After trumpets had been sounded and proclamations had been made, the warriors eagerly advanced to the contest. The Earl of Douglas’s brother and Jacques de Lalain managed to disarm each other and so continued the fight by wrestling; Simon de Lalain’s coolness of head enabled him eventually to obtain a slight advantage over the Laird of Halket; the Lochleven Douglas, though twice struck to the ground, persistently returned to the attack, but was hardly able to hold his own with the skilful Meriadet. When at last the King threw down his truncheon as a signal for the conflict to cease, the marshals of the field laid hold of the struggling champions and compelled them to disengage. Neither side could claim a decisive victory, though the advantage, on the whole, lay with the foreign knights. King James, however, praised the valour of each individual, and before the Burgundians returned to their own country, he entertained them sumptuously in Stirling Castle and loaded them with gifts. [Illustration: THE DOUGLAS WINDOW.] If the feats of arms of the Douglases brought honour to the chivalry of Scotland, their insatiable ambition was a danger to the King and gave rise to the evils of civil war. Earl William’s vast estates--increased by his marriage with the Fair Maid of Galloway--and his descent from King Robert II., led him to consider himself the equal of his sovereign, and tempted him to plot against the throne. James was at this time doing his utmost to make himself master in his own realm. He had already imprisoned Sir Alexander Livingstone and his sons, and had given to Sir William Crichton the keepership of Stirling Castle. The conspiracy of Douglas is a somewhat mysterious affair. His loyalty had been questioned, but in the beginning of 1452 he seems to have been on friendly footing with James. There was, however, a rumour that Earl William had formed a plan of rebellion in conjunction with the Earl of Ross and the Tiger Earl of Crawford. Hoping to persuade his mighty subject to abandon his treasonable designs, James invited him to visit Stirling Castle and sent him a letter of safe-conduct under the privy seal. Douglas accordingly presented himself to his sovereign, and as the interview was marked by mutual goodwill, the Earl was asked to dine and sup with the King on the following day. At their second meeting all went well till after the evening meal, when James ventured to broach the subject of the Ross and Crawford league. Douglas’s obstinate refusal to break the band roused the royal wrath to such a pitch, that, exclaiming, “False traitor, if you will not I shall,” the King twice plunged his knife into Earl William’s body. Sir Patrick Gray, Sir Alexander Boyd, Stewart of Darnley and other courtiers soon dispatched the helpless noble, and having finished the work of butchery, rudely flung the corpse out of the window.