The poor little king, who, with the six princesses his sisters, had been given up completely to the care of Livingstone and Crichton, since his mother Queen Jane had contracted her foolish marriage with the handsome Sir James Stewart, usually known as the Black Knight of Lorn, surveyed this terrible scene with the bewilderment of a startled boy; but, on beholding the two brothers manacled with cords, bruised, bleeding, and faint, after their brave but futile struggle, he burst into tears, and clutching the robe of the lord chancellor, besought him "to spare them."
Then, according to Balfour, in his "Annals of Scotland," and other writers, the chancellor replied sternly:—"You are but a child, and know not what you demand, for to spare them would be the ruin of you and your whole kingdom!"
"Forgive them; oh, forgive them!" continued the princely boy, wringing his hands, and appealing next to the regent; but he too replied grimly:—"Your grace knows not what you ask."
"I do know what I ask, and what I command. Am I not a king?" was the passionate response.
"Well, rather than obey," replied Crichton, through his clenched teeth, "I would walk barefoot over seven burning ploughshares, or over the seven times heated furnace of hell," he added, with terrible energy; "our time for vengeance has come!"
But the little monarch continued to sob and say:—"Lord regent, lord regent, I am a king."
At last he appealed to Sir Patrick Gray, commanding him to draw his dagger and cut the cords which bound the brothers and their two faithful friends; but the unfortunate captain, confounded by the suddenness of the catastrophe, impelled by his love for Murielle on one hand, his duty to the two highest officers of the crown on the other; his regard for the young king, and a remembrance of how insolently these Douglases had ever treated himself, leaned on his sword, and covered his face with his hand, to hide the emotion that warred in his breast.
Suddenly he approached Crichton, to unite his entreaties to those of his young monarch; but was roughly repelled.
"Oh, chancellor," he exclaimed, "is this my meed—this my reward for faithful service as the king's liege man?"
"If such you be, I command you, peace, Sir Patrick—guard the king, and leave the punishment of his rebels to us."