Less than two years later there was thrust into Stirling Castle another prominent member of Queen Mary’s dwindling faction. This was John Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrews, the prelate who had taken the leading part at the Prince’s baptism not many years before. He had been seized in Dumbarton Castle on the memorable night when the King’s men scaled the rock, and had been brought without delay to his enemies’ headquarters. Like Maitland of Lethington, he was charged with having been implicated in the murder of James’s father, and his confinement in Stirling, like Lethington’s, lasted for only one or two days. The Archbishop, moreover, was held to be guilty of having encouraged Bothwellhaugh to assassinate the Regent Moray, so after a hasty trial he was hanged at the market cross in April, 1571. Stirling, being at this time the young King’s home, was naturally the headquarters of his mother’s opponents. Edinburgh, where the castle was held for the Queen by Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange, was the principal seat of Mary’s less powerful party. A plan was accordingly devised by the Laird of Grange that nearly succeeded in changing, for a time at least, the course of Scottish history. Knowing that the leaders of the opposite faction were gathered together for a meeting of Parliament, he resolved to surprise and capture Stirling, to seize all the prominent supporters of the King, and to obtain possession, if possible, of the royal child himself. Kirkcaldy was anxious to conduct the expedition in person, but, being persuaded by his followers not to run such a risk, he appointed the Earl of Huntly, Lord Claude Hamilton, Scott of Buccleuch and Ker of Fernihirst to undertake the enterprise. On the evening of the 3rd of September, 1571, these chiefs, accompanied by three or four hundred men, rode out of Edinburgh and took the road to Jedburgh in order to deceive their enemies as to the object of their journey. In the gathering darkness they wheeled to the right and made their way swiftly to within a mile of Stirling, where they halted and left their horses.[43] One of the party, a native of the place, knowing of the existence of a secret passage, guided the raiders into the town at an early hour in the morning. There was not even the bark of a dog to give the citizens alarm; the burghers and nobles were aroused by the cries of “A Hamilton” and “God and the Queen.” Houses were instantly broken into and most of the lords were captured with ease, but at Morton’s lodging some fighting took place, resulting in the slaughter of two of the Earl’s retainers. Morton, however, eventually gave himself up to the Laird of Buccleuch, the Regent Lennox surrendered to Spens of Wormiston, and the Earls of Glencairn and Eglinton also submitted themselves to the adventurers.