fortifying the Castles of Lochindore and Tarnau (Lochindorbh and Tarnaway) against the King, and for other acts of treason, by which attainder the Earldom of Moray became vested in the Crown."

The next possessor of the Earldom was James Stewart, natural son of King James IV., by Janet, daughter of John, Lord Kennedy. It was conferred upon him when he was but two years old, by charter dated the 15th June 1501, and his son dying without issue male, 14th June 1544, the Earldom reverted to the Crown, and was conferred on George, the fourth Earl of Huntly, 15th February 1549, but the grant was recalled in 1554. The Earldom was next bestowed in 1562 by Queen Mary upon her half-brother, Lord James Stuart, natural son of King James V., and afterwards Regent of Scotland. From real or imaginary contradictions in his titles, great perplexity was occasioned respecting their inheritance, and several charters were granted to the Regent more or less confusing each other. He married Lady Anne Keith, daughter of the fourth Earl Marshall, afterwards Countess of Argyle, and by her he had two daughters --Elizabeth, Countess of Moray, and Margaret, afterwards Countess of Errol. In 1580, the youngest son of Lord Doune James Stuart (as the name was generally spelt after Queen Mary's return) received from James VI. the ward and marriage of the two daughters of the Regent Moray, and a few days thereafter he married the elder, Lady Elizabeth, and assumed the title of the Earl of Moray. As this claim to the Earldom was doubtful, a charter was given to him in 1592 by James VI., and the Scottish estates ratifying to him and to his son all that had been granted to the Regent and the Lady Elizabeth, and since then the Earldom has remained in the uninterrupted possession of his descendants.

The Earl of Moray, whose personal appearance and high accomplishments in the learning and manners of the day acquired for him the title of the "Bonnie Earl ;" and as son-in-law of the good Regent Moray, and the inheritor of his estates, he naturally possessed a high degree of consideration in the State, particularly with the Presbyterian party, of which the Regent had been so long one of the chief supporters and the acknowledged leader. The Earl's character, independent of his possessions, was such as to win him universal esteem. To the attractive beauty of his countenance and form he added a most amiable disposition, and perfect skill in all the chivalric accomplishments of the age. It is, therefore, scarcely to be wondered at that he should have been one of the most popular noblemen of the day, especially as the nation in general had by that time. attached itself to the religious party of which he was a leading member. To this party also King James VI. belonged, though he was under the necessity of holding the balance equally between the Presbyterians and that still numerous party of Catholics, to which many of his most powerful noblemen belonged, and were active adherents. Among the Catholic peers, the Earl of Huntly was the chief-a man of determination, and at heart ambitious and vindictive, and who for years had nursed a feud between his own family and that of the Earl of Moray. The real grounds of the feud consisted in the claims of the Gordon family to the possessions and Earldom of Moray, of which they had been deprived when it was bestowed by Queen Mary upon her illegitimate brother the Regent. This

deep-seated cause of animosity had been long gathering strength from many and various disagreements arising out of it, and was particularly aggravated by an act of the Earl of Moray against the legal power of Huntly. In his capacity as the King's Justiciary, the Earl of Huntly endeavoured to bring to justice persons against whom he had obtained a Royal Commission, and who having fled to the Earl of Moray, were protected by him against the Earl of Huntly on some grounds or for some reason not known. Huntly thus defied, was highly displeased against Moray, and proceeded with a large party, principally of his clansmen, to Darnaway Castle for the purpose of getting possession of the felons' persons. This expedition unfortunately terminated in widening the breach between the noblemen, for in the attempt to enter the castle, John Gordon, a brother of Gordon of Cluny, who was in the expedition in attendance on the Earl of Huntly, was killed by a shot from the castle. Whether the shot was fired by the Earl of Moray or not was not known, but from that hour the hostility between the families became of a more decided character, was participated in by almost every member of the Gordon Clan, and revenge became a study in Huntly's mind. This event took place a short time previous to the year 1591, but it was not immediately followed by any decided act of retaliation.

In the meantime, Campbell of Cawdor, a friend of Moray, became an object of hostility to many of the principal men of the Clan Campbell because he had been appointed tutor to the young Earl of Argyll.

Uniting with these men, Huntly formed a concerted scheme, in which, strange to say, the Chancellor of the Kingdom, Lord Thirlstan, concurred, for taking off Moray and Campbell by one act of vengeance.

In order to

give a colour to their deeds, they persuaded the King that Moray had been concerned in the conspiracy of the turbulent Earl of Bothwell, his cousin, and Huntly obtained a commission to apprehend Moray, and bring him to Edinburgh for trial.

On the afternoon of the 8th of February 1592, Huntly, attended by a strong body of horse, set out from the house of the Provost of Edinburgh where the King then lodged for security. The object of his journey Huntly gave out to be to attend a horse-race at Leith, instead of which he directed his course across the Queen's Ferry to Donibristle House, where the Earl of Moray had taken up his residence for a time with his mother. About midnight, Huntly reached his destination, surrounded the house with his men, and summoned Moray to surrender. Even if this had been complied with immediately, the same consequences, it is clear, would have ensued, Huntly's determination being fixed. Moray's enemies and that of his house knocking at his gates at the dead of night, encompassing the walls with vindictive retainers, was not an event from which the young Earl would expect moderation or justice to follow. He therefore resolved to defend the house to the death. A gun fired from within severely wounded one of the Gordons, and excited the passions of the assailants and their leaders to the highest pitch. To force an entrance they set fire to the doors, and the house seemed on the point of being enveloped in flames. In this emergency Moray took council with his friend Dunbar, Sheriff of the county, who chanced to be with him

that night. "Let us not stay," said Dunbar, "to be buried in the flaming house. I will go out first, and the Gordons taking me for your Lordship will kill me, while you will escape in the confusion." After giving utterance to this noble offer, the generous Dunbar did not hesitate an instant, but threw himself among the assailants, and fell immediately, as he had anticipated, beneath their swords. At first this act of heroic devotion seemed as if it would have accomplished its purpose. The young Earl had passed out immediately after his friend, and had the fortune to escape through the ranks of the Gordons. He directed his flight to the rocks of the neighbouring beach, and most probably would have got off in the darkness had not his path been pointed out to his foes by the silken tassels of his helmet, which had caught fire as he passed through the flames of the house. A revengeful cadet of the Huntly family, Gordon of Buckie, was the first who overtook the flying Earl, and wounded him mortally. While Moray lay in the throes of death at the feet of his ruthless murderer, Huntly himself came up to the spot, when Buckie exclaiming, "By Heaven, my Lord, you shall be as deep as I," forced his chief to strike the dying man. Huntly, with a wavering hand, struck the expiring Earl in the face, who, mindful of his superior beauty even at that moment of parting life, stammered out the dying words, "You have spoiled a better face than your own."

The perpetrators of this barbarous act hurried from the scene, leaving the corpse of the Earl lying on the beach, and the House of Donibristle in flames. Huntly did not choose to go to Edinburgh, and so be the narrator of what had occurred, but he chose, strange to say, as the messenger for this purpose the most guilty of the assassins, Gordon of Buckie. This bold man hesitated not to fulfil his Chief's commands. He rode post to the King's presence, and informed his Majesty of all that had occurred. Finding, however, that the night work was not likely to acquire for its doers any great credit, he hurriedly left the city. By some it is supposed that he never saw the King, for James, apparently unconscious of what had occurred, followed his sport for several hours in the early part of the day. On his return to the city, his Majesty found the streets filled with lamentations for the murder of Moray, and strong suspicious entertained that he himself had authorised Huntly to perpetrate the deed. Donibristle House being visible from the grounds of Inverleith and Wardie, where the King was hunting, it was alleged he must have seen the smoking ruins, nay, that he had chosen that quarter on that day for his sport in order to gratify his eye with the spectacle. The popularity of the late Earl, on account of his personal qualities and as a leading Presbyterian, rendered the people very severe against James, although they had but little known cause for supposing him accessory to the guilt of the Gordons. There is, however, one circumstance narrated in traditionary ballad lore which says that "Moray was the Queen's luve." A traditionary anecdote is the only support which the ballad receives for a circumstance utterly discredited by history. James, says the story, found the Earl of Moray sleeping in an arbour one day with a ribbon about his neck which his Majesty had given to the Queen. On seeking her Majesty's presence, the King found the ribbon round her neck, and was convinced he had mistaken one ribbon for another; but, continues the story, the ribbon

worn by Moray was indeed the Queen's, and had only been restored to her in time to blind his Majesty by the agency of a friend of the Queen's who had witnessed the King's jealous observation of Moray asleep.

To return. however, from tradition to history, the ferment caused in Edinburgh by the news of Moray's death was aggravated ten-fold when on the same day Lady Doune, mother of the ill-fated nobleman, arrived at Leith, in a boat carrying with her the bodies of her son and his devoted friend Dunbar-the mournful lady took this step in order to stimulate the vengeance of the laws against the murderers. When the news reached the King that Lady Doune was about to expose the mangled bodies to the public gaze, he forbade them to be brought into the city, conceiving justly that the spectacle was an unseemly one, and that the populace were excited enough already. Defeated in her first wish, Lady Doune caused a picture to be drawn of her son's remains, and enclosing it in a lawn cloth, brought it to the King, uncovered it before him, and with vehement lamentations cried for justice on the slayers. She then took out three bullets, found in Moray's body while being prepared for embalming, one of which she gave to the King, another to one of his nobles, and the third she reserved to herself "to be bestowed on him who should hinder justice" (Annals, p. 232, vol. 1, Captain John Gordon, one of the King's friends). The Earl himself had fled to the north, where he was much more powerful than James, King of Scotland though he was. After some time, however, to recover the royal favour, which James withheld until some atonement was made, Huntly surrendered himself, and was confined for a time in Blackness Castle. He was never brought to trial, and was liberated on bail. Gordon of Buckie, the true murderer, lived for nearly fifty years after Moray's death, and in his latter days expressed great contrition for the act of which he had been guilty. From punishment at the hands of man, the power of his family, the unsettled state of society, and the laws succeeded in screening him. The melancholy fate of the Earl of Moray, which we have just been relating, has been embalmed in his country's verse in a ballad deeply affecting in its pathos :

Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where have ye been?
They hae slain the Earl of Moray,
And laid him on the green.
Now wae be to you, Huntly,
And wherefore did ye say,
I bad you bring him wi' you,
But forbade you him to slay.
He was a braw gallant,

And he rode at the ring,
And the bonnie Earl of Moray,
Oh, he micht hae been a king.

He was a braw gallant,

And he rode at the gluve,

And the bonnie Earl of Moray,
Oh! he was the Queen's luve.

Oh, lang will his lady

Look o'er the Castle Doune,

Ere she see the Earl of Moray

Come sounding through the toun.