Note 27 — 196 THE FIRE OF FRENDRAUGHT
Reading edition
This is, of course, the style of the kirk. The fifty-third psalm of the Vulgate would not have been out of place for Lord John, who was a Catholic; but no doubt Lord John is taken for a Presbyterian in the ballad, and the ‘three’ is for rhyme. Father Blakhal maintains that Frendraught burnt his tower, not to rid himself of Rothiemay, but out of theological malice to Melgum “for his zeal in defending and protecting the poor Catholics against the tyranny of our puritanical bishops and ministers.” “As he [Melgum] was dying for the defence of the poor Catholics, God did bestow upon him the grace to augment the number at the last hour of his life, persuading the Baron of Rothiemay to abjure the heresy of Calvin, and make the profession of the Catholic faith openly, to the hearing of the traitor and all who were with him in the court. They two being at a window, and whilst their legs were burning, they did sing together Te Deum; which ended, they did tell at the window that their legs being consumed even to their knees, etc.... And so this noble martyr finished this mortal life, at the age of four and twenty years.” A Brief Narration, etc., p. 124 f.
Blakhal, who is far from being a cautious writer, also tells us that “the traitor,” Frendraught, “with his men,in arms, walked all the night in the court,” to kill Gordon and Rothiemay, if they should escape from the fire. There is a passage of the same purport in one of Arthur Johnston’s two poems on the burning of Frendraught, “Querela Sophiæ Hayæ,” etc.:
Cur vigil insuetis noctem traduxit in armis,
Cætera cum somno turba sepulta foret?
The other piece ends with a ferocious demand for the use of torture to discover the guilty party. (Delitiæ Poetarum Scotorum, Amsterdam, 1637, pp. 585, 587; or, A. I. Poemata Omnia, Middelburg, 1642, pp. 329, 331.)