Claude Hamilton, of Preston, already saw in imagination his coming patent of the earldom of Gladsmuir, as others of his faction—Cassilis, Glencairn, and Kilmaurs—did their pensions, places, and profits, if the English marriage was achieved.
Edward Shelly, somewhat to his own surprise, felt a combination of selfishness and delight, at the prospect of winning a rich and beautiful wife—a young countess, and perhaps an earldom, as the reward of his diplomacy; while poor Florence Fawside, ignorant of all these secret springs of action, which moved the wise and good, or the titled knaves around him, looked gloomily forward to the sequel of the feud he had yet to foster, and to the consequent loss, for ever, of a love that was all the more seductive and alluring because such a passion was new to his heart, and that she who was its origin, had thrown much that was romantic around it. Although the poor lad knew it not, on the decision of these lords and barons, loyal and true, or rebel and false, depended, perhaps, the sequel of his love; for the object of it was to be bartered, as Shelly phrased it, "like a bale of goods," to a foreign emissary, as the price of his services in assisting to subvert the liberties of Scotland. In his sudden grief, on discovering the abyss of old hereditary hate that yawned between himself and Madeline Home, he forgot even the wrongs he had to avenge upon the Laird of Champfleurie and others, who had plotted for his destruction. He forgot all but her presence, and that she was lost to him!
All Lowland Scotland stood on tiptoe, watching with anxiety the result of a debate that was to give her an English king, or was still further to cement the league of five hundred years, by placing the French dauphin on the throne of the Stuarts; we say Lowland Scotland, for the Celts, ever at war among themselves, viewed with disdain or heeded not whatever was done, beyond their then impassable boundary, the Grampians.
Arran looked forward to having the regency placed more securely in his hands, and resolving that, if it passed, as ultimately it did, into the firmer grasp of Mary of Lorraine, to resort at once to arms, and hoist the standard of revolt on his castle of Cadzow.
Let us see how all this ended.
The debate was stormy, for many of the speakers were rude and brief in speech, rough, unlettered, fierce, and turbulent. Frowns were exchanged, gauntleted hands were clenched, and more than once the pommels of swords and poniards were ominously touched, among both parties; for though the proud spirit and patriotism of many were roused to fiery action by the great event at issue, there were others, whom we need not name—the Scottish utilitarians of 1547—whose cupidity and selfishness alone were enlisted in the cause; but vain were their exertions. The letter of Henry of Valois, the production of which caused many an eye to lour on Florence, who, absorbed in his own thoughts, was all unconscious that he was observed at all,—the energy of his ambassador, M. d'Oysell, and the eloquence of Mary of Lorraine, when united to her own beauty and her husband's memory, bore all before them! Hence the proposals of the English Protector, Somerset, were abruptly rejected, with something very much akin to disdain. In his letters there was assumed a dictatorial tone, which could not fail to offend the loyal portion of the Scottish noblesse.
"By his holiness Pope Julius II.," said Arran with a kindling eye, "it was ordained in 1504, that at his court the king of Scotland should take precedence of the kings of Castile, of Hungary, Poland, Navarre, of Bohemia, and Denmark; and that he should recognize no superior but God and His vicegerent on earth: then whence this grotesque loftiness of tone from a regent of England?"
The patriarch of Venice and the French ambassador beheld this growing indignation with evident satisfaction; while glances of ill-concealed anger and dismay were exchanged by those whose names were affixed to the indenture which, at that moment, Shelly carried in the secret pocket of his jazarine-jacket. Cassilis, who had little patience and less politeness, openly insulted the legate by terming Pope Julius "a shaveling mass-monger and pagan priest."
"My lord, my lord!" exclaimed the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, growing pale with anger; "beware lest he excommunicate thee with bell, book, and candle!"
"I care not," replied the sullen earl, frowning at the primate under the aventayle of his helmet; "for I am ready to maintain, wi' the auld Lollards o' Kyle, that the pope is a pagan, who exalteth himself against God, and above Him; that he can neither remit sins nor the pains of purgatory by mumbling Latin, or scribbling on a sheep-hide; that the blessing of a bishop is worth less than a brass bodle, and that Paul III. is the head o' the crumbling kirk of Antichrist!"