Stirling had been paying his addresses to a girl
possessed of great attractions, daughter of Richard
Lawson of the Highriggs, Provost in 1504 (and
whose house there was removed only in 1878),
but proving less successful than Meldrum of the
Binns-whose feats of chivalry have been sung
by Lindesay of the Mount-he attacked the latter
at the head of fifty horse, near the Rood Chapel
in Leith Loan, though his rival had only eight followers,
and a mortal combat with sword and axe
ensued. Meldrum unhorsed Sir Lewis, and would
have slain him had not his faithful henchman, by
interposing, received the sword-thrust in his own
heart. The prowess of Meldrum?s troopers is
evinced from the fact that they slew twenty-six oi
Stirling?s men, but the former was left for dead,
covered with wounds ; ?yet,? saith Pitscottie, ?be
the mychtie power of God he escaped death, and
lived fiftie years thairaftir.? The Chevalier de la
Bead, the detested Lieutenant-Governor under
Albany, at the head of the mounted French gendarmerie,
pursued Stirling to the Peel of Linlithgow.
He stormed it, and sent this fiery lover to
the Castle of Edinburgh, where he was sentenced
to death, but was pardoned and set free, while
the chevalier was soon after slain by Home of
Wedderburn, who knitted his head to his saddlebow.
During this time little James V. resided permanently
in the Castle, pursuing his studies under the
tuition of Gawin Dunbar, afterwards Archbishop
of Glasgow, all unconscious of the turmoils in progress
everywhere, and so completely forgotten by
the actors in them, that his sister, the Countess
of Morton, with her friends, had, more than once,
to repair the royal apartments and replenish his
wardrobe. Though . placed in the fortress for
security, he was permitted to ride abroad on a
little mule that was kept for his use, but always
under escort of Albany?s guards, clad in scarlet
doublets slashed with black, and armed with
partisan and dagger. Dread of a pestilence &hich
broke out in the garrison caused his removal to
Craigmillar, where, by the courtesy of Lord
Erskine, his mother was permitted to visit him,
till the other guardians, hostile to English influence
and suspicious of her power, removed him to
his fonner residence. James is said to have delighted
in conversing with the soldiers, and when
handling their swords and hackbuts his cheeks
were seen to flush and his eyes to sparkle with the
ardour of a brave boy when contemplating military
objects.
When Albany returned from visiting France, in
1521, the queen-dowager, Beaton, and so many
Dthers came in his train to Holyrood, that Angus,
who had quarrelled with Margaret, and was the
sworn foe of them all, quitted the city, and was
exiled for tumults he had excited during the
absence ot the Regent. As the only means 06
terminating the frightful anarchy that prevailed, it
was resolved to invest James, now in his twelfth
year, with full sovereign power ; and thus, on the
zznd August, 1524, he made his solemn entry into
the Tolbooth, preceded by the crown, sceptre, and
sword of state.
The irrepressible Angus, backed by the Douglases,
seized the government in the following year,
scaled the city walls on the night of the 24th
November, beat open the ports, and fairly capturing
Edinburgh, made a Douglas Provost thereof.
And such was the power he possessed, that the
assassins of M?Lellan of Bombie-who was slain
in open day at the door of St. Giles?s churcliwalked
with impunity about the streets; while the
queen herself deemed his safe-conduct necessary
while she resided in Edinburgh, though Parliament
was sitting at the time ; and so the king returned
again to honourable durance in the dilapidated
palace of the Castle, or only put in an appearance
to act as the puppet of his governor.
At this crisis Arran and his faction demanded
that Parliament should assemble in the Castle-hall
as a security against coercion ; but Angus vowed
that it should continue to meet in its usual place ;
and as the king was retained within the Castle, he
cut off all communication between it and the city
with 2,000 men, on whom the batteries opened;
but eventually these differences were adjusted, and
the luckless young king was permitted to attend
Parliament in state.
On All Saints? Day a thunderbolt struck a turret
3f David?s Tower, and hurled some fragments down
the rocks, setting fire to the apartments of Margaret,
who narrowly escaped with her life.
In 1526, John Earl of Lennox, at? the head of
numerous forces, marched towards Edinburgh,
intent on rescuing the king from the intolerable
thraldom of Angus; but the latter caused his
namesake the Provost to ring the alarm bell,
display the banner of the city, and put? it on its
defence. He did more. He tompelled James to
Lead out the citizens against his own friends. He
issued forth by the West Port, at the head of
all the men of Edinburgh and Leith, but came in
time only to witness the death of Lennox in the
battle of Linlithgow Bridge, where he was cruelly
slain by Sir James Hamilton, after he had surrendered
his sword to the Laird of Pardowie.
Queen Margaret, who had now divorced Angus,
and ?married Henry Stuart Lord Methven, on
finding that the former was about to seize her
dower-lands, fled, with her third husband and all
his vassals, to the Castle of Edinburgh, and, joining
her son, prepared to resist to the last; but Earl
Archibald only laughed when he heard of it ; and,
displaying his banner, invested the fortress at the
head of his own vassals and those of the Crown.
Margaret found that she dared not disobey, and
her soldiers capitulated.
Bathed in tears, on her knees, at the outer gate,
quailing under the grim eye of one who was so
recently her husband, at his command she placed
the keys ?? in the hands of her son, then a tall and
handsome yodth, imploring pardon for &er husband,
for his brother Sir James Stuart, and lastly for
herself. Angus smiled scornfully beneath his barred
helmet at her constrained submission, and haughtily
directed the Lord Methven and others to be imprisoned
in the towers from which they had so
lately defied him.?
In 1528, James, at last, by a midnight flight with
only two attendants, escaped the Douglas thrall,
and fled to Falkland Palace, after which event, with
a decision beyond his years, he proceeded to assert
his own authority, and summoned the estates to
meet him at Stirling. The Douglases were declared
outlaws and traitors, whereupon Angus and
all the barons of his name fled to England.
On the death of James V., in 1542, the Regent
Arran thoroughly repaired the Castle, and appointed
governor Sir James Hamilton of Stanehouse, a gallant
soldier, who proved worthy of the trust reposed
in him when, in 1544, Henry VIII., exasperated at
the Scots for declining to fulfil a treaty, made by an
English faction, affiancing the young Queen Mary
to his only son Edward, sent the Earl of Hertford
with an army, and zoo sail under Dudley Lord
PIsle to the Forth, with orders, so characteristic of
a ferociouk despot, ? to put all to fire and sword ; to
burn Edinburgh, raze, deface, and sack it ; to beat
down and overthrow the Castle ; to sack Holyrood
and as many towns and villages as he could; to
sack Leith, burn, and subvert it, and all the rest ;
putting man, woman, and child, to fire and sword,
without exception.?*
Hertford suddenly landed with 10,000 men near
an old fortalice, called the Castle of Wardie, on
the beach that bordered a desolate moor of the
same name, and seized Leith and Newhaven.
Cardinal Beaton and the Regent Arran lay in the
vicinity with an army. The former proposed battle,
but the latter, an irresolute man, declined, and -
Tytla.
retired in the night towards Linlithgow with his
hastily levied troops.
Lord Evers, with 4,000 horse, had now joined
the English from Berwick, and Hertford arrogantly
demanded the instant surrender of the infant
queen ; and being informe4 that the nation would
perish to a man rather than submit to terms so
ignominious, he advanced against Edinburgh, from
whence came the Provost, Sir Adam Otterburn, to
make terms, if possible ; but Hertford would have
nothing save an unconditional surrender of life and
property, together with the little queen, then at
Stirling.
? Then,? said the Provost, ? ?twere better that
the city should stand on its defence!? He
galloped back to put himself at the head of the
citizens, who were in arms under the Blue Blanket.
The English, after being repulsed with loss at the
Leith Wynd Port, entered by the Water Gate,
advanced up the Canongate to the Nether Bow
Port, which they blew open by dint of artillery, and
a terrible slaughter of the citizens ensued. All resisted
manfully. Among others was one named
David Halkerston of Halkerston, who defended
the wynd that for ?300 years bore his name, and
perished there sword in hand. Spreading through
the city like a flood, the English fired it in eight
places, and as the High Street was then encumbered
with heavy fronts of ornamented timber that erst had
grown in the forest of Drumsheugh, the smoke of
the blazing mansions actually drove the invaders
out to ravage the adjacent country, prior to which
they met with a terrible repulse in an attempt
to attack the Castle. Four days Hertford toiled
before it, till he had 500 men killed, an incredible
number wounded, and some of his guns dismounted
by the fire of the garrison. Led by Stanehouse,
the Scots made a sortie, scoured the Castle hill,
and carried off Hertford?s guns, among which
were some that they had lost at Flodden. The
English then retreated, leaving Edinburgh nearly
one mass of blackened ruin, and the whole country
burned and wasted for seven miles around it
When, three years after, the same unscrupulous
leader, as Duke of Somerset, won that disastrous
battle at Pinkie-a field that made 360 women of
Edinburgh widows, and where the united shout
raised by the victors as they came storming over
Edrnondston Edge was long remembered-stanehouse
was again summoned to surrender; but
though menaced by 26,000 of the English, he
maintained his charge till the retreat of Somerset
Instead of reconciling the Scots to an alliance
with England-in those days a measure alike
unsafe and unpalatable-all this strengthened the
