1574-5. Feb.
‘In the meantime, there was ane great dearth in Scotland of all kind of victuals.’—D. O.
Mar. 7.
In the course of the late civil war, Lords John and Claud Hamilton came to an inn to apprehend old Carmichael and the Laird of Westerhall. The house being beset and set on fire, the two gentlemen surrendered, on condition that their lives should be spared; but after they came forth, and were disarmed, Westerhall was slain, and Carmichael carried away a prisoner.
Westerhall being a dependent of the house of Angus, his death added largely to the resentment already felt by the Regent towards the Hamiltons. Love, however, which so often raises wrath, here came in to smooth it. There was a certain widowed Countess of Cassillis, whom Lord John knew and loved; and, as she was a cousin of the Regent, it became necessary to effect a reconciliation with him before a match could be effected. As one step towards this object—for doubtless there would be others, and particularly one involving a money-payment to the griping Morton—Lord John, now the actual head of the princely house of Hamilton, agreed, along with his brother, to perform a ceremony of expiation for the death of Westerhall. The Earl of Angus, head of the house of Douglas, being placed in the inner court of Holyrood Palace, Lords John and Claud walked across barefooted and bareheaded, and falling down on their knees before the earl, held up to him each a naked sword by the point, implying that they put their lives in his power, trusting solely to his generosity for their not being immediately slain. Soon after this strange scene, Lord John wedded Lady Cassillis.
1574-5.
This seems, after all, to have been but a partial and temporary restoration of the Hamiltons to court favour. There were many who could not forget or forgive their concern in the slaughter of the Regents Moray and Lennox. Douglas of Lochleven, uterine brother of Moray, was irreconcilably bitter against them. ‘Twice he set upon the Lord Hamilton, as he was coming from Aberbrothick, and chased him so that he was constrained to return to Aberbrothick again. Another time, as he was coming through Fife, he made him flee to Dairsie, which he beset and lay about it till the Regent sent to him and commanded him to desist.’—H. of G.