Clermistonlee, followed by Juden (who had acquired a black eye and broken head), retired suddenly into the lower council chamber, where the baillie, in dread of such a formidable personage, could not follow, and therefore turned the whole torrent of his magisterial wrath and indignation upon Walter Fenton, as being, he well knew, less able to withstand them. But Douglas of Finland, Gavin of Gavin, Holsterlee, and other military gallants, with drawn swords, carried him off triumphantly to Hugh Blair's famous establishment at the pillars, from whence, on the dispersion of the crowd, he rejoined Lilian: and so ended the last single combat witnessed in the high-street of Edinburgh.
To eat cran, pertick, swan, and pliver, And everie fisch that swyms in river; To drink with us the newe fresch wyne, That grew vpon the River Ryne; Fresch fragrant Clarets of France, Of Angiers, and of Orliance, With comforts of grit daintie. DUMBAR TO JAMES V.
The evil genius of James VII., and the influence of his advisers, were fast hastening him and his House to destruction. His measures for the re-establishment of the Catholic faith, in all its pristine power and ancient grandeur, exasperated the whole nation, and the Episcopalians in the south, and the sourer Presbyterians in the north, joined in one united voice against him.
Many powerful nobles of both kingdoms were in exile. With these, and with the intermeddling Prince of Orange, a close correspondence was maintained by the friends of the intended Revolution. Even the Scottish and English forces, on whose valour and fidelity the unhappy King too much relied, were foes to his religion; and certain obnoxious measures, in his military administration, tended to alienate from his cause all but the most romantic and devoted of his subjects.
It was evident that a great crisis was at hand. The King, in the month of September, sent an express to the Privy Council, requiring them to place the country on the war establishment. The standing army was increased, the militia embodied, the garrisons put in a state of defence, the Highland clans, ever loyal and ever true, were ordered to assemble in arms, and beacons were erected on Arthur's Seat and other mountains, to alarm the country. Similar preparations to repel William of Orange were made by the English government, whose forces, thirty thousand strong, under the Earl of Feversham, were concentrated about London. But James's measures in the south ruined his influence everywhere, and the cheers of the English troops, on the acquittal of the Bishops being known in the camp at Hounslow, proved that he had lost their sympathy for ever, and could rely on their support no more.