CHAPTER LV
SEQUEL TO THE INVASION.
Ayliffe.—'Tis bold—'tis very bold!
Restalrig.— I tell you, sir,
There be more Arrans and more Lennoxes
On Scottish ground than you in England wot of.
Earl Gowrie—A Tragedy.
Four days after the battle, i.e., the 14th of September, Holyrood Day, or the Festival of the Exaltation of the Cross, a time when children were wont of old to commence nutting in the woods, the town of Stirling, the great abbey of Cambus Kenneth, and all the strongholds in their vicinity, were crowded with fugitives; and masses of retreating soldiers occupied all the passages, fords, and roads towards the north. Mary of Lorraine, with her suite, and the Regent Arran, attended by many officers of state and barons of his house held a solemn and somewhat bitter council, to deliberate on the future, in that vaulted chamber of the castle of Stirling wherein, a hundred and eighteen years before, Queen Jane had brought James II. into the world, and in which the traitor Walter, son of Murdoch Duke of Albany, passed his last night on earth, the 18th of May, 1426. On this day many met who deemed each other had perished on the field.
Hither came the Lord Kilmaurs, now fifth Earl of Glencairn, wearing a black scarf over his armour as mourning for his father's fall; hither came also the regent's brother, John Abbot of Paisley, lord high treasurer; William Commendator of Culross, the comptroller of Scotland; and David Panater, the classic bishop of Ross, who was still secretary of state; Lord Errol, the high constable; the Earls of Cassilis, Mar, and many others, including the lairds of Fawside and Preston.
Arran was pale, and his eye was red and feverish. He still wore the suit of hacked and dinted mail, which he had never put off since the day on which he fought the fatal battle. It had lost all its brilliance; and he was now without his splendid orders of St. Andrew, St. Michael, and the Golden Fleece, all of which he had lost in that dreadful mêlée when his main body closed with the English under the Earl of Warwick.
"Taunt me not, my lords," said he bitterly, in reply to the angry remarks of some who were present; "I feel too keenly my own position and this crisis of the national affairs. Alas!" he added, striking his gauntleted hand on the oak table, "I can never more hold up my crest in Scotland; and it is a crest, sirs, that has never yet stooped, even to those kings with whom we have been allied."
"Say not so, my lord," said the gentle Mary of Lorraine, on whom the countesses of Yarrow, Huntly, Mar, and Athole were in attendance, and who felt a sympathy for the somewhat unmerited shame that stung the proud heart of Arran; "do not blame yourself for having fought this field of Pinkey."
"I do not blame myself for having fought, but for having lost it, madam."
"After this admission, my lord, even your enemies can have nothing more to urge."