etermined the fight called Clear the Causeway, and wrought much
harm to his own party. He had been high in favour for a time, probably
on the ground of his enmity to the house of Angus, then had fallen into
discredit, but had lately been employed in certain public offices, and
if we may trust Pitscottie, had been put into some such position by the
priests as that which Saul of Tarsus held in the service of the
persecuting ecclesiastics of Jerusalem. At all events his sudden
accusation as plotting against the King's life, and especially as doing
so in the interests of the Douglases, was evidently as startling and
extraordinary to the great officials to whom the communication was made
as it would be to the reader who has heard of this personage only as the
infuriated opponent of Angus and his party. No credence seems to have
been given to the story at first, though it was told by another
Hamilton, a cousin of the culprit. As this happened, however, in the
King's absence from Edinburgh, the lords thought it a wise precaution to
secure Sir James, and, according to Pitscottie, proceeded in their own
dignified persons--the Lord Treasurer, Secretary, and "Mr. Household,"
preceded by Lyon King-of-Arms--to his lodging in Edinburgh, whence they
conveyed him to the castle. Such arrestations would probably cause but
little excitement, only a momentary rush and gazing of the crowd as the
group with its little band of attendants and defenders passed upward
along the High Street, the herald's tabard alone betraying its
character. Sir James Hamilton, however, was very well known and little
loved, and small would be the sympathy in the looks of the citizens, and
many the stern nods and whispers of satisfaction that vengeance had
seized him at length. The King, like his representatives, was astonished
by the accusation, but when he heard of the terrible "dittay" which had
been brought against Hamilton "he came suddenly out of Falkland, where
His Grace was for the time, and brought the said Sir James out of the
castle to the Tolbooth, and gave him fair assize of the lords and
barons, who convicted him of sundry points of treason; and thereafter he
was headed and quartered, and his lands annexed to the Crown."

It is a curious question, which however none of the historians think of
asking, whether there could be any connection between the scheme, if
any, for which the Lady Glamis suffered, and this wholly unexpected
outbreak of murderous in