Lord in Waiting

by Nigel Tranter

Genres: Cultural Heritage; Historical Fiction

Synopsis

In 1460, when clan feuds were rife, and the threat of English invasion was ever-present, James III, one of Scotland's weakest monarchs, came to the throne. Before long, John, Lord of Douglas, a born leader and a man of conscience and vision, found himself wishing that James' wise and strong-minded sister Princess Mary had succeeded in her brother's place. A fact compounded by the feeble king's habit of ignoring high-born nobles, and succumbing instead to the influence of the astrologer and alchemist William Sheves, Archdeacon of St Andrews, one of the cleverest and most unscrupulous individuals in Scotland's history. Continuing the story of Princess Mary Stewart that began in P rice of a Princess, Lord in Waiting is a gripping tale of 15th century Scotland by Nigel Tranter, master of Scottish historical fiction.

Release date: December 20, 2012

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 464

Sample

Only one James Stewart survived the Battle of Sauchieburn, young Rothesay, to become James the Fourth; for the other, who had fled the field, did not get far, only to the edge of the Bannock Burn itself, at the mill thereof, where his spirited grey charger, the gift of Lord Lindsay of the Byres, took fright at the miller’s wife dropping a pitcher in alarm, and threw its royal rider. Injured inside his splendid armour, the King was found and carried into a stable by the miller, and there, in panic, believing that God and His strange spirits were against him, called for a priest to shrive him. It was no priest who was eventually brought to him but a very different attendant, some records say the Lord Gray himself, a sworn and harsh enemy, some say Gray’s servant. And the shriving took the form of a dagger’s stabbing. James the Third, sad and ineffective monarch, born probably centuries out of his time, died there in the stable of Bannockburn Mill.

Disheartened by the desertion of their liege-lord, the royal army fairly soon recognised a lost cause, and began haphazard withdrawal.

James the Fourth, all that his father was not, proved to be one of the best monarchs Scotland ever had, sure of hand, courageous, just, popular, reigning for twenty-six years. Yet he too may have been born out of his time, for his notions of chivalry led to perhaps the greatest disaster in his realm’s fairly disastrous history, Flodden Field, when the floors o’ the forest were a’ wede awa’, himself with them, in a romantic and unnecessary gesture towards the Queen of France. It was at Flodden that his hitherto loyal supporter the Earl of Angus, Archibald Bell-the-Cat, now a man of sixty, who had been Chancellor of Scotland, so strongly countered the King’s will in this gesture as to turn back before the battle in ever-impetuous heat, although his sons went on to die with their sovereign-lord. Archibald died a monk, broken-hearted, a year later.

Mary Stewart, Countess of Arran and Lady Hamilton, lived to a notable age, a notable woman to the end, one of Scotland’s great women and a power behind her young great-nephew James the Fifth when he succeeded, aged one year, in 1513.

As for William Sheves, his power largely gone with the death of James the Third, he lived for another ten years, nominally Archbishop of St Andrews but able to exercise little of his former domination, Bishop Elphinstone of Aberdeen becoming a power for good in Church and state, and founding the University of Aberdeen. Sheves, oddly, was succeeded as Primate by none other than the twenty-year-old James, Duke of Ross, the King’s younger brother, who also died at Flodden.

Other players on this stage went on to act their due parts, some worthily, dramatically, some less so. But that is another story.

John Douglas was fishing. He enjoyed fishing and spent much of his time at it – too much, according to his brother Archie, whose was a different nature, urgent, active, headstrong. John was otherwise, quiet, contemplative, a little reserved, but by no means shrinking or dull – Douglases were seldom dull. Fishing seemed to suit him, an activity which permitted his mind to journey off on its own for much of the time – and he had an active mind. Sometimes, of course, he had to keep his attention very much on what he was doing, especially when in his boat, for it was sea-fishing which he pursued, sometimes afloat, sometimes, as now, from ashore. Tantallon was not much of a place for river-fishing; and the nearest fishable loch was miles off in the Lammermuir Hills.

Not that the description “ashore” was very apt for John’s present stance, for he was sitting on a jutting slab of rock some one hundred and twenty feet above the surging tide, a dizzy perch on which his sisters would nowise join him, and Archie did not. Casting his line down there, duly weighted, hooked and baited, required a certain skill in itself, for the wind, on that long drop, was all too likely to make it sway and swing and divert, often to catch the hook on projections or sea-pink clumps growing out of the cliff-face, or, lower, seaweed and the like, which in a more impatient young man would have been found off-putting. So the control as well as the aiming of his line was all-important, not only for that reason but also to ensure that it fell eventually into a selected spot, a restricted area of sand amongst the rocks, reefs and skerries down there, this no easy open patch but a twisting, turning, narrow channel, a channel which had to serve another purpose than just John’s fishing, for this was the only means for boats and shipping, of necessarily modest proportions, to approach the castle above, and this only at high water and when the seas were not too rough. But that sandy bottom below the waves, winding as it was, was a notable haunt of flounders, sole, rock-cod and suchlike. And if Archie thought that his brother was wasting his time, a strangely feeble Douglas in stirring times, and his sisters, all seven of them, were afraid that he would fall over and kill himself at this ridiculous ploy, they none of them refused to eat and enjoy the fruits of his labours – if labours they could be called.

But perhaps, labours, yes. For part of him was labouring the while, after a fashion, or active at least, purposefully active much of the time. More than just contemplating. He was summoning up pictures, faces, emotions, actions, words, and seeking for due words of his own to describe these adequately; and more than adequately, vividly, dramatically, resoundingly. And sometimes in rhyme and rhythm. For John Douglas was a storyteller, and sometimes a poet. Not that, at twenty years, he claimed to be the latter; but he did frequently entertain the family and retainers with his tales and compositions, of an evening – and even Archie did not find fault with that.

Waiting for that long, long line to jerk, at a bite, and interrupting his picture-building process to deal with an already caught flounder which he had thought was suitably dead but which had now started to flap on the rock at his side amongst others of his catch, to the danger of it and them falling off and over, his attention was further distracted by a call from behind him which jerked him round, in the circumstances to his distinct danger, since his legs below the knee were already dangling over into nothingness. If he had been impatient, like Archie, he would have cursed and exclaimed. But, turning, he merely raised his eyebrows.

“Johnnie! Archie says to come,” his sister Alison called, from the ultimate outer parapet-walk on the north, seaward, side of Tantallon Castle. “A messenger has come. From Stirling. It is important, he says.”

John could have answered let him come to see me, then. But he forbore, not because Archie was the elder and an earl to boot, fifth Earl of Angus, but because he was that way inclined, an even-tempered young man, not exactly placid but normally prepared to please other folk if he could – although, given sufficient cause, he could be otherwise. He waved a hand, dealt with the flapping flounder and proceeded, but unhurriedly, necessarily careful, to raise and neatly coil that lengthy fishing-line, taking heed to keep it free from the rock-face hazards. The ballad of Baldred of the Bass which he was composing would have to wait; after all St Baldred had been waiting for a long time, since the seventh century, seven hundred years.

All in order on his rock-slab, John gathered up his catch so far, four fish – if he left them there the swooping gulls would have them – put them in a canvas bag and clambered up from the lip of the precipice and along to the flight of steps cut out in the naked rock which led up to that outer bastion of the castle where the girl stood, and also down to the dizzy platform from which a rope ladder could on occasion be lowered, to give less than easy access to any boat in that twisted channel. Tantallon was that sort of castle, perched high on a narrow promontory of a cliff-girt, iron-bound coast, impregnable seat of the Red Douglases.

Alison, the youngest of his seven sisters, was aged fourteen, and bonny, a sparkling-eyed, laughing girl, everyone’s favourite. She took the bag of fish and peered in, to count.

“Only four?” she complained.

“If you had been with me, fishing also, we could have doubled that,” he told her easily. “What messenger is this? From Stirling, you say?”

“Yes. From the Princess Mary, I think. A friar, from the Abbey of Cambuskenneth. Archie seems much put-about. I do not know what brings him, but it must be important.”

“Not necessarily,” her brother observed, with a faint smile. “Archie being Archie! But – we shall see.”

From that sea-facing bastion they stepped down into the wide open courtyard of the stronghold, partly paved, partly living rock, to move over towards the mighty keep and its flanking towers linked by lofty walling and parapets enclosing lesser buildings, all in the rose-red stone typical of this knuckle-end of Lothian which shook its fist in the face of the Norse Sea. Tantallon was an unusual castle, in more ways than one, basically a vast wall of masonry which shut off this narrow peninsula’s tip, so that it was defended on three sides by sheer cliffs, and on the fourth, landwards, by a series of moats, deep ditches and ramparts, contrived to keep attackers at a distance and cannon well out of range. That giant stone curtain held the huge keep-cum-gatehouse tower, six storeys high, with drawbridge and portcullis, and almost equally high flanking towers at each end of the fifty-foot-high and twelve-foot-thick linking walls. In Scotland’s turbulent history, it had never been taken by assault. The blue and white banners bearing the Red Heart of Douglas flew from the three tower-tops.

Passing the deep well sunk from the courtyard, necessarily deeper than the cliffs themselves, and leaving the subsidiary buildings of kitchens, barracks, chapel, stabling and storehouses on the right, they entered the main keep, to climb a straight stairway in the thickness of the walling to the first floor, where girlish laughter sounded from six other sisters in the great hall, and on up to the next floor, now by a circular turnpike stair, to the private and lesser hall. Alison opened the door.

Within, two men sat at a table, one young, red-headed, hot-eyed, squarely built, not handsome but eye-catching, of very different appearance from his brother who was slender, fine-featured, dark of hair and grey-eyed. The other man was middle-aged, spare, tonsured and clad in black, travel-stained monkish garb. He was eating from a platter.

“John, here is Brother Anselm, from Cambuskenneth. He comes from Mary, the princess, Countess of Arran, with tidings,” the younger said. “Ill tidings. Thomas Boyd is dead. The Earl of Arran.”

“Dead!” John stared. “They . . . they caught him, then? At last. You mean . . . ?”

“Not caught, no. He died in the Low Countries. How, it is not clear.” The earl looked at the friar.

“We have no sure word, my lord. Save that the Lord Arran is dead. How he died we have not heard. The word came to my lord Bishop of St Andrews from the Vatican. But with no details. Save that the Duke of Burgundy, his friend, is desolate. And is building a great monument to him. Whether he died of a sickness, or . . . otherwise, we know not. But the death is sure, I fear.”

“Here is sorrow!” John said. “He was a good man – despite being a Boyd! This will be sore news indeed for Mary Stewart. And . . .” He left the rest unsaid.

“Aye, sore news in more ways than one!” his brother exclaimed. “This is why Mary sends this messenger. She is to be married again, no less! Now.”

“Married . . . ?”

The friar gulped, to avoid speaking with his mouth full. “The Princess Mary asked my abbot to have the word sent to you, my lords. She is as good as a prisoner in Stirling Castle. But she sees my abbot frequently. Whenever the tidings of the Earl of Arran’s death reached Stirling, the Secret Council decided that the princess must remarry. She is to wed the Lord Hamilton.”

“Hamilton! That lecher!”

“That is what she has told my abbot. She is much distressed. And asks that you, my lords, her friends, come to Stirling and seek to persuade the King otherwise. To forbid this forced marriage of his sister.”

“James!” Archie cried. “He will never do that. Outface the council. He is craven, weak . . .”

“We might persuade him.”

“That, my lords, is what Her Highness hopes. Why I am sent to you to seek your aid. The King might listen to you, heed you. If you will come to Stirling . . .”

“We could come to Stirling, yes. If you consider it worth the doing,” the earl agreed. “How say you, Johnnie?”

The other nodded, if a little doubtfully. He was not one for Kings and courts and great affairs.

“When?” Archie asked.

“Soon. The sooner the better, my lord. For there is need for haste, Her Highness says.”

“Tomorrow, then. Eh, Johnnie?”

“Should I go, also?”

“Yes, yes. Better with us both. For James. He likes you.”

“Very well . . .”

The friar, fully fed and refreshed, was sent on his way. The brothers eyed each other. Here were problems indeed – and not merely problems of state and court, for there was a very personal side to it all. This man who had died abroad, Thomas Boyd, Earl of Arran, a banished exile, was in fact brother-in-law to the Earl of Angus. His sister, Archie’s wife, Elizabeth Boyd, was upstairs in the East Tower, with her three children. She would have to be informed.

Arran’s wife, or widow now, was the Princess Mary, elder sister of the monarch, James the Third, King of Scots. Theirs had been a forced marriage. James and Mary, when out hunting, had been unlawfully kidnapped and thereafter held captive by the Lord Boyd of Kilmarnock and his brother, Sir Alexander Boyd. Lord Boyd had thus been able to rule Scotland, for three years, as Regent, in the young King’s name. He had had his son and heir marry the Princess Mary. But Thomas, whom he had had created Earl of Arran, and Mary Stewart, however inauspicious the start of their marriage, had grown to admire and love each other. After those three years the Boyd regime had fallen, whilst Arran was in Denmark arranging for the betrothal of the King of Denmark’s daughter to King James. Jealous and resentful nobles, led by the King’s uncles, had combined to topple the Regent; and a parliament had declared the Boyds guilty of lèse-majestè and high treason, and condemned them to death. Arran, bringing home the royal Danish bride, had, in his ship, reached as far as the mouth of the Firth of Forth, here off Tantallon, when, with Douglas help, Mary had managed to get out to intercept and warn him of his impending fate; and she and her husband had left the bride-to-be and both sailed back to Denmark. But weak young King James, on the orders of his new governors, actually his uncles the Earls of Atholl and Buchan, had sent and had his sister brought back, by royal command, although her husband had contrived to make his way to the Low Countries. That was four years ago, in 1470, and husband and wife had not met since. Now he was dead, and the new widow calling for help.

Mary Stewart’s call was not to be ignored. As well as being kin by marriage, the King’s sister, and possibly the most beautiful woman in Scotland, she was the Douglases’ friend, well loved.

Archie, impetuous, always for immediate action, was already preoccupied with practical details. They would go by boat, of course, up-Forth, not consider the sixty-mile journey on horseback. His galley would serve. They would get as far as Airth, up the river, only nine or ten miles to ride to Stirling, hiring horses there. A score of men would be sufficient as escort . . .

John was otherwise concerned. Elizabeth! How were they to tell her, to least hurt? Her own brother . . .

Archie shook his head and shrugged one wide shoulder. “The girls . . . ?” he suggested.

“No. You are her husband. It is for you to do it.”

“You come with me, then, Johnnie.”

The brothers did not have to go down to courtyard level again to reach the East Tower, for those enormously thick curtain walls on either side reached higher than this level, and contained linking mural corridors on each floor, with secondary staircases, a major convenience. Along the topmost of these passages they went, silent.

They had some two hundred feet of corridor to cover, for these walls were lengthy as well as tall, actually the greatest man-made stone barriers in the land. They heard the children before they got to the East Tower, squeals and cries. This castle, grim as it looked, was full of young people.

At the tower they had to climb a further storey; but before doing so, at this level they passed an open doorway, from which the juvenile vociferation issued. At sight of the young men on the landing, two children, a boy of five and a girl of four, came running out, in loud acclaim, to hurl themselves bodily on father and uncle, clutching and demanding. After them came a nursemaid, to restrain them, comely and smiling.

Archie, fond of his children, patted their heads, but when they showed every intention of climbing the stairs with them, told them to stay below meantime, and signed to the maid to detain them, reinforcing his wishes with another pat, this time on the young woman’s shapely bottom, to giggles. The men climbed on.

On the next floor they entered another room, five storeys up, a light and airy chamber with surpassing views, untidy with clothing and scattered gear, in the centre of which was a huge canopied bed, and beside it a little crib or cot. On the bed, half sitting, half lying, was a young woman, flaxen hair loose, an open bedgown around her shoulders. In the crib was a tiny baby, pink, blue eyes open.

Elizabeth, Countess of Angus, opened her own eyes, and turned head to consider the newcomers. Obviously she had been dozing. The infant had been born only the day before, after a difficult labour, and the mother was still exhausted. And clearly she was surprised to see her husband and brother-in-law coming thus in mid-forenoon. But she raised a smile.

“Both of you!” she said. “What have I done to deserve this?”

Archie cleared his throat and went to peer down at the baby, leaving his brother to do the news-breaking.

John and Elizabeth were good friends. He went round to the other side of the bed, to reach out and take her hand – and she made no attempt to cover up the bosom which her bedrobe left exposed.

“Ill tidings, Liz, I fear,” he said. “We are sorry to be the bearers of it. But . . . you have to hear it. And you are sufficiently brave.”

“Ill? It is not the children, at least,” she answered. “I can hear that they are all too well! What is it, Johnnie?”

“Your brother,” Archie jerked.

“Tom? Is it . . . do not tell me that they have got him? At last! They have not captured Thomas . . .?”

“Not captured, no. But . . . he has died, Liz. Died. How, we know not. In the Low Countries. Antwerp, we think. I am sorry, lass.” That was John. “This is a sore blow to bring you. And at this time, when you are in weak state . . .”

“We have just heard. A messenger from Stirling. From Mary Stewart.”

She looked from one to the other, and then shut her eyes. But it was John’s hand which she gripped, tightly. She said nothing.

The men eyed each other across the bed, Archie looking helpless, John compassionate. He it was who spoke their thoughts.

“You have had so much to bear, lass. And now, this. You and Tom were close, I know . . .”

She nodded, silent, as tears oozed from beneath closed eyelids. The Boyds had suffered for their deeds, indeed. Her uncles had been caught and executed, her father had escaped to England and died there. Now her brother.

Archie had to get the rest out. “Mary is in trouble. With more than the death. She is to be wed again. And to Hamilton, of all men! Old enough to be her father, and the greatest lecher in the land! Atholl and Buchan would have it so. And James – he will do nothing to spare her, his own sister, that feckless halflin. She calls for us to go to Stirling. To aid her, if we can. We go tomorrow . . .”

John held up his hand to halt his brother. Elizabeth’s own loss was what was of first importance here, not Mary Stewart’s. She was still gripping his hand.

“Thomas will do better where he is gone, than in exile, I think, Liz,” he said, seeking to be helpful. “An outlaw no longer.”

She nodded again.

Archie gestured towards the door. “We will leave you, Liz. I will be back.” He patted her head. He was good at patting, but found action a deal easier than words.

John could scarcely linger when the husband left. He raised her hand, pressed it, and brushed his lips over it, before following Archie out.

They had to stay with the children for a little, making a gesture at play, before heading back to inform their sisters of the situation, these receiving it variously but all six distressed. Should they go to Elizabeth, to comfort her?

John was unsure about this, but Archie said yes. He would ride down to North Berwick harbour and see that his galley was readied for the morrow.

His brother went back to his cliff-top, whether to fish again or just to sit and consider remained to be seen.

 

In the morning the brothers rode the two miles from Tantallon to the town and haven of North Berwick, leaving Elizabeth calm, her grief contained, the girls saying that they would look after her, and wishing their brothers well. Two dozen armed retainers rode behind their lords; it would not do for the Red Douglas, the Earl of Angus, to appear in public with a lesser “tail” than this.

The road to the town followed roughly the cliff-tops, which sank gradually, with the dramatic conical hill of the Law soaring ahead, and the island-dotted Scotwater, the Firth of Forth, stretching westwards to the limit of sight, the still more dramatic Craig of Bass, that extraordinary, precipitous rock thrusting out of the waves, to the north, all a fair prospect indeed, however familiar to the Douglases.

The town, not large but pleasingly situated, sent horns round its two sandy bays but clustered must of its red-roofed houses about the area of the harbour and church – for the latter seemed to act almost as guardian and gateway for the former. Perhaps this was the intention of the builders, long ago, before ever the Douglases came to Tantallon, and this harbour was the southern terminal for the ferry of the ancient Celtic Earls of Fife, linking their northern and southern territories, as Earlsferry across Forth, in Fife, was the northern one; fair sailing and weather conditions had been all-important, and these being in the hands of the Almighty, Holy Church had its part to play. Still, to be sure, prayers for seafaring were much in order, for North Berwick was a fishing haven as well as a Douglas fief and castleton, and these seas could be dangerous, for nearby, off the Bass Rock, there were underwater cliffs, where the land shelf met the ocean floor, and tidal commotion could be as dramatic as the views. Moreover, the harbour itself was tidal, all but drying out at low water, which could complicate life for the fishermen.

Tantallon residents were ever well aware of the state of the tides, and Archie had ensured that his galley was moved for this morning to just outside the harbour and moored to the far side of a breakwater, where it could not be grounded. The vessel was not truly a galley, although Archie liked to call it that, in salute to the fierce sea-greyhounds of the old Highland chiefs. It was really a sea-going oared barque, low-built, half-decked, with two masts and great square sails, suitable for open sea voyaging but also commodious and useful for estuarine journeying.

The travellers embarked, to much interest of the townsfolk, and two of the men-at-arms were sent back with the horses, the others now having to change character from armed escort to oarsmen – another reason why so sizeable a party was advisable. The Red Heart banner of Douglas was hoisted to the mast-head and the eight long sweeps were pushed out to manoeuvre the craft away from the breakwater, to cheers from the watchers. The Douglas brothers, standing on the stern platform, were popular as well as all-powerful in North Berwick.

It did not take long for the rowers to get into their swing and pull the long oars in unison, this aided by Archie’s rhythmic beating of a gong, kept aboard for the purpose. John played his part by raising voice, and he was a good singer, to start a steady, pulsing chant which the oarsmen took up, an endless melodic beat which rose and fell, rose and fell, to the pull of the sweeps and the drawing and exhalation of breath, a strangely stirring accompaniment.

Thus they proceeded up Forth, at quite impressive speed, although they could not have the help of the sail since they were heading due westwards into the prevailing westerly breeze. They passed the islands of Craigleith, Lamb and Fetheray and the dangerous reefs of Eyebroughty or Ibris, to cross the wide mouth of Aberlady Bay, with the towering peak of Edinburgh’s Arthur’s Seat now beckoning them on, and the long range of the Pentland Hills superseding that of their own Lammermuirs on the skyline. Although the landward journey to Stirling, where the Forth dwindled to a river possible to bridge, was over sixty miles, going thus directly by water was considerably shorter, some forty-odd to Airth and then less than ten to their destination. Even with a head-on breeze, they would do that in five or six hours’ rowing, if Archie had anything to do with it, instead of a long day’s riding.

With two men to an oar, and regular changes of rowers, they kept up a good and steady progress, to pass the large island of Inchkeith on one hand and Leith, the port for Edinburgh, on the other, in something over two hours. Then on to the narrows of Forth, at Queen Margaret’s Ferry, where the firth made its brief closing-in to merely a mile’s width, and the galley, avoiding the midway isle of Inchgarvie, was as near to the Fife as to the Lothian coast. Now they had only a score of miles to go, Archie told the perspiring and tiring oarsmen, and beat his gong the louder.

They passed, presently, the royal fortress and state prison of Blackness Castle, and then the Avon-mouth port of Borrowstounness, noted for its trade with the Low Countries. Here was the eastern start of the Roman Antonine Wall, although they could not see it from their ship. But they could see the castle of Kinneil, on the higher ground – and this drew the brothers’ frowns, for it was a seat of the Lord Hamilton who, it seemed, was being chosen as new husband for the unfortunate Princess Mary.

Airth was now only a few miles ahead, beyond the flat lands of the Carron mouth. They could, to be sure, have rowed this shallow-draught vessel much further up the narrowing river to considerably nearer Stirling. But they had to consider the hiring of horses for this large party, and Airth was the best, indeed the only place for this, for here was the terminal of another ferry across from Fife, from Kincardine, which was the shortest route for travellers from all the Fife lands and burghs to Glasgow, and so the site of hostelries and stabling. So into Airth Neuk, as the ferry port was called, they at length drew in, to thankful grunts from the oarsmen.

Although a ferry-boat had evidently just pulled in, from Kincardine a mile away, and horses were in some demand, with such as the Red Douglas himself requiring them their party had no difficulty in gaining preferential treatment and hiring a sufficiency of animals, although some were scarcely of the quality an earl might consider suitable for his train. The rowers were rewarded for their efforts with ample ale and provender at the hostelries, and by mid-afternoon, less than seven hours after leaving Tantallon, they were mounted and on their way over the levels of Dunmore Moss, by Cowie and the plains of the Pools of Forth, to Bannockburn, with Stirling Castle now prominent on its rock-top before them and the blue background of the Highland Line beyond. The talk was all of Robert Bruce and the great battle for Scotland’s freedom won here one hundred and sixty years before, and how feeble a descendant of the hero-king was the realm’s present monarch, six generations on.

Mounting the ridge above the battlefield, at St Ninian’s, they trotted on to the outskirts of Stirling town. There were fortified gates to be negotiated, but these stood open, and the Douglas banner, transferred from the galley’s mast to fly above the riders, got them past the guards without further declaration. There were undoubted advantages, as well as demands and duties, in being who they were, John had to admit.

The royal burgh of Stirling mounted by narrow streets and wynds the steep lower slopes of the mighty rock on which perched the castle, the principal seat and most secure stronghold of the Kings of Scots, a fortress since Pictish times. Climbing these, their beasts’ hooves striking sparks from the cobblestones, the horsed party had to string out, however close they tried to keep, owing to the constriction of the ways between the tall buildings, tenements, warehouses, churches, monasteries and barracks. The citizens were little impressed by the Douglas party and banner, for the town was ever full of the ret