History of the house and race of Douglas and Angus

HOUSE OF DOUGLAS. 217
retired him from court to Edinburgh castle, there to be safe
in his fort, and lie in wait for the first opportunity that he
could find to supplant Livingston. Neither was he long in
over-reaching him; for before the year was ended, he took
occasion of the governor's going to Perth, and knowing by
intelligence the time and place of the King's hunting in the
fields about Stirling, thither he rides, and bringeth him away
to Edinburgh castle. By this means the dice are changed; he
had now got the durk, as our proverb goes, he will divide the
prey over again; he will have his large share of all, and direct
all now, as Livingston had done before. The other finding
himself in this strait, might lament his case, but could not
help himself: necessity hath no law. The chancellor had yield-
ed to him before, when he, or the Queen for him, stole away
the King. Now he hath got a meeting; he must yield to him
again, and so he doth: bows his bony heart, goes to Edinburgh,
gets mediators, brings on a meeting, and finally agrees, by the
mediation of Henry Leighton bishop of Aberdeen, and John
Innes bishop of Murray.
But if you would see the right face of a stage play, deceiv-
ers, deceiving, dissembling, and putting a fair outside on their
foul falsehood and proceeding; read me their harangues on both
sides, that you may either laugh, or disdain them. I cannot
take leisure to set them down at length, as they are to be
found in our histories; but in a word, you shall find nothing
but pretexts of the commonwealth, of the public peace, the
good of the King, and the well-being of all honest men,
which is all joined, and depends upon them and their well-
being forsooth. That hath been still their scope, that hath
been the aim of all their intentions, no particular, no. ambi-
tion, no avarice; only love of those things which were com-
mon and profitable unto all: and because in them all did lie and
subsist; in their standing honest men did stand, and by their
ruin honest men did fall; nay, the King and country were
ruined. For this cause, and for no other, that the country
might be well, that wickedness may be bridled, they forgive
one another, avouching that their discords arose only from di-
Ee