ays is very ingenious; but if I may be permitted
to raise an objection to the theory, I would ask your majesty why this
was not done through the French ambassador? French gold has been used
before now in the Scottish Court; and it seems to me that a great
nation like France would not stoop to enlist the devices of a
charlatan, if this man be a charlatan."
"Ah, now we enter the domain of State secrets, Davie, and there is
where a king has an advantage over the commoner. Of course I know many
things hidden from you which give colour to my surmise. Some while ago
the French ambassador offered me a subsidy. Now I am not so avaricious
as my grandfather, nor so lavish as my father, and I told the
ambassador that I would depend on Scottish gold. I acquainted him with
the success of my German miners in extracting gold from Leadhills in
the Clydesdale, and I showed him my newly coined pieces. He was so
condescendingly pleased and interested that he begged the privilege of
having his own bars of metal coined in my mint, in order to disburse
his expenses in the coin of the realm, and also to send some of our
bonnet-pieces as specimens to France itself. This right of coinage I
willingly bestowed upon him; firstly, because he asked it; secondly, I
was glad to have some account of his expenditure. When I came in just
now I examined these coins closely, and you imagined that I was
suspicious of the purity of the metal. This was not so. I told my
mint-master to coin all the bars the ambassador gave him, to keep a
strict account of the issue, and to mark each piece with the letter
'F' on the margin. I find three of the coins which we received
to-night bearing this private mark; therefore, they have passed
through the hands of the French ambassador to the alchemist."
Sir David gave forth an exclamation of surprise. He left his seat,
took the bonnet-pieces from his pocket and placed them under the lamp.
"Now," said the king, "you need sharp eyes to detect this mark, but
there it is, and there, and there. Let us look a little closer into
the object of France. The battle of Flodden was fought when I was
little more than a year old; it destroyed the king, the flower of
Scottish nobility, and ten thousand of her common soldiers. Who was
responsible for this frightful calamity? My mother was strongly
against the campaign, which was to bring the forces of her husband in
contention with the forces of her brother, at that moment absent in
F
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