different
form and of unequal size, were assembled, around a large oaken table,
a group of men, of whom those who occupied the higher seats were
merchants, that is, guild brethren, or shopkeepers, arrayed in decent
dresses becoming their station, but most of them bearing, like, the
Regent York, "signs of war around their aged necks"--gorgets, namely,
and baldricks, which sustained their weapons. The lower places around
the table were occupied by mechanics and artisans, the presidents, or
deacons, as they were termed, of the working classes, in their ordinary
clothes, somewhat better arranged than usual. These, too, wore pieces
of armour of various descriptions. Some had the blackjack, or doublets
covered with small plates of iron of a lozenge shape, which, secured
through the upper angle, hung in rows above each [other], and which,
swaying with the motion of the wearer's person, formed a secure defence
to the body. Others had buff coats, which, as already mentioned, could
resist the blow of a sword, and even a lance's point, unless propelled
with great force. At the bottom of the table, surrounded as it was
with this varied assembly, sat Sir Louis Lundin; no military man, but
a priest and parson of St. John's, arrayed in his canonical dress, and
having his pen and ink before him. He was town clerk of the burgh,
and, like all the priests of the period (who were called from that
circumstance the Pope's knights), received the honourable title of
Dominus, contracted into Dom, or Dan, or translated into Sir, the title
of reverence due to the secular chivalry.

On an elevated seat at the head of the council board was placed Sir
Patrick Charteris, in complete armour brightly burnished--a singular
contrast to the motley mixture of warlike and peaceful attire exhibited
by the burghers, who were only called to arms occasionally. The bearing
of the provost, while it completely admitted the intimate connexion
which mutual interests had created betwixt himself, the burgh, and the
magistracy, was at the same time calculated to assert the superiority
which, in virtue of gentle blood and chivalrous rank, the opinions of
the age assigned to him over the members of the assembly in which he
presided. Two squires stood behind him, one of them holding the knight's
pennon, and another his shield, bearing his armorial distinctions, being
a hand holding a dagger, or short sword, with the proud motto, "This is
my charter." A handsome page disp