Amid the most undisturbed security of confidence, the lords, who composed this parliament, were roused at day-break, by the shouts of their enemies in the heart of the town. God and the Queen! resounded from every quarter, and, in a few minutes, the regent, with the astonished nobles of his party, were prisoners to a band of two hundred border cavalry, led by Scott of Buccleuch, and to the Lord Claud Hamilton, at the head of three hundred infantry.  These enterprising chiefs, by a rapid and well concerted manoeuvre, had reached Stirling in a night march from Edinburgh, and, without so much as being bayed at by a watch-dog had seized the principal street of the town.—­The fortunate obstinacy of Morton saved his party.  Stubborn and undaunted, he defended his house till the assailants set it in flames, and then yielded with reluctance to his kinsman, Buccleuch.  But the time, which he had gained, effectually served his cause.  The borderers had dispersed to plunder the stables of the nobility; the infantry thronged tumultuously together on the main street, when the Earl of Mar, issuing from the castle, placed one or two small pieces of ordnance in his own half-built house[24], which commands the market place.  Hardly had the artillery begun to scour the street, when the assailants, surprised in their turn, fled with precipitation.  Their alarm was increased by the townsmen thronging to arms.  Those, who had been so lately triumphant, were now, in many instances, asking the protection of their own prisoners.  In all probability, not a man would have escaped death, or captivity, but for the characteristic rapacity of Buccleuch’s marauders, who, having seized and carried off all the horses in the town, left the victors no means of following the chace.  The regent was slain by an officer, named Caulder, in order to prevent his being rescued.  Spens of Ormeston, to whom he had surrendered, lost his life in a generous attempt to protect him[25].  Hardly does our history present another enterprise, so well planned, so happily commenced, and so strangely disconcerted.  To the licence of the marchmen the failure was attributed; but the same cause ensured a safe retreat.—­Spottiswoode, Godscroft, Robertson, Melville.

[Footnote 24:  This building still remains, in the unfinished state which it then presented.]

[Footnote 25:  Birrel says, that “the regent was shot by an unhappy fellow, while sitting on horseback behind the laird of Buccleuch.”—­The following curious account of the whole transaction is extracted from a journal of principal events, in the years 1570, 1571, 1572, and part of 1573, kept by Richard Bannatyne, amanuensis to John Knox.  The fourt of September, they of Edinburgh, horsemen and futmen (and, as was reported, the most part of Clidisdaill, that perteinit to the Hamiltons), come to Striveling, the number of iii or iiii c men, in hors bak, guydit be ane George Bell, their hacbutteris being all horsed, enterit in Striveling, be fyve houris