"Yea, one written by Master Patten, and signed in the Star-chamber at London, by seven Scottish lords, then prisoners of war, after the field of Solway."
"And they—" queried Lyle, with knitted brow and inquiring eye.
"Bound themselves to assist King Henry VIII., of happy memory, in all his secret designs against their own country, promising to invest him with the government of Scotland during the little queen's minority; to drive out Arran and Mary of Lorraine; to admit English garrisons into all the fortresses; and, in short, to play the old game of Edward Longshanks, Comyn, and Baliol over again, in a land," added Shelly with an ill-disguised sneer, "that is not likely to display another Wallace, or to boast another field of Bannockburn."
"And those seven—" asked Lyle impetuously.
"Are the Earls of Cassilis and Glencairn, the Lords Somerville, Gray, Maxwell, Oliphant, and Fleming."
"Englishman, thou liest!" exclaimed the Master of Lyle, grasping his dagger; "the Lord Oliphant is my near kinsman."
"Peace, he lies not," said Cassilis; "I signed that bond, and by it will I abide."
"Yea, Master of Lyle," said Shelly blandly, with a glance of sombre scorn and fury in his eye; "and other documents there are, which, if known, would raise in Scotland such a storm that there is not an urchin in the streets of Edinburgh but would cast stones at you, and cry shame on the betrayers of his queen and country!"
"Silence, sirs," exclaimed old Claude Hamilton with alarm, "the conversation waxeth perilous."
"I am here on the crooked errand of the Duke of Somerset," said Shelly, rising with an air of lofty disdain, "no soldier's work it is, and rather would I have been with my stout garrison at Boulogne, than clerking here with worthy Master Patten."