with whom she took up her abode. After having
effectually lulled all suspicion, she affected to remember
a vow she had made to visit the White
Kirk of Brechin (according to the '' Chronicles of
Pitscottie "), and bade adieu to the Chancellor overnight,
with many tender recommendations of the
young king to his care. She set forth betimes next
morning with her retinue, and baggage borne on
sumpter horses. In one of the arks or chests
:trapped on one of these she had the young king
concealed, with his own consert. He was thus
conveyed to Leith, and from thence by water to
Stirling, where she placed him in the hands of the
Regent Livingstone, while the haughty Douglas
kept aloof, as one who took no interest in the
petty intrigues around the throne. Livingstone
now unfurled the royal standard, levied troops, and
laid siege to the Castle of Edinburgh ; but the wary
Chanceflor, finding that he had been outwitted,
pretended to compromise matters by delivering
the keys of the gates into the hands of the king,
after which they all supped together in the great
hall of the fortress. Crichton was confirmed in his
ofice of Chancellor, and the other as regent and
guardian of the royal person, a state of affairs not
fated to last long.
Livingstone having quarrelled with the queen,
she carried off the young king again, and restored
him to the custody of the Chancellor in the Castle
of Edinburgh. Under the guidance of the Bishops
of Moray and Aberdeen, then resident in the city,
a conference was held in the church of St. Giles,
' making him and his rival joint guardians, which,
from their mutual dread and hatred of the Earl of
Douglas, led to an amicable arrangement, and the
young king chose the Castle as his future place of
residence.
The great house..of. Dauglas,had naw reached
the zenith of its baronial power and pride. The
earl possessed Annabdale, Galloway, and other extensive
dominions in. the southern counties, where
all men bowed to his authority. He had the
dukedom of Touraine and lordship of Longueville
in France. He was allied to the royal family of
Scotland, and had at his back a powerful force of
devoted vassals, trained to arms, led by brave
knights, who were ripe at all times for revolt and
strife.
'' The Regent and the Chancellor are both alike
to me," said he, scornfully ; " 'tis no matter which
may overcome, and if both perish the country
will be the better ; and it is a pleasant sight for
honest men to.see such fencers yoked together."
But soon after the potent Douglas died at
Restalrig-h June, 144o-and was succeeded by
his son William, then in his sixteenth year ; and
now the subtle and unscrupulous old Chancellor
thought that the time had come to destroy with
safety a family he alike feared and detested. In
the flush of his youth and p...12, fired by the
flattery of his dependents, the young earl, in the
retinue and splendour that surrounded him far
surpassed his sovereign. He never rode abroad
with less than two thousand lances under his
banner, well horsed, and sheathed in mail, and
he actually, according to Buchanan, sent as his
ambassadors to the court of France Sir Malcolm
Fleming and Sir John Lauder of the Bass, to
obtain for him a new patent of the duchy of
Touraine, which had been conferred on his grandfather
by Charles VII. Arrogance so unwonted
and grandeur so great alarmed both Crichton and
Livingstone, who could not see where all this was
to end.
Any resort to violence would lead to civil war.
He was therefore, with many flatteries, lured to
partake of a banquet in the Castle of Edinburgh,
accompanied by his brother the little Lord David
and Sir Malcolm Fleming of Cumbernauld. With
every show of welcome they were placed at the
same table with the king, while the portcullis was
suddenly lowered, the gates carefully shut, and
their numerous and suspicious train excluded.
Towards the close of the entertainment a black
bull's head-an ancient Scottish symbol that some
one was doomed to death-was suddenly placed
upon the board. The brave boys sprang up, and
drew their swords; but a band of Crichton's
vassals, 'in complete armour, rushed in from a
chamber called the Tiring-house, and dragged
forth the three guests, despite the tears and entreaties
of the young king.
I They were immediately beheaded-on the 24th
of November, I 440-according to Godscroft, '' in
the back court of the Castle that lyeth to the west"
(where the barracks now stand); in the great
hall, according to Balfour. They were buried in
the fortress, and when, in 1753, some workmen, in
digging a foundation there, found the plate and.
handles of a coffin all of which were pure gold,
they were supposed tp belong to that in which
the Earl of Douglas was placed. Singular to say,
Crichton was never brought to trial for this terrible
outrage. " Venomous viper ! I' exclaims the old
historian of the Douglases, "that could hide so
deadly poyson under so faire showes ! unworthy
tongue, unelesse to be cut oute for example to all
ages ! A lion or tiger for cruelty of heart-a waspe
or spider for spight ! " He also refers to a rude
ballad on the subject, beginning
" Edinburgh Castle, tome and tower,
God grant thou sinke for sinne,
An that even for the black dinner
Earle Douglas got therein."
This affair instead of pacifying the country only
led to ruin and civil strife. The Douglas took arms
under James IV., Duke of Touraine and seventh
Earl of Douglas and Angus, and for a long space the
city and neighbourhood were the scene of contest
and ravage by the opposite factions. The Chancellor
remained secure in the Castle, and, to be revenged
on Sir John Forrester, who had laid waste his lands
at Crichton in 1445, he issued forth with his
troopers and garrison, and gave to fire and sword
all the fertile estates of the Douglases and Forresters
westward of the city, including Blackness,
Abercorn, Strathbroc, aid Corstorphine ; and, with
other pillage, carrying off a famous breed of
Flanders mares, he returned to his eyry.
Douglas, who, to consolidate his power had
espoused his cousin the Fair Maid of Galloway,
adding thus her vast estates to his own, and had now,
as hereditary lieutenant-general of the kingdom,
obtained the custody of the young king, came to
Edinburgh with a vast force composed of the
Crown vassals and his own, and laid siege to the
Castle, which the Chancellor defended for nine
months, nor did he surrender even to a summons
sent in the king's name till he had first seciued
satisfactory terms for himself; whfle of his less
fortunate coadjutors, some only redeemed their
lives with their estates, and the others, including
three members of the Livingstone family, were
beheaded within its walls.
The details of this long siege are unknown, but
to render the investment more secure the Parliament,
which had begun its sittings at Perth, was
removed to Edinburgh on the 15th of July, 1446.
After all this, Earl Douglas visited Italy, and in
his absence during the jubilee at Rome in 1450,
Crichton contrived to regain the favour of James
II., who haviyg now the government in his own
hands, naturally beheld with dread the vast power
of the house of Touraine.
How Douglas perished under the king's dagger
in Stirling in 1452 is a matter of general history.
His rival died at a very old age, three years
afterwards, and was interred among his race in
the present noble church of Crichton, which he
founded.
Beneath the Castle ramparts the rising city was
now fast increasing; and in 1450, after the battle
of Sark, in which Douglas Earl of Ormond de.
feated the English with great slaughter, it was
deemed necessary to enclose the city by walls,
scarcely a trace of which now remains, except the
picturesque old ruin known as the Well-house
Tower, at the base of the Castle rock. They ran
along the southern declivity of the ridge on which
the most ancient parts of the town were built, and
after crossing the West Bow -then deemed the
grand entrance to Edinburgh-ran between the
High Street and the hollow, where the Cowgate
(which exhibited then but a few minor edifices) now
stands; they then crossed the main ridge at the
Nether Bow, and terminated at the east end of
the North Loch, which was then formed as a
defence on the north, and in the construction of
which the Royal Gardens were sacrificed. From
this line of defence the entire esplanade of the
Castle was excluded. " Within these ancient
limits," says Wilson, '' the Scottish capital must
have possessed peculiar means of defence-a city
set on a hill and guarded by the rocky fortress,
there watching high the least alarms; it only
wanted such ramparts, manned by its burgher
watch, to enable it to give protection to its princes
and to repel the' inroads of the southern invader.
'The important position which it now held may be
inferred from the investment in the following year
of Pntrick Cockburn of Newbigging (the Provost
of Edinburgh) in the Chancellor's office as governor
of the Castle, as well as his appointment, along
with other commissioners, after the great defeat of
the English at the battle of Sark, to treat for the
renewal of a truce." It seemed then to be always
'' truce " and never peace !
In the Parliament of 1455 we find Acts passed
for watching the fords of the Tweed, and the
erection of bale-fires to give alarm, by day and
night, of inroads from England, to warn Hume,
Haddington, Dunbar, Dalkeith, Eggerhope, and
Edinburgh Castle, thence to Stirling and the north
-arrangements which would bring all Scotland
under arms in two hours, as the same system did
at the time of the False Alarm in 1803. One
bale-he was a signal that the English were in
motion; two that they were advancing; four in a
row signified that they were in great strength. All
men in arms westward of Edinburgh were ta
muster there ; all eastward at Haddington ; and
every Englishman caught in Scotland was lawfully
the prisoner of whoever took him (Acts, 12th Pal.
James 11.). But the engendered hate and jealousy
of England wopld seem to have nearly reached its
culminating point when the 11th Parliament of
James VI., chap. 104, enacted, ungallantly, "that
no Scotsman marrie an Englishwoman without the
king's license under the Great Seal, under pain of
death and escheat of moveables."
