obites within the citadel
and the Jacobites without. Strange stories were told of the polite and
facetious messages which passed between the besieged and the besiegers.
On one occasion Gordon sent to inform the magistrates that he was going
to fire a salute on account of some news which he had received from
Ireland, but that the good town need not be alarmed, for that his guns
would not be loaded with ball. On another occasion, his drums beat a
parley: the white flag was hung out: a conference took place; and
he gravely informed the enemy that all his cards had been thumbed to
pieces, and begged them to let him have a few more packs. His friends
established a telegraph by means of which they conversed with him across
the lines of sentinels. From a window in the top story of one of the
loftiest of those gigantic houses, a few of which still darken the High
Street, a white cloth was hung out when all was well, and a black
cloth when things went ill. If it was necessary to give more detailed
information, a board was held up inscribed with capital letters so large
that they could, by the help of a telescope, be read on the ramparts of
the castle. Agents laden with letters and fresh provisions managed, in
various disguises and by various shifts, to cross the sheet of water
which then lay on the north of the fortress and to clamber up the
precipitous ascent. The peal of a musket from a particular half moon was
the signal which announced to the friends of the House of Stuart that
another of their emissaries had got safe up the rock. But at length the
supplies were exhausted; and it was necessary to capitulate. Favourable
terms were readily granted: the garrison marched out; and the keys were
delivered up amidst the acclamations of a great multitude of burghers,
[349]

But the government had far more acrimonious and more pertinacious
enemies in the Parliament House than in the Castle. When the Estates
reassembled after their adjournment, the crown and sceptre of Scotland
were displayed with the wonted pomp in the hall as types of the absent
sovereign. Hamilton rode in state from Holyrood up the High Street as
Lord High Commissioner; and Crawford took his seat as President.
Two Acts, one turning the Convention into a Parliament, the other
recognising William and Mary as King and Queen, were rapidly passed and
touched with the sceptre; and then the conflict of factions began, [350]

It speedily appeared that the opposition which