Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 16

by Unknown

This latter part of the governor's statement, which was delivered with much gravity, produced a great effect upon the mind of James, whose contempt of his father's occult, astrological, and oneirocritical practices was the cause of his disobedience, as well as its apology. He trembled at the thought of incurring, on his own part, the censure which had been heaped on his parent, and felt anxious to escape precipitately from the subject he had broached, as well as from his own thoughts, which, mixing up reality and imagination in inextricable confusion, produced nothing but doubt, irresolution, and anxiety. If he had been anxious, on the entry of Shaw, to tell him the wonders of the night, he was now more anxious to undo what he had done, and remove from the mind of the governor any suspicion that he inherited from his father his hairbrained propensity to believe in dreams and divinations. Changing the style of his speech, as well as the expression of his countenance, he attempted to make light of his nocturnal adventure, and laughed off the clinging belief with an effort which was not unnoticed by his wily visiter. The power of early prejudices in overcoming the convictions of truth, effected a partial triumph; but there still clung to the mind of the youth a feeling of a struggling conviction, which his forced laugh and his expressed contempt of all supernatural beliefs had little power to affect. He felt, however, the necessity of maintaining absolute silence on a subject so intimately connected with his dispute with his father, and Shaw undertook to say nothing of the occurrence, which he affected to think had been properly treated by the noble mind of the young prince.

The scheme of this unnatural rebellion being persevered in with great determination and asperity, a court was held next day in the Castle of Stirling, where all the ceremonies of a royal levee were gone through with studied state and affected etiquette. The Earl of Argyle was reinstated in the office of chancellor, which had been conferred by his father on Elphinston, Bishop of Aberdeen. A negotiation was opened with the English king, Henry VII., who, having had a dispute with the old king as to the restoration of Berwick, very readily entered into the views of the son, and agreed to grant passports to his ambassadors, the Bishops of Glasgow and Dunkeld, the Earl of Argyle, Lords Lyle and Hailes, with the Master of Hume, who were, in fact, the heads of the rebellious party. The boldness of these proceedings, quadrating with the weakness of the king's actions, spread disaffection among the people of Scotland far and wide; and it was soon rumoured that the monarch, afraid of the disposition of his subjects towards the south, had proceeded to Aberdeen, and issued orders for the array of Strathearn and Angus, and all his friends in the north who still retained their allegiance. If the son soon found himself at the head of a large force in the south, the father was as successful in the north. Athole, Huntly, Crawford, and Lindsay of Byres, joined his standard; and to these were soon added Buchan, Errol, Glammis, Forbes, and Kilmaurs—so that the two ends of the kingdom were completely arrayed against each other, and the antagonist forces were headed by a father and a son.

The monarch having thus vacated the capital, and betaken himself to the north, an opportunity was held out to the son to lay siege to the Castle of Edinburgh; and orders were given to the troops to proceed in that direction. During all this time the mind of the prince had been kept up by the insidious counsels of the rebel lords, who represented the unfilial work in which he was engaged as conducive to the benefit of the kingdom, which would receive the blessings of his wise legislation. The youth was flattered by these statements; and the details of an army, by occupying his thoughts, banished from his recollection the night scene of the Castle of Stirling, which, as time aided the efforts of his sceptical wishes, gradually appeared to assume more and more the character of a false and delusive dream. Meanwhile, Hume and Hailes, and others who had been sent as ambassadors to England, returned with intelligence that Henry was favourable to their cause—a circumstance which still farther flattered the vanity of the youth, and prevented him from giving way to the feelings of instinctive duty and affection towards his father. Proceeding gradually forward, the rebel army came to Blackness, near Linlithgow, where they encamped.

The army of the king, in the meantime, came up, and the unusual sight was exhibited of two parts of a nation, headed by a father and a son, contending for a throne, arrayed against each other, with reciprocal feelings of enmity and views of mortal conflict. The benevolent heart of the father relented, and terms of accommodation, as prepared by Huntly and Errol, were sanctioned by his signature, but prevented from being properly submitted to the son by the rash conduct of Buchan, who thought he would be able to extinguish the rebellion by one blow. A skirmish was the consequence, in which the earl gained some advantage; but, though the triumph was magnified into a victory, the rebel forces were as strong as ever, while the sight of kindred blood on the swords of the warriors of either side of the field sickened the hearts of brave men, who, in other circumstances, would have been fired by the token of an advantage over an enemy. The wish for an accommodation was increased on the side of the king and his troops, and the former terms of accommodation were submitted to the rebel prince, who was still under the leading-strings of the arch traitors by whom he had been led into this unseemly and unnatural position.

The terms of accommodation were extremely favourable to the insurgent forces, as, without exacting any condition but that of laying down their arms, the king agreed to admit them to favour and grant them pardons for present and bygone offences; yet great dissension existed amongst the rebels on the subject of the acceptance of the offer of peace, and the prince, urged on by Gray, in whom he had the greatest confidence, headed the party who were inclined to stand out.

"I for one," said the youth, "receive nothing by these terms but the mighty boon of forgiveness, which will neither add to my honours nor contribute to my ambition. By being the friend of my royal father, I may be gratified by getting a view of Venus through his astrolabe; but I would rather, upon the honour of a knight, be his lieutenant in the government of this part of the planet Earth called Scotland. It is clear that my father is as unfit to rule the kingdom as was the father of the former holder of my title of Duke of Rothsay, Robert III, who made his son lieutenant-general—and why should I be debarred from what is my natural and legitimate right? It will be for the good of you all that I am appointed to that office, insomuch as the friendship of a ruler invested with all the power is better than the pardon of a king who has none."

These sentiments were opposed by many of the lords, and in particular by the Earl of Argyle.

"By these terms of accommodation," said he, "we get all we have been fighting for, or can expect from a victory gained through the blood of our countrymen and kinsmen—a free pardon for the execution of the favourites at the Bridge of Lauder, and a restoration to the favour and confidence of the king. We cannot force a lieutenantcy in favour of the prince who is at present our king, otherwise than by committing his royal father to close confinement—for what self-denying ordinance could prevent a sane and free king, not deposed by his subjects, from exercising his authority in opposition to that of a lieutenant forced upon him against his will, and acting against his wishes? The crown, as surely as a coffin, will come to one prince by the course of nature, and better wait for a regular inheritance, than anticipate a right by rebellion, spoliation, and force."

Other arguments were used by other nobles, and the convention retired to their tents without coming to any determination. The night was clear and beautiful; the sky shone with cerulean brightness; a clear full moon shot her silvery rays "over tower and tree;" and every twinkling star in the blue firmament seemed to rejoice in the opportunity of getting its weak beam thrown upon the green earth, and adding its small mite to the general exuberance of the smiles of the whole heavenly host. The noise of the convention of angry nobles having ceased, and the men, wearied by bearing arms all day, having retired to rest, there was nothing to disturb the silence which reigned coordinately with the serene light, and made the scene more impressively beautiful. When left to himself, the young prince felt the contrast between the appearance of nature, thus arrayed in her fairest smiles, and beautified by calmness and composure, and the position of a father and a son, lying in wait for an opportunity of engaging in the strife of war, and of even shedding each other's blood, by the vicarious hands of those they were leading on to the fight of kindred against kindred. His heart softened; the feelings of nature returned for a time, and vindicated the authority they should never have lost. His versatility was exclusive of a permanent establishment in his bosom of affection and duty, but it was, as it generally is, a pledge of the strength of the reigning emotion, for the time, which, in proportion to the shortness of its duration, was intense in its action, and engrossing in its extent. Having thrown himself on his couch, he resigned himself to the influence of these feelings; the poetical enthusiasm which is generated by a contemplation of nature in her beautiful moods, and, in his instance, called forth by a survey (through the opening of his tent) of the shining heavens and the sleeping earth, came in aid of the instinctive emotions which occupied his bosom; and he could not restrain the expression of what he felt.

"I have sat on the knee of him against whom I am arrayed in preparation for mortal fight, and I have seen the tear rise in his eye, as, looking first at me, and then at my departed mother (bless her pure spirit, which dwelleth in that ether!), he felt proud of the pledge of their loves, and hopeful of the virtues of a good king, to succeed him when he died. What would have been his emotions, if he had been told by some of his occult divinations that the boy he cherished and wept over would lift his hand against his life, and endeavour to pluck the crown from his living head? How dreadful, at this moment, appears to me my position and my conduct! Almost in my view, my parent lays his head on the pillow of a field-tent, uncertain whether his son and his son's friends may permit him to awake again, to view the beauties of that moon, and all that she discovers to the eye of man! Heavens! and I, conscious of my ingratitude, know its baneful effects on a parent's mind, and yet do not rise instantly and throw myself at his feet! Cruel versatility of nature under which I stand accursed! Where shall I find the elements of consistency, the true parent of happiness? Alas! I obey only the impulses of constitution. Would that, at this auspicious moment, I had an opportunity of acquiring again the matter of these terms of peace! The feelings of a son, roused by conscience, would suggest an eloquence before which all the specious views and paradoxes of Gray and Hume would disappear, like vapours before the light of that shining queen of the heavens."