SEIZURE OF THE CASTLE.
On Friday, May 28, in the evening, Norman Lesley arrived at St. Andrews, where he found William Kirkaldy of Grange awaiting him. John Lesley, on whom the cardinal’s suspicions chiefly fell, came last. The conspirators took counsel in the night, and on Saturday, May 29, at three o’clock in the morning, started on their enterprise, the capture of a strong castle which was held by more than a hundred men prepared for resistance. They came by various ways, and met in the churchyard of the abbey, not far from the castle. Beatoun, well knowing the feelings of indignation which his proceedings had aroused in the country, even amongst his own flatterers, had determined to turn his place of abode into a citadel fit to stand a siege.[361] The works were in progress, and this circumstance facilitated the daring attempt now to be made by his enemies. The primate pressed the work on so urgently that it hardly ceased by day or by night. Consequently the gates were open early in the morning, and the drawbridge was let down for the workmen to bring in stone, mortar, and other necessary building materials. The Lesleys, who with some of their companions were concealed in a small house near the gates, had sent thence William Kirkaldy and six others. These having passed the gates hailed the porter, and said to him, ‘Is my lord cardinal waking?’ ‘No,’ replied he. Mary Ogilvy, the mother of Margaret and of two sons, David and Alexander Beatoun, had spent the night at the castle. She was seen going away early in the morning by the private postern.[362] The cardinal, at the moment of the arrival of the Lesleys and their friends, was in a sound sleep. While William Kirkaldy was talking to the porter, and the latter was about to show him the way, Norman and John Lesley came up one after the other with arms. The porter, in alarm, would have put himself on the defensive; but one of the conspirators broke his head, got possession of his keys, and threw his body into the fosse. At that moment the workmen, numbering more than a hundred, fled through the wicket-gate at full speed, and William Kirkaldy took possession of the private postern, ‘fearing that the fox should have escaped.’ As the assailants were only sixteen, they felt the need of proceeding with great caution. The leaders sent four of their company, among whom were Peter Carmichael, a tall, stout-hearted gentleman, and James Melville of Cumbec, to guard the cardinal’s door and see that no one gave him warning of his danger. Others of the company, who had some acquaintance with the place and the people, were set to watch the bedrooms of the officers and servants of the cardinal. Distributing themselves in small groups, they entered the rooms successively, found the occupants half asleep, and said to them, ‘If you utter the faintest cry you are dead men!’[363] Those men therefore, in their fright, dressed themselves hastily and were led out of the castle, no violence being done to any of them and no noise made. The only person whom they left in the castle was the regent’s eldest son. John Lesley, alone in this vast abode, knocked loudly at the cardinal’s door. ‘What means that noise?’ said he. ‘That Norman Lesley has taken the castle,’ was the reply; ‘open.’ At these words Beatoun ran towards the postern, but seeing that it was guarded, he returned straightway into his room, seized his two-handed sword, and bade his valet barricade the door. ‘Open,’ they cried again. The cardinal answered, ‘Who calls?’—‘My name is Lesley.’—‘Is that Norman?’—‘Nay, my name is John.’ The cardinal, remembering John’s words, cried, ‘I will have Norman, for he is my friend.’—‘Content yourself with such as are here, for other shall ye get none,’ replied John. While the knocks at the door grew louder, the cardinal seized a box of gold and hid it in a corner. Then he said, ‘Will ye save my life?’—‘It may be that we will,’—said John.—‘Nay,’ replied Beatoun, ‘swear unto me by God’s wounds, and I shall open to you.’
Then John Lesley cried out, ‘Fire! fire!’ The door was too strong to burst open, and they brought a grate full of burning coals. Just as it was ready the cardinal ordered the door to be opened. Lesley and his companions rushed into the chamber and found Beatoun seated on a chair. Lesley threw himself violently upon him. ‘I am a priest! I am a priest!’ exclaimed the cardinal. ‘Ye will not slay me!’
But Lesley struck him with his sword, and Carmichael, full of wrath, did the same. Melville, a man of gentle and serious character, says Knox,[364] seeing his comrades in so great a rage, checked them. He said, ‘This work and judgment of God, although it be secret, yet ought to be done with greater gravity.’ Melville and others, by reason of the ignorance and the prejudices of the age, sincerely believed in the legal virtue of the Mosaic system, abolished by the Gospel, which conferred on certain persons the right of killing a murderer, but which founded at the same time the cities of refuge in which the guilty man should be safe from the vengeance of the pursuer.[365]
MURDER OF BEATOUN.
Melville forgot that there was no city of refuge for Beatoun. Regarding him as a murderer, and not supposing that by killing him he did himself incur the guilt of murder, he presented to him the point of his sword, and said gravely to him, ‘Repent thee of thine former wicked life, but especially of the shedding of the blood of that notable instrument of God, Mr. George Wishart; which albeit the flame of fire consumed before men, yet cries it a vengeance upon thee, and we from God are sent to revenge it. Here before my God I protest that neither the hatred of thy person, the love of thy riches, or the fear of any trouble thou couldst have done to me in particular, moved or moveth me to strike thee.’ And he struck him with his sword.
The cardinal fell under repeated blows, without a word heard out of his mouth except these, ‘I am a priest! I am a Priest! Fie, fie! All is gone!’[366]
It was very soon known all over the city that the castle had been taken. The friends and the creatures of the cardinal rose very quietly from their beds, says Buchanan, armed themselves, and presently appeared in a crowd about the fosse. They shouted with all their might, uttered threats and insults, and demanded shells and all the necessary means for making the assault. ‘You are making much noise to little purpose,’ said those in the castle to them; ‘the best it were to you to return to your own houses.’
The crowd answered, ‘What have ye done with my lord cardinal? Let us see my lord cardinal!’—‘The man that you call the cardinal,’ it was replied, ‘has received his reward, and in his own person will trouble the world no more.’ But his partisans only cried the louder, ‘We shall never depart till we see him,’ still persuaded that he was alive. Then one or two men took up the body, and bearing it to the very window at which a little while before Beatoun had sat to contemplate with gladness, and as if in triumph, the execution of the pious Wishart, exposed it there to the gaze of all.[367] Beatoun’s friends and the populace, struck with amazement and terror by the unexpected sight, and remembering Wishart’s prediction, dispersed in gloom and consternation.