ood
about began to extol and love them both, with great thanksgiving that
they both regarded the commonwealth so mickle and preferred the same to
all private quarrels and debates." The decision to which they came was
to call a Parliament, at which aggrieved persons throughout the country
might appear and make their complaints. The result was a crowd of woeful
complainants, "such as had never been seen before. There were so many
widows, bairns, and infants seeking redress for their husbands, kin, and
friends that were cruelly slain by wicked murderers, and many for
hireling theft and murder, that it would have pitied any man to have
heard the same." This clamorous and woeful crowd filled the courts and
narrow square of the castle before the old parliament-hall with a murmur
of misery and wrath, the plaint of kin and personal injury more sharp
than a mere public grief. The two rulers and their counsellors no doubt
listened with grim satisfaction, feeling their enemy delivered into
their hands, and finding a dreadful advantage in the youth and
recklessness of the victims, who had taken no precaution, and of whom it
was so easy to conclude that they were "the principal cause of these
enormities." Whether their determination to sacrifice the young Douglas,
and so crush his house, was formed at once, it is impossible to say.
Perhaps some hope of moulding his youth to their own purpose may have at
first softened the intention of the plotters. At all events they sent
him complimentary letters, "full of coloured and pointed words,"
inviting him to Edinburgh in their joint names with all the respect that
became his rank and importance. The youth, unthinking in his boyish
exaltation of any possibility of harm to him, accepted the invitation
sent to him to visit the King at Edinburgh, and accompanied by his
brother David, the only other male of his immediate family, set out
magnificently and with full confidence with his gay train of knights and
followers--among whom, no doubt, the youthful element
predominated--towards the capital. He was met on the way by
Crichton--evidently an accomplished courtier, and full of all the habits
and ways of diplomacy--who invited the cavalcade to turn aside and rest
for a day or two in Crichton Castle, where everything had been prepared
for their reception. Here amid all the feastings and delights the great
official discoursed to the young noble about the duties of his rank and
the necessity of supp