and Rothes, with a still larger company of barons, hastened to Stirling to protect and aid with their counsel the liberated prince. Archbishop Beatoun, the wily Churchman, who had done all he could to overthrow Angus,--who had been for a moment so worsted in the conflict that he skulked about his own Fife moors in the disguise of a shepherd, but who had lately made friends with the dominant family and entertained the King and his guardians together, calling them "to his pasche (Easter) at St. Andrews,"--and who had no doubt known of the momentous night journey, and probably detained George Douglas late that evening to make it more sure, had also joined the King. With this powerful escort James proceeded to Edinburgh, where for some time the lords around him kept watch night and day, keeping their little army of attendants under arms in case of any attack on the part of Angus. One night, we are told, James himself in full armour took the command of the guard, more probably, however, from a boyish desire to feel himself at the head of his defenders than for any other reason; and even his bedchamber was shared, after an unpleasant fashion of the time, by the bastard of Arran, "James Hamilton, that bloody butcherer," as Pitscottie calls him, who had precipitated the fray of "Clear the Causeway" and was Angus's most inveterate enemy. These extraordinary precautions, however, seem to have been unnecessary. The Douglases would appear to have accepted their defeat as complete, and to have been entirely cowed by it. Another proclamation was put forth on the arrival of the King in Edinburgh commanding all true subjects to refrain from intercourse of any kind with Angus, his brother, and uncle, not to receive them or succour them or hold any communication with them on peril of being considered sharers in their crime--in short, a sort of interdict after the papal fashion. The impromptu council sat for two days in the upper chamber of the Tolbooth, which was the recognised Parliament House, chiefly, it would seem, to hear the King's indictment against the family of Douglas. James set forth all his grievances, his subjection to the will of Angus, his separation from his own friends, the appearance he had been made to assume of enmity to his real champions, and vowed at the end, says Pitscottie, in the fervour of his indignation and resentment, that Scotland should not hold them both. He would receive nothing but support in that assembly where all had suffered from the supremacy of Angus, and where the too powerful race had no friends. The council appointed anew all the high officers of State, whose posts had been appropriated by the Douglases, and sent an envoy to England to announce that the government of Scotland was henceforward in the King's own hands. It was also ordained that a Parliament should be called in the month of September, to confirm in a more decorous and regular way the decisions of the present hasty assembly.