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Louis A. Barbé. Kirkcaldy of Grange
Kirkcaldy of Grange
Table of Contents
I. THE KIRKCALDYS
II. THE TRAGEDY AT ST ANDREWS
III. THE CONSPIRATORS AT BAY
IV. IN FRANCE
V. HOME AGAIN
VI. THE UPROAR OF RELIGION
VII. HARASSING THE FRENCH
VIII. AT CARBERRY
IX. LANGSIDE—AND AFTER
X. DEFECTION?
XI. THE HOLDING OF THE CASTLE
XII. THE MERCAT CROSS
Отрывок из книги
Louis A. Barbé
Published by Good Press, 2019
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Table of Contents
The men who had so deliberately planned and so boldly perpetrated the murder of Cardinal Beaton, were fully conscious of the gravity of the situation in which they now found themselves. They knew that the crime which they had committed in slaying the Chancellor of the Realm bore with it the guilt of high treason, and that, if they refused to give themselves up, they would be declared rebels, and dealt with as such. But they had gone too far to retreat. If safety were to be secured, it could only be by union amongst themselves; and instead of separating, to wander as outlaws through the country or to shut themselves up singly in their fortalices, they determined to maintain themselves in the stronghold which they had captured. Its very position seemed to suggest and to justify such a course. Situated on a rock-bound headland a little to the north of the city of St. Andrews, the imposing castle which Bishop Roger, son of the Earl of Leicester, ‘founded and gart bigged be,’ in the year 1200, was guarded on two sides by the sea, and, whilst practically inaccessible to a hostile fleet, might, with comparative ease, keep up communication with a friendly force, and receive supplies from it. A deep moat and strongly fortified walls protected it from the attack of a land army, and had more than once before enabled it to hold out against superior numbers. Food and ammunition had been abundantly provided by Beaton himself, as a precaution against a possible attempt on the part of the English; and, within the walls which had been known to give accommodation to guests whose mounted attendants alone numbered four hundred and twenty, there was ample room for quartering the partisans by whom they expected to be joined.
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