The Spell of Scotland Part 9

In the old palace the most glorious days were those when James IV was king. As the most glorious days of Scotland were those which are almost legendary. The palace still had the grandeur that was Norman and the grace that was early English under David. Its front, towered and pinnacled, suggesting more fortress security than this dull chateau, opened upon a great outer court that lay between the palace and the walls. Coming down the Canongate from the castle it must have looked very splendid to James. And yet he did not care to remain in it long.

All the Stewarts had errant souls, and they loved to wander their kingdom through. It presented ample opportunity for adventure; scarce a Stewart ever left Scotland. That last Prince, who flashed across Scotland in one last Stewart sword thrust--"My friends," he said in Holyrood the night before Prestonpans, "I have thrown away the scabbard"--was but treading in the steps of his royal forebears, the royal fore-errants.

In the days of James IV--we say it as one should say in the days of Haroun al Raschid, and indeed Edinburgh was in those early years of the Fifteen Hundreds the Bagdad of the world, and her days as well as her nights were truly Arabian--the world must have looked much as it does on the pleasant morning when we make our royal entry into Holyrood.

The Abbey grounds, a regal area then, and still a regality, were rich with woodland and orchard, and terraced and flowered into southern beauty. The red crags of the Salisbury ridge rose bold above as they do to-day, and crowning the scene the leonine form of Arthur's Seat above the green slopes, the lion keeping guard against the invading lion of England! I think James must often have climbed to that height to look forth over his domain, over his city, to watch the world, as King Arthur--whom he did not resemble--did legendary centuries before.

It was a busy time in Edinburgh; men's hands and wits were working. In Leith, then as now the port, then as now a separate burgh, there was much shipping and much building of ships; King James dreamed of a navy, and he had an admirable admiral in Sir Anthony Wood. In the castle there was the forging of guns, the "seven sisters of Brothwick," under direction of the king's master gunner, while Mons Meg looked on, and perhaps saw the near terrible future when these sisters of hers should be lost at Flodden.

In the city there was the splendid beginning of that intellectual life which has ever been quick in Edinburgh. It was a joyous time; witness the account from the lord High treasurer--

"On the 11th of February, 1488, we find the king bestowing nine pounds on gentil John, the English fule; on the 10th of June we have an item to English pipers who played to the king at the castle gate, of eight pounds eight shillings; on the thirty-first of August Patrick Johnson and his fellows, that playit a play to the king, in Lithgow, receives three pounds; Jacob the lutar, the king of bene, Sw.a.n.ky that brought b.a.l.l.s to the king, twa wemen that sang to his highness, Witherspoon the foular, that told tales and brought fowls, Tom Pringill the trumpeter, twa fithelaris that sang Grey Steill to the king, the broken-bakkit fiddler of St. Andrew's, Quhissilgyllourie a female dancer, Willie Mercer who lap in the stank by the king's command."

Oh, a royal and democratic and merry time. It was Flodden that made men old, that tragic climax to this splendour.

"In the joyous moneth tyme of June," in the pleasant garden of the town-house of the great Earl of Angus, looking down on the still waters of the Nor' Loch, and across the woods and moors to the glittering blue Firth, there sat the pale stripling, Gavin Dougla.s.s, third son of Dougla.s.s, Archibald Bell-the-Cat, late in orders at Mony musk, but now come up to St. Giles as prior in spite of his youth, and more absorbed in poetry than men.

"More pleased that in a barbarous age He gave rude Scotland Virgil's page, Than that beneath his rule he held The bishopric of fair Dunkeld."

Here I would dispute Scott. After all, Dark Ages are not always as dark as they look to those who come after. And if the "Dark Ages" of Europe were brilliantly luminous in Moslem capitals, Bagdad and Cordova, so "rude Scotland" was more polished under James IV than England under Henry VII, or France under Louis XII.

As Gavin has recorded in "The Palice of Honour," he had interview with Venus in her proper limbo, and she had presented him with a copy of Virgil, bidding him translate it. And so, quite boldly, before any Englishman had ventured, and all through the winter, forgetful--except when he wrote his prefaces of

scharp soppis of sleit and of the snypand snaw

he had worked over his translation, from the Latin into the Scottish, and now it was nearly ready "to go to the printer," or more like, to be shown to the king. In sixteen months he had completed thirteen books; for he had added a book of Maphaeus Vegius, without discrimination.

He was certain of the pa.s.sage _facilis descensus Averni_, for Gavin was Scotch, the time was Stewart. It ran in this wise--

"It is richt facill and eithgate, I tell thee For to descend, and pa.s.s on down to h.e.l.l, The black zettis of Pluto, and that dirk way Stand evir open and patent nicht and day.

But therefore to return again on hicht And heire above recovir this airis licht That is difficul werk, thair labour lyis, Full few thair bene quhom hiech above the skyis, Thare ardent vertue has raisit and upheit Or zit quhame equale Jupiter deifyit, Thay quhilkie bene gendrit of G.o.ddes may thy oder attane All the mydway is wilderness unplane Or wilsum forest; and the laithlie flude Cocytus, with his drery bosom unrude Flows environ round about that place."

But he was not quite certain that he had been splendid enough, and daring enough, in his application of the royal lines--

"Hic Caesar et omnis Iuli Progenies, magnum caeli ventura sub axem."

So he had sent for his friend, William Dunbar, Kynges Makar, laureate to the sovereign. And Dunbar was never loath for a "Flyting," a scolding.

He had them on every hand, with every one, and not only those he held with "gude maister Walter Kennedy," and published for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the King and his Court. It was a more solemn event when the future Bishop of Dunkeld summoned him. Though Gavin was fifteen years younger than William, he was more serious with much study, and under the shadow of future honours, and then, too, he was a Dougla.s.s.

So Dunbar came, striding up the Canongate between the tall inquisitive houses--even he found them "hampered in a honeycaim of their own making"--a very handsome figure, this Dunbar, in his red velvet robe richly fringed with fur, which he had yearly as his reward from the King, and which I doubt not he preferred to the solemn Franciscan robe he had renounced when he entered the King's service.

James was away at Stirling. James was a poet also. Surely, on internal evidence, it is the Fourth James and not the Fifth, who wrote those charming, and improper poems, "The Gaberlunzieman" and "The Jolly Beggar."

"He took a horn frae his side, and blew baith loud and shrill, And four and twenty belted knights came skipping o'er the hill.

"And he took out his little knife, loot a' his duddies fa'; And he was the brawest gentleman that was amang them a'."

"And we'll gang nae mair a roving, So late into the night; And we'll gang nae mair a roving, boys, Let the moon shine ne'er so bright."

Dunbar, official Makar, would fain secure the criticism of young Gavin on this joyous lament he had writ to the King in absence--

"We that here in Hevenis glory ...

I mean we folk in Paradyis In Edinburgh with all merriness."

And perhaps the young Gavin and the old Dunbar in their common fellowship of poetry, would drink a gla.s.s of red wine in memory of friends pa.s.sed into death's dateless night--_Timor Mortis conturbat me_.

"He has Blind Harry and Sandy Traill Slaine with his schour of mortall haill....

In Dunfermelyne he had done rovne With Maister Robert Henrisoun."

And Dunbar, who was so much more human than Gavin, if older, would quote those immortal new lines of Henryson--

"Robene sat on gude grene hill Kepand a flok of fe, Mirry Makyne said him till, Robene, thow pity on me."

While Gavin, so much elder than his looks, and mindful of Scottish as well as of Trojan history, would quote from Blind Harry in the name of Wallace--

"I grant, he said, part Inglismen I slew In my quarrel, me thocht nocht halff enew.

I mowyt na war but for to win our awin (own).

To G.o.d and man the rycht full weill is knawin (known)."

Then Dunbar would wrap his rich red robe about him--I hope he wore it on ordinary days, or were there any when James the Fourth was king?--and stride back, through the Canongate to Holyrood, back to the court, where he would meet with young David Lindsay, of a different sort from young Gavin Dougla.s.s. And they would chuckle over "Kitteis Confessioun," a dialogue between Kitty and the curate, which Lindsay had just written--and would not Dunbar be gracious and show it to the King?

Quod he, "Have ye na wrangous geir?"

Quod scho, "I staw ane pek o' beir."

Quod he, "That suld restorit be, Tharefore delyver it to me."

Quod he, "Leve ye in lecherie?"

Quod scho, "Will Leno mowit me."

Quod he, "His wyfe that sall I tell, To mak hir acquentance with my-sell."

Quod he, "Ken ye na heresie?"

"I wait nocht quhat that is," quod scho.

Quod he, "Hard he na Inglis bukis?"

Quod scho, "My maister on thame lukis."

Quod he, "The bischop that sall knaw, For I am sworne that for to schaw."

Quod he, "What said he of the King?"

Quod scho, "Of gude he spak naething."

Quod he; "His Grace of that sall wit, And he sall lose his lyfe for it."

Perhaps Warbeck was listening, Perkin Warbeck who pretended to be Duke of York, pretended to the English crown. So Scotland harboured him, and Holyrood was hospitable to him. James married him to Lady Jane Gordon, and for years, until he wearied of it, maintained a protectorate over this pinchbeck Pretender.

I am certain that Dom Pedro de Ayala did not linger in the court to gossip with Dunbar, or with the hangers-on. Dom Pedro had come up from Spain on a strange amba.s.sadorial errand, to offer to James in marriage a Spanish princess, knowing well that there might be no Spanish princess (Maria was betrothed to Portugal); but no doubt believing that there ought to be, since James was slow in marrying, and surely a Spanish princess would best mate this royalest of the Stewarts. Dom Pedro better liked the extravagant kingly court at Holyrood than the n.i.g.g.ardly court at Windsor. He wrote home to Ferdinand and Isabella, "The kingdom is very old, and very n.o.ble, and the king possessed of great virtues, and no defects worth mentioning." No defects! Certainly not. James had the qualities of his defects, and these were royal. James could speak--not keep still--in eight languages, and could and did say "all his prayers."

So Dom Pedro reports to his Most Catholic Majesty.

When he was thirty years old, this King Errant married, not the hypothetical daughter of Spain, but the substantial youthful Margaret Tudor, aged fourteen. The Scottish king would none of the alliance for years; James preferred hypothetical brides and errant affairs. But the English king saw the advantage and pressed it. He had united the roses, red and white, of England; he would fain join the thistle to the rose.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARGARET TUDOR, QUEEN OF JAMES IV.]

So James, in August, 1503, journeyed out to Dalkeith, whither Margaret had come. He returned to "hys bed at Edinborg varey well countent of so fayr a meetyng." A few days later, Margaret made her entry into Edinburgh, James having met her, gallantly dressed in "a jacket of crimson velvet bordered with cloth of gold." Leaving his restive charger, "mounting on the pallefroy of the Qwene, and the said Qwene behind hym, so rode throw the towne of Edinburgh." Their route lay through the Gra.s.smarket up to the Castle Hill, and down the High Street and the Canongate, to the Abbey. Here they were received by the Archbishop of St. Andrews. Next day they were married by the Archbishop of Glasgow, the Archbishop of York joining in the solemn and magnificent celebration.

It is the most splendid moment in Edinburgh history, within the Abbey and the palace, and within the city. The Town Cross ran with wine, the high _lands_ were hung with banners and scarlet cloth, and morality plays were performed before the people. In the palace there was a royal scene. And our friend, William Dunbar, Kynges Makar, read his allegory of "The Thrissl and the Roiss," which is still worth reading, if Chaucer is worth reading.