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The Bonny Earl On the seashore below the ancient castle of Donibristle the young Earl of Moray - the Bonny Earl - was slain. He was a handsome youth. And vain of his good looks. Even as he died he taunted his slayer with spoiling a fairer face than his own. The chroniclers of the day described him as "the lustiest youth", and "a comelie personage, strong of body". He
was a braw gallant
Yes, the ballad-mongers of the day who sang his beauty linked
his name with that of King James's Queen. She thought him handsome,
and in her husband's hearing she recklessly praised him " with
too many epithets, as a proper and gallant man". That, and the
fact that his name was dangerously linked with those of the King's
known enemies, were enough to condemn him, and when, on 7th February,
1592, the Earl of Huntly left Holyrood on pretence of going to
a horse-race at Leith, he actually was on his way to Donibristle
and carried a mandate for Moray's arrest. Passage of all boats
but Huntly's was stopped on the Queen's Ferry, and, with a posse
of forty men, he arrived at Donibristle. Moray barred the door,
but Huntly's men set fire to the castle, and Moray did not know
"whether to come out and be slain, or remain and be burnt". His
friend Dunbar went out first, hoping to be mistaken for Moray
and allow him to escape in the confusion. And the ruse worked.
Dunbar was attacked and died, but Moray escaped to the shore.
Tradition has it that he escaped down a subterranean passage.
Then he was discovered by a tragically ludicrous accident. A silken
string on his hood had caught fire; the flame was seen and betrayed
his where-abouts. Gordon of Buckie, one of Huntly's followers,
struck him down and then forced Huntly to deliver the death blow
with his dagger. |
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