Kirkcaldy of Grange
This first deed of violence and murder is, by Froude, attributed to William Kirkcaldy. His assertion, however, is only deduced from the description given by the chroniclers of the respective positions taken up by the conspirators, and not actually based on their actual words. That Kirkcaldy, who, but a few moments earlier, was in conversation with the porter, had a better opportunity for attacking the man than any of the accomplices within the gates, scarcely admits of denial. It may even be granted that, being a willing party to the desperate enterprise of killing the Cardinal, he would have felt but little hesitation in preventing the gate-keeper from marring the whole plot. On the other hand, however, it is quite as natural to suppose, with Grant, that Lesley, in his fierce rush, made directly for the warder, and that it was by him that the unfortunate man’s ‘heid was brokin’ as he ‘maid him for defence.’ The point, it may be thought, is but a trifling one. Yet, considering the bloodless part taken by Kirkcaldy in the subsequent proceedings, his biographer may be allowed to dwell on it for a moment, not, indeed, with the intention of showing him to have been less guilty, morally, than any of his associates, but rather for the purpose of clearing him from the charge of having, with his own hand, shed a fellow-creature’s blood on that terrible day.
Though numbering but sixteen, the conspirators were resolute and armed; and, it was an easy task for them to overawe the peaceful workmen who, though they had run forward to ascertain the cause of the tumult, manifested no inclination to interfere on either side, but quietly allowed themselves to be ‘put forth at the wicket gate.’ As soon as this was accomplished, William Kirkcaldy made for the postern, where he took up his position in order to prevent the ‘fox’ from escaping. His confederates, in the meantime, entered the Castle, and proceeding to the apartments of the gentlemen of the household, of whom there were no less than fifty, obliged them, by threats of immediate death if they offered any resistance, to depart as peacefully as the workmen had done.
By this time, the conspirators, feeling themselves secure, had thrown away all restraint; and their shouts of exultation, as they ran from room to room, awakened the Cardinal who, as it was only ‘betwixt four and fyve hours,’ was still in bed when his castle was invaded. Opening his window to inquire the cause of the unwonted noise, he was informed that Norman Lesley had taken possession of the place. His first endeavour was to seek safety in flight. He ran towards the postern at which Kirkcaldy was stationed; but perceiving the way to be barred, he at once returned to his apartments, seized his two-handed sword, and ordered his page to barricade the door with ‘kists and other impediments.’ Scarcely had the furniture been piled up when John Lesley, with James Melville of Carnbee and Peter Carmichael, arrived and demanded to be let in. ‘Who calls?’ asked Beaton. – ‘My name is Lesley,’ was the reply. – ‘Is that Norman?’ again inquired the Cardinal. – ‘Nay,’ he was told, ‘my name is John.’ – ‘I will have Norman,’ he continued, ‘for he is my friend.’ – ‘Content yourself with such as are here,’ said the implacable Lesley, ‘for other shall ye get none.’
There was a pause, during which Beaton hastily thrust a box of gold under a heap of coals that was kept in a hidden recess of the room, whilst the assailants were fruitlessly endeavouring to burst the massive door. Resuming the interrupted parley, the Cardinal called out, ‘Will ye save my life?’ – It was John Lesley that replied: ‘It may be that we will.’ – ‘Nay,’ returned Beaton, hesitating to trust so ambiguous a promise, ‘swear unto me, by God’s wounds, and I will open unto you.’ – ‘Then,’ cried Lesley, ‘that which was said is unsaid,’ and he ordered live coals to be brought for the purpose of burning down the wooden barricade. Such, at least, is the account given by Knox; but Lindsay of Pitscottie only says that the question from within was, ‘Will ye slay me?’ and the answer from without an unconditional ‘No.’ Both agree that, at this moment, the door was thrown open – a circumstance which seems to point to the accuracy of the latter’s narrative.
The assassins rushed in, whilst the doomed Cardinal, sinking into a chair, exclaimed, ‘I am a priest! I am a priest! Ye will not slay me!’ But he appealed to men who knew no mercy. ‘According to his former vows,’ John Lesley struck him repeatedly with his whingar, and was seconded by Carmichael in the work of death. But Melville, ‘a man of nature most gentle and most modest’ – such is Knox’s account of him – seeing that they were both under the influence of strong passion, thrust them aside rebukingly. ‘This work and judgment of God, although it be secret,’ he said, ‘ought to be done with greater gravity.’ Then, drawing his sword, and turning the point of it towards the terror-stricken Cardinal, he spoke the stern words: ‘Repent thee of thy former wicked life, but especially of the shedding of the blood of that notable servant of God, Mr George Wishart, which, albeit the flame of fire hath consumed it before men, yet crieth it for vengeance upon thee, and we from God are sent to revenge it. For here, before my God I protest, that neither the hatred of thy person, the love of thy riches, nor the fear of any trouble thou couldst have wrought to me in particular, moved or moveth me to strike at thee, but only because thou hast been, and remainest, an obstinate enemy against Christ Jesus and his Holy Gospel.’ Then, with his hunting-knife, he ran the shrinking victim again and again through the body. Mangled and bathed in his life-blood, the Cardinal sank from his chair to the floor, his dying lips repeating the protest which had only excited his murderers to greater ferocity: ‘I am a priest! I am a priest! Fie, fie! All is gone!’
III. THE CONSPIRATORS AT BAY
The men who had so deliberately planned and so boldly perpetrated the murder of Cardinal Beaton, were fully conscious of the gravity of the situation in which they now found themselves. They knew that the crime which they had committed in slaying the Chancellor of the Realm bore with it the guilt of high treason, and that, if they refused to give themselves up, they would be declared rebels, and dealt with as such. But they had gone too far to retreat. If safety were to be secured, it could only be by union amongst themselves; and instead of separating, to wander as outlaws through the country or to shut themselves up singly in their fortalices, they determined to maintain themselves in the stronghold which they had captured. Its very position seemed to suggest and to justify such a course. Situated on a rock-bound headland a little to the north of the city of St Andrews, the imposing castle which Bishop Roger, son of the Earl of Leicester, ‘founded and gart bigged be,’ in the year 1200, was guarded on two sides by the sea, and, whilst practically inaccessible to a hostile fleet, might, with comparative ease, keep up communication with a friendly force, and receive supplies from it. A deep moat and strongly fortified walls protected it from the attack of a land army, and had more than once before enabled it to hold out against superior numbers. Food and ammunition had been abundantly provided by Beaton himself, as a precaution against a possible attempt on the part of the English; and, within the walls which had been known to give accommodation to guests whose mounted attendants alone numbered four hundred and twenty, there was ample room for quartering the partisans by whom they expected to be joined.
To the advantages which the natural position and elaborate defences of the fortress afforded, chance added another, which, though of a very different kind, might be depended upon to operate strongly in favour of the conspirators, and which may, very probably, have exercised a not unappreciable influence upon their decision. It happened that, at the time when Cardinal Beaton’s castle was seized upon, James Hamilton, the Earl of Arran’s eldest son, was residing with him. Instead of being sent away, as were the other gentlemen of the household, he was retained by the captors as a hostage. It was thought that consideration for his son’s safety would hamper the Regent’s action; and not only prevent him from having recourse to measures of extreme severity in the course of the unavoidable siege, but also affect the conditions to be granted, if the garrison were eventually forced to surrender.
Nor was that all. A scheme of Arran’s own, for the marriage of his heir with the young Queen of Scots, was thought to be at the bottom of his opposition to the alliance by which the King of England hoped to unite the two Crowns. In the eyes of Henry, James Hamilton was a rival to his own son Edward; and they who had it in their power to hand over the youth to his safe keeping, possessed a further claim upon the protection and assistance which his share in the plot for Beaton’s destruction led them to expect from him. Under the special circumstances of the case, there was, therefore, as much wisdom as daring in what might, at first sight, appear the desperate determination of holding the Castle.
The first to throw in his lot with the sixteen, was one who had not, it is true, figured so prominently and actively as they in the slaughter of the Cardinal, but who was too much implicated in their action, and could too easily be proved to be in actual fact their accomplice, to expect anything but the severest treatment at the hands of the avengers. Before the day was out, Sir James Kirkcaldy, with his sons and brothers, arrived in St Andrews, and was admitted into the Castle. Some more of the Melvilles followed soon after; and by gradual accessions to its strength, as the news of what had been done at St Andrews spread through the country, the rebel garrison increased to about one hundred and fifty fighting men. The names of those connected with the murder either as ‘first interprisers,’ or as ‘part takers, maintainers, defenders, victuallers, assisters, and counsel givers,’ numbered thirty-five. They were set forth in the proclamation, issued thirteen days after the death of Beaton, which was publicly read, at the Market Cross of Cupar, by John Paterson, Carrick Pursuivant, and which summoned the persons mentioned in it to appear within six days at the bar of Parliament, under pain of being declared rebels. Amongst them were eight Kirkcaldys and four Melvilles. That the majority of those who had taken refuge at St Andrews, because they ‘suspected themselves to be borne at evil will,’ were not mistaken as to the sentiments entertained towards them by the party of which the Cardinal had been the head, was proved by ‘letters and memorials’ which were discovered amongst Beaton’s papers, and which disclosed a project, formed by him, and sanctioned by the Council, for their treacherous and summary removal, by death or imprisonment, on the Monday following.
Amongst others, whom sympathy with its garrison drew to St Andrews, mention is made by the chroniclers of John Knox and his three pupils – George and Francis Douglas, and Alexander Cockburn – of John Rough, a Reformed Preacher, whom Bonner subsequently sent to the stake, as a heretic; of Henry Balneaves of Halhill, who had occupied the position of Clerk-Treasurer under Sir James Kirkcaldy; and of Sir David Lindsay, who found the subject of a poem in the tragedy that had been enacted in the Castle, and gave expression to the sentiments of the less fanatical section of his party in the well-known lines: —
‘As for the Cardinal, I grantHe was the man we well might want;God will forgive it soon.But of a truth, the sooth to say,Although the loon be well away,The deed was foully done.’The measures taken by the Regent with a view to the punishment of the rebels did not bear evidence of much zeal or energy on his part. Nearly three months had elapsed since the murder of Beaton when, on the 21st of August, a proclamation was issued, calling upon the vassals of the Crown to assemble within a week for the purpose of forcing the garrison of St Andrews into submission. But, even that does not appear to have been followed by any very strenuous exertions. A body of troops was, it is true, sent against the rebels; but the military operations must have been conducted in a very inadequate manner, for, at Martinmas, according to Pitscottie, ‘all men cryed out and desired the Governour to punisch sick injuries done within the realme; and also the Queine perswadit the Governour to put remeid heirto.’
It was mainly by the Catholic clergy that pressure was brought to bear upon Arran. By voluntarily undertaking to contribute £2000 monthly towards the support of the royal troops, as long as the siege of the Castle should last, the prelates gave practical proof of their determination not to allow the assassins of their religious and political leader, the Cardinal, to escape with impunity. Then, at length, ‘an army’ marched into Fifeshire, to invest the stronghold in real earnest; and ‘tua gritt cannones, to wit Cruik Mow and the Deafe Meg,’ were brought to bear upon it. The massive defences, it is true, suffered but slight injury from the lead-cased stone shot which the primitive artillery of the time discharged against them; but the mere fact of its being cut off from all communication on the land-side gradually began to tell on the garrison; and the leaders found themselves obliged to make urgent appeal for assistance to their friend and protector, Henry VIII. As early as the beginning of September, in consequence of the proclamation which the Regent had issued shortly before, and which indicated the commencement of hostilities, they had sent letters to the English Council; and on the seventeenth of that month the King was advised to send ‘at least some small force, which should not onely appeare a comfort to them, but be a defence against the Scottis on the sees.’ The immediate effect of this recommendation was the dispatch of eight ships, with the ‘Maister of Wark of Ingland,’ whose object, according to the Diurnal of Occurrents, was ‘to spy’ the Castle. It may be doubted whether this first squadron brought any material assistance to the besieged; for, when it returned, about the end of October, ‘William Kirkcaldy of Grange, younger, past to Ingland, for supplie,’ with it, accompanied by Henry Balneaves of Halhill and John Lesley.
On their arrival in London, the envoys lost no time in informing Henry of the object of their mission. Nor does the King, on his side, appear to have acted less expeditiously. Before the end of the month, he wrote to Admiral Tyrrell, informing him that he had ‘been moved to send forth presently to the sees the number of six ships furnished for the wars, that is to say, the Pauncey, the Mynyon, the Hart, the Jennet, the Dragon, and the Lyon,’ and had appointed him to the command. According to further instructions, Tyrrell, on reaching the Firth, was to land parties at unprotected points on either shore, ‘to spoil and burn small villages and houses,’ and thus, not only strike terror into the population, but also create a diversion in favour of the Castle, from the siege of which forces would probably be withdrawn, and sent to check the progress of the English raiders. The Master of Rothes and the Laird of Grange were to be told that his Majesty was ‘sorry to understand their care and trouble for their defence,’ and that ‘conforme to the request of Mr Kirkcaldy to helpe them with some vitail and munition,’ one of the six ships was laden with supplies, which were to be handed over in such quantity as the Admiral might judge necessary.
Another paragraph in the same letter explains one of the reasons of the King’s liberality, and shows on what condition Kirkcaldy had been able to secure help from England. ‘And, because the sayd Mr Kirkcaldy, who is sone and heire to the Lard of Grange aforesaid, at his late beeing with us, signifyed by his letters, on the behalf of the Master of Rothes and his father, that for a token of their service and goode wille to us, they wold delyver in hostage the sonne of the Erle of Arran, ye shal cause request to be made, in our name, for him, setting forth that besides the performance therby of the promesse of the sayd Kirkcaldy, and the confirmation of our credit and estimation of them, they shal doo a thing so much to our contentation, as shal give us occasion the nerer to stykk unto them, and temploye our force to the repulse of their enemyes the more willingly.’
Whilst Henry Balneaves and John Lesley remained in England ‘for forming and perfyting all contracts betwixt the defenders and King Henrie,’ Kirkcaldy returned to St Andrews. The besieged had not yet been able to make that ‘plaine passage by an yron gate, through the east wall to the sea, which greetly releeved them’ at a later stage of the blockade; and, when the English ships arrived, there was consequently some difficulty in effecting communication with them. Ultimately, however, Kirkcaldy succeeded in landing with the supplies; but it was ‘not without some losse of men.’
On the side of the besiegers, Kirkcaldy’s departure which, according to the Diurnal of Occurrents, took place on the 26th of October, had filliped the leaders into a display of energy. On the Tuesday following it, the Governor and the Lords with him, anxious to put an end to the siege before the arrival of supplies from England, sent to offer the rebels the restitution of their lands, heritages, tacks, benefices and moveables, on condition that they should surrender the Castle and give up young Hamilton. The proposal was met with a curt refusal. Three days later preparation was made for a vigorous attack; and four cannons, a battering culverin, two smaller culverins, and some double falcons were sent to the west trenches for the purpose of battering the sea-tower that stood at the north-west, and also the west wall. Then, when all this artillery had been brought into position, the cannonade began from two sides at once. On the first day it lasted without cessation from seven in the morning till four in the afternoon. The fire was unusually effective. That from the new battery brought down all the battlements and the top-storey of the sea-tower, and the whole roof of the apartments overlooking the shore. On the land-side the feathered bolts shot from the balistæ at the hall and chapel, broke in the roof, and drove those of the garrison who were stationed at that point to the safer shelter of the inner walls. Nor were the besieged inactive. Pointing their own cannon at the attacking artillery they retaliated by killing ‘John Borthwick, principal gunner, and sundry of the soldiers and men of war,’ and by wounding the Earl of Argyle’s master-gunner so seriously that he was reported to be still bedfast nearly two months later. On the morrow the Governor’s artillery again opened its fire, and kept it up as vigorously, though not more murderously, than the day before. Further damage was done to the high parts and roof, but the garrison once more escaped serious injury. The assailants were less fortunate, for they again lost a gunner, James Law, and three other men with him. Such ‘great slaughter made upon their gunners’ disheartened the leaders of the royal troops; and tacitly recognising their inability to take the Castle by open force, ‘they gave up further shooting with great artillery, and continued the siege with blockading and small fire arms.’
The provisions which Kirkcaldy had obtained and brought from England afforded but brief relief to the beleaguered garrison. From the 22nd of November to the 10th of December there was no flesh-meat within the Castle; and the other supplies gradually dwindled down to ten boles of meal and five puncheons of wine. But the desperate defenders showed no sign of wavering. As a result of their great watching and waking, of the want of flesh, and of the bad quality of the fish which had become their chief diet, Walter Melville – one of the leaders – and twenty men were stricken with a deadly sickness; but this only moved their comrades to use greater exertions and, in the words of one of them, daily to make slaughter of their enemies. Nor were their efforts limited to that. Whilst some were fighting others were working at the construction of a postern door, and of a trench leading from it to a rock lying off the kitchen tower. When this was at length completed two men were able to set out nightly in a small boat, and, landing at Tentsmuir, to obtain a scant supply of flesh and flour from a secret friend, the Laird of Montquhanny.
About the middle of December the besieged were reduced to such extremities that a well-conducted and vigorous attack could scarcely have failed to give Arran possession of the Castle. Fortunately for them, however, he was not fully aware of their desperate condition, whilst, on the other hand, the circumstances in which he was himself placed made him long for the termination of the protracted siege. A violent pestilence that broke out in St Andrews and threatened to spread through the beleaguering army, gave him a plausible excuse for opening negotiations without appearing to be driven to it either by the obstinacy of the rebels or by the repeated protests addressed to him and his Council by Henry VIII. on their behalf.
On the 17th of December, Lyon Herald approached the walls and sounded a parley. That no undue haste on their part should reveal how anxious they themselves were for a cessation of hostilities, the leaders did not condescend to notice him, and he was obliged to return to the Governor and the Council with the report that he could not obtain speech of them. Later on in the day a second attempt was more successful; and consent was obtained to an interview between the rebel leaders and two envoys from the camp – the Justice-Clerk and the Provost of Aberdeen. The assumed indifference of those within the Castle caused the negotiations to drag on slowly through several days; and, at the very last moment, the demand that William Kirkcaldy should be handed over as a hostage, was on the point of making them fall through altogether. Finally, however, on the 22nd of December, a truce was agreed upon. The conditions were that the garrison should retain the Castle until the Regent obtained from the Pope absolution for all who had been concerned in the murder of Cardinal Beaton; that they, their friends, families, servants, and others pertaining to them, should never be pursued by law, but should enjoy all the privileges, spiritual and temporal, of which they had been in possession before the murder, ‘even as if it had never beene committed;’ and that, whilst James Hamilton was still kept as a hostage on the one side, David and James Kirkcaldy should be delivered to the Regent on the other, as pledges to insure the surrender of the Castle when the papal absolution arrived.
As soon as the royal army had been withdrawn, those who had held the Castle so valiantly came forth in great exultation. The lawless conduct of some of them was wholly unworthy of the brave men they had shown themselves to be. ‘They became so proud,’ says Pitscottie, ‘that no man might live besyd thame, for they would isch out and ryd throche the countrie quhen they pleased, and sumtymes raise fyre and burne, and vtherwhylles ravisch vomen, and vse thair bodie as they pleased. And some godlie men in the castell, that thought not thair lyffe nor conversatioun honest, reproved them sharplie, thairfoir, saying, if they left not aff, it could not be bot God would punisch thame for the same quhen they luiket least for it. Notwithstanding of thir admonitiounes, they continwed still in thair former doeingis the space of thrie quarteris of are yeir thaireftir.’
As might almost be inferred from the conditions of the armistice, neither besiegers nor besieged really looked upon it as a decisive step towards the termination of the struggle. The object on either side was merely to gain time and to make preparation for greater efforts. Scarcely was the truce signed when the rebel leaders wrote to their agent, Balneaves, instructing him ‘to solicit the King’s Majesty to write to the Emperor, to write to the Pope for the stopping and hindering’ of their absolution. He was further to impress on Henry the absolute need in which they stood of ‘support and aid of money.’ This money was to be sent by sea; and the greatest precautions were to be taken to avoid exciting suspicion. A ship was to come to St Andrews and to put out a boat, for the ostensible purpose of opening negotiations with the Castle, but, in reality, to hand over the money. After its departure the Governor was to be informed that its object had been to offer victuals, but that they had been refused. Nor was that all. The subsidy was not to be in English currency, of which a sudden influx would necessarily be noticed, but was to consist of the coins of France and other countries. This money, which would be accounted for as proceeding from the Cardinal’s coffers, was to be used partly for the revictualing of the Castle, and partly for distribution amongst friends, so that they might be ready, when his Majesty’s force came, to do such things as his Majesty might command them. In answer to this appeal Henry sent at least two remittances of money – one of £1180, and another of £1300. This was for pay to the garrison, which consisted of eighty foot and forty horse, and of which each man received eight pence a day. The Council Books show that further sums were transmitted for the leading men; that Norman Lesley’s share was £280; and that Sir James Kirkcaldy got £200 as his.