Not long after, the Queen, with her four daughters and the
infants, had been seized upon by a noted freebooter, Patrick
Hepburn of Hailes, and carried to Dunbar Castle, probably to
serve as hostages, for they were fairly well treated, though
never allowed to go beyond the walls. The Queen's health had,
however, been greatly shaken, the cold blasts of the north wind
withered her up, and she died in the beginning of the year 1445.

The desolateness of the poor girls had perhaps been greater
than their grief. Poor Joanna had been exacting and tyrannical,
and with no female attendants but the old, worn-out English
nurse, had made them do her all sorts of services, which were
requited with scoldings and grumblings instead of the loving
thanks which ought to have made them offices of affection as
well as duty; while the poor little boys would indeed have fared
ill if their half-sister Mary, though only twelve years old, had
not been one of those girls who are endowed from the first with
tender, motherly instincts.

Beyond providing that there was a supply of some sort of food,
and that they were confined within the walls of the Castle,
Hepburn did not trouble his head about his prisoners, and for
many weeks they had no intercourse with any one save Archie
Scott, an old groom of their mother's; Ankaret, nurse to baby
Andrew; and the seneschal and his wife, both Hepburns.

Eleanor and Jean, who had been eight and seven years old at the
time of the terrible catastrophe which had changed all their
lives, had been well taught under their father's influence; and