The queen's party determined in their turn to strike a great blow. Their project, had it entirely succeeded, would have been more than substantial retribution for the seizure of Dumbarton; but it ended in nothing but empty revenge for the death of Hamilton. An attempt had been made in May by " the king's party " to hold a meeting of the Estates in Edinburgh. They assembled in a part of the city outside the wall; but they found even this place too hot for them, and retired without transacting business. They adjourned to Stirling, where a solemn Parliament was held. Thus were brought into one group all that was valuable to the new cause-the territorial aristocracy and other leading men, the regent, and the infant king himself. This was the first solemn assemblage of the Estates since the critical Parliament of 1567. There had been casual meetings chiefly for forfeitures, but no transaction of legislative business. This Parliament opened on the 28th of August 1571. It was inaugurated by two incidents afterwards deemed ominous. John Row, one of the most zealous of Knox's followers, having to preach before the assemblage, took advantage of his opportunity, and "in plain pulpit pronounced to the lords for their covetousness, and because they would not grant the just petitions of the Kirk, God's hasty vengeance to fall upon them." The other prognostic was of a more pleasant kind. The infant king was its hero, and it individualised him among his people as they heard it. The story is best told in the words of a contemporary: "The king being conveyed to the Parliament House, and set at the board, by fortune be espied a hole in the board-cloth; so that, as young childer are always unconstant and restless, he pressed to attain to the hole with his finger, and asked of a lord wha sat near by him to know what house that was? and he answered that it was the "Parliament House." Then said the king, "This Parliament has a hole in it." Quhether God inspired the babe with prophecy at that time or not I will not dispute, but in very deed the chief leader of that Parliainent was stopped with sick a hole within five days after this saying that was the very cause of his death."

On the 3d of September a force left Edinburgh on an expedition. It consisted of three hundred horsemen and eighty hackbutters or musketeers, who were mounted behind so many horsemen. Nominally it was commanded by Huntly, the queen's lieutenant, but the guide and real commander was named Bell. The leaders kept their counsel well, and gave currency to a report that they were to assail the town of Jedburgh. Nothing could be more natural, for that community had sorely insulted the queen's party. A pursuivant had been sent from the castle to proclaim the queen's authority in Jedburgh; but the magistrates and burghers not only compelled him to swallow his parchment writ, but untrussed his points and assailed him with leather straps after the manner of the dorsal discipline administered to schoolboys.

The force that seemed naturally despatched to avenge this insult, leaving Edinburgh in the direction of the Border, was suddenly wheeled westward, and reached Stirling between three and four o'clock on the morning of the 4th. The king appears to have been within the castle; but the regent and the other members of the Estates were quartered in the town, which, for all that it contained so precious a treasure, seems to have been unguarded. The assailants were able to sweep the streets with cries for the queen and vengeance for the fate of the archbishop. They battered in the doors of the houses occupied by the regent and Morton, and took them both, dragging them, with several other prisoners, towards the Nether Port or outer gate. The assailants would have got clear off with their spoil but for the character of their troops. These being Borderers, could not resist sacking the sleeping city, and were busy stripping the booths and emptying the stables of the valuable stock of horses belonging to the Court and the rnembers of the Estates. Some time, too, had been lost in the attack on Morton's house, which was too strong to be easily entered. The garrison of the castle had thus time to act. The governor, Mar, planted a party in the unfinished building still called Mar's Work, and marched another on the enemy. They were joined by some of the burghers, and the assailants had now to abandon their prisoners and take to flight. Ere this was done, however, one of them, James Calder, fired at the regent, and bit him mortally in the lower party of the body. Spence of Wormiston, one of the assailing party who attended on the regent to protect him, was killed by a bullet; and in the confusion it was not known whether it was aimed b y one of his own people at the regent, or was dealt by the other party. The wounded regent lamented the death of b;s protector, of whom a chronicler not given to eloquence says, " He was in all his life sa gentle, sa humane, sa kind, sa handy, and sa prosperous and happy in all his wars, that his like easily could not heretofore be founden."

The Laird of Buccleuch had taken special charge of Morton for the like worthy purpose of protecting him from the Borderers. " I will save your life as you saved mine," said Morton, when the tide turned so that the captive became custodier. The assailants had taken many lives during their brief command of the streets, and now they were chased, with much slaughter, as far as the village of St Ninians.

The wounded regent lingered in life some hours. Like many fulfilments of prophecies, his fate was scarcely a logical consummation of Durie's denunciation; for we are told that " at this Parliament, because the, petitions of the Kirk were contemned, and the ministers called proud knaves, with other injurious words, by the lords for subtaking of their liberty, yet the poor regent approved their petitions, and acknowledged them to be most reasonable, and was willing to further the same; but the lords, Morton especially, who ruled all, said he should lay their pride, and put order to them, with many other injurious words. Some sentences were recorded as dropping from the lips of the dying regent; they were in general, after the usual manner, praying for the prosperity of his country and his cause, but the last were about his " poor wife Meg." She, it will be remembered, was the daughter of Angus and Henry VIII.'s sister. Some thirty years earlier, the love which Lennox and the highborn maiden bore to each other was an element of purity and gentleness in a household credited with dark -political intrigues. In the afterlife, which was so closely mixed with the horrible story of their son's career, this light still burned, and it brightened the last scene of all.

* - certain edits to the original text have been made for clarity