Part 4

When the designing nobles saw that the young prince was so far prepared for their purposes, they got him engaged, under cover of a recess of the great hall, in a conversation with some of the leaders, and, in particular, with Gray and Hume, who took the active part in the demoralisation of the youth. The plan adopted by Gray, in conducting the conversation, was the result of experience, and the very triumph of cunning. He had noticed the self-complacent smile of the flattered prince, when the elder nobles conceded to him their opinion, and deferred a subtle point to the analysing powers of his boyish judgment; and he took advantage of the weakness of vanity, to forward his schemes of ambition.

"Your highness has doubtless been informed," said the arch diplomatist to the royal boy, "of the reason why your royal father hath refused to us, in this last parliament, the satisfaction of an act of pardon for our conduct at Lauder, now five years old--notwithstanding that we have been all that time in his power, and have not been troubled with any trial for our crime or misdemeanour."

"I have understood," said the prince, "that my father's imprisonment and misfortunes originated from the affair at Lauder. Is not that a good enough reason for refusing the pardon?"

"When I tell thee, young prince," said Gray, "that at Lauder the king lost his architect, his musician, his astrologer, and magician, all of whom I assisted in hanging over the buttress of Lauder Bridge, will your highness remain longer of opinion that our refusal of a pardon is owing to the imprisonment of the king?"

"No, my lord," replied the prince; "I believe I must renounce that opinion upon second thoughts; and I do it upon my recollection of what I have seen and heard of my father's sorrow for the fate of his favourites, and resentment against their executioners. He sigheth by night and by day for his brave and stately draughtsman, Earl Cochrane, his sweet-toned Rogers, and his erudite Ireland. I do, on my conscience, believe he sorrows more for these men than for his own imprisonment."

"And doth your highness approve or condemn our conduct, in hanging these favourites over Lauder Bridge?" said Hume.

"Why, I think a rope was too good for them, and a pardon not enough for the executioners," replied the prince; "you should have had a bounty on each head of the varlets. If my exchequer were not so empty, I would award ye a recompense myself. But I have heard that some of ye played into the hands of Gloucester, Albany, and Douglas, in that affair of Lauder. What say ye?"

"Thou hast been deceived," said Gray. "Archibald Bell-the-Cat was, doubtless, for the English king, but we stood true to our country. It was the favourites alone we wanted to punish--and we did punish them; an act which, apparently, thy father is determined not to forgive. What then are we to do? Wilt thou, the heir-apparent, stand aside and see those who freed thy father from the shackles of favouritism, and saved our country from the domination of a court of mechanics, consigned to a cruel punishment, or what is worse, to the terrors of Damocles?"

"Never!" cried the fiery youth; "I applaud your conduct, and could recommend to you some more work of the same kind; for my father has got another court of mechanics. Scarcely a nobleman is allowed to approach him. The Archbishop of St Andrew's, Schevez, has not forgotten his rudiments of astrology he learned from Spernicus at Louvaine--for the teaching of the king keeps up his own knowledge; and Cochrane, Rogers, Hemmil, Torphichen, Leonard, and Preston, whom you so beautifully suspended over the old bridge, have been replaced by others, no less elevated in their birth, and no less learned in the arts. My father is lost. Scotland is ruled by the stars. The birth of every year hath its horoscope. Chivalry declineth in the land. The glory of the Bruce is forgotten. There is much work before me, and I wish it were well begun, for I cannot doubt that by your services it will be well ended."

"Thou speakest like the wisdom of the oldest of us," said Gray; "and I am urged, by some of the concluding words of thy speech, to put a question to your highness--yet I tremble at my own boldness."

"Speak, good Gray," said the prince; "my father will not pardon you and your associates, after your work of good service is finished--I will pardon thee before thou beginnest."

"Is it the opinion of your highness," said the wily baron, "that a king who is ruled by the stars (the _moon_ as a _fixed_ one not excepted) is fit to govern this kingdom, which has heretofore obeyed the statutes of parliament and the sword of the knight?"

"Upon the honour of my order of knighthood," cried the prince, "thy question goeth home into the heart and marrow of the matter, and my answer shall not be behind it: I opine not."

"And doth not the situation in which we stand," said Hume--"we, the greater number of the nobles in the land, liable every instant to forfeit our lives to an aspect of the heavens--to be hanged for hanging the favourites of the king five years ago--render it imperative on us to seek, in the spirited and knightly heir-apparent, a substitute for him who is declared unfit to rule, without danger to the country and ruin to us?"

"Assuredly," answered the flattered prince. "If the king is not deposed, you will be deposed, and I shall be scandalised by the sight of a star-gazing king, and a host of dangling nobles at the end of ropes not so fine as the silk cords of Cochrane the mason's tent, which he requested for the special convenience of his noble craig. What will ye?"

"That thou shouldst head our party," said Gray, "and be our king in place of thy father, who is unfit to govern this kingdom, and unwilling to pardon his friends."

"I object not," replied the prince. "The king, my father, can be cared for tenderly. Let him be sent to my palace of Rothsay, where he can gaze on the heavens from sunset to sunrise, and send me daily an astrological express, to enable me to govern the kingdom by this heavenly wisdom."

"All hail, our king!" now cried the voices of a hundred knights and nobles, who, on a signal, had hurried from the table, and surrounded the prince. "All hail, James the Fourth, King of Scotland, and our lawful sovereign!"

And the whole assemblage kneeled before the young prince, who received the homage with every feeling of gratified pride.

While this extraordinary scene was in the course of being enacted, in the midst of a brilliant assemblage, and the eulogistic flattery of the interested actors, James felt no compunctions of broken filial duty and ruptured affection. Swelled with the pride of his new and suddenly-acquired honour, the thought of the price at which its confirmation must be bought--the deposition and degradation of an up-right and humane, though weak, king, and that king his father--never interfered with the flow of his gratified and excited feelings. Everything was now grand, hilarious, and hopeful; and a far vista of wise legislative and noble knightly achievements, claimed the rapt eye of his mind, when his attention could be taken off the brilliant scene before him. His experience of the mind of man and the operations of fate did not inform him that there is a mysterious agreement between the one and the other, whereby their results are mutually and wonderfully magnified, and the individual who studies himself is brought to tremble at the height of joy, as the precursor of a cause ready to plunge him into the depths of melancholy anticipation and sorrow. We are told that kings are great examples in the hands of a teaching Providence; and hence our authority for approaching, with greater confidence than we could do in relation to ordinary individuals, the cause of the change that awaited the feelings and aspirations of the young prince on the night of his anticipated honour.

About twelve o'clock he was attended to his chamber, the royal apartment of the castle, by Shaw of Sauchie, the governor, and several of the nobles, who, after conversing with him for some time, left him, locking the door after them as they departed--a measure, they explained to him, as being necessary for his own safety, in the midst of so much dissension and distrust as prevailed at that time among the nobility. The circumstance did not alarm the royal prisoner, though he could not but think it strange that, on the first night of his installation, his palace should be converted into a jail, and the king of his country should be the jail-bird of the seneschal of one of his own castles. Free of all sense of personal danger, he contemplated the temporary privation of his liberty rather with a disposition to being amused than annoyed, and lay down to court that rest which joy, equally as sorrow, banishes from the pillow of mortals. His thoughts took now a direction the very reverse of what they had followed during the day. The image of his deceased mother, Queen Margaret, forced itself on his mind. Her pious, reserved, and meek manners, with her devotion to her consort and her affection to her eldest son, all sanctified and made more lovely and interesting by her death, softened his heart, and filled his eyes with the tears of a son's love; while his undutiful conduct that night, in agreeing to the dethronement of his father, silently censured, as it appeared to be, by her gentle spirit, called up a feeling of remorse, which wrung his heart with pain, and added to the tears which he was already shedding in profusion. If left to his choice, he would now have undone what he had been so ready to perform at the request of factious and interested men; and, if the door of his apartment had not been locked, the strength of his feelings might have urged him to seek for safety and forgiveness at the feet of his injured parent.

The hour was far advanced, but the restlessness of his fevered fancy still prevented all rest. The apartment was dark, no attendant was within call, and he was necessitated, though a king, to yield obedience to a power which no mortal can resist; the feelings of love, sorrow, regret, remorse, and repentance--as applicable to the parent who was lying in a royal sepulchre, and to another who was virtually, in so far as regarded his intention, deposed and degraded--alternated, became stronger, decayed, and revived again with a painful and harassing vacillation. He heard the warder call two o'clock; again all was silent as before, and his thoughts were about to fall into the same painful train, when he heard the iron bar of the door of his apartment gently drawn, and saw enter the figure of an old man, with a long grey beard, a grey cloak, which reached to his feet, and was bound by a blue belt, and holding in his hand a taper, which, glimmering with a fitful light, exposed very imperfectly the strange and fearful-looking object who held it. James's eyes were fixed upon him intensely, and the lustreless orbs of his visiter repaid the looks with as intent a gaze, and made a thrill of superstitious terror run over his body. The figure continued the gaze as it approached the bed, which, having reached, it stood silent, holding up the lamp in the face of the trembling youth, and apparently taking care not to change the set of its features, or the direction or manner of its look. This attitude enabled James to scan narrowly the features of the individual: they appeared to be somewhat sinister, though he could not say where the precise expression lay, or what it truly was--seriousness seemed to degenerate into sternness, and that again into malignity, which was again relieved by some traces of kindness and patronising protection. A deep scar on the right cheek, and what by doctors is called a staphylomatic eye, in consequence of its resemblance to a white grape, had a great share in the production of the uncertain expression which was so difficult to read. Having thus stood for some time at the side of the bed, looking into the face of the prince, and holding the glimmering lamp so as to suit its imperfect vision, the figure lifted solemnly its left hand, and, in a low and somewhat guttural tone of voice, said--

"What is the duty of a son to a parent, of a subject to a king, of a creature to the Creator?"

James was silent; the question was threefold, and implied censure, which, co-operating with his fear, prevented reply.

"What doth he deserve," proceeded the figure, "who disobeyeth his parent, deposeth his king, and rebelleth against the laws of God?"

The terror of an apparition working on a predisposed mind was every moment receiving an augmentation of strength; and the young prince, in place of replying, grasped the bedclothes firmly around him, and eyed the speaker with nervous looks.

"Thou answerest not," continued the speaker--"and why? Pride and self-approbation are gifted with the loquacity of the joy which, they say, chattereth only when the sun shineth; but wisdom is represented by the owl, whose reign is in the still hours of night. Yesterday thou couldst speak of being a king--ay, a king over thy father and thy father's subjects--and a king in the verity of traitors' tongues thou art; yet where is thy authority, when even the tongue of royalty cleaveth slavishly to the parched mouth of the conscience-stricken, and preventeth thee from seizing these dry bones" (holding forth his hands), "and consigning this head of grey hairs to the Heading Hill of Stirling? The king or the prince who is enslaved by his conscience oweth the duties of villeinage to the worst and hardest of masters. The chain is forging, the forge is in action, the hammer and the anvil hold in their embrace the connecting link of a king's bondage. The eagle flies over Schiehallion to-day, and to-morrow the spurning pinions quiver in the grasp of the hand. The exulting, swelling heart of virtue hath not yet collapsed. There is time to rouse thyself, and throw off the tyrant whose power thou feelest even now. Return to thy allegiance. Love and obey thy father; aid him against his foes. Refuse--and be thrice miserably damned."

The figure turned, and retreated from the bed. The door was opened, shut and locked. Nothing was to be seen, and nothing heard. Roused from his fear, James sprung up, and cried--

"Whether of mortal mould, or a mere borrower on occasion of our rude forms of earth, return, and say whence thy commission, and of what import. If a mere messenger of man, I'll heed thee not; but, if thou'lt give me proof that James of Scotland, my royal father, enjoys the protection of the King of All, I'll on the instant renounce my new-born honours, hail him king, thee my good angel, and be once more plain James of Rothsay."

No answer was returned to the call of the prince; he listened for a time at the door of the apartment, and, hearing no sound, returned to bed, where, after tossing about for several hours, he fell into a sound sleep. Towards morning he dreamed that the figure again visited him, and communed with him on the crime of filial disobedience--the fancied apparition and the supposed conversation being in the dream so clearly developed, that, when he awoke, he felt the greatest difficulty in endeavouring to segregate the real from the imaginary appearances. He had even doubts whether he had actually seen the figure, or whether the first scene was not that of a dream as well as the second; and he knew of no mode other than that of having recourse to simple conviction, of satisfying himself on this interesting point. He was not contented with the proof afforded by his consciousness, the very _ne plus ultra_ of human probation, and resolved on making an application to the warder, with the view of getting some confirmation of the evidence of his senses.

He had scarcely made his resolution, when Governor Shaw unlocked the door, and entered the apartment. Full of the thoughts he had been indulging and canvassing with so much anxiety since he arose, the prince told his visiter what he thought he had seen during the night, but candidly admitted that he had had also a vision in a dream approaching so nearly to the reality of the waking sense, that he could not take upon him to say that the first appearance was _undoubtedly_ a real natural exhibition of a mortal existence. The governor listened with great attention, and anxiously inquired what was the subject of the conversation that passed between him and the old man. The prince narrated to him, as nearly as possible, the words used by the figure, and admitted that he himself had no power to reply, till after the visiter was gone and the door locked. Shaw was evidently much moved by the recital, and, in a confused and hurried manner, endeavoured to convince James that he had had a visit of nightmare--an affection with which he was probably, in consequence of his extreme youth, as yet unacquainted, but a mysterious operation of nature, quite sufficient to produce in a young and fervent mind that semi-consciousness of reality which had apparently perplexed him so much. He recommended to him to banish the affair from his mind, and, above all, to say nothing of it to the warlike nobles in the castle, whose very objection to the rule of his father was founded on the latter's faith in dreams, auguries, and astrological nostrums--a true sign of a weak intellect.

This latter part of the governor's statement, which was delivered with much gravity, produced a great effect upon the mind of James, whose contempt of his father's occult, astrological, and oneirocritical practices was the cause of his disobedience, as well as its apology. He trembled at the thought of incurring, on his own part, the censure which had been heaped on his parent, and felt anxious to escape precipitately from the subject he had broached, as well as from his own thoughts, which, mixing up reality and imagination in inextricable confusion, produced nothing but doubt, irresolution, and anxiety. If he had been anxious, on the entry of Shaw, to tell him the wonders of the night, he was now more anxious to undo what he had done, and remove from the mind of the governor any suspicion that he inherited from his father his hairbrained propensity to believe in dreams and divinations. Changing the style of his speech, as well as the expression of his countenance, he attempted to make light of his nocturnal adventure, and laughed off the clinging belief with an effort which was not unnoticed by his wily visiter. The power of early prejudices in overcoming the convictions of truth, effected a partial triumph; but there still clung to the mind of the youth a feeling of a struggling conviction, which his forced laugh and his expressed contempt of all supernatural beliefs had little power to affect. He felt, however, the necessity of maintaining absolute silence on a subject so intimately connected with his dispute with his father, and Shaw undertook to say nothing of the occurrence, which he affected to think had been properly treated by the noble mind of the young prince.

The scheme of this unnatural rebellion being persevered in with great determination and asperity, a court was held next day in the Castle of Stirling, where all the ceremonies of a royal levee were gone through with studied state and affected etiquette. The Earl of Argyle was reinstated in the office of chancellor, which had been conferred by his father on Elphinston, Bishop of Aberdeen. A negotiation was opened with the English king, Henry VII., who, having had a dispute with the old king as to the restoration of Berwick, very readily entered into the views of the son, and agreed to grant passports to his ambassadors, the Bishops of Glasgow and Dunkeld, the Earl of Argyle, Lords Lyle and Hailes, with the Master of Hume, who were, in fact, the heads of the rebellious party. The boldness of these proceedings, quadrating with the weakness of the king's actions, spread disaffection among the people of Scotland far and wide; and it was soon rumoured that the monarch, afraid of the disposition of his subjects towards the south, had proceeded to Aberdeen, and issued orders for the array of Strathearn and Angus, and all his friends in the north who still retained their allegiance. If the son soon found himself at the head of a large force in the south, the father was as successful in the north. Athole, Huntly, Crawford, and Lindsay of Byres, joined his standard; and to these were soon added Buchan, Errol, Glammis, Forbes, and Kilmaurs--so that the two ends of the kingdom were completely arrayed against each other, and the antagonist forces were headed by a father and a son.

The monarch having thus vacated the capital, and betaken himself to the north, an opportunity was held out to the son to lay siege to the Castle of Edinburgh; and orders were given to the troops to proceed in that direction. During all this time the mind of the prince had been kept up by the insidious counsels of the rebel lords, who represented the unfilial work in which he was engaged as conducive to the benefit of the kingdom, which would receive the blessings of his wise legislation. The youth was flattered by these statements; and the details of an army, by occupying his thoughts, banished from his recollection the night scene of the Castle of Stirling, which, as time aided the efforts of his sceptical wishes, gradually appeared to assume more and more the character of a false and delusive dream. Meanwhile, Hume and Hailes, and others who had been sent as ambassadors to England, returned with intelligence that Henry was favourable to their cause--a circumstance which still farther flattered the vanity of the youth, and prevented him from giving way to the feelings of instinctive duty and affection towards his father. Proceeding gradually forward, the rebel army came to Blackness, near Linlithgow, where they encamped.

The army of the king, in the meantime, came up, and the unusual sight was exhibited of two parts of a nation, headed by a father and a son, contending for a throne, arrayed against each other, with reciprocal feelings of enmity and views of mortal conflict. The benevolent heart of the father relented, and terms of accommodation, as prepared by Huntly and Errol, were sanctioned by his signature, but prevented from being properly submitted to the son by the rash conduct of Buchan, who thought he would be able to extinguish the rebellion by one blow. A skirmish was the consequence, in which the earl gained some advantage; but, though the triumph was magnified into a victory, the rebel forces were as strong as ever, while the sight of kindred blood on the swords of the warriors of either side of the field sickened the hearts of brave men, who, in other circumstances, would have been fired by the token of an advantage over an enemy. The wish for an accommodation was increased on the side of the king and his troops, and the former terms of accommodation were submitted to the rebel prince, who was still under the leading-strings of the arch traitors by whom he had been led into this unseemly and unnatural position.

The terms of accommodation were extremely favourable to the insurgent forces, as, without exacting any condition but that of laying down their arms, the king agreed to admit them to favour and grant them pardons for present and bygone offences; yet great dissension existed amongst the rebels on the subject of the acceptance of the offer of peace, and the prince, urged on by Gray, in whom he had the greatest confidence, headed the party who were inclined to stand out.