Biggar and the House of Fleming

HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF THE FLEMING FAMILY. 539
Quhat gart you schute to slay yon man of gude ?
Lunatyke monsters mad and by your mind ;
Degenerat Stewartis of ane Hieland strynde,
As mix me balm and poysone put into it.
Rycht as the tre is nureist be the rynde,
Gardanus counsell causit the to do it."
It concludes with the following railling animadversions on
Lord Fle min g's conduct.
"Now fairweill Fleming, bot foul are thy deedis,
The general this schedul at schort to the sends,
Thou sail heir ma novells as farder proceedis,
Bot not to thy sythment as sum men intends,
The action is not honest thou defends ;
Gif thou be angrie with ocht that I reheirs,
The narrest gait thou can gang to seek amends
Is mend thy maners, and I sail mend the veirs."
After the death of the Earl of Murray, the Earl of Lennox
was chosen Regent. This nobleman manifested great anxiety
to obtain possession of the Castle of Dumbarton, as a rumour
prevailed that Lord Fleming intended to deliver it to the
French. He craved assistance from England, in order that he
might besiege it in due form ; and Queen Elizabeth sent an
armament by sea, for the ostensible purpose of furthering the
designs of the Regent, but the real policy of that monarch was
to crush neither of the two factions into which Scotland was
divided, but allow them to weaken each other by continued
quarrels and outrages. It does not therefore appear that the
English force ever invested the Castle. Indeed, Elizabeth
became of opinion that the Queen's party had been rather too
much weakened already ; and therefore her lieutenant, the
Earl of Sussex, caused the Regent to give an assurance that
he would, at least for a time, abstain from inflicting any further
outrages on his opponents. The Regent, nevertheless, in
violation of this compact, despatched a strong detachment of
men to Biggar, and, according to the testimony of Richard
Bannatyne, the Secretary of John Knox, who wrote a Journal
of the Transactions of Scotland from 1570 to 1573, they com-
mitted great enormities ; and as the estates of Lord Fleming