Even Claude Hamilton, for the time, forgot his proffered titles of Lord Preston and Earl of Gladsmuir, and found himself marching at the head of a goodly band of mounted spearmen, including Symon Brodie in his suit of beaked armour, for the muster-place, the green sloping braes of Edmondstone Edge; and now Ned Shelly's chance of obtaining a young Scottish countess seemed as distant as the realization of his leader's political hopes, or the chance of an English bride for Bothwell, who heard the din of preparation in the castle of Edinburgh, where he chafed like a caged lion at the external commotion, in which he could bear no part, for good, for evil, or for aggrandisement.
At the council board on this eventful morning, the peer whose advice had the most weight was George Gordon, Earl of Huntly, a loyal and noble lord, whose manners and education had been improved by study and by foreign travel. He had been made lieutenant of the north by James V., and captain-general of those forces which defeated the English at the battle of Haidonrig and baffled their next army under the Duke of Norfolk. When speaking of the matrimonial alliance with England, a marriage which Somerset seemed determined to form by the edge of the sword, he recommended that some accommodation might be made by a temporary truce or treaty.
On this, Mary of Lorraine, who had come to the council, gave him a glance of sorrowful reproach.
"My lords," said she, with a flush on her usually pale cheek, "when my dear husband was dying in Falkland Palace, as Monseigneur le Cardinal Beaton (who is now in heaven) told me, the setting sun shed a stream of light into the room where he lay, and with brilliance lit up the royal arms above the mantelpiece, the arms of Scotland, or, the lion gules within a double tressure, all were brightened as with a transient glory; but as the life of my beloved lord and king ebbed, and he sank lower on his pillow, dying—dying of a broken heart,—and breathed his last, the sun went down beyond the hills of Fife, and the arms of the kingdom became dark, so dark, in that chamber of death and gloom, as to be invisible; and this the cardinal, and all who were present, declared to be ominous of evil to come; and the evil has come upon the realm of my fatherless child when my lord of Huntly hath eyes of favour to the alliance of those who, for centuries, have striven, by the soldier's sword and the scrivener's guile, to dishonour the name and subvert the liberties of Scotland!"
As the beautiful Frenchwoman spoke, her fine hazel eyes became filled with a sparkling light; her bosom heaved, and her cheek was crimsoned by the excitement, that made her Valois blood course like lightning through her veins.
"You wrong me, royal lady," said the Highland earl; "be assured, madam, that the loyal spirit of my forefathers yet lives within me; and I trust that all who hear me will remember the words of the faithful and brave who, from the Abbey of Arbroath, addressed that ignoble Pope, John XXII., who leagued himself with England against them; and in the same spirit by which those Scottish barons adhered to Robert Bruce will we adhere to his descendant, your royal daughter. 'To him,' said they, 'we will adhere as our rightful king, the preserver of our people and the guardian of our liberties; but should he ever dream of subjecting us to England, then we will do our utmost to expel him from the throne as a traitor and an enemy; we will choose another king to rule over us, for never, so long as one hundred Scotsmen are alive, will we be subject to the yoke of England! We fight not for glory, we strive not for riches or honour, but for that liberty which no good man will consent to lose but with his life. We are willing to do anything for peace which may not compromise our freedom. If your Holiness disbelieve us, and continue to favour England, giving undue credit to her false assertions, then be sure that Heaven will impute to you all the calamities which our resistance must inevitably produce; and we commit the defence of our cause to God.' So spoke the faithful men of other days," continued the earl, "and, with the hand of that blessed God above their banner, may such to the latest posterity ever be the spirit of freedom which shall animate the Scottish people!"
These words filled the council with enthusiasm, and all separated to prepare for the mortal strife.
CHAPTER XLIV.
THE INVASION.
Our Scottish warriors on the heath,
In close battalia stood;
To free their country and their queen,
Or shed their reddest blood.
The Anglo-Saxons' restless band
Has cross'd the river Tweed;
And ower the hills o' Lammermuir
They've march'd wi' mickle speed.
Twinlaw—Old Ballad.