Page:The Lady of the Lake - Scott (1810).djvu/331



This was by no means an uncommon occurrence in the court of Scotland; nay, the presence of the sovereign himself scarcely restrained the ferocious and inveterate feuds which were the perpetual source of bloodshed among the Scottish nobility. The following instance of the murder of Sir George Stuart of Ochiltree, called The Bloody, by the celebrated Francis Earl of Bothwell, may be produced among many; but, as the offence given in the royal court will hardly bear a vernacular translation, I shall leave the story in Johnstone's Latin, referring for further particulars to the naked simplicity of Birrel's Diary, 30th July, 1583.

"Mors improbi hominis non tam ipsa immerita, quam pessimo exemplo in publicum fædé perpetrata. Gulielmus Stuartus Alkiltrius, Arani frater, naturá ac moribus, cujus'sæpius memini, vulgo propter sitim sanguinis sanguinarius dictus, à Bothvelio, in Sanctæ Crucis Regiá, exardescente irá, mendacii probro lacessitus, obscænum osculum liberius retorquebat; Bothvelius hanc contumeliam tacitus tulit, sed ingentem irarum molem animo concepit. Utrinque postridie Edinburgi conventum, totidem numero comitibus armatis, præsidii causa, et acriter pugnatum est; cæteris amicis et clientibus metu torpentibus, aut vi absterritis, ipse Stuartus fortissimè dimicat, tandem excusso gladio à Bothvelio, Scythicá feritate transfoditur, sine cujusquam misericordiá; habuit itaque quem debuit exitum. Dig-