Some talked of creaghs upon the northern frontier, of forays on the southern, of partition of kirk lands, and the flavour of wines, in the same breath. D'Elboeuff chattered like a magpie of new doublets and perfumes, of Paris and pretty women: old Lindesay spoke solemnly and portentously, over his ale, on the prospects of the holy kirk; and Glencairn responded with becoming gravity and ferocity of aspect.
Morton sat opposite Lethington, and from time to time they sipped their wine and exchanged those deep glances which the most acute physiognomist would have failed to analyse; but, as they watched the ebb and flow of the conversation around them, Morton seemed almost to say in his eyes, "Thou art wise as Nestor;" and the secretary to reply, "And thou cunning as Ulysses."
Gradually the latter led the conversation to the politics of the day—the misgovernment that, since the death of James V., had characterised each succeeding year; how the sceptre, feebly swayed by the hands of a facile woman, had never been capable of aweing the great barons and their predatory vassalage—the urgent necessity of some powerful peer espousing the queen, and assuming the reins of government, otherwise the destruction of Scotland by foreign invasion and domestic brawl—the subversion of the rights of the nobles, the power of the church, the courts of law, and the liberties of the people, would assuredly ensue.
This half-false and half-fustian speech, which the able Lethington delivered with singular emphasis and grace, was received with a burst of acclamation.
"My lords and gentles," said the aged Lindesay, standing erect, and leaning on his six feet sword as he spake; "here we are convened, as it seemeth, as mickle for council as carousal; albeit, ye have heard the premises so suitably set forth by the knight of Lethington, it causeth me mickle marvel to know whom among us he would name as worthy of the high honour of espousing our fair queen."
"Cock and pie!" exclaimed the impetuous Hob Ormiston, erecting his gigantic figure, and speaking in a voice that made the rafters ring; "whom would we name but her majesty's prime favourite and sorely maligned first counsellor, James Earl of Bothwell, Governor of Edinburgh and Dunbar, and Lord High Admiral of the realm? Who, I demand, would not rather see him the mate of Mary Stuart, than the beardless Lord of Darnley—that silken slave, that carpet knight, and long-legged giraffe in lace and taffeta? What say ye, my lords and barons, are we unanimous?"
There was a pause, and then rose a shout of applause, mingled with cries of "A Bothwell! a Bothwell!" from Morton and other allies of the Earl, who were so numerous that they completely overcame the scruples, or hushed into silence the objections, of the hostile and indifferent.
The Earl, whose heart was fired anew by the glow of love and ambition—for never did a prospect more dazzling open to the view of a subject than the hope of sharing a throne with a being so beautiful as Mary—thanked his friends with a grace peculiarly his own, and immediately produced that famous BOND—a document in which the nobles in parliament assembled, asserted his innocence of the crime of the 11th February, and earnestly recommended him to Mary as the most proper man in Scotland to espouse her in her widowhood—and bind themselves by every tie, human and divine, "to fortify the said Earl in the said marriage," so runs the deed, "as we shall answer to God, on our fidelity and conscience. And in case we do on the contrary, never to have reputation or credit in time hereafter, but to be accounted unworthy and faithless traitors."
"God temper thy wild ambition, Bothwell!" said the Archbishop, as he signed the document to which the seven other prelates appended their names. That of Moray—Mary's dearly loved brother—had already been given before his departure; and its appearance had a powerful effect on all present.
"Deil stick me, gif I like mickle to scald my neb in another man's brose!" growled Glencairn; "yet I will subscrive it, albeit I would rather have had a suitor to whose maintainance of the Holy Reformit Kirk Master Knox could have relied on."