THE YELLOW FRIGATE

OR

THE THREE SISTERS

BY

JAMES GRANT

AUTHOR OF "THE ROMANCE OF WAR"

LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, LIMITED NEW YORK: E. P. BUTTON AND CO.

INTRODUCTION.

In that broad and magnificent valley which separates chain of the Grampians from the Ochil Mountains, close by the margin of the Allan, and sequestered among venerable trees, lies the pleasant and peaceful little village of Dunblane, in Scotland's elder days an old cathedral city. Northward of the limpid Allan lie purple heaths, black swamps, and desert muirs. An old bridge which spans the river, and was built in the time of King Robert III., by "the Most Reverend Father in God," Findlay Dermach, bishop of the see, with a few ancient houses, having quaint chimneys and crow-stepped gables, that peep on the steep brae-side from among the shady beeches, are all that survive of Dunblane; but over those remains rise the grey ruins of King David's vast cathedral, of which nothing now is standing but the roofless nave, with its shattered aisles, and the crumbling but lofty gothic tower.

The gleds and corbies that flap their wings between the deserted walls; the swallows that twitter on the carved pillars, or build their nests among the rich oakwork of the prebends' stalls, with the grass-grown floor and empty windows of this magnificent ruin, impress the mind of the visitor with that melancholy which is congenial to such a place. But it is neither the recumbent figure of a knight in armour, with his sword and triangular shield, marking where the once powerful Lord of Strathallan sleeps, not the burial-place of the Dukes of Athol, blazoned with the silver star of the Murrays, that are the most interesting features in this old ruin.

It is not the fine west window which overlooks the wooded path that winds by the river-side, and is known as "the Good Bishop's walk," nor the ruined shrine where sleeps St. Blane of Bute—he whose boat sailed upon the Clyde without sail or oar; he who (as the veracious Breviary of Aberdeen tells us) struck fire with his fingers when the vesper lights went out; and who raised from the dead the English heir of Appleby and Trodyngham, that attract most particularly the attention of visitors, but three plain slabs of blue marble, that lie side by side on the grassy floor, and nestling, as it were, together, as if to show that those they cover had loved each other in life too well to be separated even in death.

The fall of the ponderous and once magnificent roof; the action of the weather, and the footsteps of visitors, have defaced the legends that were originally carved there; but the memory of those who sleep below these marble labs yet lingers in Dunblane and Strathearn.

Under the first lies the affianced bride of one who was a good and valiant soldier, and faithful to his king.

Under the second lies the betrothed of a stout Scottish mariner, as brave a fellow as ever faced salt water or cannon-shot.

Under the third sleeps the youngest—she who perhaps was the fairest—the wife (but not the queen) of one who in his time was the most gallant and magnificent monarch that ever wore the Scottish diadem.

These three ladies were sisters; and their story is a strange and a dark one.

History, tradition, and an old manuscript, that was found (no matter when) among the Records of the Scottish Court of Admiralty, have enabled me to lay their lives and narrative before the reader in the following pages.

CONTENTS.

I. ON BOARD II. THE SWASHBUCKLER III. BONNY DUNDEE IV. THE SISTERS V. JAMES III VI. PALACE OF SAINT MARGARET VII. MARGARET DRUMMOND VIII. THE FISHERMAN OF BROUGHTY IX. THE BANE OF SCOTLAND X. THE BOATSWAIN'S YARN XI. CHAINING THE UNICORN XII. EMBASSY OF THE SIEUR DE MONIPENNIE XIII. TO SEA! XIV. THE OGRE OF ANGUS XV. CONCLAVE OF MALCONTENTS XVI. ANOTHER SON-IN-LAW XVII. THE WARLOCK OF BALWEARIE XVIII. FATHER AND SON XIX. HOW BORTHWICK FULFILLED HIS PROMISE XX. WOOD MEETS HOWARD XXI. THE PRICE OF THREE TENEMENTS XXII. THE SILKEN CORD XXIII. LORD DRUMMOND AND ROBERT BARTON XXIV. DAVID FALCONER XXV. HOWARD AND MARGARET XXVI. THE CHAPLAIN'S CABIN XXVII. THE ISLES OF THE FORTH XXVIII. THE FIRST SCOTTISH REVOLUTION XXIX. THE MARCH TO STIRLING XXX. THE GOOD SHIP HARRY XXXI. THE TORWOOD XXXII. THE DOUBLE BRIBE XXXIII. THE GREY HORSE XXXIV. THE BATTLE OF SAUCHIEBURN XXXV. THE FOUR HORSEMEN XXXVI. THE MILL ON THE BANNOCK XXXVII. THE REGICIDES XXXVIII. THE HOUSE OF THE BARTONS XXXIX. THE PRINCE AND THE ADMIRAL XL. CLEARED FOR ACTION XLI. THE ENGLISH BOAT XLII. THE LOVER AND THE SPY

XLIII. THE BATTLE OF THE MAY XLIV. LARGO XLV. ST. ANTHONY'S BELL XLVI. THE GUNNER XLVII. BORTHWICK'S NEW MISSION XLVIII. TIB'S HOWFF XLIX. THE KING'S WARK L. THE SUMMER SPEAT LI. LADY EFFIE'S LETTER LII. THE HERMIT OF LORETTO LIII. THE TRYSTE AT LORETTO LIV. THE WEIRDWOMAN'S TREE LV. THE ESCAPE LVI. THE UNICORN LOOSE LVII. CAMBUSKENNETH LVIII. DOUBT, FEAR, AND SECRECY LIX. REUNITED LX. LONDON IN 1488 LXI. THE ADMIRAL'S STORY—THE LEGEND OF CORA LYNN LXII. STORY CONTINUED—"ERIS-SKENE!" LXIII. THE BROKEN WEDDING-RING LXIV. THE BATTLE OFF FIFENESS LXV. THE ENGLISH PRISONERS LXVI. THE STANE BICKER LXVII. THE MAUCHLINE TOWER LXVIII. DUNBLANE LXIX. THE MIDNIGHT TRYSTE LXX. THE IRON BELT CONCLUSION NOTES

THE YELLOW FRIGATE

OR,

THE THREE SISTERS

CHAPTER I. ON BOARD.

"There was a ship at morning prime The Scottish shore forsook, And southward with a favouring gab Her rapid course she took: Her mast St. Andrew's banner bears, And heaven be now her speed! For with her goes the bravest knight That Scotland hath in need." BALLADS AND LAYS.

By the fragment of a log-book, which was found among the MSS. just referred to, we are informed that on Beltane day, in the year of Grace 1488, two Scottish ships of war, the Yellow Frigate and the Queen Margaret, were lying becalmed off the mouth of the Tay, about seven miles from the Gaa Sands, and three from the Inchcape Rock, the large bell of which was heard at times, as its sonorous notes floated over the still bosom of the water. An abbot of St. Thomas at Arbroath had hung it there, on a wooden frame, to indicate by night that ghastly ridge, so long the terror of mariners; and thus as the waves rose and fell, they swung it to and fro. Water will convey sound to a vast distance; thus, in the noon of a calm May day, the notes of the Inchcape bell were distinctly heard on board of the two ships of his Majesty James III., although they were three miles distant from the reef.

A groundswell came off the dangerous sands of Abertay; the sails of the caravels flapped lazily against the masts, as the hulls rolled from side to side slowly and heavily, for there was so little wind that neither would obey her helm, but lay like a log on this water.

The fertile shores of Fife and Angus were shrouded in hazy summer mist, above which peeped the bare scalp of the Law of Dundee. Noon passed, and still the swell came rolling in long, glassy, and monotonous ridges from the land, while the burnished sea seemed smooth, as if coated over with oil. The ships lay about half a mile apart; and the Yellow Frigate, with which we have more particularly to do, was nearest to the shore.

A young officer who was pacing to and fro on her poop, gazed frequently and impatiently at the mouth of the river, and after wearying himself by whistling for the lagging wind, tossing splinters of lighted wood into the water, and watching anxiously the direction taken by the puffs of smoke or steam, he suddenly slapped his hands.

"Ahoy there, mizen-top! Barton," he exclaimed to an officer who had ascended into the mizen-rigging, "there is a breeze setting in from the east."

"Right, Falconer," replied the other; "I can see it curling the water over the Inchcape; and it comes in time, for I was beginning to bethink me of some other trade, for this of sailor requires overmuch patience for me. So-ho! here it comes!" he continued, while descending the ratlins with the activity of a squirrel. "See how the sea wrinkles before it!"

"Now the canvas fills," said Falconer, looking aloft.

"The Queen Margaret has caught it already, and now old Mathieson squares his yards. Aha! he is an active carle; always on the look-out, and his messmates jump like crickets when his whistle blows."

The person thus eulogized, we find to have been Sir Alexander Mathieson, a rich merchant-skipper of Leith, who had become captain of a king's ship, and won the name of "King of the Sea."

"Keep her away, timoneer," said Barton; "keep her away yet—a point or two to the south."

"Why so," asked Falconer, "when she lies so well?"

"Because, in entering the harbour of Dundee, we must keep the north gable of St. Clement's kirk upon the bar, and on the north-west, right over against Broughty, else we shall run upon the Drummilaw Sands; and then not St. Clement himself, nor his blessed anchor to boot, would save us. Master gunner—Willie Wad—please to inform Sir Andrew that a breeze is springing up; but that I see nothing of my father's ship, the Unicorn, at anchor in the Firth."

"Art thou sure?" said Falconer, anxiously.

"Sure! I would know her by her red poop-lanterns and square rigging among a thousand ships."

Robert Barton, who was captain of the ship, hastened to get sail made on her; and as the breeze freshened, the yards were almost squared; the notes of the Inchcape bell died away, and both vessels stood slowly into that beautiful estuary formed by the confluence of the Tay with the German Sea.

The sailors, who, during the calm, hud been lounging lazily on deck, or basking in the sunshine between the brass guns, exchanged their listlessness for activity; a smile of satisfaction spread over their weather-beaten visages, and a hum of gladness arose from the ship.

"Now, timoneer, the breeze is more aft," cried Barton; "steer dead for the harbour mouth."

"Soho!" said Falconer, "the Margaret is coming up with us, hand over hand."

"Fear not," replied Barton, joyously, "we shall soon leave her far astern. Thou knowest, Falconer, that this good caravel was built under Sir Andrew's own eyes at the New Haven, near Leith," continued the captain, surveying with a seaman's proverbial delight the lofty rigging of the frigate.

"Yet, she is but a cockle-shell to the great ship of Hiero, anent which, Father Zuill, the chaplain, told us so many wonderful things after mass yesterday."

"If you had seen how beautifully she took the water, diving deep with her stern, and tilting up her bow like a swan. She is sharp as a lance at the bows below the water line—bold above it; straight between poop and forecastle—clean in the counter, and bolted with copper. By the faith of Barton, there sails not such another ship in all Scottish waters; and I marvel mickle, if either French Francis, or English Harry, will ever build one like her."

The ship which Captain Barton eulogised so highly would create no small speculation in Bonny Dundee, if she and her consort were seen standing before the wind, right up the Firth of Tay, in this year 1855; and we may imagine the criticisms of the rough old tars, who usually congregate about the piers and rocks of Broughty Ferry. Her whole hull was painted brilliant yellow; hence the name, that has won her a place so conspicuous in the histories of the period.

Both vessels seemed comparatively low in the waist, for their gigantic poops and forecastles rose like wooden towers above the sea; and to render this simile more complete, were furnished with little wooden tourelles at the inner angles. Elaborate carving and gorgeous gilding covered the hulls above the water-line; and amid this, grinned the great carthouns or forty-eight pounders; the brass culverins and falconets, tier above tier. The port-lids were painted a flaming red; three gigantic lanterns, with tops of polished brass, surmounted each of the poops, which had round their sterns and quarters a gaudy row of painted shields, bearing the armorial blazons of the gentlemen who served on board. Round the butt of each mast stood a rack of long Scottish spears and hand-guns, into the tubes of which were inserted the hafts of Jedwood axes.

The Yellow Caravel or frigate carried fifty guns; the Margaret, twenty. Both were ship rigged, with three masts, each of these being composed of two long tapered spars, fidded at the tops, which were clumsy and basket-like enclosures, surrounded by little embrasures, from whence the cross-bowmen, pages, and arquebussiers, could gall the enemy in security. From the carved bows, the bowsprits started up at an angle of forty-five degrees; and each had rigged thereon a lesser or fourth mast, having a great square spritsail before. At the yard-arms were iron hooks to grasp an enemy's rigging. All the sails were large and square. At her mainmast head, each vessel carried the flag of the admiral, a golden tree in a blue field; while at the stern waved the blue national ensign, with the great white cross of St. Andrew, extending from corner to corner.

The summer sun of this fair Beltane day shone joyously on the glassy water, on the glittering hulls and snow-white canvas of these stately caravels, as they neared those green headlands which form the entrance to one of the noblest of the Scottish firths.

On the south the shore is bold and rocky; there, round its old peel, now in ruins, clustered the little village of Port-on-Craig, whose population lived by fishing and managing the boats of the ferry (the oldest in the kingdom), which plied between Fife and the opposite point, where, on a bare and unwooded promontory stands the Royal Castle of Broughty, a strong, square tower, then surrounded by a barbican and other defences, which frowned towards the ocean on the east, defending the narrow strait from hostile fleets, and on the west, towards a dreary salt-marsh, that stretched almost from the outer walls to the gates of busy Dundee.

The dresses of the officers and crews of the ships of James III. were as remarkable as the aspect of their craft; for Robert Barton, who was sailing master or captain, and Sir David Falconer, who was captain of the arquebussiers, wore doublets or pourpoints of grey velvet, cut very short, with slit sleeves, to show the loose white shirts below; their shoulders were padded out with mahoitres, or large puffs; they wore tight hose of Flanders cloth, with long boots that came up to their knees, They had swords and daggers of great length and flat blue bonnets; at the end of his gold neckchain, the sailor carried a whistle; but the soldier had a cross and medal; and, as a protection from salt water, each wore an overall, or rough surcoat of Galloway frieze, trimmed with brown fur.

The sailors wore gaberdines of the same coarse material, with fustian breeches, blue bonnets, and shoes of undressed deerskin, which in those days won us the strange appellation of rough-footed Scots. Willie Wad, the gunner, and Archy of Anster, the boatswain, only, wore doublets of Flemish cloth, edged with silver lace, and with the royal crest, the crown and lion sejant, embroidered on the sleeves thereof. The arquebussiers, of whom there were a hundred and fifty on board, wore steel casquetels, with large oval ear-plates, buff coats, and broad military belts, which sustained their dirks, priming-horns, bullet-bags, and the spanners of their long-barrelled arquebusses.

Such was the general aspect of the ships and crews of his Majesty James III.

Barton and Falconer were both stout and athletic young men, but were somewhat different in aspect and bearing; for the former, who was a son of the admiral, Sir Andrew Barton, or Barnton, of that Ilk in Lothian, the wealthy Leith merchant, who had acquired a splendid fortune, and purchased a fine estate, was a florid and jovial-looking young seaman, with something of the Cavalier in his aspect; but Falconer, who had no fortune but his sword, had been introduced to the royal favour by the late Earl of Mar—the murdered favourite of James III., who knighted the youth for his valour at the siege of Dunbar in 1478, when but a stripling. Thus, though a knight, and captain of one of the king's bands, he was but the son of a poor merchant-skipper of Borrowstoness; yet he was a handsome and a stately youth; his eyes, hair, and complexion were dark, and his sharply pointed mustachios stuck fiercely off on each side of his mouth.

"A boat has shot off from Broughty," said he, shading his eyes with his right hand; "and two stout fellows are pulling for the ship as if their lives depended upon their speed."

"Keep to larboard of the Margaret," cried Barton to the timoneer; "for she draws less water of course, and we require all the fairway to ourselves. Keep her away—see how the surf curls on the Gaa Sands!"

At that moment, a door, which was studded with iron nails like that of an old tower, opened in the after part of the poop, and the sentinels saluted with their arquebusses as the admiral stepped on deck, and first cast his eyes aloft and then ahead.

"Keep her full, Barton," said he, "keep her full. So, the old Tay now opens her arms to us! and now the spires of St. Clement and St. Mary are in sight again. Gadzooks, I can see the Rock of St. Nicholas, and if I had thine eyes, Falconer, I might distinguish the great house of Stobhall."

Falconer only twisted his mustachios, and smiled, but with a sombre aspect.

"How, Sir Andrew," said Barton, "you think the eyes of a mariner——"

"Are but green glass when compared to those of a lover—yea I do," laughed the good old admiral, as he walked to the quarter, looked over the side, and whistled to the freshening breeze; thus he failed to observe the ill-concealed gesture of impatience that escaped Sir David Falconer, and the bitter smile he exchanged with Barton.

Sir Andrew Wood of Largo, admiral of the fleet of James III.—the Scottish Nelson of his time—was originally a wealthy merchant of Leith, where in early life he was as well known in the Timber Holfe as at Sluice and the Dam. He had first been merely a merchant-skipper, who fought his own way at sea, but he had done so with such signal success, and had so frequently defeated the fleets of Edward IV. of England, and of Alfonso, King of Portugal, and the pirates of many nations, that he was knighted on his own deck by James III., who never omitted an opportunity of distinguishing that rising middle class which the feudal barons viewed with aversion and contempt. James further bestowed on him the noble barony of Largo, in Fife, and he held it by the tenure that he should at all times be ready to pilot and convey the king and queen to the famous shrine of St. Adrian, on the Isle of May. His Castle of Largo, a pile of great size and strength, he built by the hands of several English, French, and Portuguese pirates whom he had captured at sea, and whose

hard work he made the price of their liberty.

Thus he, who had commenced life as a poor sailor boy of Leith, found himself, before his fiftieth year, a Scottish knight and baron of Parliament; the founder of a noble family; the possessor of a stately fortress, Laird of Largo, Easter-dron, and Newbyrne; with a coat of arms, bearing two ships in full sail under an oak tree, in memory of his defending the Castle of Dumbarton against an English fleet in 1481, and defeating another near the Bass a few years after—But we anticipate.

Now, his caravels had just returned from Sluice, where he had been on an embassy, concerning the quarrel then existing between Scotland and the Flemings.

He was rather under than over the middle height, and somewhat stout in body, with a round good-humoured face; his complexion was fair, but burned to a dusky red by exposure for nearly forty years to the sea air in many climates; his beard and mustachios were rather full, and the former fringed his face all round, mingling with his short-cut hair, which, though it had been dark in youth, was now becoming grey and grizzled.