Gemini - Dorothy Dunnett [361]
Nicholas himself, who would have stopped him, was at Holyrood all through October, shut off from his wife and his family; locked into the sequence of events, deadly, farcical, that he had helped set in motion. Even had he desired to leave, Albany would not have allowed it. Albany had received certain promises, and was waiting, critically, to see them carried out. Only then—when restored to all his former lands and offices, when the King had bestowed upon him his dead brother’s earldom of Mar, with more honours to come—only then did Sandy’s face lose its starkness, and his daily bouts of camaraderie with the King begin to sound natural. The King, by contrast, was losing whatever ability or willingness he once had to respond. Filled with fear and bewilderment, surrounded by men he did not trust, James did what was asked of him, quite simply, lest he be killed.
A simulacrum of majesty was provided. The nationwide call to a December Parliament was sent out; but for lesser matters, where James lacked the Privy Seal or the Signet, he had recourse to his ring of the Unicorn which, it had to be noticed, was singularly similar to that often used by Adorne. By letters sealed with the unicorn, John, Lord Darnley, was thanked for his care of the King, at a time when His Majesty feared for his life, and he and all of his followers were exonerated from any suspicion of improper conduct. Lord Darnley was invited to depart, confiding the Castle to Governor Atholl, or his representative. Thus, with skill, the various factions of the garrison were exculpated, and could prepare to move out with impunity.
The besiegers received separate thanks. For the faith, loyalty, love, goodwill and cordial service which the office-bearers of the burgh of Edinburgh had, with his brother Alexander, Duke of Albany, rendered His Majesty, at the peril of their lives, by freeing him from prison in the Castle of Edinburgh, His Majesty gave, granted and perpetually confirmed to them the office of sheriff within the burgh for ever, and equally their enjoyment of the customs and moneys arising from the Port of Leith. Special prizes for good behaviour seemed to appear every day: Wattie Bertram alone got a forty-pound pension for losses sustained in the King’s name, and Dod Robieson had had his lost treasure made good, and Alex Lauder, who had removed it (to order) commanded to make restitution.
The King, it was implied, was among friends. While some had bravely detained him for his own safety, others had tried to create a climate into which the King might safely step. He was now reassuring his well-meaning captors that they would suffer no harm.
Grindingly, all the other promises were realised. On the fourteenth day of October, the Princess Mary was given life-rent of the barony of Kilmarnock, the barony of Dalry, and other Ayrshire lands which had belonged to the Boyd family of her first husband, the same to descend in feu to her son James, second Lord Boyd. No mention was made of the fact that these belonged of right to the eldest son of the King, and were presently held by the Queen as part of her dower; or that the lands of Tealing and Polgavy, which she also received, had once belonged to Anselm Adorne.
By the twenty-seventh of October, the King of England had made it known that he proposed to cancel the marriage arranged between his daughter and the Prince of Scotland, and advised the town of Edinburgh that he awaited the return, as arranged, of the dowry money. The town