J^othoTUOoody « Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/edwardsinscotlanOObain THE EDWAEDS IN SCOTLAND Printed by R. R. Clark, Litnited FOR DAVID DOUGLAS, EDINBURGH LONDON . . SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT AND CO., LIM. CAMBRIDGE . . MACMILLAN AND BOWES GLASGOW JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND A.D. 1296-1377 BEING THE EHIND LECTURES IN ARCHEOLOGY FOR 1900 BY JOSEPH BAIN, F.S.A.SCOT. EDINBURGH DAVID DOUGLAS, 10 CASTLE STREET 1901 All rights reserved 1>A BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARX CHESTNUT HILL. MASS, - ms 494819 NOTE The Author regrets that, owing to illness, he has been unable to prefix a short introduction, or to add an index to the book. But the Syllabus in effect supplies the absence of the latter, and will, he hopes, be accepted in its place. The reader is referred to the Author's " Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland, preserved in the Public Kecord Office," as showing the recorded authority on which most of the statements contained in the Lectures rest. St. David's, May 1901. CONTENTS LECTUEE I Introductory The subject of the dealings of Kings Edward I., II., and III. with Scotland not altogether new — These reigns often treated in European history, yet many details illustrating their transactions here necessarily passed over — Work on original records preparatory for the historian — Reasons for recourse to the records of England — Loss of our own charged by Boece and Buchanan on Edward I. — A popular error — His careful orders for their preservation — Lord Haddington's copies of some in the 17th century — The unique Iter or Justice Eyre of Tynedale in 1279 — Professor Innes on Treaty of Northampton — Great destruction in our civil and religious troubles, and the inroads of Henry VIII. — Burnings of Holyrood and Edinburgh, and John Riddell on effects of these and the like — Oliver Cromwell's removal of Records in 1651 — Return of part in 1657, and of the rest at Restoration — Loss of many at sea, and utter neglect here of remainder, left to rot in damp cellars — Removal last century to General Register House — Consequences of past treatment — Harding's forgeries as to superiority — Acrid discussions between Rymer, Anderson, and others — Repeated English claims of abandoned superiority — Early relations of the countries, and state of Scotland at death of Alexander III — Pages 1-19 LECTURE II Edward I. — in Scotland The Magnates' letter to Edward I. for advice — Election of Guardians for infant Queen — His negotiations for her marriage to his son — Treaty of Brigham, papal bulls and despatch of vessel to Norway — Her death in Orkney announced to Edward I. by Bishop of St. Andrews — The Convention at Norham, proceedings before the King as umpire, the Great Roll of Scotland — Award of Crown to John Balliol and his homage — Edward's interference, Balliol's defiance, and defeat at Dunbar — His surrender and captivity — Edward's progress through Scotland, parlia- ment and homages at Berwick, 28th August 1296 — The Ragman Roll, viii THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND its nature, and popular errors regarding it — Edward's Ordinances, irritation caused by these, and Wallace's rising — That of Bruce, Douglas, and the Bishop of Glasgow put down — Battle of Stirling, Warenne's defeat and Cressingham's death, 11th September 1297 — Edward's return from abroad, and defeat of Wallace at Falkirk, 22nd July 1298— Hie inactivity in 1299, through his nobles' opposition — Takes Carlaverock Castle at Midsummer 1300, and grants a truce till 1301 — The English "Pale" in Scotland — Edward invades at Midsummer 1301 — Marches up Tweeddale, takes the Castle of Bothwell and winters at Linlithgow — His son's separate expedition from Carlisle to Galloway — Miraculous story of St. Ninian and his shrine — Edward's devoutness, his chapel and two crosses of great sanctity, carried about with him — His many offerings on saints' days — Gifts to religious orders in Scotland — Curious misapprehension as to one of these by a learned antiquary — Pages 20-36 LECTURE III Edward L and Bruce Edward L builds a house at Linlithgow, and makes a fresh truce with the Scots — Returns to England in February 1301-2 — Appoints on the way many keepers of Scottish castles, etc. — Summons Irish levies, and receives Robert Bruce a Guardian, to his Peace — Bruce's inconsistency, the Battle of Roslin — Edward's great preparations for invasion — His two fortified bridges to cross the Forth — March from Roxburgh to Elgin in 1303 — Capture of Brechin Castle on the way — Winters at Dunfermline with his second Queen — Receives the submission of Sir John Comyn, sole Guardian, February 1303-4 — Besieges and takes Stirling Castle on 20th July — His use of Greek fire, and experiment with a new engine — Returns through the Pentlands — Valuable revenue rolls of this period — His anxiety to capture Wallace, and plans adopted — Sir John Menteith's part in the affair, a matter of routine, and the duty might have been Bruce's — Edward's final settlement of Scotland, and repose at Winchester — Murder of Comyn disturbs his dream — His energy, rapid orders and slow progress northwards — Severity to rebel ladies, and to nobles and others taken in arms — .... Pages 37-52 LECTURE lY Edward I.'s Death — Edward IL Bruce's two defeats and desperate condition — Retreats through the Lennox to Kintyre and thence to Rachrin Island, off" Antrim — An old tradition, but possibly to Orkney — Reasons for this, his sister Queen Dowager of Norway, Fabyan's Chronicle, etc. — His two brothers executed at Carlisle — Keen pursuit of himself in Galloway, and hairbreadth escapes— Battle of Loudoun Hill, and Edward's displeasure with De Valence — His nickname for Bruce, and renewed hope to enter Scotland — Stoicism on CONTENTS ix his daughter's death at Carlisle, and order to her vassals to join him — His death in sight of Scotland, and inscription on his tomb — Edward II. marches to Cumnock, and no farther — His speedy return emboldens Bruce — The latter's expedition northwards and the " Hership of Buchan " — Chastisement of the Lord of Lorne — Barbour's error as to John of Lome — Edward marches to Glasgow in 1310, and winters at Berwick- on-Tweed — Parleys of his envoys with Bruce — Dissensions with his nobles, and Bruce's ravages in the northern counties, 1311-13 — Edward's Scottish adherents petition him — His promise of relief — Bannockburn and the English accounts of it— . , . Pages 53-68 LECTUKE V Edward IL — Abdication — Edward III. Results of Bannockburn and incidents — Scottish inroads to Yorkshire, and Carlisle threatened — Bruce's siege in person, and repulse in August 1315 — John of Lome's recapture of the Isle of Man — Irish war, and death of Edward Bruce — Border fights, Skaithmuir, Lintalee, and death of the "Peacock of the North " — Bruce's capture of Berwick-upon-Tweed in 1318 — Siege by Edward II. in 1319, and stout defence — Rout of the English at Mytton-on-Swale, and compulsory truce — Thomas of Lancaster's rebellion, defeat and death, March 1321-22 — Scottish inroad to Lancashire, and Edward's counter-invasion to Edinburgh, 1322 — His surprise by Bruce at Byland Abbey, and narrow escape to York — Treason and death of Andrew Earl of Carlisle, January 1322-23, and com- pulsory truce for thirteen years — Abdication of Edward II., 24th January 1326-27 — First fruitless campaign of Edward III., and his narrow escape in Weardale, August 1327 — Robert King of Scots then in Antrim — Treaty of Peace, and alliance of his son with Edward's sister in July 1328— Death of Robert I. on 7th June 1329— Thomas Earl of Murray Regent — Treaty conditions not fulfilled — Edward's demands, and connivance with the disinherited barons ; their plans and expedition to Scotland — The Regent's death on 20th July 1332 — His successor, Donald Earl of Mar, defeated and slain atDupplin, 12th August — Edward Balliol crowned, 24th September — Sir Andrew Moray chosen Regent, and dealing of Edward III, with both sides — Moray's capture at Roxburgh — Surprise and flight of Edward Balliol near Annan in December following — ... ... Pages 69-84 LECTURE YI Edward III. — Edward Balliol and David II. Edward Balliol's liberality to his English adherents — Edward III. and he besiege Berwick-upon-Tweed — Battle of Halidon Hill on 19th July 1333 ; death of the Regent Douglas, and defection of the Earl of March X THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND — Balliol's parliament, homage to Edward III. and dismemberment of Scotland — Curious result of this — Fresh invasion by both kings in July 1335 — Offer by Edward III. to treat with Sir Andrew Moray — His romantic march from Perth to Lochindorb Castle to release the Countess of Athol, in June 1336 — Hasty retreat of Sir Andrew Moray over the Findhorn, and Sir Walter Scott thereon — Edward III. purchases the Fitz- Alans' claim to the Stewardship of Scotland — His sudden march to Callander and the relief of Stirling Castle in June 1337 — His absence in the Low Countries, Parliament of 1340, and victory of Sluys on 22nd June — Loses Perth and Edinburgh — His visit to Melrose in December 1341 — Loses Roxburgh and Stirling in 1342, and much of Balliol's grant by neglect — Occupied with siege of Calais — Invasion of David II., his defeat and capture at Neville's Cross in October 1346 — No evidence that Philippa Queen of England was there — Anarchy and defections in Scotland — Edward Balliol resigns it to Edward III. — The Lords gradually regain it — Secret bargain of Edward III. with the Knight of Liddesdale — His last visit probably in 1356 — Release of David II. in 1358, his secret agreement with Edward as to his succession and otherwise — Scotsmen take service with England — Dealings of Richard II., Henry IV., and Edward IV. with Scotland — Corollaries and summing up — ..... Pages 85-105 THE EDWAEDS IN SCOTLAND I INTRODUCTORY I NEED hardly tell an audience in the " gray metro- Lect. i. polis of the North," that these Rhind Lectures, provided by the munificence of a private gentleman twenty-five years ago, have thrown no small light on the early history of our country. Delivered by men of the highest eminence in their respective walks, and dealing with the dim prehistoric past — with the origin and progress of culture — with the indelible traces left on the face of the land by the conquerors of the world, in their steady progress towards the Ultima Thule of the unknown north, never attained — or with researches in the more familiar fields of our later domestic history, — they have clearly shadowed forth for us the course and progress of our civilisation. B 2 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lfxt. I. It is only in outline that I know this most valuable series of prelections — my own pursuits having lain for more than twenty years in another direction ; thus it follows that what I have now by the favour of the Council of this Society to offer to your notice, embodies only my own researches in the Archives of England for all papers relating to Scotland in the stormy era of her struggle for independence. We therefore meet here to devote a few hours to this stirring period of Scottish history, when our forefathers — many of whom must have shared the blood of the Caledonians, who a thousand years earlier had stoutly resisted the legions of Eome under Agricola, — were called upon to meet the forces of the greatest of the Plantagenets. Thouo-h often worsted in the struo-oie, and deserted by their leaders, at last, led by the genius of Bruce, they emerged from the long conflict as an independent nation — destined at a later day to join on equal terms with England, in a bond — the source of incalculable advantages to both peoples — which now includes kindred and even once hostile races beyond seas — a union which (in the light of recent events in the political world), is destined to endure while the British Empire shall stand. The subject of the dealings of the three English Edwards with Scotland, on which I have been INTRODUCTORY 3 invited by the Council to speak, is, I may venture to Leot. i. say, one that can never be without abiding interest to Scotsmen. It is no doubt true that many historians have treated of the lives of these sovereigns, either as part of general European history or more especially as involved in that of our own half of Great Britain, so that the subject is not absolutely new. But for all this, I think some matters not in common knowledge may arise to attract us. Every historian is not gifted like the author of The Decline and Fall, who could pause in his main story to point out some striking fact, without interrupting the stately march of his famous narrative ; and the ordinary writer on historical matters must in these days express broad views, leaving on one side most things that concern only the bye-ways of his subject. Yet these are often the little sparks that light up a dark period and help to fix greater things in the reader's memory. As it has been my duty and pleasure, for no small part of my life, to examine with care all original documents bearing on Scottish history from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, that could be discovered in the English Public Eecords, I have observed here and there not a few things worthy to be rescued from the dust of Time, and have judged that to present them in a connected narrative of these reigns in popular form, might be acceptable 4 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. I. and useful as a preliminary to the dry study of the originals in many official records, not for a moment desiring to hinder those who are disposed to pursue that course. Still you must not expect from me a succession of romantic adventures and hair-breadth escapes, for I can only relate sober facts gathered from dry records. Doubtless romance is to be found there, but it must be left to such historians as Sir Herbert Maxwell and Mr. Andrew Lang to place it in the full light of day, adorned with all the graces of style. My part has been to collect and arrange the proper materials in due order for the skilful treatment of such writers. Whether the labour has been well bestowed, it will be for you to say. Had any one told me, when more than twenty years ago I was entrusted with the duty of calendar- ing the earliest records of Scotland believed to be stored in the great National Eepository in Fetter Lane, that in course of time I should have the honour to lecture before an Edinburgh audience on the results of my labours, I should have thought him a too flattering prophet. For the proper function of those who deal with original records is rather to arrans^e facts for the historian than themselves to write history, that "work so full of dangerous chance," as the "Roman poet warns us. Yet no one of ordinary intelligence, as he reads these silent records of the hopes and schemes of INTRODUCTORY 5 personages who have made their mark on Time, Lect. i. can fail to imbibe some sense of their value in giving a truer picture of their day than we can gather from the credulous compilers of monkish chronicles, or their copyists in a later yet still uninquiring age. It may here be asked — and with much point — why should we Scotsmen resort to the Public Records of England for information on the history of our country during her long struggle for in- dependence ? The answer is, that our records for that period do not exist — which brings me to consider the reasons for this deficiency. Though Hector Boece (sometimes called the " Father of Lies ") and George Buchanan, took the simple course of accounting for their loss by accusing Edward I. of burning all the national records extant at the death of Alexander III. — a belief still held by many worthy people — their loss is not to be so easily explained ; nor does it lie at that great king's door, for though he did us much harm in other ways, he was not the man to burn records. As the latest writer on Scottish history acutely observes, Edward I. was a strong valiant man with a thread of the attorney in his nature, and a thorough believer in the goodness of his cause. His earlier proceedings were certainly conducted with strict legal formality whatever may be thought of his later acts. 6 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Shortly after he was asked or undertook to decide the succession on the death of the Maid of Norway, Edward L, then at Berwick-upon-Tweed, issued a writ on 12th August 1291, signifying the appoint- ment of five persons (two of them the abbots of Dun- fermline and Holyrood) to examine all charters, papal letters, rolls, etc., touching the rights of the claim- ants to the crown, or those of himself and his king- dom, then in the Castle of Edinburgh or elsewhere — under which order these commissioners, on 23rd August, removed the whole to Berwick. Owing to this careful step (as Prynne calls it) they were for the time preserved from the dangers of civil commotion. A document which has been very seriously mis- represented by many WTiters, who unite in styling it " an Inventory of the Scotch Eecords when brought into the Exchequer at London by Edward I.," is no- thing of the kind. Sir J oseph Ayloffe, an officer of the English records of last century,^ showed that it is in reality a mere schedule of the Bulls, charters, etc. in the King of Scotland's Treasury, Edinburgh, on Michaelmas Day a.d. 1282, several years before the death of Alexander III. Nothing hut this schedule ever reached the English Exchequer, where it now is. Of these records named in it, comprising papal bulls, treaties, sherifis' and revenue accounts, plea rolls, royal wills, inquisitions of heirs, the fealties of the 1 In his Calendar of Ancient Cliarters, 1774. INTRODUCTORY 7 sles of Man, Bute, and the Western Isles, original charters — in effect all the public muniments of Scotland in the thirteenth century, it may be earlier — very little remains even in England, and in Scotland nothing but partial copies of a few early exchequer rolls made by the Earl of Haddington (" Tam of the Cowgate ") early in the seventeenth century — surely not bad evidence that the collection was then in Scotland. One interesting (but I fear unique) relic of one class of these is a large and much damaged roll, the Iter of Werk in Tynedale during October 1279 — what we should call here a " Circuit Court Eoll " of the four Justices in Eyre of Alexander III. engaged in deciding both civil and criminal cases in that extensive border district, which the Scottish kings had held since the reign of David I., exercising sovereign right. The title-deeds of the old North- umbrian family of Swinburne of Capheaton show traces of many like rolls, but this one is the sole known survivor. Why should Edward not have destroyed it, if he was so desirous to obliterate the traces of Scottish Independence ? No ! he wished rather to discover than destroy writings, as his writs to many English religious houses show, commanding a search for evidence of his superiority over Scotland, entirely without success. The marvel is that this anxiety of his did not encourage them to forge 8 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. I. evidence, as was done later. The only documents which are clearly sho^ii to have been then sent to Eno^land, were not the extensive collections in Avlofife's schedule, but only those relative to the homage of the new-made king John Balliol in 1292-3.^ Professor Cosmo Innes has pointed out. that although in the seventh clause of the Treaty of Northampton in 1328, it was declared that all writinQ;5 of this class touchinor the subjection of Scotland, should, when found, be delivered to Robert L, even this qualified condition was not observed, as is proved by the three homage or Eao-man rolls, and fragments of the orimnal horn- ages by the clergy, nobles, and community, still remainino; in the Public Eecord Office. Nor was the Coronation Stone restored, though an express condition of the Treaty, but, as we know, remains at Westminster in fulfilment of the old prophecy. Mr. Innes also remarked that original public documents of Scotland later than the time of Edward I. are very inconsiderable. To this opinion from one who had given much study to Scottish records, I would add that when we recall the troubled period of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries — the destruction of religious houses (where many public and private documents were deposited for safety) both during the savao'e inroads ordered bv Henrv VIII. and our own intestine broils before and during the Reformation Acts of Parliament of Scotland, 1. p. IS. INTRODUCTORY 9 era, we need not wonder at the disappearance of our Lect. i. earliest records. The caligraphy of these old deeds helped to assist their destruction by the ignorant rabble, who would class them with the service-books of the Eoman clergy. I am tempted to fortify what I have said by the authority of a great lawyer, John Eiddell. Speaking of the paucity of our old records, he says,^ " This has been chiefly owing, I conceive, to the ruthless and precipitate nature of our Eeformation, and the sad havoc it occasioned to writs and docu- ments in general, especially by the destruction of religious houses — their chief custodiers, — intestine tumults and feuds no doubt partly contributing, with occasional incendiary inroads of the English : but not so much directly to Edward I. as imagined, who was more bent, with curious antiquarian zeal, on recovering and securing those instruments and authorities that concerned the important subject that engrossed him, of the feudal superiority of England over Scotland." Mr. Eiddell enforces his view more strongly in his text, saying that the Eeformers' ^ exhortation of ''an infuriated rabble to destroy the nests (cathedrals and abbeys) of the papal hierarchy " occasioned the irretrievable loss of the ecclesiastical registers and consistorial records, the most valuable and profitable portion of Scottish 1 Peerage and Consistorial Lavj, I. p. vi. ^ lb. p. 240. 10 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. I. muniments. Mr. Kiddell knew more than any man before or since his day, of these matters, and though no admirer of Papacy, could not shut his eyes to facts. His allusion to English inroads receives signal confirmation in the Hamilton Papers which I edited for the General Register House ten years ago. On 10th April 1544, Henry VIII., in the true spirit of an Attila, ordered Somerset ^ (then Earl of Hertford) to sack and burn St. Andrews, not leaving one stone above another, also Leith, Edinburgh, Holyrood Abbey, and all the towns and villages around. These atrocious commands were not carried out at St. Andrews, for it was beyond Hertford's reach " — but on May 9th, he reported to his savage master the complete destruction of Edinburgh and Holyrood Abbey, which were wholly burned and desolate. It cannot be doubted that in this con- flagration of the Palace and Abbey, many precious documents of our history perished. Sir John Thynne, the Marquess of Bath's ancestor, secured a copy of Bellenden's History of 1500, still at Longleat, while Sir Richard Lee plundered the Abbey of its brazen font and lectern. The font perished during the English Civil Wars, but the lectern is still to be seen in St. Stephen's Church, St. Albans, to which Lee is believed to have given it. I saw it there some years ago, still bearing the 1 H.P. vol. ii. p. 326. 2 xh. p. 369. INTRODUCTORY 11 arms of Crichton, Bishop of Dunkeld, who presented Lect. i. it to Holyrood Abbey. I saw the other day among the Laing Charters a curious additional piece of evidence, where the Cordwainers of Leith, twenty or more years after this inroad, obtained from the notorious Logan of Kestalrig a renewal of the grant to them by his father. Sir Eobert Logan, Knight, which had been burned in the sack of Leith. Those conversant with Lothian charter - chests may doubtless find other instances. Another noted personage, Oliver Cromwell, has been held responsible for the most fatal disaster to our records since the time of Edward 1. Soon after his victory of Dunbar, Cromwell caused the records of the Scottish parliaments and Courts of Justice to be removed to the Tower of London in 1651. There they lay till 1657, when the Council of State ordered their return to Scotland, and to the number of nearly 1600 volumes, they were (with considerable exceptions) delivered to Sir Archibald Johnston of Warriston, then Lord Clerk Eegister, and are now in the General Register House. From Sir Joseph AylofFe's inventory of them we can see that none are earlier than the year 1424, — the bulk being of that century and the next. A few papers still remain in London, being Signet 12 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. I. letters of the reigns of Mary and James VI., evidently relics of what Cromwell had removed. The excepted documents not delivered to Warriston were not so fortunate. No inventory of them is in existence, and their nature can only be conjectured ; but it is not improbable they were public instruments of the kind from which Lord Haddington made his copies or notes earlier in the century of their removal, when there must have been many extant. After the Restoration, all that were supposed to remain in the Tower were shipped for Scotland. No fewer than eighty-five hogsheads of these were irretrievably lost in a storm on the voyage between London and Leith. Nor was the sea the only enemy of these ill-fated records. Neglect, and ill-usage by their proper custodians, were to do their work on the remnant that the storm had spared. For this we have the testimony of James Anderson, the well-known author of the Diplomata Scotiae. In his search for evidence of the independence of Scotland, he found, as he says, important documents lying in heaps, or trodden under foot, or in barrels (the forty-year-old hogsheads, no doubt), and lamented the dark and very unwhole- some place where they were deposited. Few of Anderson's contemporaries had a taste for these ''unwholesome researches": and in 1740, eighty years after their escape from shipwreck, ten INTRODUCTORY 13 of the " Cromwellian " hogsheads still lay unopened Lect. i. in the Lower Parliament House here (then used as a Kegister House) through some unaccountable neglect of the officers in charge. This was the only excuse made, in the year 1740, by the Court of Session to the House of Lords, for noncompliance with an order of the latter, wishing information on the then state of the Peerage of Scotland. On the application of the Dean and Faculty of Advocates, to their honour be it remarked, a partial examination of these surviving hogsheads was made in 1753, under authority of the Court of Session ; but at the close of that century they still lay in their cellar, till all our records were removed to the General Eegister House, to be there treated under the direction of the custodiers of that establishment by all the resources of learning and skill, to remedy the injuries of time and neglect. Such is an outline of the story of the destruction, or at least disappearance, of the earliest, and many of the later records of Scotland, a calamity for which no one man, King or Eepublican, can be held responsible, but due rather to the causes that have proved disastrous to so many of (on the whole) the better cared for records of England. This much is certain, that so far as negative evidence goes, none have been cut up into cartridges, as was done to many official Norman records in the first French 14 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. I. Revolution ; or, worse still, been treated as were the oldest records of the Palatinate of Durham, manv chests of which were burned by the executors of Bishop Cosin, at the close of the seventeenth century, to prevent, forsooth, questions among his heirs ; a proceeding justly styled by the late Sir Thomas Hardy a "nefarious holocaust." But there was no Scottish Arthur Agarde in the sixteenth, or William Prynne in the seventeenth century, to rescue the old Scottish records "from putrefaction and oblivion," or to undertake " that painful, troublesome, sordid work" of disinterring them from " dust and cobwebs," — so picturesquely described by the learned Puritan ; and when James Anderson came on the scene, there were but few left to rescue. The consequences of this ill-usage and neglect did not end here, for in the dearth of materials in their own country, Scottish antiquaries and historical writers were obliged to look in the English records — a search intensified by a curious circumstance. Eymer, when collecting the materials for his Feeder a, discovered in the Chapter House of Westminster the forged charter, purporting to be the homage of Malcolm Canmore and his son to Edward the Confessor. Rashly, "perhaps unwittingly," says Sir Thomas Hardy, " he gave it an importance to which it was by no means entitled, by causing it to INTRODUCTORY 15 be engraved in facsimile" The Scottish antiquaries, Lixt. i. then much excited on the proposed Union of the kingdoms, took alarm, and a controversy, carried on with great virulence, began. Among the disputants were George Kidpath, Bishop Mcolson, Rymer himself, William At wood, an English barrister and ex- colonial judge, whose book had the distinction of being burned by the Edinburgh hangman by command of the Scottish Parliament — Anderson (of the Diplomata), and the learned Thomas Euddiman. Some of them, Atwood and Anderson especially, attacked each other in terms now happily unknown in such contests. One good result followed, for Anderson, seeking authorities in support of his views, was the first to make practical use of the splendid collection of early charters, etc., relating to Scotland, still preserved in the Treasury of Durham^ some of which are engraved in the Diplomata, — for though Bishop Nicolson printed a list of those relating to Coldingham in his Scottish Historical Library, little attention was paid to them till Anderson's work appeared. I need hardly point out that these, which are the oldest public documents afi'ecting Scotland, are the records of the Priory, not of the Bishopric of Durham, w^hich were destroyed, as I have said, by Cosin's executors. Thus these two questions — (l) the alleged destruc- tion of the old Scottish records by Edward 1. ; 16 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. I. and (2) the superiority of England over Scotland, came to be mixed up ; and the search for documents disproving the latter, kept alive the tradition as to the former. Sir F. Palgrave ^ gives a very interest- ing account of Malcolm's charter, and other forged documents of professedly later date, still in the Exchequer, where they were deposited in November 1457 by John Hardyng, the poet and chronicler, who pretended he had got them in Scotland at the risk of his life, and that our James I. had offered him 1000 gold marks to give them up. He was rewarded by a pension of £20 from Henry VL, and doubtless concocted the whole collection — nine in all. The tenacity with which England clung to this claim of over-lordship is shown by the fact that despite the full recognition of our independence, won on the field of Bannockburn, embodied in the Treaty of Northampton in 1328, the English kings, whenever Scotland was in difficulties, re-asserted it. It was certainly made by Henry IV., by Edward lY., by Henry VIIL, by the protector Somerset, and by Elizabeth during the captivity of the Queen of Scots, in which she was supported by Mr. Secretary Cecil — it must have been to please his mistress, for he was far too wise a statesman to have believed it. 1 Documents and Records reletting to Scotland (1837), preface, p. cxcvi. INTRODUCTORY 17 Before the unhappy breach which gave rise to Lect. i. the Hundred Years' War, the two countries had been on the whole good neighbours for a couple of centuries, interrupted by such family quarrels as the battle of the Standard, the capture of William the Lion at Alnwick, etc. Malcolm Canmore and his successors had married English ladies, and Alexander III. was in the closest relation of friend- ship with his Queen's brother Edward 1. By the testimony of an early poet, Scotland in the reign of her last native king enjoyed high civilisation. This is illustrated by a household book of Edward I. in the year 1304, where it appears that besides being welcomed by minstrels and harpers at various places in his progress through Fife to the town of Perth, seven women who met the king near Gask on the Earn, and sang before him, as the custom was in the late King Alexander's time, were suitably rewarded for their melody — a survival of peaceful days, though offered to a usurping king. To quote a very able writer on Peeblesshire,^ ^' It is universally agreed that throughout her long career as an independent kingdom, no period was more prosperous for Scotland than the century and a half which elapsed between the accession of the first David and the death of the last Alexander. ^ Rotert Ren wick, Depute Town -Clerk of Glasgow {Historical Notes, 1897, p. 108). C 18 THE EDWARDS IX SCOTLAND Lect. I. Tribal divisions, the ever-recurring conflicts between Briton, Saxon, and Celt, which almost monopolise the pages of our earliest annals, had disappeared, and the Scottish monarchs, subject to occasional outbreaks of Galwegian Picts, Northern earls, and unstable Islesmen, ruled over a united people from Maidenkirk to John o' Groat's. But — Quhen Alexander the King was deid That Scotland haid to steyr and laid. The land sax yer, and mair perfay, Lay desolat efter hys day. Margaret Queen of Scots, Edward's sister, died in 1275, at the early age of thirty-five, much lamented for her grace and beauty according to Scottish tradition, but this no way interrupted the friendly relations of the two kings, as is shown by letters between them, and from Alexander's son and daughter to their royal uncle. While they lived, x41exander made no second alliance, but after their early deaths, within a few days of each other, in the beginning of 1284, the prince leaving a widow but no child, while his sister the Queen of Norway, w^ho was some years older, was survived by an only child — the Maid of Norway, — their father found himself the last male of his family, with no near relative to succeed him save this infant. His touching letter to Edward on 20th April 1284, while relating his losses and sorrows, gives him INTRODUCTORY 19 grateful thanks for his sympathy, and bespeaks his Lect. i. friendly protection for the infant heiress of Scotland, if death should break their league of amity. With prudent foresight, however, Alexander, then little over forty, contracted a second marriage with the Lady Joleta of Dreux, dissolved by his melancholy death near Eanghorn on 19th March 1285-86, childless. With him expired the direct line of the Scoto- Pictish Kings ; and the realm, which had attained much prosperity under the wise reigns of his father and himself, was soon to experience the disastrous effects of a disputed succession. With the causes leading to this I hope to deal in my next Lecture. II EDWAKD 1. IN SCOTLAND On the unexpected death of her grandfather Alex- ander III., which occurred near Kinghorn on 19th March 1285-86, the child of three years old became Queen of Scots. On 5th February of the year before, on the death of her uncle the prince, she had been acknowledo'ed heir to the Crown by the mamates of Scotland, failing issue of her grandfather or uncle. After the king's burial at Dunfermline, the mag- nates, headed by the Bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow, on 29 th March addressed a letter to the Kins^ of Eno;land, consultino^ him as next in blood to their infant queen. Pursuant no doubt to his ad\^ce, a parliament was held at Scone in April following, when these two bishops, with four others of the greatest men in the kingdom, were appointed guard- ians of the realm. They administered the govern- ment for several years much as in the late reign, conducting diplomatic intercourse with Edward (who for most of the time was in Gascony), and his EDWARD I. IN SCOTLAND 21 lieutenant in England, in the usual friendly manner. Lect. ii Whether he was moved by the ulterior designs with which he is charged, or not, it was a most natural object in Edward's policy that the two realms should be united by the marriage of his son and his grand- niece, and to this end many negotiations took place between his own envoys and those of Norway and Scotland in the year 1289, ending in the important Treaty at Northampton on 6th November that year, and the papal bull of Nicholas III. permitting the intended marriage. So earnest was Edward, that three years before, he had procured a bull from the late Pope Honorius lY., granting a general dispensation for all his children to marry in the forbidden degrees. To smooth proceedings, he had also, in 1286, lent 2000 marks to Eric, King of Norway, while his ener- getic envoy Antony Bek, bishop of Durham, granted annuities of £400 to some Norwegians of rank, till the young queen should attain the age of fifteen. Edward also wrote urgently to her father Eric in April 1290, to hasten the arrival of his daughter in England; as the four surviving Guardians had already done on 17th March, with assent of the community of Scotland under their common seal. The marriage-treaty at Brigham, between the English ambassadors and the magnates and community of Scotland, had been ratified by Edward at North- ampton on 28th August 1290 — he and his son had 22 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. II. appointed plenipotentiaries, and with paternal care he had despatched a great vessel from Yarmouth, victualled with all delicacies of the time, to bring the "Damsel of Scotland," as she is styled, to her own realm ; and all seemed to point to a happy issue of his anxious negotiations at the Court of Eome and else- where, with their heavy expenses. In this fair prospect of a happy alliance between the two nations, while messengers were hurrying through the land to report the queen and her retinue reaching Orkney, and the magnates had assembled at Perth to arrange for her reception, a doleful rumour spread abroad that she had died before touching the Scottish shore. The precise date is nowhere stated, probably the last week of September. The first recorded news of it is con- tained in a letter to Edward I. on 7th October 1290, from William Fraser, the Bishop of St. Andrews, then at Leuchars in Fife, urging him to come without delay to the Marches, to prevent bloodshed — adding that Eobert Bruce the Lord of Annandale had unex- pectedly come with a formidable retinue to Perth, at the instigation of some persons not named — a hint of the danger like to arise by a disputed succession. The unnamed person was conjectured by Lord Hailes to be Eobert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow, who was in the Bruce interest, (as Fraser was in that of Balliol). The four surviving Guardians carried on the EDWARD I. IN SCOTLAND 23 government during the remainder of this year ; and so Lect. ii. far as I can gather from the records I have consulted, it does not appear how Edward 1. was invited to take upon himself the decision as to the right heir to the crown. About the end of the year, just before the convention where he presided, an appeal was made to him, which is still extant, by the Seven Earls and community, complaining of the acts of two of the Guardians, the Bishop of Glasgow and Sir John Comyn (the elder) ; and also asserting that Alexander 11. had admitted the right of the Lord of Annandale as his next heir, — presumably before the birth of his son the late king, and if so, also before that of John Balliol, who was born a year later. However brought about, the Convention of the prelates, nobles, and people of Scotland and England to settle the succession, was held by Edward at the castle of Norham-on-Tweed on 10th May 1291. The proceedings are recorded at great length on the Great Koll of Scotland" by Master John of Caen, made up from the separate instruments of each day's transactions registered by another official. It is suffi- cient to say that they show the complete readiness of the thirteen competitors for the Crown of Scotland, to accept any decision of the English king. John Balliol has by common fame been singled out as more obsequious than the others, and this pliancy is said to have gained him the crown. Of this there is no 24 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. II. evidence, while the appeal of the Seven Earls before referred to is distinctly in the interest of the elder Bruce, from whom a very subservient anonymous letter addressed to Edward I. after the sittings began in May, is strongly suspected to have come. The proceedings, which need only be generally referred to here, were conducted with judicial deliberation, the claims of all the competitors being duly examined, and finally rejected, except those of Balliol, Bruce, and Hastings, descended of the three daughters of David, Earl of Huntingdon, the hero of Sir Walter Scott's Talisman. Finally on 17th November 1292, in the great haU of the Castle of Berwick-upon-Tweed, Edward awarded the crown of Scotland to John Balliol, as grandson of Margaret, eldest daughter of the Earl of Huntingdon, rejecting the claim of Bruce as son of Isabella, the second daughter, which that noble attempted to fortify, as being one degree nearer the common ancestor — a notion more agxeeable to that day when succession was not so strictly regulated as now, when it would be quite untenable. The claim of Hastings, descended from Ada, the third daughter of Earl David, was rejected with that of Bruce. He was willing to have accepted a third part of Scotland. It may be feared, during this long deliberation of eighteen months, Edward was tempted to extend his claim as Lord Paramount far beyond the simple homage made by EDWARD I. IN SCOTLAND 25 earlier kings of the Scots for their possessions in Lect. ii. England only ; and was encouraged in this course much more by the subserviency of all the competitors, than by the fables and legends extracted by his command from the records of many religious houses in England, which were not likely to satisfy his strong intelligence. It is more probable that, seeing the divided state of Scotland, Edward placed his trust in the ultima ratio regum, should events justify his resorting to it. Perhaps without crediting him with prophetic powers, he had a shrewd guess that the new king's character would soon give a pretext for his interfering with the strong hand. King John, after doing homage for Scotland to his overlord, (an act with- out precedent in the reigns of his predecessors), after his coronation at Scone, proceeded to administer the government. His first royal act was, on 2nd January 1292-93, to release his overlord of all eng;aojements undertaken for him or the kingdom during the i7iter- regnum. This, with other writings relating to it, was deposited by Edward at Westminster shortly ^fter, with a notarial protest reserving his full right to hear appeals from Scotland; thus degrading Balliol to the position of a vassal king. He soon made this operative, for Balliol, after objecting to be summoned on the justice eyre of Yorkshire, and enduring other petty annoyances, was summoned to appear in person at Westminster, to defend a claim by a Gascon 26 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. II. creditor of Alexander III., though he evaded this by referring it to his Parliament, as also a summons by Edward in June 1294, to join him with all his forces against Philip TV. of France. At last, goaded by Edward's insulting acts of interference, as overlord, with lands in Scotland, he renounced his allegiance in October 1295, despatching an army to the Western border of England, which wasted the country as far as Hexham, in the following March. ^ This defiance aroused Edward's anger, who had already mustered his forces and reached AYark on the Tweed, where he received the homages of nearly ninety Scotsmen — who probably foresaw the inevitable fall of Balliol, — shortly afterwards taking Berwick, and overthrowing the Scots at Dunbar on 27th April 1296, with great slaughter. Thus closed the reign of Balliol, who, after confessing his sins against his liege lord, and delivering up to him his realm and people, under his great seal at Kincardine on 2nd July, a few days later, at Stracathro and Brechin, renounced his league with Philip of France, and gave up his royal seal to Edward's emissary, the Bishop of Durham. He left the kingdom for ten years without a king, and after a three years' imprisonment, retired to his paternal estates in France, to live in complete obscurity till his death in 1313. 1 Terrible cruelties are charged by the English chroniclers. Massacre by the Scots of 200 little clerks at Corbridge-on-Tyne, etc. EDWARD I. IN SCOTLAND 27 Edward now made a triumphal progress through Lect. il Scotland, as if undisputed sovereign. Starting from Eoxburgh, he went as far north as Elgin, taking the submissions and homages of the ex-King John, the bishops, barons, and chief men, at various places on his way. This journey lasted from 13th May till 28th August 1296, when he returned to Berwick-on- Tweed, holding a parliament there, where all these persons (except Balliol, now removed to the Tower of London) again swore fealty, with the addition of the whole community of Scotland, great and small, from Caithness to the Ehinns of Galloway. This famous transaction is recorded in the " Eagman EoUs," as we call them here, compiled from the original homages to which the seals of the granters were attached. There are nearly two thousand names enrolled, but only seventy of the original oaths are extant, and the seals of these and of the many that have perished, number nearly eight hundred, the most curious and interesting of which I identified with not a little trouble. This roll, of which there are three copies all in the same hand, is only known in the public records by numbers — 88, 89, 90 of the Tower Miscellaneous Eolls. It is not certain how the name Eagman was applied to it. But however styled, it is the Libro D'Oro of Scotland ; and in spite of its degrading origin, there are few of our ancient families who are not pleased to point to an ancestor there, or 28 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. II. modern who would not rejoice to discover one. I have been thus particular in describing it, for there is a general belief that not only the signatures, (in the modern sense), but also the seals of the homagers are attached to the roll. Neither is the case ; the seals only were hung by strings in a peculiar manner to the original documents, as may still be seen on those that survive. A statistician may find from the roll some data, slender enough no doubt, whereby to form a rough estimate of the population in the thirteenth century. One would think it must have been reckoned by a few hundreds of thousands only. Edward, having thus pacified Scotland, took his way south in September, having previously despatched the Stone of Scone to Westminster — there after three centuries to fulfil the prophecy. But his appointments of Englishmen as Governor, Treasurer, and to many other offices, could not fail to irritate a people accustomed to native rule. His command, on 31st January 1296-97, that no Scotsman be allowed to leave the kingdom, and his messao'es to nearly sixty magnates in the following May, doubtless related to keeping the peace during his expected absence in Flanders in August. He took many of the chief Scottish nobles with him to serve against France, releasing them on this express con- dition, while others who had been taken at Dunbar were still kept prisoners. Before this time, however, EDWARD I. IN SCOTLAND 29 the rising of the Scots led by Wallace took place in Lect. ii. May, in which the Sheriff of Lanark was killed. Somewhat later, the Bishop of Glasgow and James the High Steward, who are said to have instigated the rising, and certainly took the field with the Earl of Carrick ^ and Sir William Douglas, were forced to surrender at Irvine in Ayrshire to Sir Henry Percy and Sir Robert Clifford, severe guarantees being required for Bruce's future loyalty, while Douglas was put in prison in fetters, finally dying in the Tower of London two years later. Wallace, however, kept the field in Selkirk forest, and on 11th September 1297, acting as Guardian in the name of King John, along with Andrew Murray, totally defeated the English army led by the Earl of Surrey and the Treasurer Cressingham at Stirling Bridge, with heavy loss — a result chiefly due to Cressingham's rashness, who was slain — though wdth others who have studied the subject, I cannot believe that the Scots made his skin into horsegirths. Though Andrew Murray is also said to have fallen there, it is more likely that he received the severe wounds of which he died, later ; for he appears nominally some weeks after as joint leader of this army invading the Border and burning Hexham Abbey. It is certain he was the father of the future reo'ent, who was his 1 Young Bruce, the grandson of tlie old competitor, who died two years before. 30 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. II. posthumous son. When the news of this disaster reached Edward at Ghent, he took speedy order for reinforcements to Surrey, who had retreated to York, and having settled his affairs abroad, returned to England by l7th March 1297-98, encouraging his forces in Scotland by assurances that he was hasten- ing to join them. After he had wiped off the dis- grace of Stirling Bridge and defeated the Scots under Wallace with great slaughter at Falkirk, on 22nd July 1298, Edward, leaving a garrison in Stirling Castle, departed by the Western Marches, traversing the Border leisurely till he reached the City of York in December, by way of Newcastle and Durham. At various places on his route he appointed English clerks to benefices in Scotland, and bestowed con- fiscated lands on his own subjects, and also com- missioned Surrey and other nobles to keep order there — among them being the Earl of Carrick, who was fully in his confidence. Yet within a year, in August 1299, we are surprised to find this earl chosen in succession to Sir William Wallace (who had left Scotland after his defeat at Falkirk) one of the three Guardians, along with the Bishop of St. Andrews and Sir John Comyn the younger (with whom he had a hand-to-hand tussle and daggers drawn), and with these colleagues engaged in the siege of Stirling. This castle was surrendered to them in December, as Edward was unable to EDWARD I. IN SCOTLAND 31 relieve it through the refusal of his nobles to march Lect. ii. to Scotland that year. At this time indeed he held no part of Scotland beyond the Forth, and to the south of that river Carlaverock and Bothwell were in the hands of the Guardians. At midsummer of 1300, having mustered a con- siderable force at Carlisle (6000 men), Edward with his son and barons joined them there, and after taking Carlaverock in July (commemorated by a poem well known to antiquaries) marched through the borders of Galloway, reducing it to partial sub- mission. He reached Kirkcudbright on 19th July, and met the powerful fleet of nearly sixty vessels which had been despatched from the Cinque Ports a month before, manned by nearly 1500 men under command of Gervase Alard of Winchilsea as admiral. These vessels supplied the army with provisions, and kept touch with it at various points on the sea-coast from the Cree water and Kirkcudbright, during its return march to Sweetheart Abbey and Carlaverock, which began about the middle of August. About the close of that month, while Edward and his army were at one or other of these halting -places, the singular publication took place of the papal bull by Boniface VIII., issued at the petition of the Scots, demanding the recall of the king's occupation of Scotland, yet asserting, on the Pope's own behalf, that it was an old possession of the see of Rome. Eobert, Archbishop 32 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. II. of Canterbury, personally charged by the Pope to deliver this bull to Edward's own hand, had been detained for some weeks on the English side of the Solway, waiting an opportunity to cross ; and now, after no small risk, succeeded in getting an audience of the king at the end of August, most probably at Carlaverock, when he publicly delivered his unpalat- able demand, to which Edward, unwilling to defy the Pope, though resolved to hold Scotland, answered diplomatically that he must consult his parliament before making answer. With which reply the Arch- bishop departed to make his report to Eome. It was a unique commission for an Archbishop of Canterbury ; and though he may have led the Pope to believe it was successful, the English barons' letter from Lincoln must have ere long undeceived the Pontiff. It is a very extraordinary incident, and not the least so, when we read the archbishop's own account of the difficulties and dangers he braved in the perilous passage of the Solway, for which I am greatly indebted to my friend Mr. George Neilson's Annals of the Sohvay, which contains also a full account of the English fleet. These being contained in the Liher Quotidianus Garderobe of the year, a MS. belonging to the Society of Antiquaries did not come under the limits of the records with which I was impowered to deal. The king remained during that autumn at Carlisle EDWARD I. IN SCOTLAND 33 aod the bishop's castle of La Eose, also spending a lect. li. week at Dumfries in October, when he ratified the truce granted to the Scots at the mediation of France, till Whitsunday 1301. The English warden, with 100 horse and 300 foot, held about this time a sort of English " Pale," extending in the north from Edinburgh to Kirkintilloch, on the east from Dirleton to Berwick-upon-Tweed, on the south from Koxburgh and Jedburgh to Liddesdale, and on the west including Dumfries, Lochmaben, Carlaverock and some other castles. This considerable district was held, including the warden's retinue and the garrisons of castles, by a force much under 2000 — probably nearer 1500. The truce ended at Whitsunday 1301, and the French attempts to renew it also failed, but the barons supporting Edward in their celebrated letter from Lincoln, denying the Pope's jurisdiction in tem- poral matters, or his power to decide their king's rights over Scotland, he made ready for a fresh campaign there, ordering musters of 12,000 foot at Berwick - upon - Tweed by Midsummer. The Prince of Wales, being now sixteen years of age, was intrusted with a separate command under the guidance of the Earl of Lincoln, and other experi- enced nobles, and appointed to invade Scotland from Carlisle. This he did, marching by Dumfries into Galloway, but getting no farther than the water of D 34 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. II. Cree, whence early in October he returned to Carlisle, finally joining his father at Linlithgow on 30th December. A miraculous story is told of the Scots removing the image of St. Ninian from Whithorn to New Abbey near Dumfries, to disappoint the Prince's intended pilgrimage to the saint's own shrine, and its return the same night to Whithorn to receive his ofi'erings, probably a good 100 miles through trackless moors. Of the king's army more is known. It numbered about 7000 foot and 400 to 500 horse, marched from Berwick by Selkirk up Tweeddale to Peebles, then by Biggar to Carstairs, down Clydesdale to Glasgow, and after taking Bothwell Castle early in September, which he had a month before bestowed on Aymar de Valence, Edward I. prepared to secure his hold on Scotland by wintering at Linlithgow. Edward was a devout man according to the spirit of his age, as is evident from numerous entries in the records. There are very curious details of the portable chapel which he carried about with him in his Scottish campaigns certainly, and perhaps elsewhere. For its carriage a waggon and at least ten oxen were required. He also carried with him two crosses of peculiar sanctity, the Black Rood of Scotland and the Cross Gneyth (or of St. Neot's), besides the banners of St. John of Beverley and St. Cuthbert. During this year (perhaps the EDWARD I. IN SCOTLAND 35 records for the time are better preserved), the king Lect. ii. made many offerings in Scotland on the appropriate saints' days both in his own chapel and in the churches where he chanced to halt. In particular, while in Glasgow during August and September, he offered several times at the shrine of Kentigern, at his tomb in the lower church volta" it is called) and at the high altar of the Cathedral. The amount was invariably seven shillings, probably equal to five guineas of our day. He was also liberal in his gifts to the friars of many religious orders, as his wardrobe accounts show. While in Glasgow, he gave the Friars Preachers there a grant for their own diet for three days of six shillings daily, the usual form of such gifts to that body. A very learned Scotsman treating of this more than half a century ago, fell into a curious error. He assumed that Edward 1. took up his quarters with the Friars of Glasgow for three days, and that the six shillings was for the expenses of his stay there, as the only place fit to receive him. This view rather staggered me in my younger days, as it seemed a poor requital to the friars for lodging a royal train. But now that it is evident that Edward must have stayed several wrecks in Glasgow, either in the Episcopal Castle or in his own tents, the true meaning of the gift is clear, viz. to mend the friars' own diet, not in satisfaction of the king's. It is an amusing 36 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. II. instance of how imperfect knowledge misled one deeply versed in Scottish antiquities, for he was no less a man than Joseph Robertson. After this little digression, I leave the king at Linlithgow till our next meeting. Ill EDWARD 1. AND BRUCE Edward, now at Linlithgow, issued various orders lect. hi. to his officers in Scotland for provisioning his forces. These seem not to have exceeded 4000 men, including 500 horse, and though additional levies of 5000 men were ordered to march to Linlithgow by New Year's Day, that number was reduced to 1400. Meantime the king built himself a house there at a cost of nearly £400 (of our day) ; stored large quantities of corn in the great church of St. Michael ; and brought a number of carpenters from Northumberland. It would thus appear that the charge in later days against Cromwell and his Ironsides of using churches for secular purposes, might have been made against the great Plantagenet, though as a general rule he forbade desecration of sacred buildings. He ratified a truce with the Scots till St. Andrew's Day 1302, while he still refused to acknowledge John Balliol as king or the Scots as allies of France, though it was obtained by Philip's mediation. In the beginning of February 38 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. III. 1301-2 he set out for England, and when at Roxburgh on the 12th of that month, saw indentures executed by the Earl of March and other great men, as wardens of Edinburgh, Ayr, and many other castles and districts, to keep them till Whitsunday. He ordered a new peel at Selkirk at a large cost, the particulars of which are not given, — placed Strathgryfe or Renfrewshire in safe hands, and when at Morpeth, issued writs to the Earl of Ulster, Bruce's own brother-in-law, and other Irish lords to provide 11,000 men for the Scottish war. Singularly enough, though the Earl of Carrick was still in name a joint guardian with Sir John Comyn, his future victim, and was at this very time urged by the King of France to persevere in hostility to Edward on behalf of Balliol, a Galwegian murderer was pardoned by Edward at his suit, and almost immediately after, the Earl of Carrick with his tenants was received to peace. Not only so, but in 1303 he filled the office of sheriff of Lanark under the English king ! Bruce's conduct at this period is inexplicable on the ordinary principles of morality. His grandfather the com- petitor had died in 1295 ; his father, after resigning to his son the earldom of Carrick, as being only a life tenant in right of his late wife, had retired to England, where he lived in safe obscurity and died early in 1304; and young Bruce succeeding EDWARD I. AND BRUCE 39 to all their wide possessions in both countries, owed lect. hi. his earldom and the safe enjoyment of these to Edward, whom he so often deceived. The king's lenient treatment of Bruce, John Comyn, Simon Fraser, and other great nobles who behaved in the same fast -and -loose manner with their oaths of allegiance, is likewise unaccountable (unless it was from politic motives to secure them and their powerful connexions) when we compare it with his inexorable rejection of all mercy to Wallace, who, unlike these great men, had never been his liege man, or broken faith with him, as he declared in Westminster Hall when tried for rebellion. The remainder of 1302 was spent in inactivity, the English retaining the various fortresses and districts in their hands and providing for their safety, — for though a truce with France was concluded till Easter 1303, it did not include the Scots, though their six envoys were permitted in November to pass to France with Philip's ambassadors. In February 1302-3, the Scots under Comyn and Sir Simon Fraser inflicted a severe defeat at Eosslyn on Sir John Segrave and Kalph de Manton the king's cofferer, who was killed. Fraser had again deserted Edward s service suddenly in the preceding August, carrying off without paying for them the charger and armour of a brother knight, to whom Edward made good this severe loss to a man on service in the field. 40 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. III. Thereon Edward, now disengaged from his conti- nental wars, bent his whole force to subdue Scot- land. He summoned between 10,000 and 12,000 men (including 1000 provided by the Earl of Carrick himself) to muster at Roxburgh, besides a large contingent from Ireland. Besides preparing manj powerful engines for siege operations, he also caused two fortified wooden bridges to be constructed at King's Lynn, to pass his army over the Forth, which were shipped in May 1303, for Scotland, in thirty vessels, escorted by four men-of-war flying the St. George's ensign — the first mention I have seen of this now time-honoured flag. The cost and freight of these bridges for Scotland came to no less than £1050 (between £12,000 and £14,000 in modern currency), and the particulars and details of the accounts show how often the master of works was summoned to Windsor to make report to the king how the bridges progressed. In the face of these formidable pre- parations, the Bishops of St. Andrews and Dunkeld, the Earl of Buchan and the High Steward, etc., the Scots envoys in France, duped by Philip's fair words, wrote to Sir John Comyn, now sole Guardian, urging him and the community to strenuous resistance. Edward marched from Roxburgh in May or beginning of June, and probably crossing the Forth below Stirling to avoid the castle, reached Perth by the 11th, thence marching by Aberdeen, Inverurie, Banfl*, and EDWARD I. AND BRUCE 41 Cullen, to Moray, where he remained for a month Lect. ill. either at Elgin or Kinloss Abbey. It is extremely probable that he visited the grand old keep of Duffus, still to be seen on its grassy mound dominating a wide extent of the fertile plain of Moray, for it is but six miles from Elgin; and Edward, we know, was a sovereign who spared no pains to satisfy himself personally of the country through which he marched. On his way north he had taken the castle of Brechin in the beginning of August, stripping the lead off the roof of the Cathedral for his engines, which however he restored to the Bishop at a later date. On leaving Kinloss, Edward marched to Dun- fermline, reaching it early in November, and spent the winter there, being joined by the queen (his second wife) at the end of the year. Though in winter- quarters, he was not idle, nor did he allow others to be so. He ordered many carpenters, ditchers, and other workmen to be procured in the Lothians, and mustered at Dunfermline for his in- tended siege of Stirling, the last stronghold remaining in the patriots' hands. To harass those who kept the field, he sent a cavalry force across the Forth to the neighbourhood of Stirling, with very strict orders as to secrecy, and in January 1303-4, his justiciar of Galloway, Sir John Bottetourt, organised an expedition of nearly 3000 men, to make a foray on the Scots in the south-west. In the previous September, his 42 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND liECT. III. cousin Aymar de Valence had been treating with John Comyn (his brother-in-law) and his allies to bring them to submission, and in December, when they were somewhere about Perth, after messages had passed between Edward and them in their strenuous endeavours to modify his rigorous conditions (from which, severe as they were, some were absolutely ex- cluded), Comyn, as Guardian, and his chief followers, laid down their arms at Strathorde on 9th February 1303-4, leaving Stirling Castle to its fate. Wallace, whom the king declined to receive on any terms but unconditional submission, still kept aloof in the upper parts of Strathearn or Menteith, while at this very time the Earl of Carrick, and Christopher Seton were active in the English service. Edward appointed Sir John Menteith sheriff of Dumbarton and keeper of the castle, and after holding a parliament at St. Andrews in Mid Lent, to which he summoned the Scottish magnates, began the siege of Stirling on 21st April 1304. It was vigorously pressed under his personal direction, lead for his engines being stripped from all the churches in the district, leaving the altars only covered from the weather. The Earl of Carrick, who had just succeeded on his father's death to his English estates and done homage for them, was among the foremost in Edward's service. Other Scotsmen who had come to the king's peace, regained their forfeited possessions, among them the EDWARD I. AND BRUCE 43 Bishops of St. Andrews and Dunkeld, with the other Lect. iil late envoys to France ; and the goods and chattels of Sir William Oliphant, the constable of Stirling, and his garrison, were bestowed on a recreant countryman. Though the besiegers suffered from scarcity, the garrison suffered more, while thirteen engines and a "War Wolf" of novel construction battered their ramparts, and Greek fire was showered upon them. They surrendered unconditionally on St. Margaret's Day (20th July), after holding out for three months, only twenty -five men marching out with the constable, though there were others (perhaps wounded) left within. For it is recorded that Edward forbade any of his people to enter it after its surrender, until it had been struck by the ''War Wolf" engine — those within to look out for themselves. He had also caused an oriel window to be made in his house in Stirling, that the queen and her ladies might see this final assault. Oliphant and his garrison were all despatched to various English prisons. He took service with England some years after. Edward remained at Stirling for several weeks ; and feeling insecure while Wallace remained at large, held out inducements to some of his late associates to capture him. After resting at Holyrood, he left it on 16th August, marching by Pentland and Eddie- stone to Peebles, thence by Traquair and Selkirk to Jedburgh by the 21st, resting at Yetholm in the 44 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. III. Cheviots till 24tli, and then going homewards by Newcastle and Durham to York. There are two valuable rolls kept by English officials for this period, which form the only guide we have for the then internal state of Scotland. The first of these is for the years 1302, 1303, 1304, and shows the revenues drawn for the counties of Lanark, Peebles, Ayr, Dumfries, and Annandale, with much interesting detail. The other, unfortunately much damaged, is a compotus of the revenue of all the Royal domains in English possession, from Caithness to Galloway, between April 1304 and February of next year. It renders account, besides land revenue, of the customs at various ports. The receipt was nearly £1400 — more than £17,000 of the present day. The two officers who made these returns were escorted by a strong guard, which seems to have been much needed in the hostile regions of the extreme north. The leaders of this escort through the counties of Renfrew and Ayr, were Sir Robert Boyd and Sir John Wallace, the latter possibly a brother of the patriot, then in hostility. Another interesting document is the Household Roll of the Prince of Wales for the year, from 20th November 1302 to November 1303, during most of which latter year he was in Scotland. We learn from it that he kept a lion and took it about with him, secured by a chain and collar; that, besides EDWARD I. AND BRUCE 45 his falcons, he had a setter dog to catch partridges Lect. iil in the fashion of that day with a net ; that he made offerinofs to saints, like his father, but of smaller amount ; that his losses at dice with his friends far exceeded the value of his library : one book. The Life of the Blessed Edivard, with pictures, costing £2 : 18s., and that he gave gifts to those who amused him or suflfered from his rough jokes. We have particulars of the costly armour, and clothes, and noble stud of horses with which he and his retinue took the field, the horses alone costing £568 of that day ; his odd present of an Arts gown to a successful tilter, one of his valets ; and a very rich and costly cope given by him to a Spanish Cardinal, £60 of that day ; with cloth-of-gold, jewels, and ornaments given to the queen his step-mother, and her court — bringing the sum total to £5663 : 3 : 5^ — to be exact —£70,000 to £80,000 of the present day. The remainder of this year and the spring of the next, are only marked by various grants to religious houses loyal to England, and other routine business. Edward probably thought his last campaign had settled Scotland, and was in good hope of securing the indomitable Wallace, by encouraging his countryman Edward Keith, by the bribe of the heiress of Synton, (as seems probable, for the Erskines long held it as their successors by another marriage) to undertake the pursuit. It is curious that this 46 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. III. writ ordering the pursuit of Wallace originally stood in the name of "Edward Bruce." Keith, however, was not the captor ; Wallace, it is believed, was taken between March and May 1305, by means of Ralph Haliburton, a Scottish prisoner in England, who was released on this condition. He is not named in the list of those rewarded for the capture; but Sir John Menteith is, to whom fell the invidious duty, in the capacity of Edward's officer, of seizing the patriot, for which his name has been visited with perpetual obloquy. Some impartial persons (the judicial Lord Hailes for one,) have ventured to think this unjust, for Robert Bruce was at this time active in Edward's service, and had Wallace been taken in his jurisdiction, he would have had to do the same duty as Menteith. Fortune thus favoured the future King of Scots. Little appears touching AVallace in the records I have consulted, except the fact of his execution at Smithfield on 23rd August 1305, and that a few days later, fifteen shillings (equal to ten guineas), were paid by Sir John Segrave for the carriage of his dead body to Scotland. Edward having thus disposed of his irreconcilable enemy, now proceeded to make what he hoped was to be a final settlement of Scotland. At his " parliament in Lent of that year, on the advice of the Bishop of Glasgow, Robert Bruce, and other trusted advisers, ten commissioners were to be chosen EDWARD I. AND BRUCE 47 by the Scots to attend parliament at midsummer Lixt.iii. following, which was eventually prorogued till about the 15th September. To these ten, who included the Bishops of St. Andrews and Dunkeld, besides other churchmen and nobles of rank, twenty-two Englishmen were added by this parliament, and all being separately sworn, they proceeded to business. With their advice, Edward appointed his nephew John of Brittany, Earl of Eichmond, his lieutenant and warden of Scotland, with three subordinate officers — eight justices itinerant, half of them Scotsmen — and sheriffs of counties, all, with two exceptions, native Scotsmen. Many other regulations were made for good govern- ment. Sir Alexander Lindsay and Sir Simon Eraser — the latter of whom had again submitted, for the last time, as it proved to be — were to leave Scotland, Lindsay for six months, Eraser for four years, avoiding both England and Erance, with a clause that the king might shorten his banishment at pleasure. He was thus very leniently dealt with by Edward, who seems to have loved him. Orders were also given that in the expected frequent passages of Scottish prelates and nobles to and from the Court, they were to be treated in the most courteous manner by all English subjects. Such was the fair prospect in Edward's view of a happy end to his long labours and anxious schemes ; and that, being now worn by years, but more through 48 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. III. his toilsome campaigns, he might look to hand the two united realms to his son. But he was in pro- found ignorance of the secret confederacy in August 1304 between the Bishop of St. Andrews and the Earl of Carrick, and was resting in profound security near Winchester, when, in the second week of February 1305-6, the dismal news of Comyns murder and Bruce's rebellion reached his astonished ears. With all the energy of his younger days, he at once commanded De Valence, Percy, and Clifibrd to put down the rebellion, and made ready, despite his infirmities, to follow with his son, ordering the vessels bringing provisions from Ireland to keep the high seas and avoid the Galloway and Ayrshire ports, the seat of the rising. No time was lost in granting Bruce's Annandale estates to the Earl of Essex,^ those in Durham to Clifford, and his other English lands to loyalists, while the Earls of Lennox, Menteith, and Athol, with Bruce's other associates, were punished by confiscation of theirs. At no period of his life is the fiery energy of Edward more apparent than in these last eighteen months at its close. His writs to his officers, drafted at various places while he was slowly making his way northwards in June 1306, with their frequent alterations and interlinea- ^ It is owing to the fact that the early Annandale deeds came to Bohuns, Earls of Essex, held these the hands of their successors, the Bruce estates for the best part of Dukes of Lancaster, and are now a century, that so many of the in the Public Eecords. EDWARD I. AND BRUCE 49 tions, to show his wishes more clearly, breathe the Lect. hi. very spirit of vengeance against these Scotsmen whom he had so often received to favour and trusted in, who had at last so thoroughly broken their faith. He urges his lieutenants to action, expresses gratitude to God for their successes, orders that no terms be kept with the Bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow, but insists on unconditional surrender. He expresses his earnest desire to take them, and when the latter is seized and sent to his presence, he is as glad as if it had been the Earl of Carrick himself He directs that the Bishop of St. Andrews be taken without fail and sent to him, for he has betrayed his trust as a Guardian, and his oath as a Privy Councillor. He orders the destruction of rebels' lands, especially those of Simon Fraser, and others in Selkirk Forest, but commands honours to the loyal, especially the foresters there, who have well served him. All enemies taken with arms are to be slain, except Bruce, Athol, and Fraser, on whose fate he is first to be consulted. The eminent historian of Durham, Eobert Surtees, has said in one of the racy notes which relieve the monotony of a county history, " the only alternative left to Bruce at this point of his career lay between the throne and the gallows ! " Had not the Bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow been churchmen, the enraged king would have put them E 50 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. III. to death. The Bishop of St. Andrews lamely excused himself for his secret league with Bruce, when it was found in his baggage, by saying he had forgotten it, while his fellow - prelate of Glasgow, accused by Edward to the Pope with breaking fealty six times, humbly petitioned the King and Council for leave to remain quietly in England till the riot of the Scots" (as he styled it) was put down. Both of them, with the Abbot of Scone, were at once sent under a strong escort as far south as Winchester, treated with the utmost rigour, and separately im- prisoned — the Bishop of St. Andrews in Winchester Castle, the Bishop of Glasgow in Porchester Castle, and the Abbot in that of Mere in Wilts, all in iron fetters, by the king's express command. The Bishop of Glasgow lay in prison for nine years till re- leased, a blind and broken man, after Bannockburn ; Lamberton, Bishop of St. Andrews, a more wily politician, made his peace within two years and took service with Edward II. I am not aware if, or when, the Abbot was released, but he was transferred to Nottingham Castle in 1307. The Prince of Wales, who had preceded his father, entered Scotland in July, and reported the surrender of Lochmaben Castle on the 13th of that month. He reached Forteviot on the Earn, on his way to Perth on the 1st of August, and within a month, or little more, had taken the castle of Kildrummy with EDWARD I. AND BRUCE 51 Nigel Bruce, Robert Boyd, Alexander Lindsay and Lect. hi. others of note. Young Nigel Bruce was executed at Berwick-upon-Tweed, after trial by a special commission. How Boyd and Lindsay escaped a like fate, does not appear. Robert Bruce himself had already suffered two severe reverses, the first at Methven on 26th June, from Aymar de Valence, the second at Dairy in Argyll on 11th August from Alexander, Lord of Lorne — narrowly escaping capture in both actions. His wife, daughter, and his two sisters, with the Countess of Buchan, who had crowned him, were all seized in the Sanctuary of St. Duthac, at Tain, by the Earl of Ross, in his new-born zeal for England, and delivered to Edward, who ordered them all to strict custody, three to be kept in cages for greater security — two of the ladies so treated, (as Sir Archibald Dunbar suggests in his valuable Regnal Years) being Bruce's sisters, the third, Lady Buchan, as is well known. The Earl of Athol, Simon Eraser, and Christopher Seton were also executed as traitors, the first two at London, the last at Dumfries. Besides these stern examples, sixteen Scottish prisoners, some of note, one being Alexander Skyrmyshur, ancestor of the constables of Dundee, another, John Seton, Christopher's brother, besides others taken in arms on" the field of Methven, were summarily hanged at Newcastle-upon-Tyne as traitors, by the king's special 52 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. III. directions, none being allowed to answer, on 4tli August 1306.^ While these dread examples of royal vengeance were being enacted, the infirm king was by slow stages making his way along the Border to the Abbey of Lanercost, where he spent the winter, maturing his plans to enter Scotland in spring, and make a final end of the audacious rebel and arch-traitor who had defied his power. While thus occupied, let me turn to the man whose life was thus sought with such vindictive ferocity by his former patron. 1 Found on a Yorkshire roll connection, by my friend, Mr. W. of assize with which it had no Brown of Arncliffe Hall. IV DEATH OF EDWAED I.— EDWARD II. The fortunes of the titular King of Scots were at lect. iv. this time to all appearance desperate. After his defeat at Methven, he and his little band of adherents escaping into Athol, lurked for some time there and in the western highlands, pursued by the Lord of Lome (as Barbour relates) and enduring much hard- ship, till they were received in the Lennox by Earl Malcolm, who till then believed that Bruce had been killed at Methven. He passed them on by sea to Kintyre, where Angus of the Isles received them in his castle of Dunaverty, the remains of which still frown over the stormy Irish sea. But Bruce, who with justice feared treachery, and the long arm of Edward's power, stayed only three days within its w^alls, crossing with his followers to the island of Rachrin off the shores of Antrim, where Barbour and other authorities say he lay hid till spring. This is a tradition no doubt of some antiquity, whereon I shall speak presently. Meantime he 54 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. IV. had been so closely pursued, that Dunaverty Castle had been invested early in September, and Edward from his sick-bed at Thirlwall on the march, issued express orders to the officers of the miners engaged in the siege. It was thus believed that Bruce and his followers were concealed in the Scottish Isles, for besides orderinor Sir Huo^h Biset of Glenarm, and his Irish fleet to search them closely, Edward, now at Lanercost Abbey, com- manded Sir John Menteith, with the sheriff of Cumberland and others, including his admiral then at sea off Ayrshire, to look narrowly for the fugitive. In going over these various royal commands, so keenly urgent, for the capture of Bruce, it occurred to me that the island of Eachrin was hardly the place where a fugitive so important as Bruce could lie hid from September till January — nearly four months. It lay within the territories of the Bisets of the Glens, strong adherents of England, and though the currents and races of the stormy Mull are proverbial, these could be no obstacle to hardy mariners urged on by the command of a king. Now that it is certainly known that Isabella, a sister of Kobert Bruce, was the second wife of Eric, King of Norway, is it so unlikely that for these winter months of his absolute disappearance Bruce did go to the Norwegian dominions ? Eric no doubt had died in 1299, but Haco, his successor, at DEATH OF EDWARD I. 55 this very time was sheltering the rebel Bishop of Lect. iv. Moray, an adherent of Bruce, in the Orkney Isles, and apparently deaf to Edward's demands for his surrender. Why then should Bruce not have joined the bishop there ? I was not aware when I came to this conclusion, that Fabyan, and other English chroniclers, circumstantially thus account for his dis- appearance. Though Dr. Jameson, editor of Barhours Bruce, treated their account as fabulous, he also dis- believed the undoubted Norwegian marriage of Bruce's sister, of which he knew absolutely nothing. She had been married to Eric before 25th September 1293, on which day the four envoys of her father, Sir Robert, Earl of Carrick, delivered to those of the King of Norway, for the use of the most serene Lady Isabella de Bruce, Queen of Norway, a long list of royal robes, cloths -of- gold, red samite embroidered with the arms of France, silver plate, and two crowns, one greater and the other less, besides costly furs, etc. This indenture was executed at the city of Bergen on the above date, under the seals of the respective envoys, and that from which I quote is under those of the two Norwegian nobles, and preserved in the archives of the Duchy of Lancaster, as part of the Old Annan- dale papers, thus affording undoubted evidence of this remarkable alliance. The mother of Thomas Eandolph, the future Eegent, is also named Isabella 56 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. IV. Bruce, so there must have been two sisters of the same Christian name. It is odd too, that when Bruce landed in Carrick in the spring of 1306-7, Barbour says he for the first time learned from a lady, " a near cousin of his own," the tale of disasters and executions of his friends, and the desertion of his adherents the Earl of Menteith, Sir Patrick Graham, and other chief men who had surrendered to Edward in November previous — whence one may infer he had been a long way farther off than the north of Ireland. He must also then have heard news of the total defeat at Lochryan, on 9th February, of 700 Irishmen brought by his tw^o brothers, Thomas and Alexander, to his aid. They were routed on landing, by Dugal Mac- dougal, captain of the men of Galloway, the two Bruces and Sir Konald Crawford taken prisoners and delivered to the Prince of Wales at Wetheral, with the heads of some Irish and Cantyre chiefs — when without delay all three were executed by the king's command, and their heads placed on the gates of Carlisle — a further blow from Fortune which might have made Bruce's resolute spirit quail before the un- known dangers in his path. Macdougal was rewarded by the prince for this important exploit, with the sum of fifty marks and a charger, and the honour of knight- hood, the king also making him a grant of lands. Edward I. from his sick-room at Lanercost, DEATH OF EDWARD I. 57 issued unceasing commands to De Valence, Percy, lect. iv. and his other officers in Ayr and Dumfriesshire, to be earnest in pursuit of Bruce, with sharp rebukes for their supineness, and also summoned more than 4000 hardy Yorkshiremen and Gilsland borderers to track him in his retreat among the wild fastnesses around Glen Trool. This critical time in Bruce's career is described by Barbour with much picturesque detail, and it gratified me in no small degree to find the old Archdeacon's story so closely in accord with the English records. One of the most thrilling stories he tells among Bruce's narrow escapes — the pursuit by John of Lorne with 800 Highlanders and a bloodhound that had once belonged to Bruce, and how the fugitive escaped — is supported by dry record. Eeaders of Sir Walter Scott must remember how his genius used this in The Lord of the Isles. Nor is the raid by Aymar de Valence to surprise Bruce at Glen Trool unnoticed. In these months of early spring, between February and May, his position seemed desperate, for by Edward's own direction, strong detachments, horse, foot, and archers, scoured the district or watched the passes. That he managed somehow to evade them is clear, if, as Barbour tells us, he defeated Aymar de Valence at Loudon Hill, nearly 35 miles to the north, on the 10th of May 1307. The English historians say in the end of March, but Barbour's date is supported 58 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. IV. by two letters both of 15th May — one from Carlisle, describing Edward's improved health, his hope to enter Scotland, his displeasure that his forces had retreated before ''King Hobbe" (as he called Bruce), and his reviewing his cavalry at Carlisle, decked with leaves in honour of the day of Pentecost. The writer tells that Sir James Douglas had offered to submit, but on seeing the English retreat at Loudon Hill, had withdrawn his oflfer. The other letter, probably from Sir Alexander Abernethy at Forfar, speaks of Bruce's success, and his own preparations against his coming that way. Though Loudon Hill was not decisive — for De Valence, with the Earl of March, Percy, etc., held the west in strong force, passing freely between Lanark, Bothwell, and Dumfries, and heading expeditions among the Glen Kens and Glen Trool during May and June, implying that Bruce had returned to these safe haunts, — the tide soon began to turn in his favour with the death of his relentless enemy on 7th June at Burgh- on-sands, in sight of the country he was not to enter again. So firm was Edward's resolve in his last hours that, on the death of his favourite daughter, Johanna, Countess of Clare, at Carlisle in May, he devolved her funeral obsequies on others, and summoned a levy of 1000 Welshmen from her territory of Glamorgan, to march without delay to Carlisle to pursue Bruce. No more fortunate event could have happened for EDWARD II. 59 Scotland than Edward's death at this juncture, for lect. iv. the sceptre dropped by his resolute hand was grasped by that of a feeble successor, ill fitted to put down the aroused nationality of Scotland, led by the genius of Bruce. I do not know the grounds for the often cited story that Edward 1. ordered his bones, wrapped in a bull's hide, to be placed in the van of his armv invadino: Scotland, and not to be buried till its subjection. Whether true or not, the new king disregarded this command, also his father's injunction to dismiss his Gascon favourite Piers Gaveston from his counsels, and after attending the late king's body for several days southwards, left its farther escort to its resting-place at Westminster to the Archbishop of York, at Eichmond, on 29 th July. I do not know^ the author of the famous inscription on the great king's massive tomb, but the idea has often occurred to me that the solemn close, Pactum Serva, may be his own words on the broken faith of the great men of Scotland, who had so often deceived him. Turning northwards, Edward 11. , with the forces intended to recover Scotland, left Carlisle at the end of July, reaching Cumnock in Upper Nithsdale about the second week of August. Here stood a castle of the Earl of March, where he remained till the 25th, then setting out on his return to England, reached Bowes on 6th, and Knaresborough by the 10th of September. As Lord Hailes observes, by this in- 60 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. IV. glorious retreat after the mighty preparations for a decisive campaign, he emboldened Bruce and his adherents, and disheartened those Scots who favoured the English cause. This was soon evident, for Bruce, issuing from the hills where he had sheltered himself from the late king, carried fire and sword through Inner Galloway. One object doubtless was to punish the chief of the Macdougals who had led his two brothers to die on the gallows of Carlisle in spring. Edward IL, now as far south as Nottingham, gave orders to receive the Galloway men with their flocks and herds in Inglewood Forest, whither they had fled to escape Bruce, and commanded John of Brittany, with the Scottish nobles in his interest, to march and put Bruce down. He appears, however, to have held his ground and levied tribute in Galloway. Later in that year he made his way to the north, and at Christmas gained some successes over John Comyn Earl of Buchan at Slenach, (as Fordun calls it,) till lately supposed to be the modern Slains in Aberdeen- shire, but now shown to be Slivoch, a place situated in or near Bruce's own district of Kildrummy, while Slains is close to the sea in the territory of the hostile Cumyns. He must have remained, during that winter and spring of 1308, not far from Buchan's territory — perhaps in the upper parts of Aberdeenshire, for they met again in battle at Inverurie on the Don on 22nd May, when Buchan was EDWARD II. 61 routed, and the victor committed the devastations in Lect. iv. his earldom which the people moaned for fifty years as the " hership of Buchan " in the words of Barbour. The Archdeacon says that about this time, all " benorth the Mounth " (the Grampians) came to the King of Scots' peace, and there is some foundation for this — for although Sir Alex. Abernethy, Sir Edmund Hastings, and Sir John FitzMarmaduk (a relation, by the way, of Bruce's) held command for England from the Forth to Orkney with a considerable force of men-at-arms, besides garrisons of castles in their district — an equal force holding the country from Forth to Berwick-upon-Tweed, and as many holding Annandale and Galloway — Bruce was evidently strong enough to accept or decline a truce which the wardens were permitted by Edward to offer him, as from themselves. About this time his nephew Thomas Randolph with others was captured by Sir James Douglas on the water of Lyne in Tweeddale, and put in prison by his uncle till he joined his allegiance, as he shortly did, ever after remaining faithful to his country. Encouraged by Edward's supineness — for that king confined his assistance to his Scottish adherents to sending them encouraging letters, and was gradually estranging his barons by heaping honours on Gaveston, now" Earl of Cornwall, — Bruce took the opportunity to chastise his inveterate enemies the House of Lorne 62 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. IV. for his former sufferings at their hands, while his brother Edward, before the 1st of April 1309, drove Sir Dugal, the chief of the Macdougals of Galloway, to seek asylum in England for his family, where for thirty years they remained in exile to escape the vengeance of Bruce. The battle at the Pass of Brandir on the Awe, where the King of Scots defeated the men of Lorne, was probably fought in August of 1308. The elder Lord of Lorne then submitted, but John his son, a more resolute foe, held out for another year, as appears by his letter to Edward IL in March 1809. In this curious letter Lorne acknowledges receipt of the king's letters on 11th March (the year not given). Was on a sick-bed when they reached him, where he had been for six months, and Eobert Bruce had approached his territories with 10,000 or 15,000 men by land and sea. He had but 800 to oppose him, 500 of them paid to keep his borders, and the barons of Argyll would not help him. Yet Bruce had asked truce, which he granted for a short space, and received the like till Edward sent him succours. Eobert was boasting, and saying that he (Lorne) had come to his peace on the report that others had done so, which God and himself know is not true, and if Edward hears this from others, he is not to believe it, for he is ever ready to serve him to his utmost power. He has three castles to guard, and a lake twenty-four EDWARD II. 63 leagues long (Loch Awe ?) on which he has well- lect. iv. manned vessels, but is not sure of his neighbours. When the king or his forces arrive, he will be ready with all his lands, ships, and men to aid him, if sick- ness does not prevent him — but if it unfortunately so chances, he will send his son with his forces to the king. This is written in Norman French, and gives a different story from Barbour's glowing tale. Though the elder Lord of Lorne his father died in Ireland in December 1310, John of Lorne lived for seven years longer — the trusted admiral of the western seas under the King of England, — and died in London, still the foe of the King of Scots, as befitted the cousin of a Comyn. Barbour for once strangely misrepresented the career of Lorne, in saying he was made prisoner by Bruce, put in Dumbarton Castle, then in Loch- leven Castle, where he soon after died. After futile negotiations for peace at the instance of the King of France, Edward, in September 1310, led an army into Scotland, by a route which Lord Hailes describes as very hazardous, if he had been opposed. I do not find what his force was, but his line of march was from Koxburgh up Tweed to Peebles, thence by Kirkurd and Biggar to Lanark, and down Clydes- dale to Glasgow. He reached Eenfrew on 15th October, and turning back, was at Linlithgow by the 23rd, remaining some days there, and wintered at 64 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. IV. Berwick-upon-Tweed. While he was at Biggar, a report was brought that the King of Scots with his forces was encamped on a moor near Stirling, well out of reach, but no doubt observing the English move- ments. Later — at Christmas that year, some parley- ing took place between Sir Robert Clifford and another English envoy, with the King of Scots at Selkirk, but a further meeting appointed to take place near Melrose, between him and the Earls of Gloucester and Cornwall, was broken off, as Bruce had been warned of treachery. But about this time and later, Edward was at great dissension with his nobles, who were much more anxious to get rid of Gaveston, now Earl of Cornwall, than to crush the King of Scots. Their determined hostility to the favourite is shown by a bond of maintenance by Guy Earl of Warwick to support Humphrey de Bohun Earl of Hereford and Essex, Edward's brother-in-law, against the Earl of Cornwall, who had nicknamed Warwick the " Black Dog of Arden." The King of Scots, well informed of these dis- sensions, seized the opportunity to ravage the north of England. In August 1311 he crossed the March at Sol way, remaining eight days, and burned Gilsland, Haltwissel, and great part of Tynedale ; varying the next inroad by the East March in September, when he wasted Redesdale round to Corbridge for fifteen days, and compelled the Northumbrians to pay EDWARD II. 65 £2000 for a truce till Christmas. So incessant were Lect. iv. these inroads, that my subject for this period might be entitled The King of Scots in England, rather than Edward II. in Scotland. When speaking of the Scottish raid of Midsummer 1313, the Chronicler of Lanercost uses the phrase more solito. This man, probably a Friar Minor of Carlisle (as surmised by Father Stevenson, editor of that chronicle) and there- fore bitterly hostile to the Scots, gives a curious revela- tion of the singular divisions then prevailing among them. The father (he says) was a patriot, while the son was for England ; one brother a Scotsman, the other an Englishman — nay the same man was now for one country, now for the other. He adds, that the greater number were for England, probably to save their lands there, for their hearts, though not their bodies, were with their property. There is not a little truth in the Friar's words. The records prove beyond doubt that many of his own countrymen and even near neighbours in Annandale, were long hostile to the King of Scots. Names generally associated with the cause of independence, e.g. Baillie, Cathcart, Craigie, Gordon, Graham, Kirkpatrick, Maxwell, Napier, Eamsay, Seton, Sinclair, Stewart of Bonkill, Torthorald, and others, are found years after the death of Edward I., ranged under the banner of England. Though Bannockburn recalled not a few to their country's cause, many remained partisans p 66 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. IV. of England. Whatever the reason, the fact is beyond question. In spite of this, Bruce's fortunes improved, while the state of Edward's Scottish adherents became insupportable. At the end of the year 1313, they deputed the Earl of March and Adam Gordon, whose manor of Stichill in Roxburgh had been given by Bruce to his nephew Thomas Randolph, to represent their grievances for the past three years, and ask his help. In reply to their petition, which relates their sufferings not only from the actions of Bruce, but also from those of the English garrisons of Berwick and Roxburgh, Edward promised to lead an army to their relief by the following midsummer. Meantime, partly through his neglect to victual them, the principal fortresses of Scotland, one after the other, were taken from the English officers. Perth was the first to fall to Bruce himself, the constable, strange to say, being that Sir William Oliphant who had gallantly defended Stirling nine years before against Edward 1. Dumfries came next, surrendered by the constable. Sir Dugal Mac- dougal, to his foe the King of Scots in person, on 7th February 1313. Then came Dalswynton, Carlaverock, Linlithgow, and Roxburgh. Edinburgh was carried by escalade one evening in Lent. One division of Scots attacked at the west postern, overlooking, I believe, the Grassmarket at a peril- EDWARD II. ous height — and when the garrison hurried to Lect. iv. that point, another band, climbing the north face of the rock, planted their ladders at the foot of the wall and surprised the few defenders there, opening the great gate to their friends. Dundee and Euther- glen were the last to fall; and by the close of 1313, only Berwick, Bothwell, and Stirling were held for England. As is well known, the constable Sir Philip Moubray's promise to surrender this last castle, if not relieved by Midsummer Day 1314, brought about the great day of Bannockburn. On this so much has been written that I need not dwell on it longer, than to say that, following the authority of David Hume and the records, I feel tolerably satisfied that the numbers of both the armies have been greatly exaggerated (probably doubled), a tendency not solely confined to oriental minds, but common to old chroniclers of all nations. We are also accustomed to accept Barbour's and other chronicles of our own side, in their accounts of the battle, with unquestioning faith, but impartial seekers after truth will do well to consult others, e.g. Geoffry le Baker's Chronicle, and the Sccdacronica of Sir Thomas Gray, in spite of its stiff old Norman French. (I hear, however, that we are promised a translation of this very interesting work by Sir Herbert Maxwell.) Gray's father, also Sir Thomas, was with the THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. iv. body of 300 men-at-arms) Barbour says 800 (under Clifford and Beaumont, who were detached to relieve Stirling, and being encountered by Randolph, were beaten through the over-confidence of their leaders in allowing the Scots time to form in open ground, instead of attacking them while issuing from the wood where they had been posted. This punctilio resulted in Clifford being slain, while Gray, the father, was taken prisoner, fighting against his better judg- ment, for he had warned Clifford and Beaumont of the result of their tactics, as his son relates. Sir Thomas also reveals some strange dealings on the eve of battle between an emissary of the King of Scots and the English leaders. Bruce may well have feared that too much hung on the hazard of a die, seeing the tremendous array in his front, and could hardly have foreseen the total want of generalship in the enemy which was to give him the overwhelming success of the morrow. In my next we shall consider the results of this memorable victory. V EDWARD IL— ABDICATION— EDWARD III. Bannockburn, as Cromwell is reported to have said Lect. v. of Dunbar (or it may be Worcester) was a " crowning mercy " in a fuller sense than the Protector meant, for it seated Bruce on the throne that had cost so much blood, though more was to be shed before his recognition was finally yielded by England. This great victory also brought some of his wavering countrymen to his side. One remarkable instance occurred that same day : for as Sir James Douglas with sixty horse was in hot pursuit of Edward II., flying towards Dunbar, he met Sir Laurence Abernethy with twenty horse hastening to join the English army, but found little difficulty in getting him to change sides and join in the pursuit. So Barbour relates, with a graphic touch showing how hot was the chase of the fugitive king, who lost his signet on the field. I should be inclined to doubt the permanency of this hasty conversion of Abernethy if, as is far from unlikely, he is the Sir Laurence THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. V. Abernethy who fourteen years later held the Castle of Hawthornden for Edward III., and thus one among the many who waited on Providence in that era. Without loss of time the King of Scots improved his victory by sending his brother Edward and Sir James Douglas in August to invade England by the Eastern Marches. They penetrated as far as Rich- mond, and returned by Appleby in Westmoreland with great plunder. The King of Scots himself was expected to attack Carlisle at the same time with a strong force, as the Sheriff of Cumberland, Sir Andrew Harcla, warned Edward II. when complain- ing to him that reinforcements promised to be sent from York had not reached him. This attack, how- ever, did not take place till the following year, when the King of Scots in person, assisted by Douglas, besieged the city for three weeks in July and August. He was completely foiled by the valour of the defenders under Sir Andrew, who repulsed many assaults both on the east and west walls, and com- pelled the Scots to decamp with heavy loss, abandon- ing their siege engines, ladders, etc., and some important prisoners were captured during a vigor- ous pursuit by the garrison, one of them being John Moray, who had secured the ransom of twenty- three English knights taken at Bannockburn, and now paid heavily for his own. This reverse had been preceded by the recapture EDWARD II. 71 of the Isle of Man from the Scots in February, an Lect. v. exploit for which Bruce's inveterate foe, John of Lorne, was largely rewarded by Edward 11. , who had made him Admiral of the western seas. That king himself was to make one — and only one — re- appearance in Scotland, on which hereafter. Before the repulse at Carlisle, Edward Bruce had sailed to gain the crown of Ireland, landing at Car- rickfergus with 6000 men on 25th of May 1315. The bloody Irish war that followed had no permanent effect, except in dividing the forces, and adding to the perplexities of the English king. For, after being crowned King of Ireland in May 1316, and marching with his brother Eobert, and the aid he brought, as far south as Limerick, this profitless invasion ended with the battle near Dundalk in October 1318, where Edward Bruce was killed and his army destroyed. His brother had returned to Scotland the year before.^ During his absence the English commanders on the Border had not been idle, for they made several expeditions into Scotland, all defeated by the skill of Sir James Douglas, w^ho had been left as lieutenant with the young High Steward. Some of these are told with much vivid detail by Barbour — as the 1 Barbour teUs with great pride rather than leave her to the of -the incident of the poor laundar knives of the Irish, Eobert I. (camp-follower) taken with deadly halted his men at a critical place sickness on the march, when, till she was rescued. 72 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. V. raid of the half- starved garrison of Berwick into Teviotdale, headed by several Gascons (one of whom, Ramond de Galleon, is named by Barbour, who calls him Edmond), against the orders of Sir Maurice Berkeley, the constable — and their surprise by Douglas at Skaithmuir, with eighty killed and prisoners, when returning with their booty. Also his ambuscade at Lintalee on the Jed water, and death of Sir Thomas Richmond, the English com- mander, with the chivalrous duel near Berwick between Douglas and Sir Robert Neville (the Peacock of the North), who was killed there, and his three brothers taken prisoners. Berwick-upon-Tweed, so important to England as a highw^ay to Scotland, yet altogether neglected by Edward 11. , was taken by the King of Scots, aided by the treachery of a citizen, on 28th March 1318, but the castle, stoutly defended by Sir Roger Horsley, the Northumbrian constable, held out for sixteen weeks till the 20th of July, when he capitulated wdth the honours of war, marching out with his garrison of 140 men, having lost an eye during the siege. Edward II., much enraged at the loss of this important place, took severe measures against the mayor and burgesses, imprisoning them and con- fiscating their goods; and, resolving to re-take it, he summoned his forces by sea and land for a siege in July 1319. His strength at sea I do not know, EDWARD II. 73 but that on land did not exceed, if it even reached, Lect. v. 10,000, as I find by the muster-rolls. Barbour gives a very spirited account of the defence by Walter the High Steward and his garrison. The King of Scots, unable to attack the besiegers' camp with success, despatched Eandolph and Douglas with (according to Barbour), 15,000 men, to create a diversion in favour of the defenders. An irregular force, hastily summoned by the Archbishop of York, attempted to oppose the Scots at Myton on the Swale, near Richmond, but were routed with great loss on 20th September, where 300 priests are said to have been slain, and the Mayor of York certainly fell. Immediately after this, the army investing Berwick raised the siege. Edward II. was then obliged to consent to a truce for two years, granted by the King of Scots at Berwick, on 22nd December following, which contained with others, the humiliating condition that Harbottle Castle in the English marches should be surrendered or dismantled ; and on the 6th of April 1320, the celebrated letter of the Scottish nobles and community was despatched from Arbroath to the Pope, declaring that while a hundred of them survived they would never yield to England. Edward now found abundance of occupation at home with the rebellion of his relatives Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, the Earl of Hereford, and other THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. V. magnates, which was undoubtedly fomented by Thomas, Earl of Moray, and Sir James Douglas on the part of the King of Scots, as letters show, and was not put down till Lancaster's defeat at Boroughbridge by Sir Andrew Harcla on 16th March 1321-22, followed by his execution at Pontefract with many of his adherents as traitors, while the victorious commander received the short-lived title of Earl of Carlisle. Elated with this success over his rebellious nobles, Edward now prepared again to invade Scotland, as it turned out for the last time. While engaged in his preparations, the Earl of Moray and Douglas entered England in force by the Western Marches in the beginning of July, wasting the country as far as Preston and Amounder- ness in Lancashire, returning by Carlisle after great damage. Fordun says the King of Scots was with this incursion. Edward retaliated by invading Scotland early in August, and marched up Lauderdale, descending on Edinburgh, in all probability by the valley of the Esk. He was there by the 22nd of that month ' and found no opposition, for the King of Scots, after causing all the cattle of the Merse and Lothians to be driven into the interior, had retired beyond Forth and fixed his camp at Culross. The English army, though drawn from every county except those of the north, which were arrayed EDWARD II. on the west Border for its defence, does not appear to Lect. v. have exceeded 7000 foot, besides cavalry. Compelled by famine to retreat, with the loss of many men, and committing excesses at various religious houses, Melrose among others, — Edward 11. reached his own side of the Border by 3rd September, and signified to the Bishop of Durham and others, his intention to remain there in its defence. But he shortly removed to Newcastle, thence proceeding by Durham and Barnard Castle to Rivaulx Abbey, whence on 13th October he despatched orders to Aymar de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, to join the Earl of Kichmond and Henry Beaumont at Byland, with all his forces, as the Scots were reported to be at North Allerton. The King of Scots, however, had led his main army by the Western March, leaving but a small force about Norham Castle to occupy the attention of the constable Sir Thomas Gray and other officers on the East March, — and, on the very day after his letter, he surprised Edward at Rivaulx, not only capturing his baggage but also John of Brittany, Earl of Richmond, and other men of distinction, and nearly taking the King himself, who escaped with difficulty to York. The Scots then roamed freely about Yorkshire, taking ransoms from Ripon, Beverley, and other places, and retired to their own country unmolested. Another blow soon fell on the unfortunate King 76 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. V. of England in the defection of his most trusted servant on the Border, the Earl of Carlisle, who was discovered in January 1322-23 to be engaged in a secret treaty with the King of Scots, leaving his own incompetent sovereign quite on one side. The conditions of this treaty were favourable for Scotland — recognising its King's title, and not inequitable for the people of England, now sick of these Scottish inroads — Bruce to pay 40,000 marks and found an abbey for the souls slain at Bannockburn. But the sting of it lay in treating Edward as totally unfit to govern his own realm — true though the fact was. Harcla, degraded from his rank, soon met the death of a traitor, and part of his body hung for five years on Carlisle wall. Yet on 30th May of that year his master was compelled to conclude a truce with the King of Scots for thirteen years. This was among his few remaining acts of sovereignty, for his dispute with the King of France on the question of homage for the province of Guienne, coupled with the internal dissensions stirred up by his Queen and her favourite Mortimer, against her husband and the De Spensers, embittered the last days of his inglorious reign of twenty years, which came to an end by his abdication on 24th January 1326-27, in favour of his son the third Edward, soon followed by the tragedy of Berkeley Castle. EDWARD III. 77 Edward III., though but a boy under the tutelage Lect. v, of his mother and Mortimer, was soon to show his mettle, and for his long reign of fifty years, to work much harm to Scotland, and undo for a time the unity of its people, cemented by the severity of his grandfather, the genius of Robert L, and the in- efficiency of his own father. On 6th of March after his accession, he ratified the truce concluded by his father; yet for reasons which are variously stated by historians, the Scots were the first to break it. The King of Scots, now afflicted with leprosy, brought on by his hardships while a fugitive from the pursuit of Edward L, and unable to take the field as of old, despatched the Earl of Moray, and Sir James Douglas, with a strong force (Barbour says 10,000), into England, about the 15 th June. After committing great ravages in the northern counties, and eluding the young king's pursuit, who had hoped to intercept them near Hexham on their expected return, they made a counter-march behind his army, as far to the south as Weardale, and while he was watching their camp established at Stanhope, on the north bank of the Wear (to which Thomas Rokeby had guided him for a high reward), they escaped to their own country in the beginning of August. It was probably there that the- night attack by Douglas on the English camp took place, when Edward narrowly escaped capture. 78 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. V. The young king (he was not sixteen), is said to have wept on hearing that the Scots had got away- unmolested ; and it is not unlikely that his rough experience in this his first campaign, sharpened his hostility in future dealings with our country. A curious episode of this time was discovered by myself in the records — not hitherto known, to my belief This is an agreement executed at Glen Douyn in Ulster,^ between the King of Scots and Henry de Mandeville, the English seneschal there, on 12th July 1327, by which the King granted a truce for one year to the people of Ulster, on condition of their delivering a certain quantity of wheat and barley in the harbour of Larne. Thus at the very time that Edward III. was in search of Moray and Douglas on the marches, the King of Scots was attempting a diversion in their favour in Antrim. Shortly after this, joining his army on their return from Weardale, he is said to have besieged Norham, sending Moray and Douglas to attack Alnwick. Both attempts were without success, and some Scotsmen of note were killed before Norham. "While he lingered there. Queen Isabella and Mortimer made overtures for a marriage between her daughter Johanna, and David the young 1 Near Fair Head. Called in light broom to summon their kin. old maps "the Scot's warning fire," in Cantyre to their aid. where the Ulster men used to EDWARD III. 79 Prince of Scotland, which ended in the Treaty of Lect. v. Northampton, concluding peace. Amicable inter- course between the two countries was resumed. The churchmen of the one had their confiscated possessions in the other restored, and three English nobles — Henry Percy, Henry Beaumont, and Thomas Wake of Lidel — were, under the treaty, to be reinstated in their Scottish possessions. No other person was to have any claim to forfeited estates in either country. The restoration by Edward III. about this time, to Sir James Douglas, of Faudon in Northumberland, an old possession of his family, was by the king's special favour. In like manner, Edward wrote to the King of Scots in behalf of John of Torthorald, then going to claim his heritage in Dumfriesshire, forfeited by his father Sir James, who fell fighting on the English side at Bannockburn. The Dumfriesshire family were at this time hostile to the Bruces. Less than a year after the marriage of his son and the English princess at Berwick-upon-Tweed, in July 1328, Eobert L, worn out by disease, died on 7th June 1329, in his retirement at Cardross on the Clyde. No nobler eulogium has ever been pronounced on Robert Bruce than that by Lord Crawford in the Lives of the Lindsays. To it I would venture to add, that Bruce was one of those rare characters, W'ho, shaking off the evil influence of early life, ripen into statesmen and heroes. Forced into action by 80 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. V. unforeseen events, he revealed his great qualities in the stern trial of his revolt against his royal patron. Though his nearest kindred and friends perished by the headsman's axe, while, deprived for years of the solace of his wife and daughter, he wandered on his native hills, his resolute spirit bore him through troubles and disasters till his constancy was rewarded with success. His faults were those of his time, his virtues all his own. Two months later Sir James Douglas set out with the heart of the late King, to fulfil his dying commission regarding it, but, as we know, fell in Spain, and the heart, recovered on the field of battle, rests, or is believed to rest, in the dust of Melrose Abbey. Barbour says of Douglas's voyage : — " For betuix Cornwaile and Bretaynne, He say Hit : and left the Grunye ^ of Spaynye, On north halfif him : and held thair way, Quhill to Saville the Graunt cum thai." Thus, after crossing the Bay of Biscay, they coasted Portugal, rounded Cape St. Vincent, and up the Guadalquivir to Seville. I apprehend that the sailors of that day were not likely to strike boldly across the Bay for Corunna, and an interesting tradition of the north of Spain confirms this opinion. 1 Doubtless Corunna ; still called by seamen, " The Groyne." Mr. Skeat makes it '^grund." EDWARD III. 81 During the Carlist war some thirty years ago, the Lect. y. army of Don Carlos under General Dorregaray were besieging the port of Santander in Biscay. My informant, the late Count Edward D'Albanie was with the General, on the heights above the town, when Dorregarry, who was a Basque, showed him a large grey stone near his tent, the memorial of a great warrior " El Dugla," who came long ago to fight the infidels in Spain. Sending for a bottle of champagne, the General and his guest drank to the " Dugla's " memory. It may fairly be inferred from this that Douglas touched at that famous Basque port, for however distorted a tradition may be, there is in many cases some foundation, however slight. Thomas, Earl of Moray, nominated by the Act of Settlement in the late reign, took the government for the youthful David II. Unluckily for peace, the conditions of the late treaty were only fulfilled in part — Percy alone regaining his possessions in Scotland, the claims of Beaumont and Wake being put aside or protracted, for reasons which Lord Hailes said he could not account, unless it were the opposition of these two men to the Queen-mother and Mortimer, combined with the danger of two Englishmen regain- ing the districts of Buchan and Liddesdale. ^The Eegent's policy, however caused, led to disastrous consequences, for immediately after the fall of Mortimer, Edward ILL, on 30th December G 82 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. V. 1330, demanded from Scotland restoration of the lands and possessions of Beaumont and Wake, as Percy liad received his. On receiving a dilatory- reply that this request would be considered by the Council next March, Edward, without waiting, wrote peremptorily for a decision, still without success, so late as 1332. Other causes of complaint had arisen regarding the manor of Upsetlington (now Lady- kirk) opposite Norham Castle, claimed by the Bishop of Durham as the patrimony of St. Cuthbert, which demand, though supported by Edward III., was evaded, at least not settled, by the Scots at the close of the year 1331. In this state of affairs the disinherited barons, or as they were styled les querelleurs, who now included Gilbert Umfraville and David de Strabolgy, claiming the earldoms of Angus and Athol, Richard Talbot, Henry Ferrars of Groby, and others, resolved to invade the country with which their king was nominally at peace. It cannot be doubted that Edward III., if he did not connive at, must have suspected the designs of these barons, more especially from their association with Edward Balliol, whom he had permitted to return from France, and from their proceeding to raise funds. For after they and their forces had sailed from Ravenshere on the Humber in July, the king, on 9th August, as if they were stiU in England, issued commands to his Wardens of the March to see that EDWARD III. 83 the peace was kept, and two days later to the sheriffs Lect. v. of the northern counties to repel the expected in- vasion of the Scots. Not long before, he had been exchanging letters with the Eegent Eandolph, and later that year, after the success of Edward Balliol, was pressing the Pope and Cardinals to appoint his treasurer to the vacant see of St. Andrews. But before this last application, and while in all proba- bility Balliol and his friends were at sea bound for Fife, the Eegent Earl of Moray died at Musselburgh on 20th July, a serious loss to his country. For the parliament, hastily summoned to Perth, made choice as his successor in office of Donald, Earl of Mar, a man who could know little of his countrymen, for he had lived in England during the late reign, and only returned to his native country some months before Edward III. made his first campaign in the north in 1327. His sole claim to the Eegency would seem to have been that he was the nephew of Eobert I. His rashness, the usual result of in- experience, brought about the disaster of Dupplin Moor on 12th August 1332, when the Scots were completely overthrown, himself, with the Earls of Menteith, Carrick, etc., slain, and 15,000 men left on the field of battle, according to the English historians, with but inconsiderable loss to the victors. Sir Andrew Moray of Bothwell, the late Eegent's stepfather, was immediately chosen Guardian in his 84 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. V. room, but must have found it necessary to remain strictly on the defensive in the extreme northern parts, for Edward Balliol was crowned by his adherents at Scone on the 24th of September, the Earl of Fife, who had been with the late Regent at Dupplin (and being made prisoner, changed sides) and William Sinclair, Bishop of Dunkeld, a great adherent of Eobert L, both officiating at the solemnity. Edward III. was now dealing with the two parties in Scotland, for on 25th November he sent a trusty legal envoy to see to his interests in Balliol's parlia- ment, and shortly after, on 14th December, despatched from York two others of rank to treat with the Guardian and nobles opposed to the new king. This Guardian must have been Sir Archibald Douglas, for Sir Andrew Moray had been taken prisoner near Roxburgh on 14th October, another stroke of ill- fortune, though compensated in some degree by the surprise of Edward Balliol's camp near Annan by Douglas and other leaders at daybreak on 16th December, and the hurried flight of the titular king to Carlisle on a barebacked horse, it is said. This disgrace was, however, before long to be avenged by Balliol's patron, Edward III. VI EDWARD III— EDWARD BALLIOL— DAVID 11. Edward Balliol seems to have been without any Lect. vi. feeling of patriotism or desire for the integrity of the kingdom, so painfully consolidated by Robert I., and strangely acquired by himself at a blow. He at once gave away earldoms and estates to his English friends, and while he was contemplating yet more serious dilapidations, Edward III., throw- ing off all appearance of neutrality, prepared to give him support in return for valuable considera- tion. Assembling his forces, he sat down before Berwick-upon-Tweed early in June 1333, Edward Balliol commanding one wing of this English army. Sir Archibald Douglas the Guardian, half-brother of the good Sir James, raised 15,000 men for its relief, but was totally defeated at Halidon Hill on 19th July, himself and five earls slain, besides other men of note, and his entire force killed or made prisoners. The Earl of March, forgetting his duty as the son-in- 86 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Leot. vi. law of the great Thomas Eandolph, I am sorry to say joined the victors, and was rewarded with a grant from Edward III. of £100 of English land for himself and his countess " Black Agnes," while John Crabbe the Fleming, who fifteen years before had so skilfully defended the town, was rewarded for his exertions in its recapture. Scotland, with the exception of a few fortresses, seemed now to be at the feet of Edward III., while the boy, David II. and the Queen were conducted to France for safety. In a parliament held by Edward Balliol at Edinburgh in February 1333-34, the disgraceful transactions took place by which the kingdom, so hardly won, was to be dismembered and its liberties surrendered. On 12th February, Edward Balliol did homage and fealty to the King of England, offering to espouse his sister Joanna, the Queen of Scots, and to provide for her husband David otherwise. On the 12th June following, he executed a charter under his great seal at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, granting to his cousin of England the whole of the Scottish counties from Linlithgow to the Solway, with their chief castles, including Edinburgh and Berwick-upon-Tweed. As good sometimes results from evil, it happens as a consequence of this most unpatriotic act by a King of Scots, that for a period of two years (1335-1337) there still exist full and very interesting land-revenue accounts of the counties thus administered by English EDWARD III. officials, or Scotsmen in English service,^ a period for Lect. vi. which there are no similar records for any part of Scotland, now to be found in the General Register House. In July 1335 Edward III. again invaded Scotland by Carlisle. He reached the Forest of Dalswinton on the Nith by the 11th, and I find him at Airth in Stirlingshire by the 27th, where he remained for at least a week. He must have passed through Glasgow on his march, for Balliol, who had entered by Berwick-on-Tweed, met him there, and a great riot is reported to have taken place in which a squire named Gournay was killed, as he bore the name of one of the late king's murderers. Both armies committed great ravages, and Balliol, with his cousin John, Earl Warrenne, on whom he had bestowed the earldom of Stratherne, took the castle of Cumbernauld, the old possession of the Comyns, but then in the hands of the Flemings. The two kiugs reached Perth by the 13th of August, from whence Edward III. returned towards Berwick, by Edinburgh, where he remained from the 10th tiU the 18th September, appointing an English 1 Among these we find Eustace bailies of Edinburgh, John de Maxwell, sheriff of Dumfries- Wiggemere and Wm. Finlay shire, Gervase Avenel and others, collectors of Custom at Leith, and bailies of Dumfries, Sir Wm. Nicolas of Prestwick, and others Felton, constable of Eoxburgh, — bailies of Haddington. 5s. Sir John Stirling of Edinburgh, per head was the fee for beheading Walter Currie and two others, felons. 88 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. yi. warden and sheriflf of Lothian, ordering repairs on the castle, and bestowing lands in the Merse, etc. on his own subjects. He had already despatched John Eandolph, Earl of Moray (a joint Guardian with the High Steward), as a prisoner to England, where he was kept for six years. Marching by Haddington and Cockburnspath to Berwick-upon-Tweed, Edward turned aside to Roxburgh, whence he despatched on 29th October a safe -conduct to Sir Andrew Moray, now ransomed, and in the northern parts of Scotland, requesting him to come as far as Bathgate with a small escort of forty horse to treat with the English council sitting there. Sir Andrew, however, was busy in Aberdeenshire with the relief of Kildrummy Castle, then defended by his wife, the venerable matron" Christian Bruce, as Lord Hailes styles her, and threatened by the Earl of Athol, who had again changed sides for England. With the help of the Earl of March, who had done the same, but rejoined Scotland, Athol was defeated and slain at the hill of Culblean near the Dee, refusing quarter. He was only twenty-six, half the age of the Earl of March, a slight excuse for his inconstancies, but the conduct of both is a proof of the little trust that could be placed in the great men of the time. Edward KL, soon to be involved in his long struggle for the crown of France, now gave proof of his extraordinary energy. While his EDWARD HI. 89 army under the Earl of Lancaster lay at Perth, Lect. yi. he suddenly arrived there on 8th June 1336, and without loss of time set out on his romantic march through the mountains of Athol and Badenoch, to release the widowed Countess of Athol, who had been blockaded in the island fortress of Lochindorb since her husband's death on St. Andrew's Day the year before — upwards of seven months. Sir Andrew Moray, who was in command of the besiegers, was compelled to draw off his men in haste. I believe this to be the incident related in the Tales of a Grandfather, of Moray's skilful retreat, which is still believed in the district to have been made by a narrow pass over the rapid Findhorn. The king's force is not precisely known, nor what route he could possibly have taken with horse in that wild country which the modern railway-passenger admires with awe-struck wonder. Professor Cosmo Innes, whose opinion is worthy of all respect, seems to say the king made the march in one day from Blair Athol, with 800 heavy and light horse in equal numbers. Sir Thomas Gray's (Scalacronica) account is that there were but half that number. By an original letter I have seen, it is clear the march occupied four days (12th to 15th June) with much privation and a serious loss of horses — and no wonder. After bringing away the Countess, the King returned by Kinloss Abbey, Elgin, and Aberdeen, 90 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. VI. to his starting-point, and so ended this remarkable feat of arms. His desire in every way to strengthen his hold on Scotland is shown by his purchase in November that year of the forfeited High Steward- ship of Scotland, for 1000 marks from Richard Fitz- Alan, Earl of Arundel, the undoubted descendant of William Fitz-Alan of Oswestry, the elder brother of Walter, the first Steward of Scotland. Next year, while Stirling Castle was besieged by Sir Andrew Moray the Guardian, the King, accompanied by Edward Balliol, suddenly arrived at Callander wood on 13th June, and raised the siege, remaining at Stirling for some days. In January following, he appears to have been present when the Castle of Dunbar was invested, then with his usual rapidity returned to his capital, and on 26th March 1338 revisited the Border to learn how Salisbury and Percy had succeeded. They were compelled to abandon the siege, however, in the following June. Soon after this, Edward III. was abroad in the Low Countries dealing with the Emperor and other continental princes to join him in his war with France, whence he only returned in the spring of 1340 to hold a parliament, and receive new subsidies for that war ; with the help of which funds he gained the great naval victory of Sluys over the French on 22nd of June. His absence was truly fortunate for the patriotic party, for though EDWARD III. 91 they lost the regent Sir Andrew Moray about this Lect. vi. time by death, his successor, Eobert the High Steward, though but a young commander, had the good luck to capture Perth, which was forced to surrender from famine in October 1339, as the English council had failed to supply provisions, though repeatedly pressed for them by the constable. Edward's next visit to Scotland took place in December 1341, during his truce with France after the siege of Tournay, when he spent a week or more at Melrose Abbey. But Edinburgh had been surrendered to the patriotic party in the previous April, and as Edward from this time was wholly occupied with his renewed designs on France, through the un- expected outbreak of the civil war of succession in Brittany, and totally neglected Scottish affairs, the castles of Koxburgh and Stirling were taken by the Scots in April 1342, the latter by famine, as in the case of Perth. It is remarkable that the garrisons of all these fortresses were largely composed of Scotsmen. David IT. had by this time returned with his Queen, after seven years' stay in Normandy, chiefly at Chateau Gaillard on the Seine, and assumed the government ; and little by little, while Edward was immersed in foreign affairs, the Scots recovered most part of their country, except the districts close to Berwick, and on the western border where the Bohuns, Earls of Essex, kept firm 92 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. VI. hold of Annandale. Thus matters passed quietly in Scotland till Edward again declared war against France, when David in an evil hour for his country and himself, resolved, at the urgent in- stigation of Philip, to invade England. Taking advantage of the absence of Edward at the siege of Calais, the King of Scots, early in October 1346, crossed the Western Marches with his army about the foot of Liddesdale, took the peel of Liddel by assault, slaying "Walter Selby the constable, and marched through Gilsland to Hexham, from whence, cruelly devastating the country on his way, he reached the precincts of Durham, fixing his camp two miles north-west of the city at a place called Beaurepaire (now Bear Park) on 16th of October. While the Archbishop of York, Sir Ealf Neville, and other leaders were marching next day from Bishop-Auckland, they unexpectedly encountered a foraging detachment under the Knight of Liddesdale, which they put to flight, and without loss of time attacked the king and his main body, beating the Scots after an obstinate fight of several hours. The king, with three earls, and a long list of barons and knights, was made prisoner, two earls and many other great men being killed, with, as is said, (on what authority I know not) 15,000 men. The picturesque story that Philippa, Edward's queen, was present, is unfounded. EDWARD III. 93 The anarchy in Scotland after this severe blow, Lect. vi. known as the battle of Neville's Cross, must have been great, for the victors re-possessed themselves of most part of the grants of Edward Balliol, viz. the counties of Roxburgh and Dumfries, with great part of Berwick, and besides reinstating many Scotsmen in the English interest in their possessions, Herbert Maxwell, Lord of Carlaverock, a great man in the south- west, also joined the successful party. But no formal proceedings were taken to reassert Edward Balliol's title, though he still conducted himself as King of Scotland, and certainly paid at least two visits to his realm in the years 1348 and 1352, when he granted a large part of his hereditary possessions in Galloway to a lifelong Yorkshire adherent — Sir William of Aldburgh. In January of 1355-56, he resigned his kingdom, delivering his golden crown to Edward III. in exchange for a large annuity ; and after granting to Edward III. his family estates in Picardy, lived in private till his death about 1363, childless. It is not improbable from entries in the records, that this last of the royal Balliols was buried in the Carthusian priory of Beauvale, in England. Even after this great capture, Edward III. was too busy securing the fruits of his victory at Cressy to attend to Scottish affairs, as the Scalacronica relates, in the quaint abstract of Leland, (the original being lost for this period). — In the meanwhile that K. Davy was a 94 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. VI. prisoner, the lords of Scotland by little and little wan all that they had lost at the battle of Durham, and there was much envy among them, who might be highest, for every one ruled in his own country." Thus for seven or eight years, a kind of armed truce was observed between the two countries, each side keeping what it had gained, and King David was allowed, about Midsummer of 1352, to go to his own country on the question of his ransom. About the same time a secret bargain was made between Edward III. and his captive, Sir William Douglas the knight of Liddesdale, to secure the latter's services for England against his own native country, on getting back his estates on the Border — a traitorous role for a Douglas. I have found no mention in the records, apart from what is said in some chronicles, of the incursion by Edward III. in the spring of 1356, when he is said to have ravaged the Lothians, and destroyed the Franciscan Convent and Church of Haddington, the Lucerna LaudonieJ' But he was certainly about Berwick and Eoxburgh during January previous, when Edward Balliol executed the various instruments under his great seal, resigning his kingdom, crown, and private possessions to the King of England. This was most probably the last visit of the latter to Scotland, yet he kept firm hold of Eoxburgh, and Berwick, with other Border districts, rewarding such EDWARD III. 95 of his adherents as had been expelled from other Lect. vi. parts of that country. The captive David was released from his eleven years' captivity in 1358, the clergy, nobles, and community becoming bound for his ransom of 100,000 marks sterling. 'Notwithstanding, Edward III. continued to exer- cise a pernicious influence over the released King of Scots, who for some reason not clearly known, dis- regarded the parliamentary title of his nephew Eobert the High Steward to succeed to his throne failing his own issue, and thus was like to do all in his power to bring about for a second time the evils of a disputed succession. Besides the documents which first appeared in Eymer's Foedera, showing the till then concealed transactions at Westminster in 1363 between Edward III. and David II. as to the succession — some others, printed for the first time in 1888, from the originals found by myself in the public records, show that David II. w^as no more of a patriot than his rival, Edward Balliol, and the un- worthy son of "the restorer of Scottish monarchy." The first of these compromising documents is a charter by David II. granted at Dundee on the 5th of April 1359, of the Earldom of Moray in favour of Henry, Duke of Lancaster, and the heirs male of his body, whom failing, to his two daughters for their lives — all as held formerly by Thomas Eanulfi, Earl of Moray. Blanch, the younger of these ladies, w^as the 96 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. VI. wife of John of Gaunt, who w^ould thus have had a footing in the north. Though under the great seal of Scotland, and attested by important witnesses, it does not seem to have taken effect, but has lain un- disturbed in the archives of the Duchy of Lancaster. As already observed, Edward III. for the rest of his reign, kept Berwick, Koxburgh, and Dumfries shires, with the castle of Lochmaben, and David II. was in the humiliating position of dividing this old inherit- ance of his family with its English owner, the Earl of Hereford. His remissness in reclaiming the ancient marches of Scotland may partly be accounted for by the fact that his ransom was never paid in full, for though Edward III. abated 20,000 marks of the 100,000, there were still due 24,000 marks in 1386, in the reign of Kobert II. : and while repeated demands were made for this, by Richard II. and Henry lY., it was never discharged. It might have been thought that David had seen enough of England during his eleven years' captivity — yet he and his Queen were often at the English court, where she died, probably not later than the middle of 1363. On 27th November of that year, the two Kino's concluded the s tranche ao;reement to which I have referred as first printed by Rymer, making Edward heir of Scotland failing male issue of David's body — certainly remarkable, but quite eclipsed by another, the second compromising document I have EDWARD III. AND DAVID II. 97 referred to. This, which is of about the same date Lect. vi. as Rynier's, is an Indenture between the Privy Councils of the two kings, agreeing to a peace for a thousand years, binding the King of Scots to assist the King of England in his Flemish war with a powerful force, so often as required during fifteen years. And not only were the heirs of the disinherited magnates — Athol, Percy, Beaumont, and others — who thirty years before had seated Edward Balliol on the throne, to recover their Scottish possessions, but many Scotsmen of name, who had abandoned their country after the battle of Neville's Cross, were to be reinstated in their lands. Lastly, if David II. died childless, he was to be succeeded in his crown by any son of Edward III. except his heir. This very extraordinary document, which contains other curious clauses, seems to have been recommended to David's retinue (including the Earl of Douglas, and Sir John Logie, his stepson) by presents from Edward III. of many valuable gold cups, but came to no success. For the rest of Edward's reign there is little or no direct appearance of his dealings with Scotland. He kept large districts, however, on the Scottish side of the marches, in Berwick, Koxburgh, and Dumfries shires, administered by the Percys Bohuns, and others. Many Scotsmen took service with him in the French wars, among them one bearing a well-known name. Sir John Swynton, in 1374, the H 98 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. VI. patriot who fell at Homildon a quarter of a century later. Gratitude for past French favours seems not to have been felt just then by these ancient allies. Richard II., the grandson of this great warrior, made but one inroad on Scotland — in August of 1385, in person, possibly caused by the loss of Lochmaben Castle, retaken not long before by the Earl of Douglas. Henry IV. also made one invasion, not improbably, (as that of Kichard partly was), connected with the treatment of the celebrated George, Earl of March, who appealed to Henry as his cousin in a well- known letter. Henry got as far as Leith by 21st of August 1400, and there summoned Robert III. to do him homage and fealty within two days, but retired without effecting anything but damage. Edward IV. , though he never entered the country, intrigued a good deal in its affairs by means of Donald, Lord of the Isles, and the banished Earl of Douglas, besides retaining in his pay the Bishops of St. Andrews and Aberdeen, Lord Boyd, and others, to secure their good offices. Finally, when Edward's project to marry his daughter Cecilia to the Prince of Scotland (afterwards James IV.) failed, and James III. irritated him by refusing to repay the instalments of her dowry, the King of England did his utmost to assist the Duke of Albany to supplant his brother J ames, at the same time offering his daughter Cecilia to Albany, if he could make himself free from his then wife. This THE BRIDGE OF BERWICK 99 scheme of revenge on James III. occupied Edward Lect. vi. IV. till his death in 1483. Thus for a generation or so, the interference of the English kings in our internal aifairs by the strong hand, came to a pause, to be renewed un- fortunately in a more evil spirit than any of his predecessors, by the tyrant Henry VIII. and his daughter Elizabeth, under the pretext of zeal for the Reformed religion, to which both of them were profoundly indifferent, saving as a means to carry out their own ends. Before concluding, I cannot omit a few words on the famous town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and its bridge, by which many an English army has entered Scotland. According to Chalmers and Tytler, Berwick in the thirteenth century was a place of great trade ; the chronicler of Lanercost calls it a second Alexandria, perhaps with some exaggeration. After its capture by Edward I., it continued practically in English hands, with brief intervals when retaken by its old owners, till at last it has the unique distinction of being separately named in all public Acts affecting Great Britain. This is, of course, duly set forth in its local histories. But it is of its bridge I would speak more particu- larly. A bridge of some kind was certainly in existence in 1272, as a curious legal question touch- ing the capture of a robber on it shows — and existed 100 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lf.ct. VI. till 1292 at least, when Edward L, as arbiter of the Scottish crown, may have often passed over it. When he invaded Scotland in 1296, he crossed Tweed near Coldstream, and by 1306 the bridge had disappeared. For in that year and after, the right of ferry was disputed between one Richard Bernard as heir of John Hay ward, to whom the king had granted it, and the Bishops of Durham, who claimed the half next Tweedmouth for their see; till at last, in 1345, Edward III. confirmed his grandfather's gift to Bernard, free of all farm (or rent) till a sufficient horse or foot-bridge should be built. This evidently was not done, for in 1362, while Sir Henry Percy was governor, a new ferry- boat was bought for £3:1:8. In 1369 the Bishop of Durham again claimed the half, and in 1395 Richard II. gave the right of ferry to his valet, John Sparowe. For 150 years nothing more is said of ferry or bridge, till 19th October 1542, when the Duke of Norfolk reported to Henry VIII. that the bridge was so weak that it broke down under his forces invading Scotland, when many were drowned and hurt. The only further notice of it that I have seen till the end of that century, is a Minute of 22nd May 1565 by the Earl of Bedford, then o^overnor, " that the bridore of Berwick be hereafter of stone. ^' This was not done then, for in the Border Papers in the Record Office there is a very THE BRIDGE OF BERWICK 101 curious bird's-eye plan of the old wooden bridge Lect. vi. drawn up by Peregrine, Lord Willoughby, when governor in 1598, sent by him to Sir Robert Cecil. It appears to be entirely of timber, without buttresses of any kind, except a tower and gateway midway across Tweed, probably of stone, the only thing holding the frail structure together. How the whole affair, tower and bridge, was not swept into the sea during the heavy floods and winter storms to which Tweed is subject, is marvellous. This result was constantly looked for by the oflicers of the town, as their letters show, which are very curious reading. The two points on which all records, and the latest history of the town, are utterly silent, are : (1) When was the old wooden bridge constructed? and (2) When was it superseded by one of stone ? This bridge has interested me during the twenty years of my study of these records, and it is truly strange that so little should be known of so important a highway. Having thus to the best of my power given an outline of the important events in our history for the greater part of two centuries, we may perhaps draw a corollary or two from their consideration. (1) The study of all history, ancient and modern, our own included, convinces us that no single man, however able, can in the end prevail over a whole people. Arnold has given striking examples of this 102 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. yi. in the long struggle of Hannibal with the Eomans, and of the first Napoleon with united Europe ; and (2) No union of nations, any more than that of individuals, can ever be lasting when compulsory. These things are brought about by the slow course of Time, and the gradual perception of the advan- tages attending a closer connection. The acts of Edward I. towards Scotland during the brief reign of the Maid of Norway, were quite regular, and his desire to unite the realms by her marriage to his son was most natural. So too was his course on her death, as arbiter of the crown, to prevent the bloodshed likely to arise among powerful competitors, each fighting for his own hand. But the subserviency of all the claimants to gain this great prize must have warped his better judgment, and led to his unrighteous assumption of the over- lordship, while the weakness of Balliol afforded the necessary handle for enforcing it. From that point trouble increased, and his past success in subduing Wales must have strengthened his hope to conquer Scotland. But for the opposition of the clergy, high and low, who broke their oaths to him without hesitation whenever they could, the divisions and in- consistent conduct of the great nobles might have proved fatal to Scottish independence. As it happened, the frightful severities of Edward I.'s closing years welded the common people, led by EDWARD III. AND DAVID II. 103 Robert Bruce, into something like a homogeneous Lect. vi. nation. His death at a critical juncture, and the troubled reign of his son, the second Edward, went far to complete what the sternness of the father had begun, and when the third Edward came to the throne, a youth of fifteen, the Scots, under Robert 1. and his able lieutenants, were a strong and united people. With the disappearance from the scene of that king and his tried veterans, and the accession of the rash David II., the commonwealth so painfully welded together all but went to pieces, through the divisions fomented by Edward III. and his pliant instrument Edward BaUiol, an evil influence which, but for the continental wars, might have ended in the permanent annexation of Scotland south of the Forth to the English realm. Though such a disaster was happily averted, yet for a hundred more years, under Robert 11. and III. and the first two Jameses, the country was thrown into disorder every now and then by English intrigues, in great part owing to its unsettled southern boundaries, not defined till, in the confusion of the Wars of the Roses, James 11. gained Roxburgh in 1460, with the loss of his life. And not till another fifty years had passed, did the happy union of James IV. and the English princess lay the foundation for the consolidation of the island, which all the efibrts of the first Edward and his grand- 104 THE EDWARDS IN SCOTLAND Lect. VI. son had failed to secure, and another century of bloodshed and intrigue was destined at length to witness in the person of the Scottish Solomon. During the two centuries of these international struggles, though the territorial dignities of Scotland retained their ancient names, the owners had greatly changed. Dunbar was no longer held by the house of Gospatric, themselves descendants of Northumbrian princes, and long princes in the Merse," as Professor Cosmo Innes picturesquely styled them — for they had sunk to the station of private barons, their earldom was in the hands of the Crown, and their power on the west border was usurped by the Black Douglases, themselves doomed to yield it in the fifteenth century to their illegitimate kinsmen of the Ked line. Athol and Angus were no longer held by a Stratlibogie or an Umfraville, or Buchan by a Comyn ; while Ross, Moray, Fife, and Stratherne had fallen to the Crown. The Campbells now ruled the territories of the Lords of Lorne, and much of the Western Isles, and the Stewarts, like the Douglases, had spread far and wide. The Maxwells, Homes, and Hepburns, with the clans of Scott and Kerr, were rising to power on the Border. But while families had changed, no such destruction as befell the great feudal houses of England in the Wars of the Roses, had taken place in Scotland. The long captivities of two kings, and minority of another, had preserved or little lessened EDWARD III. AND DAVID II. 105 the power of the Scottish nobles, as is clear from the Lect. vi. rebellion which caused the death of James III. And while the close of the fifteenth century saw the de- velopment of personal government in Henry VII., no Scottish king attained a like position till the union of the Crowns. It has been no small pleasure to me, at the very cordial invitation of the Council, to revisit my native country, renew acquaintanceship with many old friends, to make some new ones, and to offer these remarks to a cultured audience. If they should induce any of my hearers to turn for themselves to some of the matters of interest at the fountainhead, I shall feel that my long labour, as an absentee in collecting and arranging them, perhaps rescuing not a few from oblivion, has not been altooether without result. THE END Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh. DATE DUE NOV ^ / -2G09 M It 9 JUL I U 4UUj GAYLORO POINTED IN U.S.A. DA BAIN. 783 .BI6 Bapst Library Boston College Chestnut Hill, Mass. 02167