The excitement produced by an open quarrel between two such men as Knox and Kirkcaldy was not confined to the Capital. Exaggerated rumours were circulated from town to town, and in several places there arose a belief that Grange had sworn the death of the Reformer. Acting on this, a number of noblemen and gentlemen wrote from Ayr to the Laird of Grange, to signify their strong condemnation of his conduct. They could hardly believe, their protest ran, that he who had been, not a simple professor, but a defender of religion, could be moved to do any harm to him on whose safety the prosperity and increase of religion depended; and they deprecated any hostile design against the man whom God had made both the first planter, and also the chief waterer of his Kirk amongst them, and whose welfare was as dear and precious to them as their own.
Kirkcaldy had thought the incident of sufficient importance, under the existing circumstances, to justify his reporting it directly to the English Government himself. In replying to his letter, it suited Cecil to adopt the lofty moral tone which he knew would meet with the approval of the Clerical party. After condemning the ‘heinous fact,’ and expatiating on its guilt in one ‘having a place of government committed to him, and having for so many years made the world think that he professed the Evangel,’ he closed his letter in these sharp terms:—‘how you will allow my plainness I know not; but surely I should think myself guilty of blood if I should not thoroughly mislike you; and to this I must add, that I hear, but yet am loath to believe it, that your soldiers that broke the prison have not only taken out the murderer your man, but a woman that was there detained as guilty of the lamentable death of the late good Regent. Alas! my Lord, may this be true? And, with your help, may it be conceived in thought that you—you, I mean, that were so dear to the Regent, should favour his murderers in this sort. Surely, my Lord, if this be true, there is provided by God some notable work of His justice to be shewed upon you; and yet I trust you are not so void of God’s grace: and so for mine old friendship with you, and for the avoiding the notable slander of God’s word, I heartily wish it to be untrue.’
Cecil had no reason to congratulate himself on having given credence to details for which he had not the authority of Kirkcaldy himself. In reply to his epistle, the Captain of the Castle was able to inform him that the woman, whose supposed escape had aroused his indignation, was still in the Tolbooth.
XI. THE HOLDING OF THE CASTLE
In the summer of 1570, the treacherous advice of Sussex had been followed, and, under pretence of punishing those who had given shelter to the rebellious Dacres, he had been sent, with an army of four thousand men, into Annandale, which he ravaged with such remorseless ferocity that, in his own words, not a stone house was left to an ill neighbour within twenty miles of Carlisle. This unjustifiable act of aggression may be looked upon as one of the immediate causes that led Grange decisively and irrevocably to throw in his lot with the party which refused to recognise the authority of Lennox. A two months’ truce delayed what had now become an inevitable step on his part. And even then, when the crisis came, it had been hurried on by Lennox’s action. On the 19th of March, before the actual expiration of the armistice, he caused proclamation to be made in Edinburgh, forbidding, upon pain of treason, that any should serve Grange, and commanding those who were already with him to leave him within three days. On the same afternoon, Kirkcaldy retaliated by causing Captain Melville to go through the town, with beat of drum, offering pay to all such as would repair to the Castle. Next day he took possession of the Abbey and of St Giles’s, and put men and munitions into them. He further levied provisions from the Leith merchants, and took every measure of prudence and precaution that a long military experience suggested, with a view to enabling the Castle to stand a long siege. He was so satisfied with the result of his efforts that he indulged in a ‘rowstie ryme’ in which, besides reviling his enemies and casting upon them the entire responsibility for the calamities under which the country was groaning, he proudly set forth all that he had done to resist any attempt on their part to drive him from his stronghold.
For I haue men and meit aneugh,
They know I am ane tuilyeour teoch,
And wilbe rycht sone greved:
When thei haue tint als mony teith,
As thei did at the seige of Leith,