Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/294

280 which Henry VIII. wooed the little Queen of Scotland for his son.

Lord Hertford, who conducted himself solely as the punctual agent of the monarch, confessed to those around him that Henry had done too little for a conqueror, and far too much for a suitor. He expressly refused to allow any sparing of the estates of his Scottish confederates, and this impolitic phrenzy soon produced its natural fruits in the desertion and bitter hostility of many of them. Angus, Sir George Douglas, and their numerous and powerful adherents, whose demesnes lay near the borders, and who had so long laboured with a most renegade zeal and ability for his advantage, abandoned his cause in disgust, and went over to the cardinal. The only nobles left to Henry were Lennox and Glencairn—Lennox, a man weak, treacherous and vacillating; Glencairn, a host in himself, a man of great ability and extensive influence, but of no patriotism. So little did the cruel ravages of his country by Henry affect him, that we find him and Lennox, on the 17th of May, entering into a most extraordinary treaty with the English king at Carlisle. By this Henry promised Glencairn and his son, the Master of Kilmaurs, ample pensions, and to Lennox, the government of Scotland, and the hand of Lady Margaret Douglas, the daughter of Margaret, the sister of Henry. For this these traitor barons promised to acknowledge Henry as the Protector of Scotland—sad irony!—to exert themselves to the utmost of their power to deliver over to him the young queen, and the chief fortresses of the country, the town and castle of Dumbarton, the isle and castle of Bute.

No sooner was the evil compact sealed, than the two renegade barons hastened to assemble their forces and earn their disgraceful pay. But the only fortune which they deserved attended them. Arran, acting under the counsel of the cardinal, met Glencairn near Glasgow, and after an obstinate battle defeated him. Glencairn escaped to Dumbarton, where Lennox lay, and that unprincipled nobleman resigned the castle into his hands, and set sail for England, where he received the promised hand of the Lady Margaret Douglas. Francis I. was so disgusted at this unnatural conduct of Lennox, that, suspecting his brother, Lord Aubigny, of some countenance of these proceedings, he deprived him of the high offices which he held in France, and threw him into prison.

In Scotland the cruel raid of Henry, and the traitorous league of Lennox and Glencairn with him, produced remarkable changes. A general council of the nobles met at Stirling, on the 3rd of June, where Lennox and Glencairn alone where absent. The conduct of Henry seemed to have united all hearts against him. There took place a coalition of the Romanist and Protestant parties; but Angus, who was now bound up with the Scottish policy, had the influence to obtain the removal of the feeble Arran from the regency, and the queen-mother, Mary of Guise, elected in his stead; Angus, the mover, being made Lieutenant-General of the kingdom.

But the cardinal was too clear-sighted to lend himself to any such heterogeneous coalition. He still adhered to Arran, and the country became torn by desperate factions, which exposed it the more to the attacks of the English king. In August, Lennox sailed from Bristol with a squadron of ten ships, and a number of soldiery, for the coast of Scotland, to fulfil his promise of putting the castles of Dumbarton and Bute into Henry's hand. He soon plundered the Isle of Arran, and, sailing to Bute, made himself master of it, and of its castle of Rothsay, and delivered them, according to agreement, to Sir Richard Mansell and Richard Broke, to hold for Henry. The castle of Dumbarton, the key of the west of Scotland, Lennox felt sure of, having left it in the hands of Glencairn. But Glencairn had in the meantime gone over to the opposite party, and the officer in command, Stirling of Glorat, scorning such treason, not only refused to yield it up, but made it necessary for Lennox and his associates to escape with all speed to their ships.

Scarcely had Lennox quitted Dumbarton, when Sir George Douglas entered it with 4,000 troops, and the Earl of Argyll, occupying the castle of Dunoon, fired on Lennox as he fell down the Clyde. Lennox, returning the fire, landed to avenge the attack, and speedily dispersed the Highlanders drawn out against him. He next ravaged the coasts of Kintyre, Kyle, and Carrick, and then returned laden with spoil to Bristol, whence he dispatched Sir Peter Mewtas to inform the king at Boulogne of the issue of the enterprise, who received the account of the conduct of Glencairn with his most hearty choler. Meantime, Henry's officers, Sir Ralph Eure, Sir Brian Layton, and Sir Richard Bowes, were ravaging the borders as mercilessly as Lennox did the shores of the Clyde. They were enabled to do almost whatever they pleased, owing to the unhappy dissensions betwixt the parties of the Governor Arran and the queen-dowager. The story of their burnings and spoliations has been preserved in an account called the "Bloody Ledger," in which are enumerated 192 towns, villages, farm-offices, towers, and churches as destroyed; 10,386 cattle driven off; 12,492 sheep, 1,496 horses, besides the account of other plunder and horrors.

In November this miserable warfare seems to have slackened, but not so the feuds betwixt the different factions. In the beginning of that month the regent called a Parliament in which he denounced Angus and his brother as traitors; and, on the other hand, Angus summoned the three estates to Stirling, in the queen's name, and there issued a proclamation discharging all the people from their allegiance to Arran as the pretended regent. Once more the cardinal attempted to unite the clashing factions; peace appeared restored, and Arran marched to the borders to avenge the late injuries of the English, and laid siege to Coldingham, then in their possession. Suspicion and disunion, however, speedily broke out again; and the English becoming aware of it, rushed out upon them and put them to flight, though the Scotch were three times their number. Angus, who had the command of the vanguard on this occasion, Glencairn, Cassilis, Lords Somerville and Bothwell, were all involved in the disgraceful rout. The defeat was universally attributed to the treason of the Douglases; yet, in the Parliament which was summoned in December at Edinburgh, they managed to clear themselves of the charge, but not from the belief of it in the minds of the people, which was soon sufficiently shown by both barons and commonalty refusing to serve under Angus when a muster was called in the Lothians.

The greater part of the south of Scotland now lay exposed to the inroads and devastations of the English. The