The Spitfire (34 page)

“Yet men give women they do not love children, do they not, my lord?”

“Aye, yet men give women they do not love children.”

“You have, my lord.”

“I hae been more careful than most,” Tavis Stewart answered honestly, “but ye know that I hae three bairns by lasses in my villages. There are two lads, and one little lass.”

“Do you ever see them, my lord?”

“When I am in the neighborhood, aye. I hae denied none of them, for having got them on their mothers, they are my responsibility,” the earl told his wife.

“You are such a good man,” she purred in a deceptively sweet voice, and then rolling over, she raised herself up, looked down into his face with a smile, and grabbing a handful of his dark hair, yanked it with all her might. “There will be no more lasses in the villages, my lord, lest you incur my undying wrath!” She pulled his hair a second time for emphasis.

“Owww!” Tavis Stewart yelped, for she was not gentle.

“Say it, my lord!
No more lasses!”
Arabella demanded.

“No more lasses,” he agreed with a rueful grin, reaching up to caress her bare breasts. “How could I want any other, spitfire, when I hae ye for my wife?” The softness of her skin, the fact that her pretty nipples were puckering with arousal, set his own pulses racing. Wrapping an arm about her waist, he tumbled her onto her back once more and drew her skirt and petticoats off. Naked now but for her stockings with their ribboned garters, his wife was a most fetching sight.

“The fire’s gone out,” Arabella said softly, “and the chamber is chilled, my lord.”

The earl arose from the bed, and going to the fireplace, rebuilt the blaze. Then turning, he removed his shirt, his kilt, and the rest of his garments. “I’ll warm ye, lovey,” he replied low.

Arabella Stewart held out her hand to her husband. “Come to bed, my lord,” she told him. “Ye’ve scarce begun to welcome me home.”

With a smile of delight, the Earl of Dunmor joined his wife.

Chapter Thirteen

Pope Innocent granted the petition of King James III of Scotland in the matter of Coldingham Priory. After all, had not King James sought out and then sent abroad to learn their art the finest musicians in Scotland? He had. Did not King James encourage the collegiate churches to form choirs and to craft instruments, all of which were promoted as an inspiring part of the church services to the greater glory of God? He had. The pope, being advised of all of this, as well as the king’s own devoutness and the devoutness of his late queen, Margaret, was favorably disposed toward Scotland’s king.

The king had also requested of the pope that he have the authority from Rome—Scotland being so far from it, and from the Rota—to choose and select for himself all aspirants for ecclesiastic offices, and to have domain over the funds attached to those church appointments. His earls would no longer have the opportunity to use the church’s authority for their own designs. This, too, the pope granted King James III.

Suddenly, like a master games player, the king was exerting his royal authority, and his earls, for the most part, did not like it. For all their complaints, they were more comfortable with an indecisive James Stewart, for it gave them the excuse to run wild in defiance of the king’s wishes. The
new
James was not at all to their taste. He threatened their authority in matters that they had always considered to be in their own personal jurisdiction.

The king, however, had the enthusiastic support of his parliament for probably the first time in his entire reign. There were some among the nobility who agreed with his stand, and the clergy were certainly on his side, but it was from the members of the Third Estate within the parliament that the king received his strongest support. These upright representatives of the growing middle class and the poor were greatly encouraged to see the king taking charge and attempting to put his realm in order at last. They had for too long suffered at the hands of the earls.

In an effort to aid the king, the parliament passed an act making it a treasonable offense to challenge James III with respect to his acquisition of Coldingham Priory. The Earl of Home, his brother—the now displaced prior of Coldingham—and their kinsman Patrick Hepburn—LairdHailes—were suddenly gone from court. James III sent his herald to Home Castle with a harsh message demanding their immediate return. The Homes were in contempt of parliament. The King’s herald, to hear him tell it upon his return to Edinburgh, barely escaped with his life. The Homes had torn up the Royal Warrant, boxed his ears, and stripped him of his cloak of office before sending him away.

“There will be war before summer,” the Earl of Angus told Tavis Stewart. “Home will nae accept this decision, and Jemmie hae gone too far now to retreat or even compromise. We’ll soon hae no choice and will hae to choose sides ourselves. The king hae already sent the prince to Stirling.”

“Jamie?” the Earl of Dunmor asked.

“Aye. Ormond and young John are wi’ their sire, but Jamie hae been sent away. He is nae allowed outside the castle gates, and can only walk upon the ramparts and fly his falcons for exercise, I am told,” Archibald Douglas replied.

“Poor lad,” Tavis sympathized. “He grows so irritable if too many days go by and he canna ride.” Then he pierced the Earl of Angus with a sharp look. “And what will ye do, Archie, when ye must choose sides?”

“Like ye, Tavis, I will wait and see. I dinna find treason a pleasant thought.”

Arabella, sitting at the highboard with the two men, was strangely silent, for she usually had an opinion on everything. In her own mind she had examined the situation and found that although the king was lacking in many ways, he was a good man and should not be threatened by his nobility for acting in Scotland’s best interests and not theirs. Angus was so certain of some sort of military encounter. The thought of war frightened her. She had lost her father to war. The thought of losing her husband did not please her.

In late January the Earl of Home, along with Lords Lyle and Grey and the Hepburn of Hailes came to Stirling Castle at the head of a large body of men. Lord Home, for all his anger toward the long over Coldingham Priory, was a decent man known for his honesty as well as his boldness. The prince welcomed him, or so it appeared to those who viewed the encounter. Master John Shaw, the governor of the castle, admitted the earl and his party despite the king’s express orders that no one, except those coming under royal insignia, be admitted. Master Shaw was not a rebel. He was just so overcome by the Earl of Home’s powers of reason and great charm that he forgot he would have to answer to the king for Prince James’ departure.

Several hours later the prince, dressed all in scarlet, left Stirling Castle at the head of the great troop of men. Behind him rode the Earl of Home, Lords Hailes, Lyle, and Grey. As they exited the castle ramp, their men, seeing the prince leading the four lords, cheered, as did the castle’s guard. A small girl, known for her gift of second sight, daughter of one of the castle guards, called out after the prince in the Celtic tongue, “Blessings on ye, O King!” but young Jamie Stewart did not stop to acknowledge her words, if he even heard them. Those about the child, however, were shaken.

The prince and his adherents went to Linlithgow Palace, where they set up their headquarters and waited, but nothing happened. Scotland’s lords were strangely silent as they mulled over this turn of events. Suddenly they were not certain of anything, for though James III did not suit them, the prince was young. Perhaps too young to rule. Jamie Stewart and his supporters sat waiting at Linlithgow for those who never came, while the king went north to Aberdeen to reassure himself of the loyalty of the northern lords, all the while ignoring his eldest son and his heir’s precipitous behavior.

February was gray and grim, with periods of snow followed by periods of mild weather that left the countryside a thawed mush. Word came to Dunmor Castle that the prince was ill.

“It hae ever been thus,” the Earl of Dunmor told his wife. “Jamie hae the constitution of a bull when he is happy, but let him be unhappy, and he suffers physically from a flux of the bowels, aches and pains in his head, neck, and joints.”

“It is his own guilty conscience,” Arabella said unsympathetically. “He is in defiance of his own father and consorting with those who would rebel against the king. I wish you could go to him and tell him so, but I know you cannot.”

“Nay, I canna,” he agreed. “If I were to show myself at Linlithgow, there would be those who would say I was supporting my nephew, and in opposition to my brother.”

March brought better weather, and the prince, his health improved, celebrated his birthday. His greatest gift was the arrival of the Earl of Angus to his banner, to be followed shortly thereafter by the Earl of Argyll. The kings of England and France, however, sent messages of reprimand to Prince James for his seeming rebellion against his father. The king, in the company of his northern lords and their armies, came to within five miles of Linlithgow, the royal army camping beside the Firth of Forth while the king took up residence in a nearby castle.

A skirmish was fought, the prince’s army being led by the Earl of Angus, while the Earl of Home, to his immense irritation, was forced to remain at Linlithgow protecting the prince. A truce was negotiated in which the king would relinquish his full powers to his eldest son and heir, who would act as regent until he was considered old enough to be crowned king, at which point James III would abdicate in the son’s favor. The agreement, attested to by four witnesses for either side, was signed and sealed, but the king, upon his return to Edinburgh, disavowed the agreement and announced that he would fight his son first before he turned over his kingdom to him. The Earl of Dunmor finally sent his nephew a message of support, albeit reluctantly.

“How can you support him against your own brother?” Arabella demanded of her husband.

“Jemmie is nae longer worthy of my support,” Tavis Stewart said grimly. “He did nae hae to sign that agreement wi’ Jamie, but he did. He was, therefore, by all the laws of chivalry, bound to keep his word. For God’s sake, Arabella, he is the king! If the king canna keep his word, then what can the world expect of such a king? He hae lost his creditability.”

“He is your brother,”
she said furiously, “and he is God’s chosen King of Scotland. When you rebel against your brother, you not only commit the sin of Cain, you defy God’s will!”

“I will nae support a man who canna keep his word,” Tavis Stewart said.

“And I cannot support your rebellious nephew,” she answered him.

“I speak for the Stewarts of Dunmor,” the earl told his wife.

“You do not speak for me, my lord,” she replied angrily.

“Aye, I will admit to that,” he agreed, “for nae one knowing ye, Arabella Stewart, would say ye were wi’ out a tongue of yer own.”

The Countess of-Dunmor reached for the nearest object to come to hand, a silver candlestick, and threw it with her unerring aim, directly at her husband, who, after almost three years of marriage to the woman he called his “wee English spitfire”, had considerably sharpened reflexes and ducked.

The prince sent word throughout Scotland that he was at odds with an unjust king. He invited all who would support him to join him, and Tavis Stewart left Dunmor with a thousand men following his banner and in his wake. It was not considered a large force, for the great northern earls and their counterparts in the borders could muster easily up to thirty thousand clansmen to follow them, but it was considered psychologically important that the king’s beloved half brother was supporting his nephew rather than his elder sibling, who had always been so good to him.

It was openly acknowledged, however, that the Countess of Dunmor supported the king and had quarreled violently and publicly with her husband prior to his going. In this opinion she stood alone, for even her husband’s stepfather and half brothers followed Prince James and his forces to victory at Saunchieburn on the eleventh day of June in the year of our Lord, 1488. There was a shadow upon the new king’s victory, however. James III, having been convinced by his advisors to leave the battlefield after the battle was well under way and obviously lost, had been found murdered beside the millstream of Bannockburn. There were five stab wounds to his chest and stomach, any one of which could have been the death blow. He was buried quickly, but with honor.

On the twenty-fifth day of the month, King James IV was crowned at Scone. It was a hurried affair, for the Scots feared the English king might try to intervene. The new king’s younger brothers—the other James, who was now Duke of Ross, and young John—were brought to join their sibling lest some unhappy faction use them against their eldest brother, which was entirely possible. Scotland’s lords were already feuding even as the new king was being crowned.

There had been no parliament yet to appoint the new office holders, and there was, therefore, no new order of precedence. The earls and the other nobles fought for places like jealous children. The Earl of Angus was insulted by the Earl of Home’s proprietary manner, for despite the fact that Archibald Douglas had been acting as the new king’s regent, Home considered that since he had taken the former prince from Stirling in January, the act that precipitated the events leading up to today, he was the greater of the two. Home had also quarreled with his brother, the Prior of Coldingham at this point, and the Earl of Argyll was no longer on speaking terms with Lord Grey, although no one knew why. At least a third of Scotland’s nobility were not in attendance at Scone, and a number of bishops were missing as well. The young king, in an effort to give some semblance of dignity to his coronation, banned all from the chapel of Scone at his anointing, save his two younger brothers. His lords, however, noisily jostled with one another in the doorway, craning their necks in an attempt to see the king as he was anointed, murmuring loudly with their discontent over their banishment.

Afterward, in the Great Hall of Scone, James IV sat calmly accepting the Rite of Fealty from Scotland’s lords, both great and small. The king was garbed in all black. Above him the clan banners of all those present swung almost imperceptibly in the air currents caused by the heat of the day rising from the hall and the open windows. The largest banner, however, was the king’s own, the Lion Rampant, gold upon blood red.

When the Earl of Dunmor, coming last, had given his oath to his nephew, the young king raised his uncle from his knees himself, saying, “I thank ye, Tavis Stewart, for yer fealty and for yer support of my cause. I know how verra much ye loved my father.”

“Ye loved him too, laddie,” the earl said. “None of this was yer doing, but ye would be well advised to exercise yer authority over yon pack of unruly dogs immediately, else ye find yerself in yer father’s position one day, but perhaps nae. Jemmie was a hard man to know, but ye hae yer mother’s charm and sweetness about ye. Just be strong, laddie.”

The prince nodded. “I will take yer advice, Uncle, for ‘tis both good and honest advice, lovingly given.” Then his blue eyes twinkled. “I hae heard that yer countess did nae agree wi’ ye in our cause.”

The Earl of Dunmor flushed and muttered, “Ye know Arabella hae a mind of her own, yer majesty. I canna seem to curb her.”

“Perhaps ye should nae, Uncle. I like yer wife the way she is, and I suspect ye do too. If ye change her, she will nae be the woman ye love,” the king said wisely.

Tavis Stewart chuckled. “Aye, yer right, nephew.” He hesitated a moment, and then he said, “Just one more word of advice, Jamie Stewart. Ye intend stripping Ramsey of his earldom, do ye nae?”

The king nodded. “I do,” he replied low.

“Then gie the earldom of Bothwell to Patrick Hepburn. Home is a good man, but he hae a tendency to get above himself, and he is riding perhaps a wee bit too high at the moment. The Hepburn of Hailes will balance him off nicely. Since they’re related, there should be no bad blood between them over this, and besides, Hepburn hae earned his earldom. He’s a true border lord, and a good man in a fight.”