black muzzles, horns, and hoofs. The bulls are described by ancient authors as having white manes; but those of latter days had lost that peculiarity, perhaps by intermixture with the tame breed.1 In detailing the death of the Regent Murray, which is made the subject of the following ballad, it would be injustice to my reader to use other words than those of Dr. Robertson, whose account of that memorable event forms a beautiful piece of historical painting. "Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh was the person who committed this barbarous action. He had been condemned to death soon after the battle of Langside, as we have already related, and owed his life to the Regent's clemency. But part of his estate had been bestowed upon one of the Regent's favorites, who seized his house, and turned out his wife, naked, in a cold night, into the open fields, where, before next morning, she became furiously mad. This injury made a deeper impression on him than the benefit he had received, | and from that moment he vowed to be revenged of the Regent. Party rage strengthened and inflamed his private resentment. His kinsmen, the Hamiltons, applauded the enterprise. The maxims of that age justified the most desperate course he could take to obtain vengeance. He followed the Regent for some time, and watched for an opportunity to strike the blow. He resolved at last to wait till his enemy should arrive at Linlithgow, through which he was to pass in his way from Stirling to Edinburgh. He took his stand in a wooden gallery, which had a window towards the street; spread a feather-bed on the floor to hinder the noise of his feet from being heard; hung up a black cloth behind him, that his shadow might not be observed from without; and, after all this preparation, calmly expected the Regent's approach, who had lodged, during the night, in a house not far distant. Some indistinct information of the danger which threatened him had been conveyed to the Regent, and he paid so much regard to it, that he resolved to return by the same gate through which he had entered, and to fetch a compass round the town. But, as the crowd about the gate was great, and he himself unacquainted with fear, he proceeded directly along the street; and the throng of people obliging him to move very slowly, gave the assassin time to take so true an aim, that he shot him, with a single bullet, through the lower part of his belly, and killed the horse of a gentleman 1 They were formerly kept in the park at Drumlanrig, and are still to be seen at Chillingham Castle, in Northumberland. For their nature and ferocity, see Notes. 2 This was Sir James Bellenden, Lord Justice-Clerk, whose shameful and inhuman rapacity occasioned the catastrophe in the text.-SPOTTISWOODE. 2 This projecting gallery is still shown. The house to which who rode on his other side. His followers instantly endeavored to break into the house whence the blow had come; but they found the door strongly barricadoed, and, before it could be forced open, Hamilton had mounted a fleet horse, which stood ready for him at a back passage, and was got far beyond their reach. The Regent died the same night of his wound."-History of Scotland, book v. Bothwellhaugh rode straight to Hamilton, where he was received in triumph; for the ashes of the houses in Clydesdale, which had been burned by Murray's army, were yet smoking; and party prejudice, the habits of the age, and the enormity of the provocation, seemed to his kinsmen to justify the deed. After a short abode at Hamilton, this fierce and determined man left Scotland, and served in France, under the patronage of the family of Guise, to whom he was doubtless recommended by having avenged the cause of their niece, Queen Mary, upon her ungrateful brother. De Thou has recorded, that an attempt was made to engage him to assassinate Gaspar de Coligni, the famous Admiral of France, and the buckler of the Huguenot cause. But the character of Bothwellhaugh was mistaken. He was no mercenary trader in blood, and rejected the offer with contempt and indignation. He had no authority, he said, from Scotland to commit murders in France; he had avenged his own just quarrel, but he would neither, for price nor prayer, avenge that of another man.—Thuanus, cap. 46. The Regent's death happened 23d January, 1569. It is applauded or stigmatized, by contemporary historians, according to their religious or party prejudices. The triumph of Blackwood is unbounded. He not only extols the pious feat of Bothwellhaugh, "who," he observes, “satisfied, with a single ounce of lead, him whose sacrilegious avarice had stripped the metropolitan church St. Andrews of its covering;" but he ascribes it, to immediate divine inspiration, and the escape of Hamilton to little less than the miraculous interference of the Deity.-JEBB, vol. ii. p. 263. With equal injustice, it was, by others, made the ground of a general national reflection; for, when Mather urged Berney to assassinate Burleigh, and quoted the examples of Poltrot and Bothwellhaugh, the other conspirator answered, "that neyther Poltrot nor Hambleton did attempt their enterpryse, without some reason or consideration to lead them to it; as the one, by hyre, and promise of preferment it was attached was the property of the Archbishop of St. Andrews, a natural brother to the Duke of Chatelherault, and uncle to Bothwellhaugh. This, among other circumstances, seems to evince the aid which Bothwellhaugh received from his clan in effecting his purpose. 4 The gift of Lord John Hamilton, Commendator of Ar broath. "The death-shot parts-the charger springs- "What joy the raptured youth can feel, To hear her love the loved one tellOr he, who broaches on his steel The wolf, by whom his infant fell! "But dearer to my injured eye To see in dust proud Murray roll; And mine was ten times trebled joy, To hear him groan his felon soul. "My Margaret's spectre glided near; With pride her bleeding victim saw; And shriek'd in his death-deafen'd ear, 'Remember injured Bothwellhaugh!' "Then speed thee, noble Chatlerault ! Spread to the wind thy banner'd tree!' Each warrior bend his Clydesdale bow!— Murray is fall'n, and Scotland free!" 1 An oak, half-sawn, with the motto through, is an ancient cognizance of the family of Hamilton. "Scott spent the Christmas of 1801 at Hamilton Palace, in Lanarkshire. To Lady Anne Hamilton he had been introduced by her friend, Lady Charlotte Campbell, and both the late and the present Dukes of Hamilton appear to have partaken of Lady Anne's admiration for Glenfinlas, and the Eve of St. John. A morning's ramble to the majestic ruins of the old baronial castle on the precipitous banks of the Evan, and among the adjoining remains of the primeval Caledonian forest, suggested to him a ballad, not inferior in execution to any that he had hitherto produced, and especially interesting as the first in which he grapples with the world of picturesque incident unfolded in the authentic annals of Scotland. With the magnificent localities before him, he skilfully interwove the daring assassination of the Regent Murray by one of the clansmen of the princely Hamilton.' Had the subject been taken up in after years, we might have had another Marmion or Heart of Mid-Lothian; for in Cadyow Castle we have the materials and outline of more than one of the noblest ballads. "About two years before this piece began to be handed about in Edinburgh, Thomas Campbell had made his appearance Vaults every warrior to his steed; Loud bugles join their wild acclaim"Murray is fall'n, and Scotland freed! Couch, Arran! couch thy spear of flame!" But, see the minstrel vision fails- For the loud bugle, pealing high, The blackbird whistles down the vale, And sunk in ivied ruins lie The banner'd towers of Evandale. For Chiefs, intent on bloody deed, And Vengeance shouting o'er the slain, Lo! high-born Beauty rules the steed, Or graceful guides the silken rein. And long may Peace and Pleasure own The maids who list the minstrel's tale; Nor e'er a ruder guest be known On the fair banks of Evandale! there, and at once seized a high place in the literary world by his Pleasures of Hope.' Among the most eager to welcome him had been Scott; and I find the brother-bard thus expressing himself concerning the MS. of Cadyow: "The verses of Cadyow Castle are perpetually ringing in my imagination 'Where, mightiest of the beasts of chase That roam in woody Caledon, Crashing the forest in his race, The mountain bull comes thundering on' and the arrival of Hamilton, when 'Reeking from the recent deed, He dash'd his carbine on the ground.' I have repeated these lines so often on the North Bridge, that the whole fraternity of coachmen know me by tongue as pass. To be sure, to a mind in sober, serious street-walking humor, it must bear an appearance of lunacy when one stamps with the hurried pace and fervent shake of the head, which strong, pithy poetry excites.'"-Life of Scott, vol. ii. p. 77. NOTE A. sound the pryse !-P. 600. APPENDIX. Pryse-The note blown at the death of the game.-In Caledonia olim frequens erat sylvestris quidam bos, nunc vero rarior, qui, colore candidissimo, jubam densam et demissam instar leonis gestat, truculentus ac ferus ab humano genere abhorrens, ut quæcunque homines vel manibus contrectârint, vel halitu perflaverint, ab iis multos post dies omnino abstinuerunt. Ad hoc tanta audacia huic bovi indita erat, ut non solum irritatus equites furenter prosterneret, sed ne tantillum lacessitus omnes promiscue homines cornibus ac ungulis peterit; ac canum, qui apud nos ferocissimi sunt, impetus plane contemneret. Ejus carnes cartilaginosa, sed saporis suavissimi. Erat is olim per illam vastissimam Caledonia sylvam frequens, sed humana ingluvie jam assumptus tribus tantum locis est reliquus, Strivilingii, Cumbernaldia, et Kincarniæ.-LESLEUS, Scotiæ Descriptio, p. 13.-[See a note on Castle Dangerous, Waverley Novels, vol. xlvii.-ED] NOTE B. Stern Claud replied.-P. 601. Lord Claud Hamilton, second son of the Duke of Chatelherault, and commendator of the Abbey of Paisley, acted a distinguished part during the troubles of Queen Mary's reign, and remained unalterably attached to the cause of that unfortunate princess. He led the van of her army at the fatal battle of Langside, and was one of the commanders at the Raid of Stirling, which had so nearly given complete success to the Queen's faction. He was ancestor of the present Marquis of Abercorn NOTE C. Woodhouselee.-P. 601. This barony, stretching along the banks of the Esk, near Auchendinny, belonged to Bothwellhaugh, in right of his wife. The ruins of the mansion, from whence she was expelled in the brutal manner which occasioned her death, are still to be seen in a hollow glen beside the river. Popular report tenants them with the restless ghost of the Lady Bothwellhaugh; whom, however, it confounds with Lady Anne Bothwell, whose Lament is so popular. This spectre is so tenacious of her rights, that a part of the stones of the ancient edifice having been employed in building or repairing the present Woodhouselee, she has deemed it a part of her privilege to haunt that house also; and, even of very late years, has excited considerable disturbance and terror among the domestics. This is a more remarkable vindication of the rights of ghosts, as the present Woodhouslee, which gives his title to the Honorable Alexander Fraser Tytler, a senator of the College of Justice, is situated on the slope of the Pentland hills, distant at least four miles from her proper abode. She always appears in white, and with her child in her arms. brass piece, of a middling length, very small in the bore, and, what is rather extraordinary, appears to have been rifled or indented in the barrel. It had a matchlock, for which a modern firelock has been injudiciously substituted. NOTE G. The wild Macfarlanes' plaided clan.-P. 601. This clan of Lennox Highlanders were attached to the Regent Murray. Hollinshed, speaking of the battle of Langside, says, "In this batayle the valiancie of an Heiland gentleman, named Macfarlane, stood the Regent's part in great steede ; for, in the hottest brunte of the fighte, he came up with two hundred of his friendes and countrymen, and so manfully gave in upon the flankes of the Queen's people, that he was a great cause of the disordering of them. This Macfarlane had been lately before, as I have heard, condemned to die, for some outrage by him committed, and obtayning pardon through suyte of the Countess of Murray, he recompensed that clemencie by this piece of service now at this batayle." Calderwood's account is less favorable to the Macfarlanes. He states that "Macfarlane, with his Highlandmen, fled from the wing where they were set. The Lord Lindsay, who stood nearest to them in the Regent's battle, said, Let them go! I shall fill their place better:' and so, stepping forward, with a company of fresh men, charged the enemy, whose spears were now spent, with long weapons, so that they were driven back by force, being before almost overthrown by the avaunt-guard and harquebusiers, and so were turned to flight."-CALDERWOOD'S MS. apud KEITH, p. 480. Melville mentions the flight of the vanguard, but states it to have been commanded by Morton, and composed chiefly of commoners of the barony of Renfrew. NOTE D. Drives to the leap his jaded steed.-P. 601. Birrel informs us, that Bothwellhaugh, being closely pursued, "after that spur and wand had failed him, he drew forth his dagger, and strotke his horse behind, whilk caused the horse to leap a very brode stanke [i. e. ditch], by whilk means he escapit, and gat away from all the rest of the horses."— BIRREL'S Diary, p. 18. NOTE H. Glencairn and stout Parkhead were nigh.—P. 601. The Earl of Glencairn was a steady adherent of the Regent. George Douglas of Parkhead was a natural brother of the Earl of Morton, whose horse was killed by the same ball by which Murray fell. NOTE E. From the wild Border's humbled side.-P. 601. Murray's death took place shortly after an expedition to the Borders; which is thus commemorated by the author of his Elegy: "So having stablischt all things in this sort, Throw Ewisdail, Eskdail, and all the daills rode he, NOTE F. With hackbut bent.-P. 601. Hackbut bent-Gun cock'd. The carbine, with which the Regent was shot, is preserved at Hamilton Palace. It is a NOTE I. - haggard Lindesay's iron eye, That saw fair Mary weep in vain.-P. 601. Lord Lindsay, of the Byres, was the most ferocious and brutal of the Regent's faction, and, as such, was employed to extort Mary's signature to the deed of resignation presented to her in Lochleven castle. He discharged his commission with the most savage rigor; and it is even said, that when the weeping captive, in the act of signing, averted her eyes from the fatal deed, he pinched her arm with the grasp of his iron glove. NOTE K. So close the minions crowded nigh.-P. 601. Not only had the Regent notice of the intended attempt upon his life, but even of the very house from which it was threatened. With that infatuation at which men wonder, after such events have happened, he deemed it would be a sufficient precaution to ride briskly past the dangerous spot. But even this was prevented by the crowd: so that Bothwellhangh had time to take a deliberate aim.-SPOTTISWOODE, p. 233. BUCHANAN. |