But the bird may fall from the bough of youth
And song song may be
may turn to moan
And Love's [?]
storm-cloud be the shadow of Hate
While the seething tempest waves of a troubled State
Are beating against a throne
Yet well they loved; & the god of Love
Whom well the King had sung,
Could have found no simpler truer hearts
His lowliest swains among.
From the days when first she walked
rode abroad
With Scottish maids in her train,
I, Catherine Douglas, won the trust
Of my mistress sweet Queen Jane.
And oft she sighed ‘ To be born a King!”
And oft along the way
When she saw the homely folk go
lovers past
s
She has said, “Alack the day!”
Years waned — the loving & [s?ing]
toiling years:
Till England's wrong renewed
Strong James in his this hour of bitter wrath
Drove James, by outrage cast on his crown
To the open field of feud.
Blank page
Twas when the King & his host were met
At the leaguer of Roxbro' hold,
The Queen o' the sudden sought his camp
With a tale of dread to be told
And I heard her tell in his secret ear
And she showed him a secret letter writ
That told of spoke of treasonous
storms strife,
And how many were sworn to take his life
a band of men his noblest lords
With exiled Robert Grame,
Were sworn to take his life.
“And it may be here or it may be there,
In the camp or the court, ”she said:
“But for my sake come to your people's arms
And guard your royal head.”
Quoth he, “'Tis the fifteenth day of the siege,
And the castle's nigh to yield.”
“O face
the false lords
your foes on your throne,” she
said cried,
“And show the power you wield,
And under the
your Scotish people's love
You shall sit and as under your shield.”
With
At the fair Queen's side
in her tent I
stood that day
When he bade them raise the siege,
And back to his Court he sped to know
How the lords would meet their Liege.
Stanza 15/26 has been added on this page and marked for insertion in the
text on the following facing page.
And Yet all we here that are nobly sprung
Have mourned dear kith & kin
Since first for the Scottish nobles' curse
Did your bloody reign
rule begin.
A line is drawn from the added stanza on the verso to the space between
stanzas 14 and 16.
But when he sat at his Country's throne summoned his Parliament,
The louring brows hung round,
Like clouds that circle the mountain-head
Ere the first low thunders sound.
For he had tamed the nobles' lust
And curbed their power & pride,
And reached out an arm to right the poor
Through Scotland far & wide;
And many a lordly wrong-doer
Neath By the headsman's axe had died.
Twas
t
Then up & spoke Sir Robert Graĉme,
The bold o'ermastering man—
O King, in the name of your Three Estates
I set you under their ban!
For as your lords made oath to you
Of service & fealty
Even in such
like wise you gave
pledged your oath
Their faithful sire to be—
With that he laid his hands on his King:—
“Is this not so, my lords?”
But of all who had sworn to league with him
Not one spake back to his words.
Quoth the King— Hale hence you traitor knight!
quoth the King
The Grĉme lowered fired red
dark with rage:—
“Who serves in
works for lesser men than himself
He earns but a witless wage!”
Stanza 22/5 has been added on this page and marked for insertion in
the text on the following facing page.
For the elder Prince, the Kingdom's heir,
Was foully done to death
For the elder Prince, the Kingdom's heir
By treason's murderous brood
Was slain; & the father quaked for the child
And his
With the royal mortal blood
DGR draws a line after stanza 20/31 and begins a series of additions for
the poem that are out of the composition sequence. He heads these with a
roman numeral I.
I
DGR's mark heading the series of additions to the text
But soon from the dungeon where he lay
He won by privy plots.
And forth he fled with a price on his head
To the country of the Wild Scots.
And word there came from Sir Robert Graĉme
To the King at Edinbro':
“No Liege of mine thou art; but I see
From this day forth alone in thee
God's creature, my mortal foe.
Through thee are my wife and children lost,
My heritage & lands;
And when my God shall show me a way,
Thyself my mortal foe will I slay
With these my proper hands.”
----------------------
Through all the days of his gallant youth
My princely James was pent
By his friends at first & then by his foes
In long imprisonment.
In the Bass Rock, by his father's will
Was his boyhood life assured,
And subtle Henry of
the subtle Bolingbroke,
His youth for long years immured
Proud England's King, neath the Southern yoke
His youth for long years immured.
Four horizontal lines, separating the five added stanzas, are drawn across
the page. These are late additions made by DGR when he was going back over
the whole text of the poem.
With the ?
crown the King was ?/reft
stript away
The Knight was reft of his battle-array
But still the Man was there
-----
For every man upon God's ground
His death grows up from his birth
And thine towers high, a black yew-tree,
O'er the Charterhouse of Perth!”
-----
And I saw the moon in her cloudy saison
And knew that the moon knew all.
-----
She only said, O James they are dead!
And then she knelt on the floor
And whispered low with a strange proud smile,—
“James, O James they suffered more.
----
And O James (she said) my James (she said)
Alas for the woeful thing
That a poet true and a friend of man,
In desperate days of bale and ban
Should needs be born a King.
Yet in all things for a kingly man
Himself he did he approve;
And the nightingale through his prison-bars prison [?] there
Taught him both lore and love.
For once when the bird's song drew him close
To the opened window-pane
Mid
In her bower beneath a lady stood,
A light of life to his sorrowful mood,
Like a lily amid the rain.
And for her sake, to the sweet bird's note,
He framed a sweeter Song,
More sweet than ever a poet's heart
Gave yet to the English tongue.
She was a lady of royal blood,
And when, past sorrow and teen,
He stood where for many
all his crownless years
His Scottish realm had been,
At Scone were the happy lovers crowned
A heart-wed King & Queen.
And from the hour
days when first she walked
With Scotish maids in her train,
I, Catherine Douglas, well was loved/was/must/[?]/won
the love bore true love
Of
To my mistress sweet Queen Jane.
The prose texts at the bottom of this page are DGR's notes for the verse
that comes at received stanzas 40-42.
The cloud stooped low & the surf rose high
And where there was a line of the sky,
There Wild wings loomed dark between.
-----------------------
Like iron felt my arm as through
The groove I made it pass:—
Alack! it was flesh & bone, no more!
'Twas Catherine Douglas sprang to the door
But I fell back Kate Barlass.
------------------------
Bass Rock—a peak near which stands
Tantallon Castle of the
Douglasses
[?] Inchkeith—Inchcolm—Arthur's Seat by
Salisbury Crag seen from Forth
stet
------------------------
Blank Pass of Dunbar
------------------------
The Duchray & the Dhu—2 headstreams whose
junction
forms the Forth near Ben Lomond
the junction takes place at
Aberfoyle
The Links of Forth between Stirling & Alloa
Link [?]
Against the coming of Christmastide
That year the King bade call
In
' the Black Friars' Charterhouse of Perth
A Kingly festival.
And we of his household rode with him
In a close-ranked company;
But not till the moon was high in the clouds
Did we reach the Scottish Sea.
That eve was clenched as the
for a boding storm,
Neath the moon now lost nor seen
Neath the
a moon that toiled half seen
nor seen
The cloud stooped low & the surf rose high!
And where there was a line of the sky
Wild wings loomed dark between
And when
By fits the moon sailed clear of the clouds
rack
Amid the
On high in her hollow dome
And as with hoary crests upreared
The
Each gulf-scooped waves rang home,
Like fire in snow the moonlight blazed
Amid the dazzling
champing foam.
And on a rock of the dark beach-side,
As the moon fell dim again
There was something seemed to [stir?] heave with life
As the King drew near 'mid his train
At the tread of the royal train.
Blank page
And first twas a shaken shrub, & then
A ray of bickering cloud,
And then an eagle beat to the blast,
And then a feathery fell; and last
Twas a woman old and bowed.
But it seemed as though by a fire within
Her writhen limbs were wrung
And when as soon as the King was close to her
She stood up gaunt & strong.
And she looked met his eyes with her eyes, and said
O King, thou art come at last;
But thy wraith has haunted the Scottish Sea
To my sight for long
three
four years past.
Three
Four years it is since first I met
Twixt the Duchray & the Dhu
With A shape whose feet were wrapped
clung close in a shroud
And that shape for thine I knew.
A year again, and on Inchkeith Isle
I saw thee pass in the breeze
With the cerecloth risen above thy feet
And wound about thy knees.
And yet a year, in the Links of Forth,
As a wanderer without rest,
I saw thee Thou cam'st with both thine arms i' the shroud
That [?] above
clung high upon thy breast.
The prose texts on pages [7v], [8v], [9v], and [10] were drafted by DGR
continuously. They comprise his prose notes to guide his arrangement of
events in the remainder of the ballad.
DGR's notes are continued on page [8v].
1 King of Love
2. Dream of Knight & of King
3
Christopher Chamber tries to reach King 4 times
to tell him of the
danger, but cannot.
4 Both before supper & into a quarter of
the night, they
are playing [ch?], [to tables?], [retiring?],
singing
& [?] & laughing &c.
5
The [?] wife tries to make her way to the
King but cannot, he saying he
will see her tomorrow
6 The Earl of Athole & Robert Stuart
with
many other [?] are about the King & joining
in his
[?], as well as Queen & ladies
7 An hour after the King
asked for the Voidee [& ?]
[?] all want to rest
8 The
last to go [was?] R. Stuart the Chamberlain.
He had riven &
burst the locks of the door
& draws out the bars
& bolts—About
[midnight?] he laid planks across
the ditch
[?], so that Graham &
the rest come in to the
number of 300.
9 The King standing in his nightgown before the
chamber playing with the Queen & ladies
10 He casts off his
nightgown to go to bed, but at
that moment saw the light of torches
which
[?] the clash of [armament?] & bethought him
of [Graham?]
And in this hour I find thee here
And well mine eyes may note
That the winding sheet hath left passed thy breast
And risen around thy throat.
The
And when I meet thee again, O King,
That of death hast such sore drouth,
Unless thou turn again on this shore,
The winding-sheet shall have moved once more
And covered thine eyes & mouth
O King, for whom poor folk bless the King,
Of thy fate be not so fain
But these my words for God's counsel take,
And turn thy steed, O King, for her sake
Who rides beside thy rein.
While the woman spoke, the King's horse reared
As if it wd breast the sea,
And the Queen turned pale as she heard on the gale
The voice die dolorously.
When the woman ceased, the steed was stiff
still,
But the King gazed on her yet,
And in silence save for the wailing wind
His eyes and her eyes met.
At last he said—God's ways are His own;
—Man is but shadow and dust.
Last night I prayed by His altar-stone;
To-night I speed wend to the Feast of His Son;
And in Him I set my trust.
The texts on this page continue DGR's prose notes that he initiated on
page [7v]. Stanza 53/50 is an addition scripted on this page and marked for
insertion in the text on the facing page.
And if God in His wisdom have brought close
The day when I must die
That day by water or fire or air
My feet shall fall in the destined snare
Wherever my road may lie.
---------------------
These notes are continued from page [7v].
10 Queen & ladies run to shut door but find
the locks
destroyed & bolts gone.
11 King prayed them to keep the door
while he
got ready to defend himself as he might
12 He tried to
burst the bars of the window
but they were too strongly soldered in
the
stone with moilten lead
13 He took the tongs of iron, burst up
a plank
of the floor & gets into a vault below,
&
concealed himself within
14 There was a hole at side
of vault by which he might
have escaped, but he had had it stopped up 3
days before
because when he played at the palm the ball used to
run from outside into this hole..
15 The trators were burst in
& several
ladies were wounded. They were about
I have held the poor for a sacred charge,
And have not feared the sting
Of proud men's hate, to this truth[?]
His will resigned
There is but one death for a human hind
And one for a human King.
What man can say but the Fiend hath set
Thy sorcery on my path,
My heart with the fear of death to fill,
And turn me against God's very will
To sink in His burning wrath?
[?]The woman stood as
let the train past
ed on,
And moved nor limb nor eye;
And when we took ship
were shipped we saw her face there
Still standing against the sky.
And who is/[?]ing forth
As the ship made way, the moon appear
once more
Sank slow in her rising pall,
And I thought of the shrouded wraith of the King,
And I said, “Doth the moon know all.”
And now, ye lasses, must ye hear
How my name is Kate Barlass:—
A little thing, when all the tale
Is told of the weary mass
Of crime & woe which in Scotland's realm
God's will let come to pass.
This prose text is continuous with the text on page [8v].
to kill the Queen but were prevented by Graham's
son, after which she
fled away in her kirtle with
her mantle hanging about her.
16 They
sought the King everywhere, in the litters under
the [?] &
[?] & went away.
17 The King hearing them gone, called to
the women
to come & draw him out with sheets. They
were
doing this when one Thomas Chamber
bethought him of the hiding place
& brought
the others back. They looked in with a torch
and saw the King.
18 Sir John Hall went down with a knife &
attacked
the King who was of his person & stature a man
right manly strung. The King caught him mightily
by the shoulders
& cast him under his feet
19 A brother of Hall went down
next but him the King
caught by the neck & cast him above
the other
[indecipherable text] him that long
months after the welts were still on their
throats.
20 The King tried hard to get their knives away but
so cut his
hand that he could not. Had he done
so he wd
probably have defended himself against
all until help came as it soon
did when
too late.
21. Graham came down next with a drawn
sword. The King
asked besought him for
the salvation of his soul to let him
have
a confessor. G. answered—thou shalt never
have
other confessor than
but this same sword.
He then smote him through the
body.
22 Graham, feeling remorse at the King's state
wd have left him & done him no more harm.
But
those above said they shd kill him if he
came up
without killing the King.
23 Graham & the 2 Halls then
killed him. He
had 16 wounds in his breast alone, besides others.
24 It is told in chronicles that in the same
place 3 Kings of Scots
have been slain.
25 The servants of
& commons of the town then
broke in &
the traitors fled. Before
they could get past the ditches, a
knight
named Sir David Dunbar killed one
& wounded
another, but he lost 5 fingers.
26 They fled to the highlands, but
were
all taken & executed within a month.
This page and the next carry DGR's transliterations of passages from
<hi rend="i">The Kingis Quair</hi>
, as his headnote indicates.
7, [none], 1, 2, 5
The several passages on pages 10v and 11 are numerated by DGR in the
left margin, signalling the sequence he intended for them them later in the
ballad. The second of the passages has no marginal number.
drafted
from King's Quair
Wist thou thy pain & thy travail
To come, well might'st thou weep & wail!”
---------------------
Worship ye lovers on this May
Of bliss your kalends are begun
Sing with us, away winter away,
Come summer the sweet season & sun
Awake for shame, your heaven is won,
And amorously your heads lift all
Thank love that you to his grace doth call
---------------------
The fairest and the freshest flower
That ever I saw before that hour,
The which o' the sudden made to start
The blood of my body to my heart
---------------------
Ah sweet are ye a worldly creature
Or heavenly thing in form of nature?
---------------------
And under the wheel beheld I there
An ugly pit as deep as hell
That to behold I quaked for fear
And this I heard, that who therein fell
Came no more up, tidings to tell
Whereat, astound of the fearful sight,
I wist not what to do for fright.
6, 3, 4
The several passages on pages 10v and 11 are numerated by DGR in the
left margin, signalling the sequence he intended for them them later in the
ballad.
O busy ghost that to and fro
All
Aye flickereth without peace or rest
Until to this place though camest to
Thou crav'st thy first & proper rest—
Daily so sore thou here art drest
That with thy flesh thou waileth in trouble
And sleeping is pain—so hast thou double.
---------------------
To reckon all the circumstance
As it happed when lessen gan my sore,
Of my rancour and woful chance,
It were too long, I have done therefor.
And of this flower I say no more
But unto my help her heart hath tended
And even from death her man defended.
---------------------
Unworthy but only of her grace,
Upon Love's rock that's easy & sure,
In guerdon of all my lovè's [?] space
She took me her humble creäture.
Thus fell my blissful aventure
In youth of love that from day to day
StillFlowereth aye new, and further I say.
Stanza 71/60 is added on this page and marked for insertion on the facing page.
Yet the traitor Christopher Chaumbers there
Would fain have told him all,
But
And vainly four times that night he strove
To reach the King through the hall.
'Twas in the Charterhouse of Perth
That the King and all his court
Were met, the Christmas Feast being done,
For solace & disport.
'Twas a wind-wild eve in February,
And against the window
lattice pane
The branches smote like summoning hands
And whispered
muttered the driving rain.
And the Queen was there, more stately/lovely
stately fair
Than ever I saw ere yet
a lily or violet
in garden set;
And the King was loth to stir from her side;
For as on the day when she was his bride,
Even so he loved her yet.
And the Earl of Athole the King's false friend,
Sat with him at the board;
And Robert Stuart the Chamberlain
Who had sold his sovereign lord.
But the wine is bright at the goblet's brim
Though the poison lurk beneath;
And the apples still are red on the tree
And there/that which the adder's tongue/sting may be
That shall sting/bite thy heart to death
Amid whose leaves may the adder be
That shall turn thy life to death.
Blank page
There was a knight of the King's fast friends
Whom he called the King of Love;
And to such bright cheer & courtesy
Such name might best behove.
And the King & Queen both loved him well
For his gentle knightliness;
And with him the King, as that eve wore on,
Was playing at the chess.
And the King said, (for he thought to jest
And soothe the Queen thereby)
A rede have I read
In a book 'tis writ that in this year
A King should in Scotland die.
And I have pondered the matter o'er,
And this I have I found, Sir Hugh,—
There are but two Kings on Scotish ground,
And those Kings are I and you.
And I have a wife and young babe
a newborn heir,
And you are yourself alone;
And Scotland it is that you stand up first
So stand up [?] stark at my side with me
To guard yon
our Scotish throne.
So
For here sit I and my wife & child,
As well your heart shall approve,
In full surrender & soothfastness,
Beneath your Kingdom of Love.
And the Knight laughed, & the Queen too smiled
But I knew her heavy thought
And I strove to find in the good King's
blithe jest
What cheer might thence be wrought.
Blank page
And I said, My Liege, for the Queen's dear love
Now sing the song that of old
You made, when a captive Prince you lay,
And the nightingale sang sweet on the spray,
In Windsor's castle-hold.
Then he smiled the smile I knew so well
When he thought to please the Queen;
The
That smile which still stirs that
which under all bitter frowns
Of fate that rose between,
For ever dwelt at the poet's heart
Like the
A bird of love unseen.
And he kissed the Queen and took his harp,
And the music sweetly rang
And when the song burst forth, it seemed
'Twas the nightingale that sang.
Worship, ye lovers, on this May:
Of bliss your kalends are begun,
Sing with us, Away, Winter, away!
Come, Summer, the sweet season and sun!
Awake for shame,—your heaven is won,—
And amorously your heads lift all:
Thank Love that you to his grace doth call
But when he bent to the Queen & spoke
The speech whose praise was hers,
Methought
It seemed his voice was the voice of the Spring
And the voice of the bygone years
Blank page
DGR brackets the final two stanzas on the page and marks them,
respectively in the left margin, 2, 1: to indicate that their order should
be inverted.
The fairest & the freshest flower
That ever I saw before that hour,
The which o' the sudden made to start
The blood of my body to my heart.
**************
Ah sweet, are you an a worldly creature
Or heavenly thing in form of nature?
And the song was long, and richly stored
With beauty of wondrous
wonder & beauteous things,
But when he spoke of the Queen at the last And the harp was tuned
to every change
Of minstrel ministerings;
But when he spoke
sang of the Queen at the last,
Its strings were his own heartstrings.
To reckon all the circumstance
As it happed when lessen gan my sore,
Of my rancour and woful chance,
It were too long,—I have done therefor.
And of this flower I say no more
But unto my help her heart hath tended
And even from death her man defended.
Unworthy but only of her grace,
Upon Love's rock that's easy & sure,
In guerdon of all my love's space
She took me her humble creature.
Thus fell my blissful aventure
In youth of love that from day to day
Flowereth aye new, and further I say.
Blank page
Yes Aye, even from death, to myself I said
And the I thought of the day when she
Had brought him the news, at Roxbro' siege,
Of the fell confederacy.
But oh Death's smile was grim as he sang
But Death even then took
aim as he sang
With an arrow deadly bright;
And the grinning skull lurked grimly aloof,
And the wings were spread far over the roof
More dark than the winter night.
Yet truly along the amorous song
Of Love's high pomp & state,
There were words of Fortune's trackless call doom
And the dreadful face of Fate.
And oft how my soul in [?]
And oft have I heard again in thought
dreams
The voice of dire appeal
In which the King then sang of the pit
That is under Fortune's wheel.
And under the wheel beheld I there
An ugly pit as deep as hell,
That to behold I quaked for fear:
And this I heard, that who therein fell
Came no more up, tidings to tell:
Whereat, astound of the fearful sight,
I wist not what to do for fright.
Stanza 98/87 is drafted on this page and marked for insertion in the text
on the facing page.
And her fair face was a rosy red,
The very red of the rose
That couched on the happy gardenbed,
In the summer sunlight glows.
And oft has my thought called up again
These words of the changeful song:—
“Wist thou thy pain and thy travàil
To come, well might'st thou weep and wail!”
And our wail, O God! is long.
But the song's end was all of his love;
And well his heart was grac'd
With the smile that filled
sprang from her lips and eyes
As his arm went round her waist.
And on the swell of her long fair throat
Close clung the necklet chain
As in the warmth of his love & pride
He bent her pearl-tir'd head aside,
And kissed her lips again.
And all the wondrous things of love
That sang so sweet in
through the song
Were in the look that met in their eyes,
And the look was deep and long.
Then/Now
Twas then a knock was heard
came at the outer gate,
And the usher sought the King.
The woman you met by the Scotish Sea,
My Liege, would tell you a thing;
And she says that her present need for speech
Will bear no gainsaying
And the King said —The hour is late,
Tomorrow will serve, I ween.
Then he called
charged the usher back
strictly, & said:
But speak No word of this to the Queen
Blank page
But the usher came again to the King.
Shall I call her back? quoth he:
For as she went on her way, she cried,
Woe woe then the thing must be!
And the King paused, but said not a word
he did not speak
Then he called for the voidee-cup
And as we heard the twelfth hour strike
There by true lips & false lips alike
Was the draught of trust drained up.
Then/And
So with reverence meet to King & Queen,
To bed went all from the board,
And the last to leave of the courtly train
Was Robert Stuart the chamberlain
Who had sold his sovereign lord.
And all the locks of the chamber-door
Had the traitor riven & brast;
And that Fate might win sure way/murder of one/one
word my foot might [?]
Fate might win sure way from afar,
He had drawn out every bolt and bar
That made the entrance fast.
And now at midnight he stole his way
To the moat of the outer wall,
And closely he laid strong planks across
Where the murderers step
traitors' tread should fall.
But we that were the Queen's bower-maids
Alone were left behind;
And with heed with we drew the curtains close
Against the winter wind.
Blank page
And now that all was still through the hall,
More clearly we heard s[?]
the rain
The drops t
That clamoured ever against the glass
And the boughs that smote
beat on the pane.
But the fire was bright in the inglenook,
And through empty space around
The shadows cast on the arras'd wall
'Mid the pictured [?]
kings stood sudden & tall
Like spectres sprung from the ground.
And the bed was dight in a far
deep alcove;
And as he stood by the fire
The King was still in talk with the Queen
While he doffed his goodly attire.
And the song had brought the image back
Of many a bygone year;
And many a loving thing they said
With hand in hand & head laid to head;
And none of us went anear.
But Love was weeping outside the house,
A child in the piteous rain;
And as he watched the arrow of d
Death,
He wailed with his for his own shafts close in the sheath
That never should fly again.
Blank page
And now beneath the window arose
A strange
wild voice suddenly:
And the King reared straight, but the Queen fell back
As for bitter dule to dree;
And all of us knew the woman's voice
Who spoke by the Scotish Sea.
O King, she cried, in an evil hour
They drove me from thy gate;
And yet my voice must rise to thine ears,
But alas! it comes too late.
Through nights agone, by Aberdour,
When the moon was dead in the skies,
O King, in a death-light of thine own
I saw thy shape arise.
And in full season, as erst I said,
The spell
doom had gained its growth,
And the shroud had risen above thy neck
And covered thine eyes and mouth.
Since then have I journeyed fast & fain
To save thee from thy fate,
If this should still be found in God's will,
But they drove me from thy
e gate.
For every man on God's ground, O King,
His death grows up from his birth
And thine towers high, a black yew-tree,
O'er the Charterhouse of Perth!
Stanza 123/113 is scripted on this page and marked for insertion on the
facing page.
And all we women rushed
flew to the door
And thought to have made it fast;
But the bolts were gone & the bars were gone
And the locks were riven & brast.
That room was built far out from the house;
And none but we in the room
Might hear the voice that rose beneath,
Nor the sound
the tread of the coming doom.
For now came there came a torchlight-glare,
And a clang of arms there came;
And not a soul in the room
[???] but thought
Of the foe Sir Robert Grĉme.
Yea, from the country of the Wild Scots,
Had rushed down the [?]
From O'er mountain, valley & glen,
There had come by the
He had brought with him in murderous league
Three hundred armèd men.
The King knew all in an instant's thought
flash
And once he glared around
And like a King did he stand;
But there was no armour in all the room,
Nor weapon lay to his hand.
And he caught the pale pale Queen in his arms
As the iron footsteps fell,—
One kiss he gave to her brow & said
Then loosed her, standing alone, and said
That bliss was our farewell.
And 'twixt his lips he murmured a prayer,
And he crossed his brow & breast;
And proudly in royal hardihood
With visage set & hands clenched
There with set teeth & clenched hands he stood
The prize of the bloody quest.
Blank page.
Then on me leaped the Queen like a deer—
O Catherine he must hide,
And I felt the strength of a mighty man
As [?]
wildly across the room I ran—
And reached her husband's side
And the iron tongs from the chimney-nook
I snatched, nor my hand did shake
But up a plank of the room I wrenched & tore
And I pointed down through the open floor
And said, My Liege, for her sake.
And he looked to the Queen, & then he came,
For her hands were clenched in prayer;
And down he sprang to the inner crypt
And straight I closed the plank I had ripped
And strewed the rushes there
(Alas! in that crypt
vault a gap once was
Through which
Wherethrough the King might have fled:
But three days since close-walled it had
it been
By his will; for the ball would roll therein
When without at the palm he play'd—)
And louder ever the voices grew,
And the tramp of men in mail—
Until to my brain it seemed to be
As though I tossed on a ship at sea
In the teeth of a crashing gale.
Blank page.
And
Then back I flew to the rest; and hard
All strove with sinews knit
To drag the table against the door;
But we might not compass it.
And now the tread
rush was [?]
heard on the stair
And “God, what help?” did we cry.
And I looked at the empty staple-holds,
And no bar but my arm had I.
Like iron felt my arm, as through
The groove I made it pass—
Alack! it was flesh & bone, no more!
Twas Catherine Douglas sprang to the door,
But I fell back Kate Barlass.
And With that they all thronged into the hall
Half dim to my failing ken;
And the space that was but a void before
Was a throng
crowd of raging men.
Behind the door I had fall'n and lay,
Yet my sense was wildly aware,
And despite the pain of my shattered arm
I never fainted there.
And one of them knew the Queen, & cried
Say Where, woman, where is
Now tell us, where is
thy lord?
And he
Blank page.
And round the chamber they stamped
And beneath the arras
& under
under the litters & through the bed
And within the presses all
They sought in vain for the King, and pierced
The arras around the wall.
And through the chamber they stamped & stormed
Like lions prowl[?]
loose in the lair,
And scarce could they yield faith to their
trust to their very eyes
For lo! the
behold! no King was not there.
Then one of them seized the Queen, & cried
Now tell us, where is thy lord?
And he held the sharp point close to her heart:
But she answered never a word.
With that the sword grazed her true true breast:
But Sir Robert Graham's son
Said “This is a woman,—we seek a man—
And that foul deed was not done.
And forth flowed all the throng like a sea,
And 'twas empty space once more
And I turned my eyes to the wounded Queen
As I lay behind the door.
And I said, Dear Lady, leave me here,
For I cannot help/save [?]
help you now
But fly while you may & none shall reck
Of my place here lying low.
Blank page.
And she said—My Catherine, God thee
help thee!
Then she looked to the distant floor,
And she clasped her hands, O God help him,
She said, for we can no more.
But God He knows what help may mean
If it mean to live or to die,
And what great sorrow and what sore moan
On earth it may need ere yet a throne
Be reached in His house on high.
And now the ladies fled with the Queen
And thorough the open door
The nightwind wailed in
round the empty room
And the rushes shook on the floor
And the bed stood dark in the deep recess
Whence the arras was rent away
And the fire still glowed across the boards
light still shone over the space
Where our hidden secret lay.
And the rain had ceased, and the moonbeams lit
The window high in the wall,
And on the very
Bright beams that on the plank that I knew
Through the painted pane did fall
And glowed with the splendour of Scotland's crown
And shield armorial.
Blank page.
But now
then a great wind swept up the skies,
And the climbing moon fell back;
And high in the darkening
ed window-pane
The shield & the crown were black.
And what I say next I partly heard
And partly I saw in sooth,
And partly since from the murderers' lips
The torture wrung the truth.
For now again came the armèd tread,
And fast through the chamber
hall it fell;
But the throng was less; and ere I saw
By the voice without I could tell
That Robert Stuart had come with them
Who knew that chamber well.
And over the space the Grĉme strode dark
With his mantle mid[?]
round him flung
And in his eye was a flaming light
But not a word on his tongue.
And Stuart held a torch to the floor,
And he found the thing he sought;
And they wrenched the plank away with their swords;
And O God! I fainted not!
And the traitor held his torch in the gap,
All smoking & flickering smouldering;
And through the vapour & fire, beneath
In the dark crypt's narrow ring,
With a shout that rang to the room's high roof
They saw their naked King.
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All naked he stood, yet
but stood as one
Who yet could do and dare:
With the crown, the King was stript away,—
The Knight was reft of his battle-array,—
But still the Man was there.
There was a villain among the rout,—
Sir John Hall was his name;
And he was/he was the first to leap in the vault
With a naked knife he leapt to the vault
Beneath the torchlight-flame.
Of his person & stature was the King
A man right manly strong,
And mightily by the shoulders blades/ there
-blades
His foe neath his feet he flung.
Then the traitor's brother, Sir Thomas Hall,
Leaped Sprang down with a naked knife
to work his worst
But
And the King took
caught the second man by the neck
And flung him above the first.
And he smote and trampled them under him
And a long month thence they bare
All black their throats with the grip of his hands
When the hangman's hand came there.
And sore he strove to have had their knives,
But the sharp blades gashed his hands.
Oh James, with that aid
so armed thou hadst striven
battled there
Till help had come of thy bands
And oh! once more thou hadst won the
held our throne
And ruled thy Scotish lands.
Blank page.
But while the stout King o'er his foes
still fought
Still [?] all naked & [?]With a strength they could yet tame
With a heart that nought could tame
Another man leaped sprang down to the crypt;
And with his sword in his hand hard-gripp'd,
There stood Sir Robert Grĉme stood there
And the naked King stood up
turned round at bay
But his strength had passed the goal,
And he could but gasp, Mine hour is come;
But oh! to succour thine own soul's doom,
Let a priest now shrive my soul!
And the traitor smiled at
looked on the King's spent strength,
F[?] say [?]
And said: I Have I held my word?—
Yea, King, the mortal pledge that I gave?
No black friar's shrift thy soul shall have,
But the shrift of this red sword!
With that he smote his King through the breast;
And all they three in that pen
Fell on him and stabbed him oer and oer
Like merciless murderous men.
Yet is it said that Sir Robert Grĉme,
Ere now the King's last hour
breath was o'er,
Was
Turned sick at heart with the deadly deed
sight
And would have done no more.
But a cry came from the troop above,
If him thou do not slay,
The price of his life that thou dost spare
Thy forfeit life shall pay.
Blank page.
O God! what more did I hear or see,
And Or how can I tell the rest?
But there [???]
at length did the King lay slain
With sixteen wounds in his breast.
Then a sudden bell sang loud through the town
And
And now too late
did a bell boom forth
And the murderers turned & fled
And I heard the true men mustering round,
And the cries & the coming tread.
But ere they came, to the black death-gap
Somewise did I creep and steal,
And lo! or ever I swooned away,
In
Through the dusk I saw where the white face lay
In the Pit of Fortune's Wheel.
---------------------------
And now, ye Scotish maids who have heard
The tale I could unfold,
Even at the last, of true Queen Jane
Some words may yet be told,
And how she dealt for her dear lord's sake
Dire vengeance manifold.
'Twas in the Charterhouse of Perth,
In the royal high chapelle,
That the King's fair corpse was laid in state
With chaunt & requiem-knell.
Blank page.
And all embalmed with royal wealth
Was the body purified,
And none could trace on the brow & lips
The death that he had died.
And in his knightly
royal robes he lay
With orb & sceptre in hand;
And by the crown he wore on his throne
Was his goodly/splendid
kingly forehead spann'd.
And, girls, twas a goodly sight to see
How the curling golden hair,
As in the day of the poet's youth
From the King's crown clustered there
And if all had come to pass in the brain
That throbbed beneath those curls
Then Scots had said in the days to come
That this their soil was a different home
And a different Scotland, girls—
And the helm & brand he lacked so sore
In the night of his dreadful need
With his shield & spear hung over his bier
For a token of warlike deed—
And the Queen sat by him night & day,
And oft she knelt in prayer
All wan & pale in her
the widow's veil
That shrouded her shining hair.
Blank page.
And I had got good help of my hurt:
And to me alone made the sign,
And save the priests that were round the bier,
No face would she see but mine.
And every morn & eve I brought
To her arms her little son,
And once she would murmured [???]
under her breath
My God must he mount a throne?
And she'd hold his face by his father's face
And wept & almost smiled
To see again her dear dead King
Reborn in her little child.
And the month of March wore on apace;
And now fresh couriers fared
Still from the country of the Wild Scots
With news of the traitors snared
And still as I told her day by day,
Her pallor changed to sight,
And the frost was turned
grew to a furnace flame
That burnt her visage white
And evermore as I brought her word
She bent to her dead King James
And close into his ear with teeth close set hard
She spoke the traitors' names.
But when the name of Sir Robert Grĉme
Was the one she had to give
I ran to hold her up from the floor,
For the froth was on her lips, & sore
I feared that she could not live.
Stanza 179 is scripted on this page and marked for insertion at the top of the
facing page.
Some sleep that night for the first time yet
She took by her husband's bier
For first that that night for her vengeance' sake
Like the beacon fire was her soul awake
While the foemen still/yet
still were near.
And the month of March wore nigh to its end,
And still was the death pall spread
For she would not bury her slaughtered King
Till all his foes were dead.
And now of their dooms dread tidings came,
And of torments stark & dire;
And nought she spake,—she had ceased to speak
But her eyes were a soul on fire.
And now I heard how the felon Graeme
With torments fiercely riven
Had cried at length—if by this your deed
To curse God's name I am driven
I summon you all at the last dread Day
To answer my crime to Heaven.
Then I said—Grant Death, for mercy's sake!
She looked up once, & no more
I [?]
started for it [???]
struck[?] at the heart
To see
behold the face she wore.
But when the news came of the bitter end
Of the stern & just award
She bent o'er the bier, & thrice three times
She kissed the lips of her lord.
And then
once she said— O James they are dead!
And then she knelt on the floor,
And whispered low with a strange proud smile
James James, they suffered more
Last she stood up to her queenly height,
But she shook like an autumn leaf,
As if the fire wherein she burned
Then left her body, and all were turned
To winter of life-long grief
And O James (she said) My James (she said)
Alas for the woful thing
That a poet true & a friend of man,
In desperate days of bale & ban,
Should needs be born a King!