Nigel Tranter - Past Master

Women and children permeated the assembly, and looked as though they were by no means going to be left behind when the time came to march.

The Duke of Lennox had been urging for some time that such order should be given forthwith. A certain amount of internecine strife had already broken out between the warlike townsmen and their traditional oppressors, the Town-Guard, and Ludovick had been seeking to aid the Provost and magistrates to restrict this within modest limits; the apprentices, who were out in force, clearly had other ideas, and, grievously outnumbered, the Town Guard had now formed a tight square around the civic dignitaries, and the Duke had been sent to beseech the King either to send his own Royal Guard and the Kennedys to their aid, or to order an immediate march on Leith as distraction.

Patrick Gray had demurred. Let the Town Guard solve its own problems, he argued; the last thing that they wanted was for the King's Guard to make itself unpopular with the populace. Moreover, they must await the arrival of the cannon from the castle, which should make for a great access of enthusiasm and aggressive spirit. Also, so far, very few parties of retainers and men-at-arms had appeared from lords and lairds near the city and they, being horsed, were badly required.

Andrew Melville came striding up to the royal party, beard, white Geneva bands and black gown all streaming in the breeze. 'We must up and move, Your Grace,' he declared strongly. 'The good folk get restive. Let us wait no longer.'

'Aye. But… the cannon…?' James, nibbling his nails, looked at the Master.

'A little longer, Master Melville,' Patrick said. 'We would be foolish not to await the cannon. The sight of them, I swear, will greatly encourage these people of yours. Also, the garrison from the castle who brings them are to bring with them all the armoury of pikes and halberds. Hundreds of them. These we much need. They should have been here by this but the oxen that draw the cannon are slow…'

There was a diversion, as the thunder of hooves drew all eyes eastwards. Round the foot of the hill, from the higher ground at that side, came at the gallop a gallant cavalcade, about one hundred strong, banners flying, steel glinting, armour clanking. The great leading banner showed the famed Red Heart of Douglas.

At sight of that dread emblem there was next to panic amongst much of the crowd, for the Douglas reputation was as savage as it was ancient and the Earl of Angus, one of the chief rebels, was head of the clan. But the knowledgeable sighed with relief, recognising the ensign of the Earl of Morton, from Dalkeith five miles away, of the Protestant branch of the house.

Morton himself, elderly, portly and purple, clad in magnificent and old-fashioned gold-inlaid armour, led his superbly equipped and mounted cohort up to the King's position, scattering lesser folk, volunteers, guild-members and ministers alike, right and left, his men roaring 'A Douglas! A Douglas!' in traditional fashion. James shrank back before the flailing hooves of Morton's charger, as the Earl pulled the beast back, in an abrupt, earth-scoring halt, on to its very haunches.

'You need Douglas, I hear, my lord King?' the old man bellowed. 'I came hot-foot with these. Twice so many follow. What's to do, eh? What's to do?'

'Aye. Thank you, my lord. Aye, my thanks,' James acknowledged from behind Patrick. 'It's Bothwell…'

'Bothwell! That bastard's get by a Hepburn whore!' Morton cried, caring nothing that the bastard involved was one of the King's own uncles. He dismounted heavily, throwing his reins to an attendant, and clanked forward, roughly pushing aside the two divines, Melville and Galloway. 'Out o' the way o' Douglas, clerks!'he barked.

'Sir!' Master Galloway protested. 'Have a care how you go…'

'Quiet, fool!' the Douglas standard-bearer ordered, coming behind his lord.

'But… I am minister of the High Kirk of St. Giles…!'

'I carena' whether you're the Archangel Gabriel, man! No daws squawk where Douglas is!'

Andrew Melville stroked his beard, but said nothing.

Patrick hastened to close the breach. He had helped substantially in bringing low the previous Morton, the terrible onetime Regent of Scotland, and had no love for the nephew. But this unexpected adherence now was a major access of strength. 'My lord,' he cried. 'You are welcome, I vow! A notable augury – Douglas joins the King and the Kirk! Master Melville here has nobly rallied the faithful. Brought out this great host of the people, to assail Bothwell…'

The Earl snorted. 'That rabble!' He spat. 'Clear them out of the way, I say! Before Bothwell does. They encumber the decent earth!'

'My lord of Morton,' Melville said, quietly but sternly. 'I mislike your words and your manners. You speak of the people of God! Fellow-heirs, with yourself, of Christ's mercy. By the looks of you, you will need that mercy more than most. And sooner than some!'

'Devil burn you!' Morton swung round, to stare at the other. 'You… you dare speak me so! God's Passion – I'll teach you and your low-born like to raise your croaking voice in Douglas's presence! By the powers…'

Patrick was tugging at the King's sleeve. 'Quickly!' he whispered. 'Stop him. Sire.'

'Eh, eh! Hech, me! My lord! My lord o' Morton – ha' done. We… we command it. Aye, command it. You also, Master Melville. Ha' done, I say. This'll no' do, at all.' James's thick voice shook, but he went on. 'It's no' suitable. In our royal presence. Eh…?' Patrick was prompting at his side. 'Aye. We need you both – greatly need you. Our cause is one. We canna have bickering and brabbling…'

A commotion to the north drowned his words. Shouting arose, there and was taken up by the huge concourse, as with a great groaning and squealing of wooden axle-trees, three massive iron cannon, bound and hooped, each drawn by a train of a dozen plodding oxen, lumbered from the cobblestones of the Canongate on to the grassland of the park. Such a thing had not been seen since Flodden. Everywhere men surged forward, to admire and exclaim. Even Morton forgot his spleen, to stride off to inspect the monsters. Folk were shouting that here was Mons, good buxom Mons, the most famous piece of ordnance ever forged.

Gratefully Patrick seized the opportunity. He slipped over to Melville's side, spoke a few sympathetic words, and urged immediate superintendence of the issue of the garrison's hundreds of pikes and halberds to the people. Then he besought the King to mount his horse and have the Royal Standard unfurled above his head, to a fanfare of trumpets. No speeches this time – for not one in a hundred would hear him. Then, the move to Leith at last.

So, presently, that strange, discordant, sprawling horde set off on its two-mile march, surely the most unlikely army ever to issue from the Capital behind the proud Rampant Lion of Scotland. First rode an advance-party of fifty Kennedys, to clear the way and act as scouts. Patrick had been anxious about the Kennedys and the Douglases coming to blows, and conceived this useful and honourable duty as in some way countering Morton's arrogant assumption that he and his must remain closest to the King. Then came the hundred of the Royal Guard, preceding the King's Standard-bearer and the Lord Lyon King of Arras. James himself followed, with Morton only half a head behind on the right and die Duke of Lennox on the left, flanked by Douglas horsemen, four deep. Next a motley group marched on foot – including, strangely enough, the Master of Gray, despite tall riding-boots and clanking spurs; when he had discovered that Andrew Melville and the other Kirk leaders intended to walk all the way to Leith, refusing to be mounted where there followers were not, he promptly handed over his horse to a servant and inarched with them. The little fat Provost also puffed and panted with this party, as did certain deacons of guilds, magistrates and other prominent townsfolk. Then came Bargany and his remaining two-hundred-and-fifty horse, followed by a mixed assortment of mounted men to the number of another hundred or so. Thereafter the castle garrison, with the ox-drawn cannon, followed by the great mass of the people, starting with companies and groups which kept some sort of order, armed with pikes and bills, but quickly degenerating into a noisy and undisciplined mob, to tail off eventually in a vast following of onlookers, women, children and barking dogs. How many the entire strung-out host might add up up to it was impossible to guess – but it could be computed that there were over five hundred horse and perhaps a thousand footmen who might generously be called pikemen, with three or four times that of miscellaneous approximately armed men, apart from the hangers-on who far outnumbered all.