Kirkcaldy of Grange

by Louis A. Barbé

XII. THE MERCAT CROSS

The Earl of Mar’s Regency lasted a little over a year,—from the beginning of September 1571 to the 29th of October 1572. The secret history of the period is contained in a long series of communications between Elizabeth and her Ministers on the one hand, and the heads of the two contending parties on the other. The subject was still the pacification of the Kingdom; but the discovery of the Duke of Norfolk’s plot, in favour of Mary Stuart, had modified the English Queen’s policy with respect to the Castilians, as the holders of the Castle were termed. It supplied her with a plausible excuse for casting aside even the semblance of a desire to reinstate her captive; and the spirit in which the negotiations with Grange and Lethington were conducted is illustrated by the following summons delivered to them in her name:—‘Her Majesty’s pleasure is, that ye leave off the maintenance of civil discord, and give your obedience to the King, whom she will maintain to the uttermost of her power. And if ye will so do, she will deal with the Regent and the King’s party to receive you in favour, upon reasonable conditions, for security of life and livings. In respect the Queen of Scots hath practised with the Pope, other Princes, and her own subjects, great and dangerous treasons against the state of the country, and destruction of her own person, she will never suffer her to be in authority, so far as in her lieth; nor to have liberty while she liveth. If ye refuse these offers, her Majesty will presently aid the King’s party with men, munition, and other things against you. Whereupon her Majesty desireth your answer with speed.’

In the meantime, hostilities were being carried on with the greatest ferocity by both factions. As Bannatyne reports, there was ‘nothing but hanging on either side.’ The chronicles and the correspondence of the time record, as common occurrences, the most cold-blooded atrocities. It is related in the Historie of King James the Sext, that a band of Queen’s soldiers from Edinburgh were attacked by a body of the King’s partisans, to whom they were obliged to surrender and give up their weapons. ‘But the horsemen of Leith, after they had received them as prisoners, slew fifteen of the most able and strong men of them; the remainder they drove to Leith like sheep, stabbing and dunting them with spears, where they were all hanged without further process.’ Randolph reported to Lord Hunsdon that nothing was left undone on either side that might annoy the other, that the Regent, to keep the Castilians from victuals, had placed men in Craigmillar, Redshawe, and Corstorphine, and had broken down all the mills to the number of thirty or more within four miles of Edinburgh, and that he had sent three hundred Highland men to the villages and cottages about the town to intercept and spoil all that attempted to repair to the Castle. Those of the other side made reprisals by hanging not only the prisoners whom they had received to mercy, but those who afterwards fell into their hands. Lord Hunsdon informed Elizabeth that four horsemen of the Castle having been taken in a skirmish, were immediately hanged; and that those of the Castle, for revenge, after dinner, hanged five of their opponents. When fuel was scarce in the town, the garrison of the Castle threw down several houses of the adverse faction, and sold the timber at an exorbitant price. They further appointed a functionary, nick-named by the populace the Captain of the Chimneys, to take account of such houses as had been abandoned by King’s men, and sell them by public auction. These stern proceedings so terrified the neutral citizens, that they fled to Leith; but instead of finding protection there they were driven back to the Capital, and threatened with the gibbet as spies. So strictly were supplies to the city prohibited that the country people who attempted to smuggle in provisions were barbarously put to death. Two men and one woman, from Wester Edmonstoune, were hanged for bringing leeks and salt to Edinburgh. Lethington, writing to Queen Mary, told her that when poor women hazarded, during the night, to bring in some victuals for themselves and their poor bairns, they were hanged without mercy.

‘By that way,’ he said, ‘they have hangit a great number of women, and some of them with bairn, and parted with bairn upon the gallows, a cruelty not heard of in any country.’ If both parties displayed the same vindictive spirit in the commission of these outrages, the voice of the people by whom ‘this form of dealing was called the Douglas wars,’ proclaimed the guilt of Morton as the originator of them.

That Grange and his friends were not responsible for continuing the disastrous struggle, even the English agents admitted. Lord Hunsdon, writing to Burghley, about the end of April, confessed that it passed his capacity any more to deal with the parties in Scotland. ‘The Castle side,’ he said, ‘require surety of their lives, lands, goods, and honours, where they have reason; and the keeping of the Castle, because they would be loath to put themselves into their new reconciled friends’ hands until they see some proof how they and their friends will be dealt with. On the King’s side, their malice is so deadly against some of the Castle as they have more respect to be revenged than regard to the Commonwealth; others are so resolved to keep such offices, spoils, and authority as they possess by these troubles, that they will never agree to any composition by treaty; the meaner sort who live upon entertainment and such spoils as now and then they can get, and live uncontrolled of any whatsoever they do, cannot abide to hear of peace.’

For the next three months negotiations still dragged on. Neither threats nor persuasions could induce Kirkcaldy to consent to the one condition without which his opponents were determined that there should be no peace—the surrender of the Castle. In an evil hour for themselves however, he and Lethington so far yielded to the representations and solicitations of the English Court as to agree to a truce. The conditions were that it should last for two months from the 30th of July; that, during that time there should be a meeting of the noblemen of the Kingdom to treat for peace; and that, if they should not agree, they should refer the difference between them to the arbitration of the King of France and Queen of England, promising upon their honour to accept all the conditions their Majesties should propose to them. During the truce all the subjects of the realm should be at liberty freely to traffic, haunt, or converse together unmolested. The town of Edinburgh was to be set at liberty the same as it was when the late Regent quitted it on the 27th of January 1570; and the Castle to be kept with no greater garrison than it had at that date.

On the 11th of the following month Grange and Lethington had already ground for complaint that, contrary to promise, ‘the town was still guarded and garrisoned as a town of war.’ A few days later they drew up a formal protest in which they stated that the Capital was occupied by companies of soldiers and townsmen, who kept watch and ward day and night, and continually used the Kirk and Tolbooth as guard-houses. Leith also, they said, was guarded as in time of war, in contravention of the abstinence. Men-at-arms were lodged upon the poor, to be fed at their expense; and in many cases the inhabitants were forbidden to enter their own houses, which had been taken possession of by the soldiery.

In the beginning of September, a new agent, Killegrew, was dispatched to Scotland for the ostensible purpose of effecting a compromise between the two parties, but in reality with a view to arranging with Morton for the secret execution of Queen Mary. All that his intervention achieved was the prolongation of the truce till the 1st of January. The result of his secret mission, however, was to secure the complicity of Mar and Morton in Elizabeth’s scheme for the destruction of her rival, on condition that they should receive help from England for the subjugation of the Castilians, at the expiration of the truce.

When Killegrew arrived in Scotland, the Earl of Mar was lying ill at Tantallon Castle, and it was there the English ambassador had his first interview with him. He recovered sufficiently to be removed to Stirling. On the 27th of October, it was reported to Burghley that he had been bled, and was ‘somewhat amended.’ The very next day, however, he died, with a suddenness that gave rise to a suspicion of poison. Rather less than a month later, Morton was chosen to succeed him.

The day that the new Regent was elected, there occurred another important event, which was destined to exercise great influence on Kirkcaldy’s fate. On that same 24th of November, John Knox died in Edinburgh, to which he had returned shortly before in a sinking condition. As he lay on his death-bed he desired his friend, David Lindsay, the minister of Leith, to take a message from him to the Laird of Grange. “‘Go, I pray you,’ he said, ‘and tell him that I have sent you to him yet once to warn him; and bid him, in the name of God, leave that evil cause, and give over that Castle. If not, he shall be brought down over the walls of it with shame, and hang against the sun. So God hath assured me.’ Mr David thought the message hard, yet went to the Castle, and meeteth first with Sir Robert Melville walking on the wall, and told him what was his errand; who, as he thought, was much moved with the matter. Thereafter he communed with the Captain, whom he thought also somewhat moved. But he went from him in to Secretary Lethington, with whom, when he had conferred a little, he came out to Mr David again, and said, ‘Go, tell Mr Knox he is but a drytting prophet.’ Mr David returned to Mr Knox and reported how he had discharged his commission; but that it was not well accepted of the Captain after he had conferred with the Secretary. ‘Well,’ said Mr Knox, ‘I have been earnest with my God anent the two men. For the one, I am sorry that so shall befall him, yet God assureth me that there is mercy for his soul. For the other, I have no warrant that ever he shall be well.’ Mr David thought the speech hard, yet laid it up in his mind till Mr Knox was at rest with God, and found the truth which he had spoken within a few days after.”