By this time, the conspirators, feeling themselves secure, had thrown away all restraint; and their shouts of exultation, as they ran from room to room, awakened the Cardinal who, as it was only ‘betwixt four and fyve hours,’ was still in bed when his castle was invaded. Opening his window to inquire the cause of the unwonted noise, he was informed that Norman Lesley had taken possession of the place. His first endeavour was to seek safety in flight. He ran towards the postern at which Kirkcaldy was stationed; but perceiving the way to be barred, he at once returned to his apartments, seized his two-handed sword, and ordered his page to barricade the door with ‘kists and other impediments.’ Scarcely had the furniture been piled up when John Lesley, with James Melville of Carnbee and Peter Carmichael, arrived and demanded to be let in. ‘Who calls?’ asked Beaton. – ‘My name is Lesley,’ was the reply. – ‘Is that Norman?’ again inquired the Cardinal. – ‘Nay,’ he was told, ‘my name is John.’ – ‘I will have Norman,’ he continued, ‘for he is my friend.’ – ‘Content yourself with such as are here,’ said the implacable Lesley, ‘for other shall ye get none.’
There was a pause, during which Beaton hastily thrust a box of gold under a heap of coals that was kept in a hidden recess of the room, whilst the assailants were fruitlessly endeavouring to burst the massive door. Resuming the interrupted parley, the Cardinal called out, ‘Will ye save my life?’ – It was John Lesley that replied: ‘It may be that we will.’ – ‘Nay,’ returned Beaton, hesitating to trust so ambiguous a promise, ‘swear unto me, by God’s wounds, and I will open unto you.’ – ‘Then,’ cried Lesley, ‘that which was said is unsaid,’ and he ordered live coals to be brought for the purpose of burning down the wooden barricade. Such, at least, is the account given by Knox; but Lindsay of Pitscottie only says that the question from within was, ‘Will ye slay me?’ and the answer from without an unconditional ‘No.’ Both agree that, at this moment, the door was thrown open – a circumstance which seems to point to the accuracy of the latter’s narrative.
The assassins rushed in, whilst the doomed Cardinal, sinking into a chair, exclaimed, ‘I am a priest! I am a priest! Ye will not slay me!’ But he appealed to men who knew no mercy. ‘According to his former vows,’ John Lesley struck him repeatedly with his whingar, and was seconded by Carmichael in the work of death. But Melville, ‘a man of nature most gentle and most modest’ – such is Knox’s account of him – seeing that they were both under the influence of strong passion, thrust them aside rebukingly. ‘This work and judgment of God, although it be secret,’ he said, ‘ought to be done with greater gravity.’ Then, drawing his sword, and turning the point of it towards the terror-stricken Cardinal, he spoke the stern words: ‘Repent thee of thy former wicked life, but especially of the shedding of the blood of that notable servant of God, Mr George Wishart, which, albeit the flame of fire hath consumed it before men, yet crieth it for vengeance upon thee, and we from God are sent to revenge it. For here, before my God I protest, that neither the hatred of thy person, the love of thy riches, nor the fear of any trouble thou couldst have wrought to me in particular, moved or moveth me to strike at thee, but only because thou hast been, and remainest, an obstinate enemy against Christ Jesus and his Holy Gospel.’ Then, with his hunting-knife, he ran the shrinking victim again and again through the body. Mangled and bathed in his life-blood, the Cardinal sank from his chair to the floor, his dying lips repeating the protest which had only excited his murderers to greater ferocity: ‘I am a priest! I am a priest! Fie, fie! All is gone!’
III. THE CONSPIRATORS AT BAY
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.
To the advantages which the natural position and elaborate defences of the fortress afforded, chance added another, which, though of a very different kind, might be depended upon to operate strongly in favour of the conspirators, and which may, very probably, have exercised a not unappreciable influence upon their decision. It happened that, at the time when Cardinal Beaton’s castle was seized upon, James Hamilton, the Earl of Arran’s eldest son, was residing with him. Instead of being sent away, as were the other gentlemen of the household, he was retained by the captors as a hostage. It was thought that consideration for his son’s safety would hamper the Regent’s action; and not only prevent him from having recourse to measures of extreme severity in the course of the unavoidable siege, but also affect the conditions to be granted, if the garrison were eventually forced to surrender.
Nor was that all. A scheme of Arran’s own, for the marriage of his heir with the young Queen of Scots, was thought to be at the bottom of his opposition to the alliance by which the King of England hoped to unite the two Crowns. In the eyes of Henry, James Hamilton was a rival to his own son Edward; and they who had it in their power to hand over the youth to his safe keeping, possessed a further claim upon the protection and assistance which his share in the plot for Beaton’s destruction led them to expect from him. Under the special circumstances of the case, there was, therefore, as much wisdom as daring in what might, at first sight, appear the desperate determination of holding the Castle.
The first to throw in his lot with the sixteen, was one who had not, it is true, figured so prominently and actively as they in the slaughter of the Cardinal, but who was too much implicated in their action, and could too easily be proved to be in actual fact their accomplice, to expect anything but the severest treatment at the hands of the avengers. Before the day was out, Sir James Kirkcaldy, with his sons and brothers, arrived in St Andrews, and was admitted into the Castle. Some more of the Melvilles followed soon after; and by gradual accessions to its strength, as the news of what had been done at St Andrews spread through the country, the rebel garrison increased to about one hundred and fifty fighting men. The names of those connected with the murder either as ‘first interprisers,’ or as ‘part takers, maintainers, defenders, victuallers, assisters, and counsel givers,’ numbered thirty-five. They were set forth in the proclamation, issued thirteen days after the death of Beaton, which was publicly read, at the Market Cross of Cupar, by John Paterson, Carrick Pursuivant, and which summoned the persons mentioned in it to appear within six days at the bar of Parliament, under pain of being declared rebels. Amongst them were eight Kirkcaldys and four Melvilles. That the majority of those who had taken refuge at St Andrews, because they ‘suspected themselves to be borne at evil will,’ were not mistaken as to the sentiments entertained towards them by the party of which the Cardinal had been the head, was proved by ‘letters and memorials’ which were discovered amongst Beaton’s papers, and which disclosed a project, formed by him, and sanctioned by the Council, for their treacherous and summary removal, by death or imprisonment, on the Monday following.
Amongst others, whom