Quhat neids ye skar, thocht Ingland do support vs,
To puneis sic as proudly dois Rebell?
That tyme at Leith thou knawis they did comfort vs,
And maid vs fre quhen strangers did vs quell,
And never socht na profitte to thame sell:
Thou neids not feir, that hous thay never craifit:
The Regent sayis, sa far as I heir tell,
Wald thow be trew thair can na better haif it.
A threat more sorrowful than angry, of Divine vengeance, if the Captain abandoned the cause which Semple and his friends still believed to be that of religion, closes the spirited poem:—
Thocht at this tyme thow haif that warlyke craig,
And is in hart curagious and bald,
God will nocht mys to scurge the with a plaig
Gif in his caus thow lat thy curage cald.
As thow may se, thick scurgis monyfald
Lich vpon thame that proudly dois disdane.
Except the Lord be watche man of the hald,
Quha walkis the same, thair laubour is in vane.
Before the close of the year 1570, an incident which was not directly connected with the politics of either party, and to which but little importance would probably have been attached, but for the intense excitement of the times, brought Kirkcaldy into direct conflict with John Knox himself. In the beginning of December, Sir William’s first cousin, John Kirkcaldy, the same in whose quarrel he had fought with Ralph Evers, was called to attend a justice-court in Dunfermline, as a juryman on a murder trial. During his stay in the town, he was attacked, whilst peacefully going to church, by George and Laurence Durie, brothers to the Commendator of the Abbey, and by several friends of theirs, amongst whom was a young man named Henry Seton. The immediate cause of the quarrel is not stated. But the two families stood on such bad terms that a very slight circumstance may have sufficed to give rise to it. According to Grange’s statement, the house of Durie had done many injuries to him and his; and he attributed the death of his father-in-law, the Laird of Raith, who had been executed on a charge of treason, to the animosity of the head of that family. ‘Since that time,’ he asserted further, ‘the Duries had continuallie troubled Raith’s posteritie and friends, in their righteous titles, native estates and possessions.’ On the present occasion, the actual aggressor was George Durie, who ‘ignominiously buffeted John Kirkcaldy with his fist.’ When the latter attempted to defend himself, he was set upon by Laurence Durie, and Henry Seton, and would, in all probability, have been killed, if the Provost had not opportunely interfered. A few days later, Seton, being in Edinburgh, chanced to meet some of the Laird of Grange’s servants in the streets, and insulted them, not with words, but ‘with jesting and mocking countenance.’ This having been reported to the Laird, he resolved to punish the young man for the double offence of abetting the Duries and affronting the Kirkcaldys. For this purpose he sent six of his men to Leith, where Seton was to embark on his return journey to the Fifeshire shore, and gave them instructions to administer a sound castigation with cudgels, but, on no account to use their arms. Finding himself suddenly attacked, the young man drew his sword, and used it to such good purpose that one of his assailants fell seriously wounded to the ground. At the sight of his blood, his companions forgot the restriction that had been put upon them, and continued the fray with sharper weapons. Out-numbered as he was, Seton might have succeeded in reaching the boat that was waiting for him, if he had not unfortunately tripped and fallen over a cable. As he lay helpless, some of the aggressors thrust their swords into him, and left him dead on the shore. After perpetrating this outrage, they retreated at full speed towards the Castle, closely followed by a number of the citizens. One of them was captured before reaching the North Loch, which was frozen at the time, and over which the other four succeeded in crossing. Here the pursuers were held in check by the Captain, who having noticed the chase, had come out with a body of soldiers, and threatened to fire if any further attempt were made to molest the fugitives.
Fleming, the one man who had been captured, and in whose defence it was subsequently urged that he was not actually concerned in the murder, was lodged in the Tolbooth; and his release having been refused, Kirkcaldy determined to take the law into his own hands, and to set him free. The Governor must still have had many sympathisers in the city, for it is stated that ‘the deacons of the crafts were easily persuaded to assist him in his wicked enterprise.’ Having ordered a battering-ram to be made ready for use against the prison gate, if force should be necessary, and got the guns of the Castle loaded and prepared for action, Kirkcaldy, at the head of a strong body of men, set out, without noise or clamour, between six and seven o’clock, on a dark evening, a few days before Christmas, for the purpose of liberating James Fleming. Men armed with culverins and pikes were posted so as to prevent access, by any side approach, to the street leading from the Castle to the prison. Grange and Lord Home stationed themselves above the Upper Tron, with the object of securing a safe retreat; and the Laird of Drylaw was sent forward to demand the surrender of the prisoner. That having been refused by the jailor, the battering-ram was brought forward, and the gates were forced open. According to reports circulated at the time, the soldiers not only carried off their comrade Fleming, but also set free another prisoner—a woman—probably Bothwellhaugh’s wife, who had been apprehended on a charge of complicity in the murder of the Regent. After Kirkcaldy and his men had returned from their nocturnal expedition, ‘nine great cannons were discharged’ from the ramparts, ‘to give the Regent who was then in the town, a defiance in his face.’ Fortunately, however, for the guns were shotted, ‘no harm was done, but that John Wallace’s house was shot through, and a barn in the Cannongate.’
John Knox was in Edinburgh at the time; and raised his powerful voice in condemnation of ‘so slanderous, so malapert, so fearful, and so tyrannous a deed. For,’ said he, ‘if the committer had been a man without God, a throat-cutter, one that had never known the works of God, it would have moved me no more than other riots and enormities which my eyes have seen the Prince of this world, Satan, to raise by his instruments. But to see the stars fall from heaven, and a man of knowledge commit so manifest treason, what godly heart cannot lament, tremble, and fear? God be merciful! for the example is terrible, and we have all need earnestly to call to God, that we be not led into temptation; but specially to deliver us from the company of the wicked; for, within these few years, men would have looked for other fruits than have budded out of that man.’
As soon as the Reformer’s rebuke was communicated to him, Kirkcaldy replied to it in a letter which he addressed to Craig, the minister of the church, to whom it was delivered as he was in his pulpit. It ran as follows: ‘This day John Knox, in his sermon, called me, openly, a murderer and a throat-cutter, wherein he hath spoken farther than he is able to justify. For I take God to witness, if it was my mind that the man’s blood should have been shed, of whom he calleth me the murderer. And the same God I desire, from the bottom of my heart, to pour out his vengeance suddenly upon him or me, which of us two hath been most desirous of innocent blood. This I desire you, in God’s name, to declare openly to the public. At Edinburgh Castle, the 24th of December 1570.’
Craig, however, refused to comply with the request contained in the latter part of the letter, stating that he would read nothing from the pulpit without the knowledge and consent of the Kirk. In another letter, which he wrote to the Kirk Session of Edinburgh, Kirkcaldy gave his version of what had happened, throwing all the blame on the Duries, and protesting his innocence of any intention to cause the death of Seton.
To the first of these letters, Knox publicly made reply on his next appearance in the pulpit, denying that he had ever made use of the words imputed to him. ‘Is there any of you,’ he asked, ‘that heard me, in this public place, call the Laird of Grange, now Captain of the Castle of Edinburgh, a cruel murderer, an open throat-cutter, and one whose nature I had long known to be bloodthirsty? I accused indeed, that unjust and cruel murder; I affirmed the violating of the house of justice to be treason; and finally I complained, that the like enormity and pernicious example I never saw in Scotland. Not but I had seen murder and rebellion before; yea, I have seen magistrates gainstood, and the supreme magistrates of the Crown besieged in their own tolbooth; and I have seen condemned persons violently reft from the gallows and gibbet. But none of all these forenamed can be compared to this last outrage. For, if the masters and authors of this last riot had been known before to have been open throat-cutters, bloodthirsty men, and such as had been void of the true fear of God, I would have been no more moved at this time, than I have been at other times before. But, to see stars fallen from Heaven; to see men who have felt as well God’s judgments as mercies, in a past; and to see men of whom all godly hearts have had a good opinion—to see, I say, such men so far carried away, that both God and man are not only forgot, but also publicly despised, is both dolorous and fearful to be remembered.’ Then, referring to Kirkcaldy’s escape from Mont Saint-Michel, the preacher continued: ‘For I have known that man in his greatest extremity, when he might have set himself at freedom by shedding of blood, at the counsel of sober men, he utterly refused all such cruelty, and took a hazard to the flesh most fearful; which God notwithstanding blessed, having a respect to the simplicity of his heart. And, therefore, then I said, and yet I say, that this example in him is the most terrible example that ever I saw in Scotland. I know that some have made other report. But, in their face I say, that of their father the Devil they have learnt to lie, wherein if they continue without repentance, they shall burn in Hell.’
In a letter to the Kirk-Session, Knox again denied having called Kirkcaldy a murderer and a cut-throat; but maintained that he had only done his duty in publicly denouncing a public outrage. Unwilling to prolong the controversy, Kirkcaldy declared himself satisfied that the words at which he had taken offence were uttered in lament, and for amendment of his fault, and not to his hurt, injury, or defamation, and formally withdrew his complaint. But Knox was not content with a view that implied a recantation on his part; and on the following Sunday, when the Captain, after nearly a year’s absence from Divine Service, again appeared in St Giles’s, the Reformer, construing his presence into an open defiance, denounced ‘proud contemners,’ and warned them that God’s mercy appertained not to such as, with knowledge, proudly transgressed, and thereafter most proudly maintained their transgression.