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and supporters at Cadzow or in and around Hamilton proper, where in a very few days about six thousand men mustered in her cause. Mary's letters during her stay are all dated like the above, as from or "off" Hamilton, and it was certainly at Hamilton she held her great Council to declare that consent to the coronation of her son had been extorted by the fear of death. An Act of Council was thereafter passed to make treasonable all the proceedings by which Moray had become Regent, and a Bond drawn up in defence of their Sovereign which, in the enthusiasm of the moment, was signed by nine earls, nine bishops, eighteen lords, twelve abbots and priors, and nearly one hundred barons. Two versions have come down to us of Mary's proceedings at this time. In one she is opposed to civil war, and is said even to have made overtures to the Regent for reconciliation and forgiveness. Another will have it that she was no way averse to the Hamilton policy of striking a decisive blow at the Regent's party, and would certainly make no effort to avoid a conflict.

Since a day or two before Mary's escape on the 2nd May, the Regent had been in Glasgow with a small following administering justice and holding courts of various kinds. Anxious to attack at once before either Huntly or Ogilvy, with their northern followers, could join the royal forces, but wishful at the same time for a breathing space to gather men, Moray issued a proclamation declaring his determination to support the King's Government. Mar thereupon despatched reinforcements and cannon from Stirling. Grange took command of the horse; Hume, after foiling Hepburn in his attempt to seize Dunbar, joined the Regent with six hundred; Edinburgh sent a small force of hagbutters; and important as any, Andrew, chief of Arrochar, marched in from Lochlomondside, followed by six hundred of "the wild Macfarlane's plaided clan." It thus came about that between Sunday, 2nd May, the day of Mary's escape from Lochleven, and Thursday, 13th May, an army, irregular it is true, but full of enthusiasm, and numbering at least four thousand, had gathered round the Regent. Thursday was the day. fixed by the Queen to advance towards Dumbarton Castle, kept all along in her interest by John, fifth Lord Fleming. Their design, if one can gather it from

dubious authorities, was to avoid the City of Glasgow, where they well knew the Regent lay encamped with his men, and cross the Clyde lower down, probably at Renfrew or Dunglass, the river then being easily crossed at these points during low water. With roads hardly existing in the sense now understood, it is not known what route the Queen and her army took on leaving Hamilton, but from what followed it may be presumed to have been by way of Blantyre and Cambuslang, where a westward movement was effected in the direction of Langside. At anyrate the Regent was fully informed that through the village of Langside the Queen's forces must pass. Had it been sincerely intended to avoid a contest, a safer road to the Clyde, south of Cathcart, might have been found.

Early in the morning, Grange had examined Langside and neighbourhood, while the Regent was mustering his men on the Burgh Muir, off the Gallowgate. Informed of the intention of the Queen's party to march along the left or south bank of the Clyde, he returned in haste to the muster-ground, mounted a hagbutter behind each horseman, and having rapidly forded the Clyde, a little above the frail old bridge, he placed them advantageously among the cottages, hedges, and gardens skirting each side of the narrow rising lane up which the Queen's troops must defile ("Melvill's Memoirs," pp. 200-201.) Moray with the main body, and Morton with the advance, crossed Clyde by the bridge, and, ascending Camphill and Langside Hill from their western slopes, out of view of their opponents, arrived on the ground just in time to meet the Queen's forces. The vanguard, two thousand strong, was commanded by Lord Claud Hamilton, but the disposal of the troops generally was in the hands of Mary's brother-in-law, Archibald, fifth Earl of Argyll, whose commission as Lieutenant of Scotland had been signed at Hamilton early in the morning. The writer of the "Diurnal of Occurrents" mentions that the advance of Hamilton got involved within narrow passages, or "fauld dykes," when rushing to attain the crest of the hill, and being fired on in this disorganised state, they "gaif bakis and fled." Others in the rear sought to push on, and so far succeeded, but were nearly exhausted when they found themselves face to face with the

Regent's advance, well rested and in firm order. Tytler, relying on Melvill, describes this portion of the force as composed of the choicest Border pikeman, led by Hume, Kerr of Cessford, and other barons of the Merse, who all fought on foot. Obeying Grange's command to keep pikes shouldered till the enemy had levelled theirs and then push on, the most severe struggle of the day now took place for possession of the hill-side. Melvill (the Queen's secretary), who was present, describes the long pikes as so closely crossed and interlaced that, when the soldiers behind discharged their pistols and threw them on the staves of their shattered weapons in the face of their enemies, they never reached the ground, but remained lying on the spears. Reinforcing the Barons of Renfrewshire, with the followers of Lindsay and Balfour, a sharp united attack on the Queen's party was made by Moray and Grange, with disastrous results to their opponents. They wavered, broke up, cast aside their weapons, and fled. The route was completed by a charge on the part of the Macfarlane men, with the leaps and yells peculiar to their mode of fighting. Even the Hamilton cavalry, greatly superior as it was to anything on the side of the Regent, became mixed up in the confusion, and when relieved, could do little but turn and disperse, although every incitement to renewed effort was given by the presence of the Queen, who witnessed the scene with sorrow from an eminence adjoining Cathcart Castle. About 300 were set down as being slain on the Queen's side, and many distinguished leaders captured-among them Lords Seaton and Ross, the eldest sons of the Earls of Eglinton and Cassillis— and the Sheriff of Linlithgow, a Hamilton, who bore the royal standard in the vanguard. The Regent's loss was trifling-not more, it is thought, than halfa-dozen, but three of his trusty supporters-Hume, Ochiltree, and Andrew Car of Faudonside, were severely wounded.

With much humanity, the Regent checked his followers in pursuit, and even liberated certain of the captives condemned to death. One so released was that John Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, destined within two years to cause the death of his deliverer by shooting him when passing in triumph through the streets of

Linlithgow. The authorities on which reliance can be placed for information. regarding the battle or "Field," as it was called, of Langside, are neither weighty nor very informing. No letter or despatch from the Regent regarding the encounter is known to exist. The "Memoirs of Melvill" and the "Diurnal," published by the Maitland Club, as well as the "Herries' Memoirs," issued by the Abbotsford Club, although each in their way pretending to the authority of observers or actors concerned in the events narrated, have all had their accuracy questioned. Among the Scottish documents in the State Paper Office, London, is a printed "Advertisement of the Conflict in Scotland," bearing date three days after the engagement; but it is brief, and otherwise imperfect through decay. On only one point are all agreed that the encounter lasted only a short time, not many minutes over halfan-hour. It was long enough, however, to check, if not dispel, any notion Queen Mary might have indulged in of again ascending the throne of her ancestors. Wrung in spirit by disappointment, yet resolute as any Guise of them all, she turned hastily from her exposed resting-place to urge her horse southward, accompanied by a few valued friends like Herries, Melvill, Fleming, and Livingstone, not forgetting even in her grief the page "prettie" George Douglas. Her route and destination on the evening of that day are still matters of conjecture. Historians have said Dundrennan Abbey, near Kirkcudbright. Herries writes of a halt as being made at Sanquhar before proceeding to his own house at Terregles, not far from Dumfries, but on the Galloway side of the Nith. Mary herself, in the pathetic letter to Elizabeth, written from Workington, Cumberland, three days after the battle, says she rode sixty miles across country the first day :-"It is," she writes with touching simplicity, "my earnest request that your Majesty will send for me as soon as possible, for my condition is pitiable, not to say for a Queen, but even for a simple gentlewoman. I have no other dress than that in which I escaped from the field. My first day's ride was sixty miles across the country; and I have not since dared to travel except by night." Sixty miles agrees better with the Herries narrative than any other theory, and it may be that Sanquhar was the first place halted at, and reached by routes not known now, but roughly

marked out by the present road leading through East Kilbride, Strathaven, and Douglas, from which Sanquhar is distant only about twelve miles. Dundrennan could be easily reached the second day from Lord Herries's residence at Terregles, and beyond Dundrennan the Queen's movements can be traced almost daily during the long years of imprisonment which followed on carrying out the ill-advised scheme of submitting her troubles to the gracious consideration of her "Sister" Elizabeth, of England. The Regent, on returning to Glasgow with his forces, received a warm welcome from the inhabitants, attended a special thanksgiving service in the Cathedral, and was afterwards entertained by the Magistrates. Besides renewing or extending former privileges enjoyed by certain crafts, the Regent, before leaving the City, and in consideration of the uncommon exertions made by the bakers, to supply bread to the troops, working as they did not only in the mills but in their own houses, gave them a grant of what was known as the Archbishop's mill at Partick, which had then become the property of the Crown, and also a piece of land adjoining, annexed to the Royalty of Glasgow in the first session of the first Parliament of Charles II.

AUCHINLECK AND THE BOSWELLS.

LYING almost longitudinally across mid Ayrshire, but slightly to the cast or Lanark side of the country, the little strip of Auchinleck parish appears as if likely to be crushed down on Cumnock by Sorn, were it not for the soft mossy barrier which "serves it in the office of a wall, or moat defensive." This dreary upland waste, bleak and barren in itself, is yet classic as Marathon to the descendants of those who there contended to the death for religious liberty. Beginning about a mile and a half east by north-east of Auchinleck village, this battle-ground of the Covenant extends nearly six miles north-eastward towards the course of Ayr Water,

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