The Unicorn Rampant

by Nigel Tranter

Genres: Cultural Heritage; Historical Fiction

Synopsis

The year 1617 was a fateful one for Scotland - and especially for young John Stewart of Methven, bastard son of the Duke of Lennox. King James VI of Scotland and I of England made a rare and disastrous visit to his homeland of which he had been an absentee monarch for fourteen years. Knighted in a rash moment by the eccentric King Jamie, John became the reluctant servant of the court. Much against his will he was commanded to return with the King to London, and was soon caught up in a net of murky political intrigue... A story of politics and greed in 17th century Scotland, told by Nigel Tranter, master of Scottish historical fiction.

Release date: December 20, 2012

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 352

Sample

There were crowds of people puffing and panting up that grassy hill, many seeming already to be in various stages of exhaustion. John Stewart had not realised that so many would be smitten with the same idea as himself, although perhaps he ought to have thought of it. However, he did not fear that there would be any lack of room at the top, for most of these looked as though they would never reach there, feeble townsfolk unused to employing the muscles God had given them, unlike a country-bred stalwart in his twenty-fourth year such as John Stewart of Methven. Not that he was actually making for the top of the hill himself—no point in that when the eastern shoulder above Duddingston village and loch would give the better view in the required direction.

So, at the level of the high tarn of Dunsappie, cradled darkly in a fold of the hill, he swung away from most of the crowd, right-handed, to contour along a subsidiary ridge, steep on the south, whin-grown and blazing yellow in the May sunshine.

Here there were only two or three others and no gasping chatter, so that he could hear the cuckoos calling from the Prestonfield woodland far below.

He did not have to go so far as the shoulder before he saw all that he had come for. Before him, eastwards by south, the coastal plain was a sight to behold, a rippling carpet of colour and glitter, from no more than a mile or so off to almost as far as he could see, spreading over the fair Lothian countryside like a vast army. The young man had looked for a fine and stately cavalcade; what he saw was a mighty sprawling host of thousands. Small wonder that the King was late.

The question was where was the King in all that multitude—or rather, where was his father, for it was not so much James as Ludovick Stewart whom John had come looking for. But his father would be with the King, almost certainly. Would they be at the front of this vast concourse, or in the midst? It could make a difference of almost hours as to when they would reach the gates of Edinburgh.

He waited, staring, trying to distinguish details at a distance, a good-looking young man, not handsome but with pleasant open features, regular if on the blunt side, a little above medium height with wide shoulders tapering to slender, muscular hips and long legs, plainly dressed but in good quality clothing; not one who would be apt to stand out in a crowd but who might attract a second and third glance from the discerning. His own glances still failed to distinguish where the King and his close entourage might ride in all that farflung array. Not being a warlike host there were no banners to identify the leadership. Eventually, still no wiser, he decided that the chances were that James would be at or near the front, and if so it was time that he himself got back to the city streets and his mother, if they were to gain a good viewpoint to watch the forthcoming proceedings.

So he all but ran back whence he had come and down the steep hill below the red-stone crags, to where the grass gave way to the first buildings—mainly byres, stables and pig-styes—reaching out towards Arthur’s Seat from the tall tenement wynds on the south side of the Cowgate.

Now he was into more crowds, thronging the fairly narrow street, all heading westwards, like himself, and much slowing him down. Naturally all sought the middle of the cobblestoned thoroughfare, the crown of the causeway as it was called—for the sides were no more than wide gutters abrim with filth and sewage, to be avoided at all costs. So there was much jostling and pushing, much shouting and reviling, although in the main the mood was good-natured, as befitted the atmosphere of holiday. Occasionally, however, there was cursing and fist shaking as some belated great one rode up behind mounted grooms or men-at-arms with cracking whips or even the flats of swords, forcing a way through, and now and again a lumbering coach, heraldically painted, with bawling outriders and horn-blowing postillions—and then all on foot were forced into the swills and stinks of the kennels in furious profanity, with even some of the ordure itself scooped up and hurled at the gleaming paintwork.

John Stewart, being nimbler and fitter than most, managed to avoid any major contact with the excrement, and pushed ahead with fair success. At what was still called the French Ambassador’s House, the lodging of the present Secretary of State—known to his master and most others as Tam o’ the Cowgate, Sir Thomas Hamilton—John turned off up another steep and narrow lane, little more than a stairway, called Libberton’s Wynd, which brought him out on to the main spine of that extraordinary climbing city, Scotland’s capital, the High Street and Canongate conjoined. Here, quite close to the new Tolbooth, were the lodgings which he and his mother rented for the occasion in the house of a decayed gentlewoman, widow of a former Perthshire laird of their acquaintance.

Hurrying upstairs he found Mary Gray at the window of their room, looking down on the teeming excitement of the High Street below.

“They come,” he announced, a little breathlessly. “A great legion of them—thousands. Spreading over the land. I have never seen such a host.”

“Then His Grace will be in an ill mood. He does not like large numbers in his tail—since they have to be fed and that costs siller!”

The woman turned to smile at him—and she was a joy to behold. Now in her forty-first year, she retained the figure and stance of a girl. Darkly lovely, she was of slender build, with delicate features and great lustrous eyes and an expression which seemed to combine quiet gravity with ready humour. It seemed ridiculous that she should be the mother of the well-built young man before her. Like him she was simply but well dressed and carried herself with grace and an air of unassumed assurance. John Stewart was very proud of his mother, even though her name was not his.

“We had better hurry,” he said, “or we shall not be in time to get a good position with all these going.”

“How near were they? The King and his close company?”

“I could not tell, there were so many. But the foremost were across the Figgate Burn, I could see.”

“Then we have plenty of time. James never hurries, save when hunting. And they have quite some distance to ride around the city walls to reach the West Port.”

“The West Port? But they come from the east.”

“Yes. But the Chancellor and the Secretary know their sovereign-lord, Johnnie. After much travelling, James would be apt to go straight to his palace of Holyroodhouse, to eat and drink and sleep, and never enter the city at all. And so would miss all their fine welcome and speeches—which the good city fathers love and their liege loathes. So the King is to be met by Chancellor Seton and Secretary Tam and cunningly led round the south walls, to see the site where his good friend, and ours, Geordie Heriot’s fine new hospital is to be built—and so, in at the West Port. Thus he has all the town to pass through before he can win back to Holyrood-house. Endless opportunities for speeches and spectacles and mummery. Is not that clever? I am told that Tam o’ the Cowgate himself devised it all—Geordie Heriot was his cousin, of course. So there is no hurry at all, at all.”

Nevertheless John Stewart was impatient, and Mary Gray allowed herself to be conducted downstairs and out into the smelly street to join the crowd; she laughing, but not unkindly, at all the excitement. That woman had had long and comprehensive experience of such occasions.

They pushed and inserted their way up the High Street, past the High Kirk of St Giles, to the entrance of the Lawnmarket, having to squeeze under two decorative arches of scaffolding and painted canvas on the way. On the arches cupids and angels perched precariously, the street and close-mouths were strewn with flowers and evergreens, largely becoming sadly trampled, and tapestries and hangings draped from many of the tenement windows. Down the West Bow, they and the crowd turned and surged, and at the foot there was another and more elaborate arch over-sailing a stage, this all hung with cloth-of-gold which flapped and fluttered in the breeze, for Edinburgh is ever a windy city. The wide space of the Grassmarket beyond under the towering cliffs of the castle-rock, had been cleared of its usual clutter of booths and stalls and was now crammed with the horses and coaches, the grooms and retainers, of the rich and noble. The West Port of the city wall opened at the far end of this Grassmarket.

The approach to the great gateway was by a narrow canyon of a street beneath more high tenements, and this was so choked with humanity that there was no passage for even the most agile or aggressive. Mary Gray declared that this was of no matter, that there was no need to go further anyway, that they would see all they would want to see in the Grassmarket itself; but the young man was eager to be where the King, and therefore his father, would first halt and be welcomed. He had not seen Ludovick Stewart for almost two years and he was very much his father’s son, as well as his mother’s.

However, the problem was solved for them by the noisy arrival of a handsome canopied double-chair, painted black-and-white and blue-and-white, in the Erskine of Mar colours, and carried by four liveried chairmen with a bodyguard of stave-wielding servitors who chanted: “Way for the Countess of Mar! Way for the Countess!” and bored through the crowds like a bull at a gate. Held up for only moments at the choked throat of the street, it was long enough for the sole occupant of the chair, peering out, to recognise Mary Gray and to halt the equipage by slapping on the front panel.

“Mary! Mary Gray, my dear—and John. I did not know that you were in town,” she called. “Are you for this reception? Vicky comes?”

“Yes, praise God! He is back from France.”

“We can get no further, Countess,” John declared.

“Then come with me. Mary—in beside me here. There is room. John—walk between the shafts, behind. You will do very well there.”

This was another Mary and another royalish Stewart at that, the Lady Mary Stewart, a daughter of the late Esmé, Duke of Lennox, first cousin of the King, and sister of the present Duke. She and Mary Gray were old friends.

“Where are you lodging, Mary?” she asked. “You should be biding with me in the Cowgate.”

“We are at old Lady Tippermuir’s, near the Tolbooth. She can always do with a merk or two of lodging-siller . . .”

So they were carried in fits and starts up that constricted gully of a street, through the close-peering faces and thronging bodies—but here there were fewer catcalls and shaken fists, for these were mainly gentlefolk and suitably impressed by the Countess of Mar’s position. Getting through the West Port gateway itself taxed even the Mar retainers; but beyond it was blessed relief, for here, just outside the city wall, was a wide open space known as the Barras, renowned as the scene of many trials of chivalry between noble jousters, and in more humdrum necessity as a place for the country folk to wait, with their carts and garrons, bringing produce to sell on market-days, until the city gates were opened. In this wide arena today the aristocracy of Scotland and the luminaries of her capital city strolled and chattered around a great erection of planks and poles, flags and bunting, comprising a platform with steps up, backed by rising tiers of benches for the more important spectators.

To this the Countess directed her chairmen and, secure in her cousinship to the monarch as well as her husband’s appointment as Keeper of Stirling Castle, the greatest fortress of the kingdom, she quite courteously ordered lofty-looking folk already seated on the lowermost but most prestigious bench to move aside for her and her companions. John was embarrassed by this unsought-for privilege and prominence; they would go and stand in some less kenspeckle place he said. But his mother, after brief comment that this was not necessary, accepted it all as quite appropriate, with her usual calm assurance, and sat down beside her friend. John could not do otherwise.

Two of the city officers came along and looked at them doubtfully, but the two ladies ignored them and they went away.

Much was going on all around, last minute adjustments, re-arrangings, even some hammering, where a purple canopy was being erected in the centre of the stage, on poles. A succession of notables came up to pay their respects to the Countess, not all of whom knew Mary Gray. It was noteworthy, however, that most of those who did paid her almost as much respect as they did to the Lady Mar.

Presently a horseman came cantering from the south, shouting that His Grace was near, no further than the High Riggs area. He would be here in a few minutes, just.

Great was the excitement. The panoply of purple velvet was hastily secured against the breeze—this presumably had been kept under cover hitherto in case it rained. The city magistrates and councillors, led by the Provost, came bustling up on to the platform, to be formed up in a row by the city officers. The Lord Lyon King of Arms and his heralds placed themselves to one side, a colourful crew, and a group of Privy Councillors and Lords of Session took stance opposite. Musicians were beckoned forward to a lower, subsidiary platform nearby, and started to tune up.

The long-awaited moment arrived—fourteen years awaited, in fact, for this was 1617—and Scotland’s curious absentee monarch came into view round the burgh wall, riding at a brisk trot before a multi-hued company of gentlemen which stretched away out of sight. All who sat rose to their feet, and after a false start and some uncertainty the musicians struck up with the rousing strains of Bruce’s battle-hymn before Bannockburn, generally called “Hey Tutti Taitie”.

To this stirring accompaniment the royal cavalcade clattered up. James Stewart, as ever, rode like a sack of corn—which was strange considering that he was one of the most enthusiastic horsemen and huntsmen in his two kingdoms. Overdressed but with most of his too-decorative clothing neither quite properly fastened together nor very clean, he wore one of his notably high-crowned hats with jewelled clasp and feather—odd choice for riding—tipped forward over his nose. As far as could be seen beneath it, he appeared to be scowling.

But neither John nor his mother were really considering their liege-lord and his little eccentricities, concentrating their gaze instead on a stocky, plain-faced man, superbly mounted but much less extravagantly dressed than was the King, who rode immediately to the right, although not nearly so close as the exquisite youth on the other side, clad in the height of London fashion, whose mount almost rubbed against that of the monarch. Behind this trio rode a solid phalanx of impressive-looking gentlemen, and following on came the endless stream of riders, led by a troop of horsed guards in the royal colours, all gleaming armour and nodding plumes.

King James and his two companions trotted up to the dais-platform and, timed to synchronise with this, a file of one hundred of the Edinburgh Town Guard marched round from either side of the stage area, all uniformed in unlikely white satin, no less, with beribboned halberds over shoulders, to form up around the monarch—who eyed them somewhat askance, especially the halberds. James did not like weapons of any sort. Thereafter a pair of scantily dressed ladies emerged from behind the solid black-velvet-clad rank of magistrates and councillors of the city, tugging between them what seemed at first sight to be a baby in long clothes but which thankfully proved to be only a life-sized doll. Uttering shrill cries, partially lost in the martial music, the ladies pulled and shook fists at each other until a gorgeously robed figure wearing a crown and carrying both a sword and a sceptre, appeared, apparently to remonstrate with the furious females, although what he said could not be heard for Bruce’s battle-hymn. However, his purpose was made sufficiently clear when he raised his sword above the baby, conveniently stretched out between the claimants, obviously to cut it in half, whereupon one of the disputants let go of the doll, wringing her hands and presumably howling, whilst the other clutched it, only to have it snatched from her by the man with the sword, who gave it to the other, who presented it to her bared breast as though to give suck. The crowned individual then turned and bowed deeply to the true and modern Solomon whose unerring judgment was thus exemplified, and all three retired backwards around the Town Council.

James attempted to speak, but “Hey Tutti Taitie” was still in full swing. Glaring from large, eloquent, indeed quite beautiful Stewart eyes, the monarch, who had no ear for music anyway, took off his high hat and flapped it at the enthusiastic instrumentalists. Without the overshadowing headgear, God’s Vice-Regent on Earth, as he was wont to style himself, could be seen to have somewhat shapeless features but a high forehead to suit his hat, a slack mouth from which a pink tongue was apt to protrude—for it was too large for the rest of him and consequently he dribbled fairly consistently—and a wispy beard. Now aged fifty-one, his hair was beginning to thin and grey and he had developed a paunch—scarcely an impressive figure, save for those eyes.

The musicians’ leader got the message and the victorious paean ebbed away.

“God be thankit,” Majesty declared thickly, and then nodded towards the stage. “Aye—och, maist appropriate and homologous. Aye, and perspicacious, perspicacious. Was it no’, Vicky? Mind, yon wifie that didna get the bairn was auld enough to ken better, as you could jalouse by her paps. She was yon Jean Stewart, Lindores’ lady, if I’m no’ mistaken, and no’ far off a grand-dame her ainsel’, I’m thinking.” He nodded sagely, and clapped on his hat again. “Now—what’s next?”

“Let us hope no more Latin poems, Sire,” the good-looking youth on the King’s left announced, in the loud and clear, if clipped tones of the English ruling class. He yawned, frankly.

“Wheesht, Steenie, or they’ll hear you,” James said, equally audibly, and leaned over to pat the other’s hand, to show that there was no real reproof intended.

The Provost stepped forward from the ranks of the magistrates, dressed like them all in black velvet for the occasion, but this enhanced by a special fur-lined cloak, very fine. The Lord Lyon King of Arms, in heraldic tabard, raised his baton and intoned:

“The Provost of Your Majesty’s City of Edinburgh, Alexander Nisbet of the Dean.”

“Aye, well—he has our royal permission to speak,” James nodded graciously. “But no’ for too long, mind.”

Thus advised, the Provost bowed low and began. “Your Grace, in the name of your ancient capital and royal burgh of Edinburgh . . .”

He got no further meantime, James interrupting: “No Grace, man—Majesty. You should ken that by now. Grace was the auld Scots usage, aye. But now it’s for archbishops and dukes and siclike, eh, Vicky? Majesty, mind. And this Edinburgh’s no’ the ancient capital at all, see you, Provost—Nisbet is it? Nisbet’s a right Merse name, frae the Borders, is it no’? Mainly rogues come frae the Borders, I’ve found, guidsakes! Ask Alicky Home. I’ve been biding at yon Dunglass wi’ him yester-night. Aye, and the Homes are the worst o’ the lot. Eh, Alicky?” And he turned in his saddle to scan the ranks behind him, where the Earl of Home quickly changed his black scowl into a smile. “Aye, well—Perth and Stirling, aye and Dunfermline and even Roxburgh, no’ to mention yon Forteviot, were a’ capitals in their day, before Edinburgh. Sic transit, you ken. So dinna get too high in your opinion o’ this bit town! Proceed, Provost man—proceed.”

Quite put off his stride, the chief magistrate hummed and hawed. “Majesty, I . . . I crave Your Majesty’s pardon. I . . . ah, a slip o’ the tongue, just. I was going to say . . . I was going to say . . .” Clearly, in his confusion he had forgotten just what he was going to say. Looking around him in desperation, he jettisoned his prepared speech. “I, I welcome Your Majesty on behalf of the City of Edinburgh, after your so long absence from it. To our loss, aye our great loss, to be sure. And, er, call upon the Town Clerk, Master John Hay, to make known the leal greetings of the Council and citizens.”

The Town Clerk, a bustling little lawyer, thus prematurely thrust forward, produced a large swatch of papers from inside his velvet, with which he fumbled—and which James and others eyed with some alarm. However, as befitted a man of words, he fairly quickly found his place and launched forth into a flood of, if not exactly eloquence, at least verbiage.

“Your Gr . . . er, Majesty, blessed be God that our eyes are permitted once more to feed upon the royal countenance of our true Phoenix, the bright star of our northern firmament,” he began, paper held close to his face the better to read.

He was corrected. “Phoenix, man, is no’ a star, in this or any other firmament. It’s an unchancy crittur, a sort o’ fowl, wi’ a habit o’ burning itsel’ in a bit fire every 500 years. You’re no’ likening your royal prince to siclike beastie?”

“No, no, Sire—no! It is but a figure, do you see. A figure of speech, just. Representing Your Grace . . .” He changed that quickly to gracious Majesty. “Aye, our sun, the powerful adamant of our wealth,” he read on, “by whose removing from our hemisphere we were darkened. Deep sorrow and fear possessed our hearts, where had rested the imperishable, unconquerable by the fires of this world and the flames of tongues of evil men . . .”

“Ooh, aye—and there’s plenties o’ those, eh Steenie? Plenties—especially in yon England! A right incubatory and hatchery for flaming tongues! But go on, man—and be quick about it. We’ve been here ower long as it is.”

“Yes, Sire.” Master Hay had to find his place again. “. . . tongues of evil men. Aye, the very hills and groves, accustomed before to be refreshed by the clear dew of Your Majesty’s presence, not putting on their wonted apparel, but with pale looks representing their misery for the departure of their royal King, a King in heart as upright as David, wise as Solomon and godly as Josias! Your Highness, formed by nature and framed by Education to be the perfection of all elegance and eloquence, we, protected under the wings of Your Majesty’s sacred authority from the Beast of Rome and his Antichristian locusts . . .”

“Hech, hech, man—Beast o’ Rome is sweeping, aye sweeping! And the good ambassadors o’ their maist Christian and Catholic Majesties o’ France and Spain—here present, mind—will no’ like yon o’ Antichrist and, and locusts, was it? Right enough about David and Solomon and the like—but moderation in a’ things, mind. Aye, and in length too, mannie. Enough is enough.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. On the very knees of our hearts, we . . .”

“Quiet, man—quiet! I said enough. If you hae knees to your heart, then you’re a right wonder! Myself, I’m hungry—and it’s a guid mile yet to Holyroodhouse, forby! Have done. Is that a’, Mr Provost? It’s usual, mind, for a bit presentation and recognisance, at such time. Secretary Tam—did you no’ say . . .?”

In his urgency the Provost actually interrupted the monarch. “To be sure, Sire—Your Majesty. Here it is. The city sword and keys, delivered to your royal keeping.”

“Ooh, aye—but I wasna just meaning bits o’ iron, man.” Gingerly James looked at the two city officers now bearing down on him, one bearing aloft the great sword, the other the keys on a crimson cushion. The monarch was expected to signify his acceptance of these symbols by touching them and returning them to their keepers. But throughout James had remained sitting on his horse instead of dismounting and coming to sit under the fine purple velvet canopy erected for him. So that the two officers were up on the platform and, though the King was approximately on the same level, there was a sizeable gap caused by the steps up. The bearers of the capital’s emblems were in a quandary. Were they to descend the steps and then hoist up their awkward burdens, or would the sovereign dismount or even climb to the platform? Actually, James, who hated and dreaded cold steel—save for the gralloching-knife of the deer hunt—waved away custodians and symbols both, looking round accusingly at Sir Thomas Hamilton, the Secretary of State, now created Lord Binning and Byres, who had come to the Figgate Burn to meet him.

That bulky but shrewd individual raised the powerful voice which had so often intimidated the Court of Session—for he had long been Lord Advocate and was now Lord President of Session as well as Secretary of State. “The cup, man!” he shouted. “The siller cup.”

Provost Nisbet, whose day this seemingly was not, hastily turned to the City Treasurer who handed him a silver chalice, with which he came forward, almost at the run. Again there was the gap to contend with. He hurried down the steps and more or less thrust the cup up at the King, wordless.

James leaned to take it, and hefted it expertly in his hand, peering within. “Light,” he pronounced. “Gey light.” He passed it over to the plain-faced man on his right. “How much, Vicky?” he demanded, frowning. “Scanty, I’d say—aye, scanty.”

The Duke of Lennox grimaced. “Now, James? Here?” He had scarcely been attending to all this performance, his gaze tending to be fixed on the persons of Mary Gray and his son, sitting there across the platform.

“Aye, now. You’d no’ have us ignorant, Vicky, about so important a matter? Eh, Provost?”

“No need to count it, Sire. There is five hundred pounds there, in double-angels,” Nisbet asserted.

“Five hundred, just?” James sniffed. “Five hundred, eh? Och, well.” He turned and glowered back at the Secretary of State. “You hear that, you Tam?”

“Wait, Sire,” that individual called.

“Na, na—we’ve been here ower long as it is. I’m awa’. . .”

“Sire—the Provost,” the Duke reminded, in a penetrating whisper. “It is customary to knight the Provost of this your capital city.”

“Customary, eh? Customary! Na, na, Vicky—no’ for five hundred pounds, it’s no’! You should ken that. Geordie Heriot wouldna have said the like. He kent what was what. See you to this Provost-mannie—I’m awa’. Come, Steenie.” Majesty dug in his heels, reined his horse half-round, and headed off for the West Port archway.

Ludovick Stewart looked at the unhappy Nisbet, shrugged and dismounted. He tossed his reins to one of the Town Guard, handed the silver chalice to another, patted the cloaked provostly shoulder sympathetically, and ran up the steps on to the platform and straight over to Mary Gray, his son and his sister.

“My dear, my love, my heart!” he cried, and enfolded the dark woman in his arms, there before all. “At last! At last!”

Mary Gray hugged him, laughing between kisses. “Dear Vicky! Dear, dear Vicky! But . . . but is this wise? So many . . . to see.”

“Let them see! All know, anyway. And I am a widower now, mind!”

“And growing fat on it!”

“That is French food. Too much oil!” He turned to embrace his sister—but still kept one arm around Mary Gray. Then he held out a hand to his son. “Johnnie! Johnnie—how good! Damn it—you’re a better-looking man than your father!”

John Stewart was speechless.

“Where are you lodging? With the old Tippermuir dame? Then I will come to you there as soon as I can get away from James.”

“Will he let you go, Vicky? He is always so demanding.”

“He has this new pup, George Villiers, whom he calls Steenie. He dotes on him, even more than he did on the late and unlamented Carr. So long as he has young Steenie he maybe will scarce miss me . . .”

“Look—there seems to be some trouble at the gate,” the Countess said.

There was indeed now a great milling of horsemen and guards at the West Port arch, although that was to be expected with so many to get through the narrow entry. But, by the shouting and jostling, with the white-satined Town Guard hurrying thither, there appeared to be more than mere congestion.

The Duke felt that he might be required, as so often he was by his crowned cousin—for one thing, because of James’s fear of naked steel, he alone was permitted to carry a sword in the royal presence, which weapon was required more for knightings than for anything more martial, but, in the sudden crises and panics which were so apt to develop out of nothing with this Lord’s Anointed, James was glad to have both sword and reliable kinsman ever near-at-hand. So now he hurried to the gateway. John went with him.

Actually there was no call for any alarm. All that had happened was that the royal interest had been caught, typically, by the three grinning malefactors’ heads stuck on spikes above the West Port archway, a favoured display spot for such relics, where they would do most good. Being James, he was intrigued not only by the various expressions thereon but in the varying stages of decay and putrescence, demanding of the gate-porters to know just how long each had been there exposed and wondering wh