Next day the country assembled to the assistance of the Queen. The Gordons, finding themselves not so well served by their friends as they looked for (who had above 500 men), rendered the castle, not being twelve or fourteen able persons. The captain was hanged, and his head set up on the castle, others condemned to perpetual prison, and the rest received mercy.
The Queen remained there five days, and now journeys homewards as far as Spynie, a house of the Bishop of Moray.... The Earl of Huntly keeps his house, and would have it thought that his disobedience came through the evil behaviour of his sons. The Queen is highly offended....
In all these broils I assure you I never saw her merrier, never dismayed, nor never thought that so much[15] to be in her that I find. She repented nothing, but (when the lords and others at Inverness came in the morning from the watch) that she was not a man, to know what life it was to lie all night in the fields, or to walk on the causeway with a jack and knapsack, a Glasgow buckler, and a broad sword.
... His { Huntly's} house is fair, and best furnished of any ... in the country; his cheer is marvellous great; his mind such as it ought to be towards his Sovereign.
[The last sentence is _à propos_ of a visit made by Argyll and Randolph to Huntly.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------ [15] So the "Calendar," but Chalmers, in quoting, reads, probably correctly, "stomach." ------------------------------------------------------------------------
_Randolph to Cecil, from Aberdeen_, September 24.
When he { Huntly} understood that the Queen had caused the captain of the Castle of Inverness to be hanged, and committed the others to prison, he thought there was no other way with him but to execute his former determination or be utterly undone. Therefore he assembled such force as he could make, and committed them to the care of his son, John Gordon, purposing to have met the Queen at her return homeward at the water of Spey, a place where good advantage might have been had. The Queen (being advertised of their purpose), by the advice of her Council, assembled, of those they call Highlandmen and other, above 2000, and so increased as she rode that at the passage of the water they were above 3000. As she rode forward diverse reports were brought ... some said that there was not a man to be seen, which was nearest the truth, for when the night before there were in that wood 1000 horse and foot, they had all departed, whereof the Queen had advertisement before she came to the Spey ... what desperate blows would not have been given, when every man should have fought in the sight of so noble a Queen and so many fair ladies ... your honour can easily judge.... That night (being Sunday) the Queen came to a house of the Laird of Banke { Banff?} ... On Tuesday last she arrived at Old Aberdeen, preparing herself against her entry the next day into the new town, where she was honourably received with spectacles, plays, interludes, and others as they could best devise.... They presented her with a cup of silver, double gilt, well wrought, with 500 crowns in it; wine, coals, and wax were sent in, as much as will serve her while she remains here.