On the 29th April 1587, it is stated that the king had dealt between these hostile parties, and arranged _letters of affirmance_ between them, in order to secure peace for the future; but the Master of Yester had refused to subscribe. For this he is threatened with being denounced rebel, or, as the ordinary phrase was, being put to the horn.[139] On the 12th May, the king ordered him to enter in ward north of the Tay, and there remain till liberated; and a few weeks later, on this order not being complied with, the Master was denounced rebel, and all forbidden to assist or receive him.--_P. C. R._ In a memoir of the Hays of Tweeddale, composed by a member of the family a century later, the character and objects of the parties in this dispute are precisely reversed. The Master of Yester--whose nickname, it seems, was _Wood-sword_--is described as a great upholder of the laws against thieves, while the Stewarts of Traquair were the reverse. The passage is worth transcribing, as an example of the favourable views of which a man’s actions are always more or less susceptible in the eyes of friends, especially after the lapse of a few years. [Sidenote: 1586.] ‘In his time, the Borders being much infested with broken men and thieving, this lord, who always rode accompanied with twenty-four horsemen and as many footmen armed, did take and hanged a great [many] of them. He was at feud with the house of Traquair for seconding the thieves, in pursuit of whom he received a wound in the face. King James the Sixth being desirous to have this feud taken away, as all others of the country, and he refusing, was committed to the Castle of Edinburgh, out of which he made his escape, and immediately made ane new inroad against the thieves, of whom he killed a great many, in a place called from thence the _Bloody Haugh_, near Riskin-hope, in Rodonna; whereupon King James was pleased to make a hunting journey, and came to the house of Neidpath, whither the king called Traquair, with his two sons, who made to Lord Yester acknowledgment for the wrong they had done him, and then peace was made by the king.[140] This was witnessed by one William Geddes, who was my lord’s butler, and lived till the year 1632.’--_Genealogy of the Hays of Tweeddale, by Father R. A. Hay._ [Sidenote: 1586-7. FEB.] A few days before the death of Queen Mary in Fotheringay Castle, the king, her son, ‘to manifest his natural affection towards his dearest mother, whose preservation he always earnestly wished, required the ministers to pray for her, at all preachings and common prayers, after the following form: “The Lord illuminate and enlighten her spirit, that she may attain to the knowledge of his truth, for the safety of soul and body, and preserve her from the present peril.”