stils
The stirring memory of a thousand years.

BYRON.

We must now leave the lower parties in our historical drama, to attend
to the incidents which took place among those of a higher rank and
greater importance.

We pass from the hut of an armourer to the council room of a monarch,
and resume our story just when, the tumult beneath being settled, the
angry chieftains were summoned to the royal presence. They entered,
displeased with and lowering upon each other, each so exclusively filled
with his own fancied injuries as to be equally unwilling and unable
to attend to reason or argument. Albany alone, calm and crafty, seemed
prepared to use their dissatisfaction for his own purposes, and turn
each incident as it should occur to the furtherance of his own indirect
ends.

The King's irresolution, although it amounted even to timidity, did not
prevent his assuming the exterior bearing becoming his situation. It
was only when hard pressed, as in the preceding scene, that he lost his
apparent composure. In general, he might be driven from his purpose, but
seldom from his dignity of manner. He received Albany, Douglas, March,
and the prior, those ill assorted members of his motley council, with a
mixture of courtesy and loftiness, which reminded each haughty peer that
he stood in the presence of his sovereign, and compelled him to do the
beseeming reverence.

Having received their salutations, the King motioned them to be seated;
and they were obeying his commands when Rothsay entered. He walked
gracefully up to his father, and, kneeling at his footstool, requested
his blessing. Robert, with an aspect in which fondness and sorrow were
ill disguised, made an attempt to assume a look of reproof, as he laid
his hand on the youth's head and said, with a sigh, "God bless thee, my
thoughtless boy, and make thee a wiser man in thy future years!"

"Amen, my dearest father!" said Rothsay, in a tone of feeling such as
his happier moments often evinced. He then kissed the royal hand, with
the reverence of a son and a subject; and, instead of taking a place at
the council board, remained standing behind the King's chair, in such a
position that he might, when he chose, whisper into his father's ear.

The King next made a sign to the prior of St. Dominic to take his place
at the table, on which there were writing materials, which, of all the
subjects present, Albany excepted, the churchman was alone able to use.
The