended adherents, by appointing Sir John Lundie of that Ilk, governor of Stirling, and the Laird of Balgillo, captain of Broughty. On this Sir Patrick Gray, and Sir James Shaw, and others of their party, retired to their own houses, and brooding on revenge, entered into a closer correspondence with the agents of Henry VII.

Thus did James punish Shaw for shutting his father out of his own castle.

Dissension for a time seemed to be suspended around the coffin of the murdered king, whose remains were borne with all the pomp of regality, and all the solemnity of the Romish faith, from the Abbey to the great Church of St. Mary of Cambuskenneth; and there those grasping lords and loyal chiefs, who had so lately crossed their swords in mortal strife at Sauchieburn, met side by side, in secret prayer and sorrow--or making an outward show of both: the tall and dark-browed Angus; the good and pious Montrose; the brave hero of Rhodez, the Preceptor Knollis, in the robes of his order; the veteran Lord of Concressault; the ambitious Drummond; the turbulent chiefs of the Homes and Hepburns; the half-savage Steward of Menteith; the rough Forester of Drum; and all the great officers of the state and household, gorgeously apparelled and carefully _armed_.

The heralds and pursuivants, the guards and beads-men, with the prelates of the then powerful but withal crumbling hierarchy; the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, primate of the kingdom, with the _ten_ other bishops, (the Right Reverend Lord of Dunblane was still a prisoner in England), with their mitres, crosiers, and crossbearers, attended by many a relique, censer, banner, and taper, were also there.

These prelates really sorrowed for the king, unless where family influence and rank curbed or warped their natural feelings; but the majority of the temporal lords, while wearing armour, a strong evidence of their mutual distrust of each other, contrived to veil all emotions under a calm exterior; and with their heads bent low, and bearing lighted tapers in their gauntletted hands, they followed through that long and lofty aisle the purple-velvet coffin in which their slaughtered monarch lay, with the crown of "Fergus, father of a hundred kings," the sword and sceptre above him; and there, to the sound of trumpet, bell, and organ, amid the half-hushed murmur of a thousand tongues that prayed, they lowered him into his narrow home, beside his wife, the queen, Margaret of Oldenburg.

As the vault closed over him, faint and distant came the boom of the minute-guns, as they rang from the dusky towers of Stirling, where the royal standard hung, half hoisted, in the sunny air.

Sir Andrew Wood, Barton, Falconer, and their barge's crew, stood by the closing grave, and there was not an eye unmoistened among them when Rothesay dropped the velvet cord that lowered down his father's head; but the Admiral could not repress his inclination to compliment Lord Drummond and other nobles "on the great _fortitude_ they displayed on this sorrowful occasion," a jibe which made them knit their brows.

But now none may say where James III. of Scotland and the Isles, or his queen, Margaret of Oldenburg, are lying; for the noble Abbey of St. Mary has been swept from its foundations; one remnant alone survives--a lofty tower; and though the peasants still pretend to remember the royal grave, and point it out to visitors, not a stone remains to mark the tomb of the murdered monarch, for the place is now a bare greensward.

The sorrow and remorse of the young prince, his successor, were long and deep; and it was by the advice of the good abbot, Henry of Cambuskenneth, he resolved to atone for the part he had taken against his father by wearing next his skin a belt of iron, to which every year he should add a weight, while he shortened it by a link.

While this remarkable belt was preparing,--while Gray and Shaw were plotting with England,--while Borthwick lurked in Berwick, and rewards were offered in vain for the murderers of the king,--while Sir Andrew Wood busied himself in preparing a fleet to meet one which Henry VII. was said to be secretly preparing against Scotland, while openly he avowed his intentions of pressing by diplomacy the long projected marriage of the Duke of Rothesay, now James IV., with his daughter, Margaret Tudor, of dubious reputation,--while the Bishop of Dunblane was still detained in England, in defiance of international law,--while all these events were passing, or in progress, measures were taken by Lord Drummond to have his daughter Margaret--now restored to her family--acknowledged as queen-consort by the king, who spent much of his time in the charm of her society at Dundee and Dunblane. But fresh delays occurred, for the late king's loyal adherents had risen in arms, inspired by that wild inborn love of justice so natural to the Celt--for every Scottish Lowlander has, more or less, Celtic blood in his veins.

Beaton, the miller of Bannock, now related the barbarous manner in which James III. had been butchered. Lord Forbess, in armour, rode through the clans on the northern slopes of the Grampians, displaying upon his lance a bloody shirt, said to have been taken off the king's body; the venerable Earl of Lennox joined him at the head of five thousand Highlanders; but the Lords Drummond, Home, and Hailes, marched against them with all their vassals. Favoured by information received from a deserter named Alexander Mac Alpine, Lord Drummond surprised these loyal insurrectionists in their camp at the Moss of Sassentilly, near Stirling, and routed them, after a brisk engagement, with great loss of life.

Pushing on from thence, he took the Castle of Dunbarton, which the Earl of Lennox and the Lord Lyle endeavoured in vain to defend.

For these services Drummond received a grant of Lennox's forfeited lands in the lordship of Menteith; Home was appointed Lord Warden of the Eastern Marches and High Chamberlain of Scotland. In the same month, Hailes obtained the Earldom of Bothwell, with all the forfeited estates of John Ramsay, the loyal Laird of Balmain, who had fallen at Sauchieburn when charging at the head of the royal guard; he was moreover made Lord Warden of the Western Marches, High Admiral of Scotland, and master of the young king's household; so old Lord Drummond returned to court in excellent humour with himself, and highly delighted to find that a shower of favours had descended upon his two intended sons-in-law.

James IV. had painful doubts regarding the fight at Sassentilly; for the men who were defeated there had been his father's dearest friends, and the banner they fought under was no feudal flag or royal standard, but the gory garment borne on the lance of the Lord Forbess.

He asked his father-in-law if there was anything he could bestow upon him.

"I seek naught," said he; "I am a lord of that ilk, and the Drummonds have no need of titles; terror and antiquity had caused their name to be venerated enough in the land."

This was but a species of the pride that aped humility; but it was so peculiar that the young king laughed. Without much pressing, the old lord accepted the office of Justice-general of Scotland--and a deal office it proved to most of his enemies; but "the contumacy of those gipsies," his daughters, proved a source of continual annoyance to him.

As corruption and bribery were (and not unfrequently are still) the highway to public offices in Scotland, it is wonderful that we do not find Shaw or Gray installed as lord advocate; but that official was merely a lawyer then, without any pretence of being a statesman, and so the post was not held in great repute.

The reader may marvel whether Master--we beg pardon--Sir Hew Borthwick was troubled by his conscience; but it must be borne in mind, that those facile Scots, who from time to time (since the days of Sir John Menteith down to a very recent period) have sold themselves to English ministers, never had a conscience to trouble. Besides, a few acts of slaughter, more or less, in a lifetime, were of little consequence in those days; thus any twinges experienced by our Scottish cosmopolite were principally those of fear.

One fact is _certain_; there is no record of Stirling, Shaw, or Gray ever having been punished for abetting him in the barbarous assassination of the king; and though even _he_ escaped all judicial penalties, his ultimate fate was not a happy one, as shall be seen in the sequel to the events we have narrated.

As time progresses and the world turns round, even the most serious events are fated to be faintly remembered or soon forgotten: thus, the grave of the unhappy James III. was barely closed, when his young successor in the assembled parliament was forced to give his royal sanction to an act which was brought forward and carried by an overwhelming majority of the powerful lords and their adherents, the commissioners of shires and burghs--an act which declared that the slaughter of the late king and of his followers was the just reward of their own crimes and deceit; and that James IV. "and the _trew_ Lordis and Barronis that were with him in the same field were innocent, free and quyte of the slauchters;" and that copies of this deed, with their seals attached thereto, should be sent to the Vatican, to the courts of "France, Hispanzie, Denmark, and other realmes as shall be expedient for the tyme."

The old Mareschal de Concressault, who, as a Scottish baron, had a seat in the house, now demanded from the prior of St. Andrew's his passport, with a safe escort back to France; and in addressing the three estates upon the late events, he adverted severely on the spirit of treason, conspiracy, and rebellion, which seemed to be spreading over Europe, every kingdom and state of which had been convulsed, as well as Scotland.

"To wit, my lords," he continued, "France under Louis XI., Flanders and Holland under Charles the Warlike, Gueldres under Duke Arnold, who is now imprisoned by his own son, and England under Henry VI. and Edward IV. But rest assured, my lords, that in each and all of these countries, a just Heaven will punish those who have advanced, with swords drawn and banners displayed, against the Lord's anointed!"

"Laird of Pitmilly, this is but pyots talk," was the insolent reply of Angus; "for we remember, my lords, that Louis of France, Charles of Burgundy, John II. of Portugal, and Richard III. of England, have all endeavoured to play the tyrant in their own countries, as well as King James in Scotland; and if they have not been duly punished for it in this world, they will assuredly smart for it in the next!"

And then, as the veteran Concressault left the assembly for ever, the grim Scottish nobles only smiled as they played with their long swords, and remembered that they had forced James III., when seated on the same throne now occupied by his sad-eyed son, to _stitch_ the patent of James Douglas, Lord of Dalkeith and Earl of Morton, the parchment of which he had torn in a fit of just indignation at the "inordinate royalties and privileges it contained."

Though no declaration of war had been made--for Henry had yet hopes of achieving an alliance by marriage--political relations between Scotland and England were somewhat dubious. Thus, to prevent any hostile interference with the French ambassador, Sir Andrew Wood, with the _Yellow Frigate_ and a ship named the _Flower_, was ordered by the Lord High Admiral Hailes, now Earl of Bothwell, to convey the Sieur de Monipennie to Brest; and thus he prepared for sea with all speed.