Poetic Justice

by Nigel Tranter

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

Laird of a small estate, Will Alexander of Menstrie, poet and tutor, was a man of modest ambitions. But when James VI learned of his poetic genius, the king had other plans for him. In 1603, when James VI of Scotland became James I of England, he summoned Will to London and commanded him to translate the Psalms for the new royal version of the Bible in English - which remains the definitive edition to this day. At the English court, Will Alexander consorted with the most famous poets of the age including Shakespeare and Jonson. By the time he died, the humble Scottish laird had become Earl of Stirling, Viscount of Canada, Governor of Nova Scotia and Secretary of State for Scotland. Laced with intrigue and absorbing historical detail, Nigel Tranter charts the extraordinary rise of William Alexander of Menstrie.

Release date: September 13, 2012

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 406

Sample

The two men eyed each other, one doubtfully, the other almost mockingly, there in the doorway of the small fortalice of Menstrie Castle, while the group of retainers in Campbell colours stood by their horses in the courtyard and watched. They were two very different men, in looks and in temperament, in rank and status, and in much else, although much of an age, both youngish. Despite the differences, they were friends, and had been for long.

‘I will take you to him, present you, Will,’ the dark one said. ‘They tell me that he has been writing this poem of his for weeks now. How he whiles away the time, when he is not hunting, until Elizabeth Tudor dies! He is like a man smitten with the plague, two plagues! A plague of desire for the woman’s throne. And a plague of words, rhymes, couplets, at which he scratches himself.’

‘And you would have me go to him? In such state? What is behind this? I know you, Archie! There is some ploy you are at!’ the other declared, fairer of head and skin, keen of eye, slenderly built but wiry.

‘No ploy, man. This will be good for you, of benefit. Another poet. Time that you were brought to his notice. He is seldom in Stirling these days. He is come from his hunting at Falkland for this meeting of the Privy Council, and goes on to Edinburgh thereafter. Here is opportunity. Come with me.’

‘Is that an order, my lord?’

Archibald Campbell shook his dark, saturnine, proud head. ‘Be not such a fool, Will!’ When his friend spoke in that fashion, he, even he, had learned to be careful, over the years. ‘I but seek your weal, man.’

‘And something else, no?’

‘Not so. Be not so ready to suspect. Why?’

‘Say that I have known MacCailean Mor for long enough to be wary of such sudden gestures.’

‘What ails you at it? He will not eat you, slobbering monstrosity as our liege-lord may be! Perchance you will be able to serve him. Teach him how to pen his poetry, you the master at it. Put him in a better mood for the rest of us. James’s moods are the bane of all who would serve the realm.’

‘Or serve themselves in it!’

‘You are sour this day, Will. When I but seek your good. This, I judge, will get us into James’s presence, privily. You should be grateful.’

‘Ah, so that is it! The privy presence! You require this?’

‘Well, I would welcome it, yes. In this state of affairs, with Elizabeth of England dying, at last! There will be much to settle. And he should have much on his mind, beyond poetry!’

They were talking about James the Sixth, King of Scots, the Wisest Fool in Christendom, the self-proclaimed Lord’s Anointed, and a much concerned monarch in that year of Our Lord 1603.

‘Very well, Archie. I will come. Although what good it will serve, I know not. But I must dress myself. I cannot appear before the king clad thus.’

‘James cares naught about clothes, man. He wears anything that comes to hand, himself, in whatever state. He will not care how you are dressed.’

‘Yet you are clad finely, I see, my lord Earl of Argyll! Am I to shame you before all, even if not our sovereign-lord?’

‘As you will. Go change gear. I will ride on. Join me at Stirling Castle hereafter. You will be admitted if you give my name.’

‘My lord!’

The chief of Clan Campbell pursed fairly thin lips at this small laird and feudal vassal of his, who could speak to him as few others did, then shrugged and turned away to join his waiting henchmen and the horses.

William Alexander of Menstrie watched him go, with a smile. If MacCailean Mor had looked back he would have perceived that it was a warmer smile than might have seemed likely after that exchange of views. They were friends.

Presently then, Will was riding, alone, westwards along the levels of the Carse of Forth, the Ochil foothills on his right and the meanders of the Forth, suddenly changed from estuary to river, on his left, with the towering bulk of Stirling’s castle-crowned rock four miles ahead. Menstrie Castle, with its little village, lay directly under the steep slopes of Dumyat, the most shapely of the Ochils, facing the two-mile-wide strip of flat and fertile land between the escarpment and the water, still salty as far as Stirling; whereas Castle Campbell, his friend’s and all but master’s Lowland seat, soared some eight miles eastwards along these hillfoots, near his township of Dollar. These locations were significant, and strange also, for Lowland as they had their domicile, both these men, both nearing thirty years, were Highlanders by blood, Argyll chief of one of the largest and most important clans, with his ‘capital’ at Inveraray on Loch Fyne, and William, calling himself Alexander, really a MacAllister, a sept of the great Clan Donald, hereditary enemies of the Campbells. Two or three generations before, that acquisitive clan had dispossessed the MacAllisters from their lands in Kintyre, and taken them over. The first Earl of Argyll, on becoming Chancellor of the realm or chief minister for James the Fourth, had built this Lowland Castle Campbell to be near to Stirling from which the king ruled, and brought the dispossessed MacAllister with him, giving him the small Menstrie property as sop for the wide but lost lands of long Kintyre. That practical individual, instead of seeking to rebel at fate, had accepted the situation, proved himself a useful aide to Argyll, and changed his surname to Alscinder, or Alexander, the English-language form of the Gaelic Alastair, thus becoming a small Lowland laird instead of a Highland chieftain. Perhaps some echo of all this was apt to sound in Will’s attitude towards his feudal lord. That, and the fact that he had been chosen by the present earl’s father as tutor for his son, although only two years older, this because he had had a superior education at St Andrews whereas the young Campbell had not. Indeed Will had accompanied the new earl, on his father’s death seventeen years before, on the lengthy Continental tour which was all but obligatory for Scots of high birth.

As he rode past Cambuskenneth Abbey where the great Bruce had received the surrender of the captured English lords after Bannockburn, below the Abbey Craig from which William Wallace had directed the only slightly less famous Battle of Stirling Bridge, Will’s mind was not so much on any possible audience with his present odd monarch, as on a form of words. For he was, at this juncture, nearing the end of a long poem which meant a lot to him, his ninety-eighth, and it was his ambition, his determination indeed, to publish the entire sequence once the hundredth was finished, not in prideful self-esteem but because he looked on his gift for words as something that God had entrusted to him and would expect to see used and presented as pleasure, enjoyment and interest for others. Just how he might achieve this he knew not, but somehow he would, that he was sure. This present piece, to be entitled The Tragedy of Darius, had gone well enough in the main; but now, near the finish, he was having difficulty in winding it up sufficiently dramatically. It was a tragedy, after all, and Darius, who had created the ancient Persian Empire, triumphant as had been most of his life, had scarcely died gloriously; and although Will could not change that, he had somehow to end his epic on a high note. Not easy, after the stirring lines which had gone before. So he turned over in his mind a variety of words and phrases and sequences which could lead up to a final flourish, without striking a false note nor being inept.

Thus preoccupied he reached Causewayhead and turned southwards to ride along the mile-long raised causeway itself, whereon Wallace had won his victory, with the soft bogland still there on either side into which the mounted English knights and heavy chivalry had been forced into floundering and mired defeat. And so on to cross the high-arched ancient Stirling Bridge, the first and only way over Forth, other than by boat; for eastwards stretched the seventy-mile estuary, and westwards, for twenty-five miles right to the mountains around Ben Lomond, lay the waterlogged and impassable plain of the Flanders Moss, which had confronted and defeated armies right from Roman times, five swampy miles in width, with only the MacGregors, lately decimated and even their name proscribed – this by Campbell machinations – knowing secret and devious ways across it. So Stirling Bridge, overlooked by its rock-top royal fortress, had for centuries been the cockpit of Scotland, where invaders could be held, and access to the north and the Highlands denied. Darius the Mede would have appreciated the significance of this, the mighty strategist of long ago.

The Median hero all his life surveyed

From great Persepolis palace strong;

As on his death-bed he was laid,

And weighed where worth had ousted wrong.

No, that would not serve. The triumphant emperor, dying, would scarcely so spend his last hours, contemplating failures, even though he had suffered them, like lesser mortals, in especial the sore defeat of Marathon, five years before, at the hands of the Athenians. If he could bring in the later wiping out of that episode, at the end, on a high note?

Debating with himself thus, he entered Stirling town and set his mount to the narrow, climbing streets which led up steeply to the fortress, streets thronged with the idle retinues of the great ones attending this Privy Council, already some of them drink-taken and coming to blows with rivals, in typical Scots fashion. Up at the jousting-ground before the towered gatehouse, Will dismounted, to tie up his horse among the many tethered there, and went to present himself to the guards.

‘Alexander of Menstrie, to join my lord Earl of Argyll,’ he announced, and was admitted without question.

Within the walls of that skied citadel with its far-flung vistas, he climbed over cobbles and naked rock to the palace block, past the famous Chapel Royal which had seen so much of history enacted. More guards beyond barred the way, but again yielded to the confident manner of the new arrival and the mention of Argyll’s name.

The great Outer Hall was crowded and loud with talk, lords and barons, lairds and chieftains and churchmen thronging. Why so many of these? After all, this was a meeting of the Privy Council, was it not? A comparatively small and select body. What brought all this company, however lofty?

Looking around him as he worked his way through the press, Will could see no sign of Argyll. Nor indeed of sundry others whom he would recognise as Privy Councillors and Lords of the Articles. Presumably, then, these greater ones would be in the further Lesser Hall, lesser in size only. Reaching a communicating door into this, he asked the guards there whether the Earl of Argyll was within. And at a shrug which might mean anything, he used the sort of voice which could give even MacCailean Mor pause, instructing to go and inform his lordship that Alexander of Menstrie sought word with him, important word.

That had its effect.

Argyll appeared after only a brief interval and, taking Will’s arm, led him over to a vacant corner.

‘James is not down yet,’ he disclosed. ‘He is up in the royal apartments. Best thus, that we may see him alone.’

‘If he will see us?’

‘I think that he will see me, if I refer to further MacGregor trouble. Naming Roro in Glen Lyon.’

‘Are the MacGregors not sufficiently punished?’

‘That is neither here nor there. My deplorable kinsman, Duncan of Glenorchy, has contrived to obsess James with hatred and fear of the MacGregors. He will believe anything of them. That will win us into his presence, I think. Then – you and your poetry. And his.’

‘M’mm. I do not know that I like this. This device.’

‘With James Stewart, devices are necessary. As all who have to deal with him find out. Come.’

Heading through the press for the outer door, Will remarked on the numbers present and wondered the reason; in February, and many evidently from afar, when travel conditions were at their worst.

‘It is this of Elizabeth Tudor. The word has got around that she is near to her end, at last, and all know that James is itching to be off to London to take over her throne. Many will undoubtedly wish to go south with him. There will, therefore, be great changes in Scotland, many vacant positions and offices. So, they seek to bring themselves to the royal notice.’

‘As would yourself!’

Argyll frowned, but could scarcely deny it.

Out in the courtyard, they moved on round the palace block to a wing which housed the royal quarters. More guards barred their way.

‘The Earl of Argyll to see His Grace!’ That was all but a bark, and MacCailean Mor, without waiting, pushed his way past the sentinels authoritatively and made for the stairway, Will somewhat doubtfully following.

They climbed to the first floor, at the landing of which two more guards stood. The monarch was well protected.

‘Argyll. With especial tidings for His Grace,’ these were informed. ‘The king will see me.’ That was a statement, not a request.

One of the men, bowing, went within; but the other remained, barring entry.

‘I do not see why you wanted to have me here,’ Will said, low-voiced. ‘You appear to be able to gain the presence without my aid.’

‘Wait, you,’ he was advised.

And there was quite a wait before footsteps sounded behind the closed door. Then two men appeared, not one. Argyll stiffened.

‘Ah, my lord Duke!’ he got out. ‘Here, here is a pleasure!’ He hardly sounded overjoyed nevertheless. ‘I . . . we have word for His Grace.’

‘Indeed, my lord. Perhaps your word will keep? His Grace is not for audience yet. He is . . . engaged.’ The speaker was a stockily built man of early middle years, plain of feature, undistinguished in appearance but bearing himself easily, Ludovick Stewart, Duke of Lennox, the king’s cousin and the only duke in Scotland, he who had acted viceroy while James was over in Denmark collecting his bride, Queen Anne.

Argyll hesitated. ‘The word is anent the MacGregors,’ he said, less than confidently now. ‘That might keep until the council. But knowing His Grace’s concern with, with matters of the muse, shall we say, I judge that he will be prepared to see our friend here, Alexander of Menstrie, privily. Before affairs of state take all his attention. Will Alexander is a poet, you see, a notable poet. And would wish to talk of poetry, verse, balladry, with his liege-lord who is also a poet.’

Will could scarcely deny that, there and then, however he felt.

‘So! And you consider that this is the time to do this, my lord?’ the duke asked – but it was at Will that he looked, consideringly.

‘His Grace is seldom . . . available. To such as our friend. And, and he seeks the royal guidance in what he is presently writing. One poet with another, as you might say.’

This was the first Will had heard of his seeking royal guidance. He shook his head. ‘My lord Duke, I would not wish to trouble His Grace with my poor scrievings! It is my lord Earl’s notion, not mine . . .’

‘Knowing His Highness’s great concern with the muses, in especial poesy and prosody,’ Argyll added.

‘Poetry would seem to be a sore affliction for those so inclined!’ Lennox observed. ‘I have been spared it.’ He smiled at Will. ‘I will inform the king.’

They waited, eyeing each other.

After an interval the duke returned. ‘His Grace will see you. But only for a brief time. He has much on his mind.’

They were led through an anteroom to another closed door, no guards on this one. Lennox opening it, he announced, ‘The Earl of Argyll and the Laird of Menstrie crave audience, Sire.’

Bowing, the new arrivals found themselves in a bedroom. Will had heard that the monarch was apt to favour his bedroom, indeed often conducted interviews from the bed itself, in various stages of undress. Now, at least, he was fully clad, and wearing the high hat which seldom left his head – allegedly for fear of bat droppings landing upon him. He considered the visitors sorrowfully from great lacklustre eyes, these said to be the best feature of James Stewart.

Certainly he was an odd figure of a man, of medium build, shambling, knock-kneed, anything but handsome, a dribble almost always running from his lips, for his tongue was too large for his mouth, and seeming as untidy in his make-up as he was in his clothing. He made the most unlikely son for the beautiful but ill-fated Mary Stewart, whoever his father had been – and there were questions about that, the Queen’s Italian secretary David Rizzio being the favoured choice rather than her second husband, the Lord Darnley. But woe betide those who judged by appearances and underestimated the Wisest Fool, for those large eyes were shrewd, however mournful, and missed nothing, and his tongue, whatever its size, could be biting.

‘Aye, aye – so here’s a mannie who ettles to scrieve lines and rhymes, aye, lines and rhymes, eh?’ he said thickly. ‘Ambitious, just!’ The king always spoke braid Scots from childhood, his foster-mother, the Countess of Mar, always insisting, here in Stirling Castle where he had been reared. ‘Menstrie, eh? Yon’s just doon ayont Blairlogie, is it no’? Hielant folk, I am told. But no Campbells!’ And he glanced at Argyll.

Surprised that the monarch should be so well informed. Will bowed again. ‘Your Grace honours me by knowing of my poor house and line,’ he said.

‘Hech, aye – there’s lines and lines, mind! And some worse than others, I’m thinking! No’ only the written sort. I jalouse that if Argyll brings you to me, man, it’ll no’ be for lack o’ purpose! Campbells being that way! Eh, my lord?’

Argyll, clearly disconcerted by this prompt and telling challenge, shook his dark head. ‘Your Grace’s love for poesy is known to me. And, with the council, and matters of state hereafter, I judged that there would be no opportunity for my poet friend here to gain your royal ear. When he lives so close by.’

‘Aye. I’ph’mm. Nae doubt. So, what’s your trouble, my mannie, that you seek my aid? It maun be fell important to you to come yammering at my door!’ It was at Will that he looked.

That man cleared his throat. He sought to adjust, to arrange his thoughts and words to meet this curious situation. Obviously he had to play this the king’s way. ‘Sire, I am at present seeking to indite a quite lengthy measure. Of epic proportions. Not of epic worth, I hasten to say. But epic as to subject also. I think to call it The Tragedy of Darius. On Darius, Emperor of Persia . . .’

‘D’you think that I dinna ken that, man! Darius the Mede, who united Media and Persia, aye and Athens, Babylon and Egypt forby.’ A whinnied royal laugh. ‘As I am about to unite Scotland and England, with Wales and Ireland too. Maist appropriate! Him who slew Gaumata the usurper – aye, and a wheen others! And wed yon Atossa, when the rightful king killed himsel’, she who was his ain sister and wife, forby! Right shameful folk they were, but before Christ, mind, before Christ’s right teachings.’

Blinking his surprise at this detailed royal knowledge of ancient times, Will nodded. ‘Your Highness is renowned for your erudition. So, no doubt, you will perceive my problem, Sire. I am at the end of my poem, and I wish to finish on a strong and lofty note, in keeping with what has gone before, all the glories of the imperial triumphs and campaigns. But Darius died in his bed, of a lingering sickness, scarcely the tone and tempo that I would seek to end on. You will understand, Sire, I am sure.’

While Will had been speaking thus, James had gone to sit on his bed. No doubt with those knock knees he preferred sitting to standing. But the move gave no hint of boredom at what he was hearing, indeed he looked interested.

‘Aye, weel, endings are important, to be sure. I grant you that, Alexander man. But this is a tragedy, you say? No’ a triumph. So you’ll no’ need a flourish at the end. Mair o’ a cry o’ sorrow, for what might ha’ been. No tears, no wails, but a call to whatever god he worshipped – a bull, was it no’? Can you credit it, just, worshipping bulls? Mind, they have fine long cockies, bulls! He had Persian stane bulls at yon palace o’ Persepolis. A bit roar to his bull for the price he had to pay, eh?’

‘Sire, you overwhelm me! Your interest, your perception! On a theme which you cannot have been considering . . .’

‘Och, weel, see you, I ken your need. For I hae something of the same problem my ain sel’, in this pass. I am scrieving a piece on yon Elizabeth, whose throne I’m to mount any day now. The Tudor woman who’s been ower-long a-dying. I’m naming it Gloriana. It’s for her English court and lords, right arrogant and prideful critturs, mind! But I’ll hae to work wi’ them. So a bit ode to Gloriana, as they called her, will dae nae harm. But she’s no’ been a’ that glorious these last years. Aye, and she slew my mother! Now she’s but a mumbling hulk, the Maister o’ Gray tells me, mouthing on her bed. So I ken your trouble for an ending. But mind, yours is no’ so sair a problem as mine, for yours is a tragedy you say. And mine is a celebration o’ sorts. So I hae to end wi’ a flourish.’

‘I see your difficulty, Sire. Do you wish to bring in your own succession to her throne? Indicate that you are the heir to Gloriana, and will continue and enhance her glory?’

‘There you have it, man. That is needful, at the end. But no’ easy to put down when it’s mysel’ I’m writing aboot! But these high and mighty English lords maun learn who’s master now, or any day now. And no’ to look doon their prideful noses! Difficult.’

‘Could you end on the note, Sire, of Gloriana no more? Gloriana passes on. Now succeeded by Grace. Play on the English usage of majesty for their monarchs, and the Scots grace. Gloriana’s Tudor majesty passes to more ancient Stewart grace? Something of that sort?’

James was fingering his wispy beard, and gazing with those eyes which now had become almost soulful. ‘Man Alexander, I might just use that, aye! Gloriana’s Tudor majesty passes. To mair ancient Stewart grace! That’s no’ bad. No’ bad, ava’. Forby, ancestral might be better than ancient, see you. I’m no’ that auld! They might pin the ancient on to me, instead of my crown! Better still, patriarchal, which speaks o’ man, rather than deid woman! Aye:

Gloriana’s Tudor majesty passes.

To patriarchal Stewart grace.

Better still, no’ passes, but reaches oot. Reaches oot to patriarchal Stewart grace. That right telling, is it no’?’ James looked at the two listening lords. ‘See you, reaching oot means they’re doing the seeking! The Englishry. Seeking mysel’ to come and rule ower them. In patriarchal fashion, as in Scotland. No’ just a change but an improve on Gloriana’s majesty. You see it?’

‘Excellent, James!’ his cousin agreed. ‘Very subtle. Together, you and Menstrie have it.’ Argyll applauded likewise.

‘I’ph’mm. That’s for Gloriana. But this o’ Darius a-dying. We maun gie it a guid finish, right enough. What hae you thought on, Alexander?’

‘Well, Sire, I was thinking along these lines, but without satisfaction. As you will perceive:

The Median hero all his life surveyed

From great Persepolis palace strong

As on his death-bed he was laid

And weighed where worth had ousted wrong.’

Will’s voice tailed away, his dissatisfaction the greater for having to speak the words in such distinguished company.

‘Ummm!’ the monarch said. ‘Worth ousted wrong.’ Man, that’s no’ just a high note, no. We could dae better than that, I’m thinking. To rhyme wi’ strong, is it? Throng? Song? Along? Och, strong’s no’ just easy. See you, if you changed it to great, palace great. You’d have to change great Persepolis palace then. So, fine Persepolis palace great. Then you could end your verse wi’ fate, maybe. And weighed his reign in Persia’s fate. How think you o’ that?’

‘Much better, Sire, to be sure. Better. Persia’s fate. That tells, yes. I thank you.

The Median hero all his life surveyed

From fine Persepolis palace great,

As on his death-bed he was laid

And weighed his reign and Persia’s fate.

That sounds well.’

‘Aye, weel – is there mair to come?’

‘Perhaps another couplet, Sire, that is all. Something of this sort.

He closed his eyes on this world’s view,

And faced the next, and challenge new.

That is not quite right. But something thus.’

‘Challenge new isna’ just apt, no. Nor view either, I’m thinking. If you were to change view to scene, maybe – and faced the next, and pastures green. No?’

‘Pastures green?’ Monarch or none, Will could not pretend that he liked that. ‘For a warrior emperor, Highness, pastures green sounds too, too pastoral, I think.’

‘You say so? Maybe so. Then make it yestreen. And faced the next, forgetful of yestreen. That would serve.’

‘To be sure. Yes, Sire. Forgetful of yestreen is good. You are kind. That will round it off well.’ He hoped that he sounded grateful and honest, not risking a glance at the two listeners.

‘Words are the stuff o’ wonder for them as hae the gift. Aye, and hae the sensibilities!’ James looked almost accusingly at the duke and earl. ‘No’ all hae these!’ He turned back to Will. ‘So your bit task will be finished? This o’ Darius. What do you think to dae wi’ it, man? Your tragedy? So folk can read it, hear it, savour it? You have scrieved other verse?’

‘Well, Sire, it is but one of a series, a long series, I fear. It is the ninety-eighth, no less! Although most of the others are less lengthy.’

‘Guidsakes! Ninety-eight! Man, you’re no’ begunking me, me your ain sovereign-lord! I’ll no’ be gulled, mind.’

‘No, Highness. It is truth. I have been at it for long. Years. I planned, perhaps foolishly, arrogantly, to make a book of them. Of one hundred poems.’

‘A book! Here’s a notion indeed. One hunnerd! In a book. You’re no’ feart, Alexander man! And this is ninety-eight. So you’ve twa mair to do yet?’

‘Yes, Sire. One on Julius Caesar and another tragedy on Croesus. But shorter than on Darius.’

‘But Croesus was before Darius, man!’

‘Yes. But I do not write them in order of years, Sire. But just as the spirit moves me. Perhaps unwisely. But so it suits me. Perhaps, when I publish – if I can – I will set them in due order.’

‘You dae that.’ Suddenly the king altogether changed his stance and tone. ‘Now, I’ve mair to dae than mak poesy, for you or mysel’, mair’s the pity! There’s this council. Off wi’ you. Or, first, we’ll hear what my lord o’ Argyll brought you here for, this day! No’ just to hear verses, I swear! He’ll be wanting something o’ me, that’s for sure.’

MacCailean Mor looked less comfortable at that than the son of Great Colin should have looked. ‘I, ah, I believed that you would wish to hear of my friend’s project, Your Grace. But, as well . . .’

‘Aye, oot wi’ it, man.’

‘Well, Sire, the word is that you will be going off to London soon, to take over Queen Elizabeth’s throne. Many will be going with you from Scotland, undoubtedly. To assume high positions in that realm. Including, no doubt, my lord Duke here. So . . .’

‘Aye, and you would be one o’ them, Argyll! Is that it?’

‘No, Your Grace, not so. I would stay in Scotland. I have large responsibilities here. A clan to lead. I sit on your Privy Council of Scotland. And I am Admiral of the Western Seas.’

‘Ooh, aye. So what do you want, man? What are you at?’

‘I have served Your Grace in the field. Against the Catholic lords, the Earls of Huntly and Erroll and others. I led at Glenlivet. Forby, both my father and my grandsire were Chancellors of your realm . . .’

‘I canna mak you Chancellor, Argyll man. The Master o’ Gray acts Chancellor. Acts, mind, no’ right Chancellor. But he sits in the chair, does oor Patrick!’

‘Not the Chancellorship no, Sire. But the duke here is Lieutenant of the North. If he goes with you to London he can scarcely fill the office adequately. If I was Lieutenant of the North, as well as Admiral of the Western Seas, I could keep the north and the Highlands in order for Your Grace. For these northern Catholic earls, Huntly, Erroll and the rest, will think to rise again, with Your Highness away in England and so many Protestant lords with you – nothing more sure, I would say. I am experienced in warfare. And have large number of men at my command. I could serve you, and Scotland, well. Sire, as Lieutenant of the North.’

‘So that’s it! I kenned there was something. Lieutenant and Admiral baith, eh? You’d be the king o’ a’ the Hielants, Campbell man? A right monarch on your ain!’

‘Never that, Sire. You are my king and monarch. I would be but your faithful and leal lieutenant and servant. For I judge that you will need someone such!’

‘You do? Maybe aye, maybe no. How say you, Vicky?’

The Duke of Lennox shrugged. ‘If I am with you in London, James, as my lord says, I cannot act Lieutenant of the North. Someone must do so. I cannot think of anyone better than my lord. Or who can field so many men as Clan Campbell and its allies.’

‘You reckon that they’ll be needed? A’ the men? Against Huntly and the rest?’

‘The Highlands are largely Catholic yet. And with their Protestant monarch gone south they c