asking a favour, Blakhal put the case as he wished her to see it. It savours of a liberty, but was not taken as such. He begged, should his suit not be granted, that it be not mentioned to any one; for should it come to the ears of some people in Scotland, they would say: "Follow the example of our Constable, and let your houses be thrown down for your religion, your Papist princes will build them up again, and will give as much to your children as the Infanta of Spain, so highly cried up for her charity, did give to the Constable his daughter, who sent a priest to Brussels to procure from that so renowned Princess a power canonicat, and was refused." She said she knew they would, and assured him, howsoever the matter might go, that no one would know but the Master of the Household, and he would keep it secret; she would do what she could to give him satisfaction, and he was to come some other day for an absolute 66 Madame, I shall come Tuesday next," and she said, "Do so." The Count de Noel, fuming, went in as he came out, and complained that the Princess had been kept fasting. "Nay," said she, "I do not blame but much commend him for a very charitable man; he hath come from Paris here, out of pure charity, to solicit me for a canonicat of Mons for a lady of his country, and hath not asked anything for himself. I would hear, with great contentment, many priests procuring charitably for others, and nothing ask for themselves. Therefore I esteem him a truly charitable priest, and will do what I can to contribute to his charity." Upon hearing this from the Master of the Household, Blakhal conceived good hope of a favourable issue. On the Tuesday he was told to bring Lady Isabel. She was to get the first vacant canonicat. Until then the Princess would keep her at court. And he had the hardihood to ask it in writing. 66 He represented that the enemies emptied pockets was in itself of religion were many. If Lady an adventure. Two robbers Isabel came to Brussels with who had the misfortune to hold him on his unsupported word, him up in a forest between it might be construed to the Mons and Maubeuge got more detriment of the lady's char- badinage than money. He was acter and his own, "all which taken at a disadvantage, armed your Majesty may hinder, if only with a sword, and perched you will do her the honour on a cart, "not finding any to give me a letter to her, other commodity." The next wherein you command her to day he was able to hire a come to your Majesty." The horse, for I had yet in my Infanta thought this well con- little pocket a pistole of gold, sidered. "Go you to my secwhich the robbers might have retary, Faillia," she said. "I found if they had searched my shall give him an order to give pockets; but they durst not you a letter for her." light down from their horses, being laden with heavy armour, nor let me down from the cart, fearing that I might run in the wood where they could not follow me." From Cambrai to St Quentin he was forced to go on foot, bearing his boots on his shoulder, as a horseman newly dismounted, which “they who did meet me did think." At St Quentin a fellow-countryman and schoolfellow lent him four crowns, and became bail for a horse. So he won his way to Paris. the The secretary turned writing of the letter over to his deputy, and "that red-headed fellow kept putting him off with promises. Possibly this was where a long purse might have come in useful. At mass ten or twelve days later the Princess perceiving Blakhal, sent for him. She wanted to know why he stayed so long. On learning the reason she was wroth, and the secretary got a scolding; but the deputy was unmoved. After some days more he was obliged to give a pistole of gold to one of the valets de chambre to place a placet before her. This brought matters to a head. The secretary was informed that the Princess would sign the letter with her own hand, and that before she went to bed. So in the event Blakhal was the gainer. He placated the disgruntled deputy with a pistole, one of the few he had left. Lady Isabel was at Provins, another eighteen leagues. This meant more money. The counsellor was in Poitou, but a cousin of his advanced five pistoles. Thus replenished he delivered the Infanta's letter. The hire of the horse, he says, made a breach in his five pistoles, "but I did not regard what I did spend for the service of that lady." Lady Isabel likewise had no money. She came to Paris by His return journey with water, with her maid and an 66 old pensioned retainer of her They were "betwixt hope father's, Alexander Davidson, and despair." Lady Isabel who waited on her at his own charges, and Blakhal was despatched to Dieppe to borrow forty pistoles from the laird of Balgowny.1 He came home again as light, 'which did grieve her much." The Superior of the Scots College was next approached, "and notwithstanding the friendship that he professed to her, he made her wait three weeks in Paris, spending both time and money, before she could get a farthing from him." Blakhal suspected the malign influence of Mr Forbes. At last he paid up, and after eleven days "tossed to and fro, up and down, and from side to side in the coach, worse than in a ship, except that the smell of the sea is worse," they reached Brussels. Blakhal's part was far from played. To begin with, Lady Isabel, at the hour appointed by the Princess for her audience, calmly said she would go some other day. As she was like to persevere in that mind, and the carriage was at the door, Blakhal bundled her into it, "what with goodwill and what with ill." This was not the least of the services he rendered her. Otherwise all would have been lost. She never saw the Princess again. Next morning the Infanta was in a high fever; within a week she was dead. esteemed Alexander Davidson's 66 1 Mr Menzies of Balgowny. One-third of their rents was granted to the banished catholic lairds, to be forfeited should they return, besides the penalty of fine and imprisonment. At last the forty days ran their course. The will, it transpired, had been made twelve years before. There was only one codicil, and it dealt with Lady Isabel, giving her the first vacant canonicat in Mons, with a pension of one thousand livres till she should be in possession of her benefice. Further, the dying Princess, holding the hand of the Archbishop of Malines, had laid this injunction upon him: "If it had pleased God to prolong my life, I intended to be a mother unto her, and provide her; but since it is His will to call me from her, I charge you, as you shall give an account at the last day, to be a father unto her, and see my will towards her executed punctually." This Blakhal had from the archbishop himself. Taking everything into consideration, what Blakhal had accomplished was little short of marvellous. And Lady Isabel's relations in Scotland thought him a knave. Mr Forbes had seen to that. Hearing of the death of the Princess, he wrote to the Earl of Errol a letter "both false and scandalous." Blakhal, in ignorance of it, only incidentally re-established his good name. Lady Isabel never mentioned him in her letters. The Laird of Craig had befriended them when they were left high and dry in Paris, and as he was on his way to Scotland he asked Blakhal to let him know the outcome of their journey, good or bad. He and his wife were old friends of Lady Isabel and her family. On his return to Paris to take up his duties with the counsellor, Blakhal, in fulfilment of his promise, sent the laird a full account of all that had happened. This letter went the round. The Earl on reading it, at once congratulated his sister on the happy turn in her affairs, and in the revulsion of his feelings said that if ever Blakhal came to Scotland he would be his protector, and never suffer him to want so long as he should have wherewith to assist him. Alas for the sequel. Lady Isabel jumped to the conclusion that Blakhal had written to the Earl, and in a great passion accused him of seeking thanks from her friends for the service he had done to her. In unrestrained language she imputed the meanest of motives. It was a gross affront. He answered that he had not written to any of her people, that she knew of his promise to write to the Laird of Craig, that if he went to Scotland he would refrain from her noble kindred, and that he did not seek thanks nor reward from them or from her: whatever service he had rendered her he did it for God more than for her, or for them, whom he had never seen. Lady Isabel did not reply, and he heard from her no more. II. in Scotland would receive him until he should submit himself to the Superior of the Jesuits, he sent them word that he presumed the Superior was not so ignorant of his own power as to think it extended over the clergy, and started forthwith for Aberdeenshire. The next three years of him that no catholic house Blakhal's life were uneventful. He remained with the aged counsellor until he died, and was left a legacy of two hundred crowns. With this sum at his command he resolved to go home, and in September 1636 arrived in London. Here by an extraordinary coincidence he met Alexander Davidson, also on his way to the north. Lady Isabel had got her canonicat, and he was no longer required or desired. With him was a Jesuit, Father Mortimer. They each bought a horse and travelled in company. It did not suit either of these falsehearted loons that Blakhal should get to Scotland, but he was unsuspecting at the time. "We were merry," he says, "and made a good voyage.' At Harbottle Castle in Northumberland, Father Mortimer persuaded Blakhal to stay for a time as priest to Mr Widdrington, uncle of Lord Widdrington. It was a trap. Having crossed the border a matter of only five miles, Mortimer proceeded to make it impossible for Blakhal to follow. The Jesuits wanted none but priests of their own order in Scotland. Widdrington had taken the oath of allegiance, and on this pretext Blakhal was denounced as a heretic to be excluded from the society of all catholics. The scheme might have worked with another than Blakhal. When they The Jesuits, of course, were not to be defied with impunity, but, although the embargo was never lifted, Blakhal remained "in the countries adjacent to Aberdeen from the twelfth of August 1637 until the midst of April 1642," when he returned to France. The first thing he did was to call on Father Christy, the Superior of the Jesuits, to borrow a chasuble for a week or two until he could get one made for himself, but he "could not obtain that, nor so much as bread to say mass." This was his method of putting Father Christy in his place, and it was unmistakable. He gained access to six houses only, at all others he was denied, going once every month to each for one night. The rest of the time he lodged in Mr taverns, with his horse and man, upon his own chargesuntil he went to the Lady of Aboyne. Blakhal abstained from Lady Isabel's kith and kin. The Lady of Aboyne was a sister and a widow. Viscount Melgum and conveyed to Lord Aboyne, a son of the |