His humiliation was further emphasised when presently Purves turned up with John's horse, and the Earl found that he had to mount and ride pillion behind his escort—that, or else walk alongside all the way back to Holyrood, which in the present state of his head was contra-indicated. So, in a heavy silence, the two young men trotted down the Cowgate to the palace.
There was considerable delay thereafter, Villiers taking an unconscionable time—no doubt deliberately—about his preparations for the journey, John fretting, although telling himself that it was all no real concern of his. It was almost mid-forenoon before they finally set off westwards.
Linlithgow lay half-way to Stirling, in the rolling West Lothian country-side. Villiers rode fast now, on his magnificent grey—although, not knowing the roads, he was dependent on John for frequent directions. They went by the Waters of Leith and Almond to Kirkliston and Niddry Seton. There was no great sign of horse-droppings on the roadways and tracks, as there would have been had a large cavalcade passed that way, so presumably the royal party had followed another route, probably by Dalmeny and the Queen's Ferry and Abercorn. They went in the main without conversation, neither finding the other's company to his taste.
That is, until the smoke of Linlithgow town appeared rising before them out of its green hollow cradling the loch. Then, slackening pace somewhat, Buckingham allowed the other to draw alongside on the crest of the grassy ridge.
"No need to tell His Majesty, Stewart, of my circumstances. This morning. He would scarce . . . understand." "Perhaps not."
"It was but a, a mischance. Last night. I do not recollect just how it came about. I was making for Holyrood, you understand, when those wenches accosted me. They, they dragged me inside. I was not, ah, myself."
"To be sure, my lord. It might happen to anyone! Say no more."
"So long as His Majesty is not troubled with it. . ."
The grey town in the hollow, strung round the south shore of the loch, was buzzing like a beehive disturbed when they clattered down into its long and narrow single street. The King and his entourage were already up at the palace apparently and their retainers and men-at-arms were making the most of Linlithgow's amenities.
The two young men trotted uphill to the handsome brown-stone palace on its green mound above the waterside, birthplace of James's ill-fated and beautiful mother Mary. They learned that the meal provided by the magistrates was already proceeding in the great banqueting-hall. Some sort of recitation, from an extraordinary figure in the centre of the hall, was going on as they entered.
Recitation or none, James greeted his Steenie like a ewe-lamb rescued from the slaughter, positively drooling over him and calling on all to rejoice with him. Pushing aside the Provost of Linlithgow, sitting on his right, he made a place there for the prodigal. John Stewart was ignored, and went to seek a modest place at the foot of the hall. However, Mary Gray signalled for him to come and sit beside her and the Countess of Mar, the Duke being placed up at the King's left-hand, as usual.
"You found his estray, then," his mother said. "And small thanks you get! Our liege-lord has been like a mother bereft. We might as well have been riding to a burial!"
"Now perhaps James will be able to pay some heed to this oddity," the Countess observed, referring to the teetering figure enclosed in the plaster-cast of a ramping lion, clutching a paper in one paw and most apparently uncertain whether to proceed or to retire, whilst the monarch fed his favourite with titbits from his own platter.
John consumed the viands brought him, in more humdrum fashion.
Presently the reciter tried again, at a sign from the Provost, with the King now sitting back, although still with an arm round Buckingham's shoulder, and straightening his high hat:
"Thrice Royal Sir, here I do you beseech,
Who art a Lion, to hear a Lion's speech,"
came forth from the red-painted jaws in a distinctly high-pitched and squeaky voice.
"A miracle—for since the days of Aesop
No Lion till these times his voice dared raise up;
To such a Majesty, thou King of men
The King of Beasts speaks thee from his den,
Though he now enclosed be in plaster.
When he was free was Lithgow's wise Schoolmaster."
A somewhat falsetto roar ended this peroration and for a moment or two there was an agonised silence. Then James nodded his head and waved his wine-cup at the perpetrator.
"Aye. Felicitous. Maist callidatious," he approved. "Ars celare artem, as we might say. Curiosa felicitas—eh, Steenie?
Mind, yon Aesop, or mair correctly Aesopus, wasna the true begettor o' the Lion fabulosity—yon was an Egyptian by name o' Lokman, centuries before. You, a schoolmaister, should ha' kent that, man. But och, we'll owerlook it. Guid kens I've heard worse harangs in my day! Your name, schoolmaister?"
"Wiseman, Sire—James Wiseman."
"Ha—is that a fact? James the Wiseman—then we hae something in common, eh?" Majesty hooted laughter, and looked round for approval. Everybody dutifully applauded.
As Master Wiseman sought to bow himself out, backwards, a difficult manoeuvre for an upright plaster lion, the King abruptly shouted for him to halt, declaring that he desired to see how the creature was fabricated. Getting to his feet, and pulling up Steenie with him, although he was by no means finished eating, he used the youth's shoulder as a support to totter round the top-table and down the hall to examine the plasterwork. At this uprising of the monarch, of course, everyone else had to stand also, whatever the state of their platters.
A cursory inspection of the lion, with some acid comments on the workmanship and, as so often, James suddenly had had enough. Turning, he beckoned the Provost, told him that he had to get to Stirling, near-on twenty more miles and he had no more time to waste. He thereupon stumped for the door to the courtyard.
Great was the disarray behind him.
It seemed to take a long time to reach Stirling. For a couple of hours, indeed, the magnificent bulk of its castle, the strongest fortress in all Scotland, rose dramatically out of the littoral plain before them, seeming to get little nearer. Horses and riders were tired now, of course, over thirty miles from Edinburgh; and the midday feasting, although welcomed, had not been conducive to hard riding thereafter. Of all the great company the King himself was one of the most spry, for however odd-looking an equestrian, he greatly enjoyed horsemanship and could ride all day without tiring of it. Not all his court felt likewise.
Passing the pows or pools of Forth at Bannockburn, those forward enough to hear were treated to a royal lecture on that great battle, the strategy and tactics and the consequent entire eclipse of the English; also the speaker's step-by-step descent from the victorious Bruce, the hero-king. When England's Lord Chamberlain, the Earl of Pembroke, feeling his years perhaps, had the temerity to point out that his liege must also be descended from the loser, Edward the Second, or he would not be sitting on the English throne, he was left in no doubt that such comments were uncalled for, and that, besides, any unfortunate Plantagenet blood had been well and truly affused and diluted in the more wholesome fluid of Stewart, Douglas, Drummond, Guise, even a droppie of Tudor—although that was in fact the good Welsh name of Theodore, let none forget. Having made this clear, the monarch set off at his fastest the remaining two miles to Stirling.
So it was a distinctly strung-out and straggling company which entered Scotland's most significant town, and arguably its true capital, at the first crossing of Forth, in the centre of the land, where Highlands and Lowlands met, where more royal events had taken place, more parliaments been held and more blood spilled than anywhere else in the kingdom. Cannon-fire from the castle greeted their arrival, to groans from many, James himself in two minds whether to approve of Johnny Mar's enthusiasm or to deplore his foster-brother's waste of good powder before he himself could expend it.
Stirling's streets climbed even more steeply and consistently than Edinburgh's, although there
were not so many of them. There were no triumphal arches and spectacles here, for this was only a necessary halt in passage, as it were, dictated by the crossing of Forth and James's dislike of salt-water travel. The main visit to Stirling would be on their return journey. This had been devised in order to allow the Earl of Mar, who had travelled north with the King and who was hereditary keeper here, time to organise special and suitable reception and entertainment. After all, this was where James had been brought up, in the Mar household.
So here, to everyone's relief, the Provost and magistrates contented themselves with presenting an ode of welcome in Latin. James glanced at it, pointed out an error in construction in the second line, declared ominously that he would peruse the rest at his leisure, thrust it at Ludovick and spurred off up the cobblestoned hill for the castle, to the cheers of the citizenry.
Stirling Castle, although superficially so like that of Edinburgh, was in fact very different. Crowning a similar mighty rock it was smaller in area but an even stronger place, all but impregnable. Where Edinburgh's was a citadel, almost a town in itself on its hilltop, with palace, mansions, halls, a chapel, barracks, armourers', blacksmiths' and other workshops, even its own alehouses, Stirling's was much fined down to essentials. There was a small palace, where James was headed, but it would not hold many of his entourage. It had been all that he knew of home, for most of his childhood—save when he had been captured by this ambitious lord or that and held hostage in their various strongholds.
In these circumstances the Countess of Mar had to act hostess to many of the company. The Earls of Mar had their own private mansion, almost a palace indeed, not in the castle itself but halfway up the hill thereto, a much finer house than the royal one, known as Mar's Wark. Here some of the more illustrious guests were installed. Although Mary Gray and her son were scarcely to be so described, the Countess invited them into her own personal apartments, where it was hoped that her brother would join them presently. The rest of the company had to find what lodging they could in the town, with the usual outcry.
Ludovick arrived quite soon, explaining that James, feeling disinclined for more feasting, was settling down to another night's hard drinking, with Johnny Mar, who was a notable toper, and a few other cronies. Not being able to face two consecutive doses of this, the Duke had managed to make his escape. It had been like this all the way north from London, he revealed. James had a phenomenal capacity for liquor, although no one could remember ever having seen him drunk. But tonight it would not be wines or ale that they were drinking but spirits, the potent Scots uisge-beatha. the water of life. Heaven alone knew what would be the effect on those unused to it—Steenie Villiers, for instance.
Buckingham was, of course, a subject for discussion, and all were eager to hear John's account of his finding and restoration to his master's embrace. That young man was uneasy about telling all, even to these three, in view of Villiers' charge not to inform the King as to details; but his elders assured that it would go no further than themselves— and, besides, James undoubtedly would piece together the story for himself, sooner or later, for he was an expert interrogator, having, as it were, served his apprenticeship in the witch-trials, first in Scotland then in England. So all was revealed to his father, mother and aunt.
In the consequent mirth and jollity, John was surprised to find himself actually defending George Villiers, after a fashion. He declared that it was scarcely to be wondered at if he broke out occasionally from his wretched role of royal lap-dog; and at least this had shown that he was sufficiently masculine and normal at heart—if heart was the correct location. The women, with their instinctive hatred of catamites, would have none of this, asserting that if so this all made Villiers' shameless behaviour with James the more reprehensible, a young man deliberately corrupting himself for royal favour, power and influence. It was getting to the stage where, like the late and unlamented Carr, Earl of Somerset, almost all office and privilege had to be sought through the favour of this infamous youth. He was no better than a disaster, and a sickening one.
The Duke took a somewhat different view. While disliking the favourite and all he stood for, he claimed that he was not necessarily a disaster—as admittedly Carr had been. He was more intelligent, for one thing, and less vain, and so far had not been responsible for any very grievous developments. He was, to be sure, being manipulated by the powerful and ambitious men who had groomed him and brought him to James's notice; but it would be a mistake to underestimate the King's own part in the matter. Almost everyone consistently failed to recognise James's shrewdness. He looked a fool and sounded a fool—and was not. Deliberately he set out to be underestimated, the better to work his will. This habit of dealing through favourites was a device, a premeditated policy. It fell in with his peculiar tastes and fondnesses; but he used those, as he used all else, to further his own purposes as ruler. All was planned. James ruled alone, all but an absolute monarch. Parliament—the English Parliament—was hostile and kept him permanently short of money, refusing to impose his taxation. He had suffered, in Scotland, from over-powerful lords and factions; and when he went to England he found the same there, for during Elizabeth's later years she had allowed the Cecils and the Howards to usurp almost all the powers of government. James had been changing all that. It was extraordinary what he had achieved against entrenched privilege and influence. His policy had been to work through middlemen and nonentities, not the great nobles—hence the Cokes and Egertons, the Cranfields and Mostons and the rest. And this of deliberately using favourites through which such could be brought to him and, as it were, strained and filtered for consideration, was all part of the plan. The great lords would not so demean themselves. James had worked out various ways of keeping them down, without resort to armed might as had done previous kings. This was one. Also, of the bribes and payments which Steenie and his like collected for their favours, some substantial proportion found its way into the royal pocket, kept empty by parliament. Those who judged James Stewart witless were themselves the fools.
The ladies were not wholly convinced but John grew the more intrigued by their peculiar liege-lord. He asked many questions. When the talk veered to more personal matters, especially about certain affairs at Methven, he it was who sought more than once to bring it back to King James. But his aunt was incurably romantic and persisted with her hints and allusions. When at length she lost patience with John's parrying, she came out with it bluntly.
"What of Janet Drummond?" she demanded.
Her nephew feigned surprise. "You mean Madderty's daughter? I have not been to Innerpeffray for some time, so do not know. Is she a friend of yours?"
"Her mother and I are acquainted. She tells me of Janet."
"Then you are probably better informed as to her health than am I, Countess." That was almost curt.
The Duke looked from one to the other, head aslant. "Do I detect something here that I perhaps should know?" he wondered.
"No," his son said briefly.
"Johnnie is keeping his cards close to his chest!" Lady Mar said. "Perhaps it is his new knighthood?" "Damn the knighthood!"
Mary Gray came to her son's rescue. "It is no great matter," she said lightly. "John has been seeing something of Janet Drummond—amongst other young women, to be sure. She is grown uncommon attractive. John is not the only one who has noticed it, for she has half the young men of Strathearn agog, even young Perth himself. That is all."
"Ah. Well, something of the sort had to happen, sooner or later. Do I take it that you are scarcely a front-runner, lad?"
"The knighthood might help, you know," the Countess suggested.
"The matter is of no moment and I would prefer not to discuss it," the young man declared. "What, sir, are the arrangements for tomorrow?"
Ludovick grinned, nodding. "Very well, so. Tomorrow our liege starts the day with gunfire! Then we cross the bridge and proceed along Forthside eastwards to Culross, where Bruce receives us at the abbey, with unspecified d
elights. Then on to Dunfermline for the night, at Fyvie the Chancellor's charges. The next day to Falkland for the hunting—where pray God we can break loose and come to Methven."
"We? So John goes too?" Mary asked.
"Oh, yes. James will expect it. John is for the moment part of the court, and none can leave court without permission."
"Well, I can! I am not part of his circus, Heaven be praised! I shall make for Methven tomorrow. I can expect you there, then, in three days or four?"
"I would hope so, yes. But James is ever unpredictable."
"Oh, for the day when you are no longer dependent on the whims of that so clever crowned clown!"
"Let us just be thankful that James is not very interested in women, my dear," the Countess said. "So we are not thus hobbled! Myself, I shall bide here until they all come back— and my royal cousin will never notice."
"Be not so sure," her brother said. "Not much escapes those great hart's eyes."
Stirling was rudely awakened early next morning to the incessant crash of cannon-fire, which seemed to come from directly above, like a thunderstorm, so steeply under the castle-rock crouched the town. Presumably, if any ball was fired, on this occasion, it fell into the pools and marshes of Forth. To this din they breakfasted and all too quickly, when it ceased, had to take hurried leave of the ladies to join the royal retinue which came jingling down the hill on the way to Stirling Bridge. No crowds saw them off at this unsuitable hour—with two-thirds of the entourage missing besides.
Across the ancient bridge and on to the causeway through the wetlands beyond, the King drew rein and treated the early-morning company to a lengthy exposition on William Wallace's famous battle fought here and the grievous English failures which brought about their defeat. However unwelcome to most there, this at least enabled the late-risers and stragglers to catch up. Thereafter, at Causeway-head they turned eastwards to head past Cambuskenneth to the north shore of the quickly-widening estuary.
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