Some Highland gillies from Bysset's country had been seen in the neighbourhood, and suspicion immediately fell upon the head of that house. He tried to prove an alibi--that he was, at the time of the tragedy, in Forfar, some eighty miles distant from Haddington, doing the honours of hospitality to the Queen. As our historical poet says: "But this Sir William at Forfar That night was late at the supper With the Queen, and her to chamber led, And in his own chamber yhed till his bed," like a good old country gentleman. But an alibi went for little in a Highland feud. "To purge him for this the Queen Profered her to swear bodily, But that assythed not the party, That was stout and of great might, They said--Wherever he was that night Bathe his armouries and his men Intil Haddington were seen then, When this earl was brynt with fire: They said the Byssets in their ire Of auld feud and great discord That was between them and that lord, Did that in forethought felony." It was still the age of ordeals. The hot ploughshares were, perhaps, obsolete, but single combat was in full practice; and even jury trial was considered a species of ordeal rather than a deliberate judgment upon evidence. The accused party in the one case appealed to the chances of war--or, taking the reference in its more solemn aspect, he left his cause to be vindicated by the God of battles: in the other, he threw himself upon the suffrages of his peers. Both ordeals were considered about equally reasonable and fair; and if the man who preferred the ordeal of battle were a gigantic warrior, unconquered, and terrible in the lists, he was, to the true believer in ordeals, not more formidable than the feeblest of his contemporaries, for a just Deity might wither his uplifted arm; and if he retained the physical superiority he had previously indicated, it was because the All-seeing Eye knew of the justice of his cause. Now Bysset, who seems to have been somewhat of a sceptic in ordeals, had no objection to trust the issue to single combat, and challenged whomsoever would dare to stand forth against him. But he would not submit to an assize or jury, for he said the whole country had prejudged him. His opponents had, somehow or other, greater faith in the ordeal of an assize than that of battle, and would not accept his challenge. In the meantime, to show his sincerity, he requested the northern clergy to curse and excommunicate the perpetrators of the deed. "Sir William Bysset gert for thi, His chaplain in his chapel, Denounce cursed with book and bell, All they that had part Of that brynnin, or any art. The Bishop of Aberdeen alswa, He gart cursed denounce all tha That either by art or part, or swike, Gart burn this time that Earl Patricke, In all the kirks halely Of Aberdeen's diocesy. Sir William Bysset this process Gart be done."