So dreadful a tumult had never before been heard of within the realm. Many of the best of the Reformed deplored the handle it would give to the blasphemies of their foes. Even my grandfather was smitten with consternation and grief; for he could not but think that such a temporal outrage would be followed by a terrible temporal revenge as ruthless and complete. Sober minds shuddered at the sudden and sacrilegious overthrow of such venerable structures; and many that stood on the threshold of the house of papistical bondage, and were on the point of leaving it, retired in again, and barred the doors against the light, and hugged their errors as blameless compared with such enormities. To no one did the event give pleasure but to John Knox. "The work," said he, "has been done, it is true, by the rascal multitude; but when the nests are destroyed the rooks will fly away."
The thing, however, most considered at that time was the panic which this intemperance would cause to the Queen Regent; and my grandfather, seeing it had changed the complexion of his mission, resolved to return the same evening by the Queensferry to the Lord James Stuart at Edinburgh. For the people no sooner cooled and came to a sense of reflection, than they discerned that they had committed a heinous offence against the laws, and, apprehending punishment, prepared to defend themselves.
Thus, by the irresolute and promise-breaking policy of the Queen was the people maddened into grievous excesses, and many of those who submitted quietly in the faith of her assurances, and had returned to their respective homes, considered the trumpet as sounded, and began to gird themselves for battle.
CHAPTER XX
It's far from my hand and intent to write a history of the tribulations which ensued from the day of the uproar and first outbreaking of the wrath of the people against the images of the Romish idolatry; and therefore I shall proceed, with all expedient brevity, to relate what farther, in those sore times, fell under the eye of my grandfather, who, when he returned to Edinburgh, found the Lord James Stuart on the point of proceeding to the Queen Regent at Stirling, and he went with him thither.
On arriving at the castle, they found the French soldiery all collected in the town, and her Highness, like another fiery Bellona, vowing to avenge the calamities that had befallen the idols and images of Perth; and summoning and envoking the nobility, and every man of substance she could think of, to come with their vassals, that she might be enabled to chastise such sacrilegious rebellion.
The Lord James Stuart seeing her so bent on extremities, and knowing by his secret intelligences, that strong powers were ready to start forward at a moment's warning, both in the West, and in Fife, Angus and Merns, entreated her to listen to more moderate councils than those of revenge and resentment, and rather to think of pacification than of punishment. But she was fiery with passion, and a blinded instrument in the hands of Providence to work out the deliverance of the land, even by the crooked policy that her papistical counsellors hurried her into. So that the Lord James, seeing she was transported beyond reason, sent my grandfather and other secret emissaries to warn the Lords and leaders of the Congregation, and to tell them that her Highness was minded to surprise Perth as soon as she had gathered a sufficient array.
The conduct of that great worthy was in this full of wisdom, and foresight, and policy. By staying with the Queen he incurred the suspicion of the Reformed, to whom he was a devoted friend; but he gained a knowledge of the intents of their enemies, by which he was enabled to turn aside the edge of vengeance when it was meant to be most deadly. Accordingly, reckless of the opinions of men, he went forward with the Queen's army towards Perth; but before they had crossed the Water of Earn, word was brought to her Highness that the Earl of Glencairn, at the head of two thousand five hundred of the Reformed, was advancing from the shire of Ayr.
Such were the fruits of my grandfather's mission to the Lord Boyd, and he heard likewise that the bold and free lairds of Angus and Merns, with all their followers, had formed themselves in battle-array to defend the town. Still, however, her Highness was resolute to go on; for she was instigated by her feminine anger, even as much as by the wicked councils of the papist lords by whom she was surrounded.