Edward, convinced of the Earl's guilt, and seeing divine justice manifested, and remembering, it is said, with bitterness the days past when he had given a willing ear to the calumnies spread about his innocent mother, cried out, in an indignant voice, "Carry away that dog, and bury him in the high road." But the body was deposited by the Earl's cousin in the cathedral. Several accounts have been written of that terrible banquet, to which the Earl of Douglas was invited by Sir Alexander Livingstone and the Chancellor Crichton--who craftily dissembled their intentions--to sup at the royal table in the Castle of Edinburgh. The Earl was foolhardy enough to accept the ill-fated invitation, and shortly after he had taken his place at the festive board, the head of a black bull--the certain omen, in those days in Scotland, of immediate death--was placed on the table. The Earl, anticipating treachery, instantly sprang to his feet, and lost no time in making every effort to escape. But no chance was given him to do so, and with his younger brother he was hurried along into the courtyard of the castle, and after being subjected to a mock trial, he was beheaded "in the back court of the castle that lieth to the west". The death of the young earl, and his untimely fate, were the subjects of lament in one of the ballads of the time. "Edinburgh castle, town, and tower, God grant them sink for sin; And that even for the black dinner Earl Douglas gat therein." This emphatic malediction is cited by Hume of Godscroft in his "History of the House of Douglas," as referring to William, sixth Earl of Douglas, a youth of eighteen; and Hume, speaking of this transaction, says, with becoming indignation: "It is sure the people did abhorre it--execrating the very place where it was done, in detestation of the fact--of which the memory remaineth yet to our dayes in these words." Many similar stories are recorded in the history of the past, the worst form of treachery oftentimes lurking beneath the festive cup, and in times of commotion, when suspicion and mistrust made men feel insecure even when entertained in the banqueting hall of some powerful host, it is not surprising that great persons had their food tasted by those who were supposed to have made themselves acquainted with its wholesomeness. But this practice could not always afford security when the taster was ready to sacrifice his own life, as in King John (act v. sc. 6): HUBERT. The king, I fear, is poisoned by a monk: I left him almost speechless. BASTARD. How did he take it? Who did taste to him? HUBERT. A monk, I tell you; a resolved villain.