Choisseul obeyed.
"His execution, at any rate, shall be public," said the earl to himself, when the latter had left him. "Perhaps he may make some confession on the scaffold, and it will be well to have it amply testified."
On the following day, Chatelard was led out to execution, when his gentleman-like appearance and noble bearing excited the utmost sympathy of the crowd. On ascending the scaffold, he pulled a small volume from his pocket, opened it, and read aloud, with great dignity and composure, Ronsard's Hymn on Death. When he had done, he turned towards that part of the Castle of St Andrew's where he supposed the queen to be, and, kissing his hand, waved a graceful adieu, exclaiming—"Farewell, loveliest and most cruel princess whom the world contains!"
Having uttered these words, he laid his head, with the utmost composure, on the block. The axe of the executioner fell, and the high-souled, accomplished, but enthusiastic Chatelard was no more.
[CHRISTIE OF THE CLEEK.]
Though the records of history and everyday experience teach us that human nature, when pressed beyond certain limits by the force of stern necessity, loses all trace of the lineaments of the lord of the creation, and degenerates as far below the grade of brute existence as it is, when not subjected to any such power, above it; yet it is remarkable how determinedly mankind cling to a sceptical incredulity in regard to those facts which derogate, in a very great degree, from the dignity of the character of their species. The story of Christiecleek has been considered by many as only fit for being, what it has been for five hundred years, a nursery bugbear, and yet it is narrated by Winton, one of the least credulous of historians, was attended by circumstances rendering it highly probable at the time, and has been corroborated by instances of civilised cannabalism, produced by necessity, in cases of shipwreck, of almost yearly occurrence.
The united powers of war and famine, which have so often poured forth their fury on the devoted head of poor Scotland, at no time exhibited greater malignity than in the beginning of the reign of David II. For about fifty years, the country had scarcely ever enjoyed a year of quiet—with, perhaps, the exception of a short period of the reign of Bruce. Repeatedly swept from one end to the other by the invading armies of the Edwards, carrying the sword and the faggot in every direction, she was, on the very instant of the departure of the foreign foes (in all cases starved out of a burned and devastated land), laid hold of by the harpies of intestine wars. The strong resilient energies of the country could have thrown off the effects of one attack, however severe and however protracted; but a series of incursions of the same disease, at intervals allowing of no time for recruiting her powers, produced a political marasmus—a confirmed famine—one of the most dreadful evils, including in itself all others, that ever was visited on mankind.
It would be difficult to draw a picture—because imagination falls short of the powers of a proper portraiture—of the misery and desolation of Scotland at the time we have mentioned. The land had got gradually out of cultivation, and the herds of black cattle and sheep, on which the people relied, in default of the productive powers of agriculture, had been either driven into England, or consumed by the myriads of soldiers of the English invading armies. Great numbers of the people, having nothing wherewith to allay the pangs of hunger, though they had plenty of money, quitted their country in despair, and took refuge in Flanders. Those who had no money to pay their passage, left their homes, and betook themselves to the woods, where, to appease their agonies, they lay on the ground, and devoured, like the inhabitants of their sties, the acorns and the nuts that had fallen from the trees. In the want of these, the very branches were laid hold of and gnawed; and many poor creatures were found lying dead, with the half-masticated boughs in their clenched hands. The only remedial influence that was experienced, was the growth of dysenteries and other intestine diseases, which, produced by hunger and becoming epidemic, kindly swept off thousands who would otherwise have died of protracted famine.
At a wild spot near the Grampian Hills, a number of destitute beings had collected, for the purpose of catching deer (a few of which still remained), to keep in the spark of life. They agreed to associate together, and divide their prey, which was dressed in a mountain cave, where they had assembled. Every morning they sallied forth, women and all, on the dreadful errand of taking advantage of chance, in supplying them with any species of wild animals that came in their way, to satisfy the imperative demands of hunger. They got a few creatures at first, consisting chiefly of hares and foxes, and occasionally wolves, as ferocious and hungry as their captors; and such was the extremity to which they were often reduced, that they sat down on the spot where the animals were caught, divided the smoking limbs among their number, and devoured them without any culinary preparation.