Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/150

210 doras, and both made the most formidable preparations for deciding their differences on the field of battle. James summoned the whole array of his kingdom; including all the western isles and the most remote parts of the Highlands, to assemble on the Burrow muir within twenty days, each, as was usual on such occasions, to come provided with forty days' provisions. Though the impending war was deprecated by James's council, and was by all considered imprudent, yet such was his popularity, such the general affection for the high-spirited and generous monarch, that no less than one hundred thousand men appeared in arms at the place of muster ; disapproving, indeed, of the object for which they were brought together, but determined to shed the last drop of their blood in their sovereign's quarrel because it was his, and because he had determined on bringing it to the issue of the sword. Deeply imbued with the superstition of the period, James spent much of his time, immediately before setting out with his army, in the performance of religious rites and observances. On one of these occasions, and within a few days of his marching on his expedition, a circumstance occurred which the credulity of the times has represented as supernatural, but in which it is not difficult to detect a design to work on the superstitious fears of the king, to deter him from proceeding on his intended enterprise. While at his devotions in the church of Linlithgow, a figure, clothed in a blue gown secured by a linen girdle and wearing sandals, suddenly appeared in the church, and calling loudly for the king, passed through the crowd of nobles, by whom he was surrounded, and finally approached the desk at which his majesty was seated at his devotions. Without making any sign of reverence or respect for the royal presence, the mysterious visitor now stood full before the king, arid delivered a commission as if from the other world. He told him that his expedition would terminate disastrously, advised him not to proceed with it, and cautioned him against the indulgence of illicit amours. The king was about to reply, but the spectre had disappeared, and no one could tell how. The figure is represented as having been that of an elderly grave-looking man, with a bald uncovered head, and straggling grey locks resting on his shoulders. There is little doubt that it was a stratagem of the queen's, and that the lords who surrounded the king's person were in the plot. Some other attempts of a similar kind were made to alarm the monarch, and to deter him from his purpose, but in vain. Neither superstition nor the ties of natural affection could dissuade him from taking the field. Resisting all persuasion, and even the tears and entreaties of his queen, who, amongst the other arguments which her grief for the probable fate of her husband suggested, urged that of the helpless state of their infant son ; the gallant but infatuated monarch took his place at the head of his army, put the vast array in marching order, and proceeded on that expedition from which he was never to return. The Scottish army having passed the Tweed began hostilities by taking some petty forts and castles, and amongst the latter that of Ford; here the monarch found a Mrs Heron, a lady of remarkable beauty, and whose husband was at that time a prisoner in Scotland. Captivated by this lady's attractions—while his natural son, the archbishop of St Andrews, who accompanied him, acknowledged those of her daughter—James spent in her society that time which he should have employed in active service with his army. The consequence of this inconceivable folly was, that his soldiers, left unemployed, and disheartened by a tedious delay, gradually withdrew from his camp and returned to their homes, until his army was at length reduced to little more than thirty thousand men. A sense of honour, however, still detained in his ranks all the noblemen and gentlemen who had first joined them, and thus a disproportionate number of the aristocracy remained to fall in the fatal field which was soon afterwards fought In the mean time the earl of Surrey, lieutenant-