en
the turn of the Cordons to draw back, seeing which, the northern clans
rallied and returned to the fight, each soldier having a sprig of heather
in his cap that his comrades might recognise him. This unexpected
movement determined the day: the Highlanders ran down the hillside like a
torrent, dragging along with them everyone who could have wished to
oppose their passage. Then Murray seeing that the moment had come for
changing the defeat into a rout, charged with his entire cavalry: Huntly,
who was very stout and very heavily armed, fell and was crushed beneath
the horses' feet; John Cordon, taken prisoner in his flight, was executed
at Aberdeen three days afterwards; finally, his brother, too young to
undergo the same fate at this time, was shut up in a dungeon and executed
later, the day he reached the age of sixteen.

Mary had been present at the battle, and the calm and courage she
displayed had made a lively impression on her wild defenders, who all
along the road had heard her say that she would have liked to be a man,
to pass her days on horseback, her nights under a tent, to wear a coat of
mail, a helmet, a buckler, and at her side a broadsword.

Mary made her entry into Edinburgh amid general enthusiasm; for this
expedition against the Earl of Huntly, who was a Catholic, had been very
popular among the inhabitants, who had no very clear idea of the real
motives which had caused her to undertake it: They were of the Reformed
faith, the earl was a papist, there was an enemy the less; that is all
they thought about. Now, therefore; the Scotch, amid their acclamations,
whether viva voce or by written demands, expressed the wish that their
queen, who was without issue by Francis II, should re-marry: Mary agreed
to this, and, yielding to the prudent advice of those about her, she
decided to consult upon this marriage Elizabeth, whose heir she was, in
her title of granddaughter of Henry VII, in the event of the Queen of
England's dying without posterity. Unfortunately, she had not always
acted with like circumspection; for at the death of Mary Tudor, known as
Bloody. Mary, she had laid claim to the throne of Henry VIII, and,
relying on the illegitimacy of Elizabeth's birth, had with the dauphin
assumed sovereignty over Scotland, England, and Ireland, and had had
coins struck with this new title, and plate engraved with these new
armorial bearings.

Elizabeth was nine years older than Mary--that is to say, th