Agitation was increasing in the town. The cardinal had ready a great band of armed men, who were charged to conduct the victims to the place of execution. Robert Lamb, standing at the foot of the gallows, said to the people, ‘Fear God, and forsake the pope.’ Then he announced that calamity and ruin would not be slow to light upon the cardinal.[320] The five Christians comforted one another with the hope ‘that they should sup together in the kingdom of heaven that night.’
Hellen desired earnestly to die with her husband, but this was not permitted her. At the moment of their parting she gave him a kiss and said, ‘Husband, rejoice, for we have lived together many joyful days; but this day in which we must die ought to be most joyful unto us both, because we must have joy forever. Therefore I will not bid you good-night, for we shall suddenly meet with joy in the kingdom of heaven.’ She was then taken to a pond to be drowned. She was holding her infant in her arms and giving it suck for the last time. But this pathetic incident did not touch the pitiless hearts of her executioners. She had entreated her neighbors to take care of her children. She took the ‘sucking bairn’ from her breast and gave it to the nurse, and was then flung into the water. The cardinal was satisfied.[321]
From Perth the cardinal passed into Forfarshire, always dragging along with him the unhappy regent. Many inhabitants of that region appeared before him for having committed the hateful crime of reading the New Testament. Among them was a Dominican named John Rogers, a man of piety and learning, who, by preaching Christ in Forfarshire, had led many souls into peace. He was confined with others in the castle of St. Andrews, and a few days later his dead body was found at the foot of the walls. It was very generally believed that the cardinal had ordered him to be put to death in his dungeon, and to be thrown over the walls. A report was then circulated that the prisoner, in attempting to escape, had fallen on the rocks and been killed. A considerable number of Scots, among them Sir Henry Elder, John Elder, Walter Piper, Lawrence Pullar, and others were banished, merely on suspicion of having read the Gospel.[322]
THE ENGLISH FLEET AT LEITH.
The cardinal now returned to Edinburgh, and took the regent with him. He was perfectly satisfied with his campaign, and was meditating fresh exploits of the same kind, when, at the very moment of his saying ‘Peace and security,’ a fleet appeared at sea. Messengers came suddenly to announce to the regent and the cardinal that a multitude of vessels were entering the Firth of Forth, and were making for Leith and Edinburgh. ‘It is the English,’ said most people, ‘and it is greatly to be feared that they will land.’ The cardinal dissembled his anxiety, affected to smile and to jest, and said, with a contemptuous air, ‘It is but the island fleet; they are come to make us a show and to put us in fear. I shall lodge the men-of-war in my eye that shall land in Scotland.’[323] Then he went to his dinner-table, and talked with every one as though no danger were threatening. All Edinburgh was eager to gaze on the wonderful vessels, and great crowds assembled for that purpose on the castle hill and on the heights near the town. ‘But what then can it all mean?’ people said to one another. By a little after six o’clock in the evening more than two hundred ships had cast anchor in Leith roads. The admiral had a ship’s boat launched, which began carefully to take soundings from Granton craigs to East Leith. All sensible men understood what it meant, but if any one of them uttered what he thought, the clerics shrugged their shoulders. All men went to bed, just as if those ships had brought their broadsides to bear for the defence of the sleepers.
At daybreak on Sunday, May 4, Lord Lisle, who was in command of the fleet, ordered the disembarkation. The pinnaces and other small vessels approached as near as they could to the shore, while the larger vessels discharged their men into the long-boats, and so they got to land. By ten o’clock the operation was completed, and the spectators from Edinburgh beheld, to their great astonishment, more than ten thousand men under arms. The cardinal and the regent, dropping their false show of calmness, appeared now very much alarmed, and, forgetting their ridiculous bluster and bragging, jumped into a carriage and fled as fast as their horses could carry them. They did not halt till they had put twenty miles of country between them and the danger which frightened them. Before starting they had given orders, for the purpose of pacifying the English, that the earl of Angus, Sir George Douglas, and two other lords, advocates of the English alliance, who had been cast into prison at Blackness, should be set at liberty. This was done that night, and Sir George said, merrily, ‘I thank King Henry and my gentle masters of England.’[324]
The troops which had landed entered Leith, under the command of the earl of Hertford, between twelve and one o’clock, after having dispersed a small body of men which resisted them. As they found dinner ready in all the houses, and the tables loaded with wines and victuals, they sat down and refreshed themselves. On Monday, May 5, two thousand English horsemen came from Berwick to reinforce the infantry, and the whole army, after taking one day’s rest, forced the gates of Edinburgh on Wednesday and entered the town. People called to mind the terrible threats of Henry VIII. The town was first pillaged and then burnt. The palace of Holyrood, Leith and the environs shared the same fate. The English were not able to take the castle, and after having satiated themselves with pillage, burning, and eating, they carried off their plunder to the ships. The English army returned to their own country by way of Berwick, sacking and burning Haddington and Dunbar, castles, country seats, and all the districts through which they passed. The army had lost only forty men.[325]
Henry VIII. had entertained the vastest projects. His aims were that Scotland should renounce the French alliance; that the queen should be placed in his own household; that the title of elector of the kingdom should be given to him; that Lennox should be named regent in the place of Arran; and that the Word of God should be preached, of course in his own way. This appears from the instructions given by himself to the governors of the marches.[326] But he felt it necessary to postpone his scheme, and to content himself with the chastisement inflicted on the capital. We have to encounter facts such as these in the history of every people and of all ages. It is impossible to narrate or to read them without horror. Happily, Scotland at this epoch offers to our notice facts of a quite different kind, which are within the province of Christian civilization.