Aug. 17.
The court was at this time unable to keep silence under the pelt of pasquils which it had brought upon itself. We have now a furious edict of Privy Council against the writers and promulgators of ‘infamous libels, buiks, ballats, pasquils, and cantels in prose and rhyme,’ which have lately been set out, and especially against ‘ane maist treasonable letter in form of a cockalane,[214] craftily divulgat by certain malicious, seditious, and unquiet spirits, uttering mony shameful and contumelious speeches, full of hatrent and dispite, not only against God, his servants and ministers, but maist unnaturally to the prejudice of the honour, guid fame, and reputation of the king and queen’s majesties, not sparing the prince their dearest son, besides their nobility, council, and guid subjects.’ The only active redress, however, was to proclaim a reward for the discovery of the offenders.—P. C. R.
Nov. 3.
Since November 1585, when he was driven from the king’s councils, James Stewart of Newton (sometime Earl of Arran) had lived in obscurity in the north.[215] Now that the Chancellor Maitland was dead, he formed a hope that possibly some use might be found for him at court; he therefore came to Edinburgh privately, and had an interview with the king at Holyroodhouse. He received some encouragement; but as nothing could be done for him immediately, and there were many enemies to reconcile, he bethought him of going to live for a while amongst his friends in Ayrshire, trusting erelong to be sent for.
1596.
The ex-favourite was travelling by Symington, in the upper ward of Lanarkshire, when some one who knew him gave him warning that he was come into a dangerous neighbourhood, for not far from the way he was about to pass dwelt a leading man of that house of Douglas which he had mortally offended by his prosecution of the Regent Morton. This was Sir James Douglas of Parkhead, whose father was a natural brother of the regent: he was now the husband of the heiress of the house of Carlyle of Torthorald, and a man of consideration. Stewart replied disdainfully that he was travelling where he had a right to be, and he would not go out of his way for Parkhead nor any other of the house of Douglas. A mean person who overheard this speech made off and reported it to Douglas, who, on hearing it, rose from table, where he had been dining, and vowed he would have the life of Stewart at all hazards. He immediately mounted, and with three servants rode after his enemy through a valley called the Catslack. When Stewart saw himself pursued, he asked the name of the place, and being told, desired his people to come on with all possible speed, for he had got a response from some soothsayer to beware of that spot. Parkhead speedily overtook him, struck him from his horse, and then mercilessly killed him. Cutting off the head, he caused it to be carried by a servant on the point of a spear, thus verifying another weird saying regarding Stewart, that he should have the highest head in Scotland. His body was left on the spot, to become the prey of dogs and swine.[216]
Thus perished an ex-chancellor of Scotland, one who had been permitted for a time to treat the world as if it had only been made for his own aggrandisement, who had governed a king, struck down a regent, and made the greatest of the old nobility of the country tremble. Violence, insolence, and cruelty had been the ruling principles of his life, and, as Spottiswoode says, ‘he was paid home in the end.’ No decided effort was made to execute justice upon his slayer;[217] but it will be afterwards found that the Ochiltree Stewarts did not forget his death. ([See under July 1608].)
Dec. 17. 1596.