Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

PKOCESSIOX OF BLOODY SHIRTS BY THE ^VOMEX OF SANQUHAI;. CXIX
in front of them. Tlii>. spectacle e\'(jkecl from the crowd both indignation
at the apathy of the king and council, and demands for vengeance. The
feeling thus excited constrained the go\x-rnment to take some action.
Calderwood states that " the king was nothing moved but against the toun
of Edinburgh and the ministrie," and he adds that the court alleged they
had procured that spectacle iu contempt of the king.^
Bloody shii'ts had on former occasions been displayed to excite pity for
victims and their surviving relatives. When the Earl of Huutly in 1591-2
murdered his rival the Earl of iloray, in revenge for the old injuries inflicted
by the Eegent Moray on the house of Gordon, the outcry against Hrrntly was
universa]. Lord Eorbes, a friend of Moray, carried his bloody shirt on a
spear-head for the piurposc of inciting to revenge." In the previous century,
on the death of King James the Third in HSS, a number of the nobility
•were banded to avenge his death. Lord Forbes marclied through the
country with the king's bloody shirt displayed upon the end of a spear, and
that ghastly banner excited multitudes to join the insurrection against King
James the Fourth.^ The spectacle, like the robe of Caesar, aroused more
intense feeling thari any power of eloquence could do.''
So soon as legal sanction was obtained to proceed against the Johnstones
preparations on an elaborate scale, which extended to t'le beginning of De-
cember, were made to give eflect to it on the one hand, and also on tlie part
of the Johnstones to defend thenjselves on the other. The parties who
ranged themselves on each side, the measures which thty adopted, and the
triumph of the Johnstones, will appear in what follows.
John Lord Maxwell, as warden, received from the king a commission
against the Johnstones for their depredations and .slaughters. The whole of
I CaMci\vooiVs History, vol. v. p. 25G. bloody sliirt of King James the Third was
- Tytler's History, vol. vii. jip. 179, ISO. Alexander, tbe fourth lord. The Lord Forbes
* Ilic'. vol. iii. p. -iS'J. who exhibitid the bloody shirt of the Earl of
* Pinkerton, vol. ii. p. S. The Lord Forbos Jloray a century later appears to have been
who is here nieatiouod as tho bearer of the William the seventh lord.